Lyzyl [ Reed / Battle ]

Ariel felt concern. He wore a horrified expression. He wished he never bothered to analyze the concern he felt. The personal aspect of the type of concern currently invading his mind terrified him. It proved the general proximity to people which he held himself at had been breached. Someone had invaded the fine line of comfort. He, in his wonderful forgetfulness, forgot his heart so easily latched itself onto others. His heart's standards filtered none and enjoyed defying his mind. Despite his mind's revulsion, his heart, a non-discriminating being, opened its doors to someone barely inside the realm of possibility. The change occurred sneakily and without a warning. Try as he might, the date which he dropped his guard remained a mystery to him. Certainly, his stupidity currently caused him quite a number of festering problems. For example, he walked on pins and needles through the hallways. A strong, nagging feeling convinced him something was rather off. Agitated, an annoying voice suggested he might visit the source of the concern to perhaps pacify the heart. Now as much as he hated the proposition, he conceded.

He sympathized with Reed. Indeed, a rare event but rare translated to especially uncommon. Not impossible. He muttered curses under his breath, rather fed up with whoever designed the interior of the academy. The academy, despite the straightforward design, possessed an extremely annoying talent for turning people around in circles. Nothing unique stood out. Each corner possessed a rather familiar design. Really, which genius designed the stupid building and how could he murder them undetected? Actually, that person, if even somehow still alive, probably ached all over due to oldness. So maybe the designer found himself suffering from his poor decisions while designing the academy. More than likely, time, the natural enemy of all, punished the genius for his ingenious decisions. Rather unfortunate since he preferred to exact his own revenge. Although, revenge required a knowledge of the target's location, knowledge which Ariel decided he might look into later on. First, if he spun in a circle one more damn time, he'd go mad!

He finally found Reed's room by asking (read threaten) other students for directions. Ariel, in all his disregard of manners, practically barged in. He really hoped Reed was awake by then. The sun already rose hours ago, after all.

"You look terrible. What could possibly make Mr. Optimistic feel down?" he asked, a slight sneer in his voice.

verbum comitem [ cccxcix ]
word count [ 399 ]

It all went downhill from there. He regretted nothing he said. He stood by his opinions with a forceful conviction. Perhaps he acted too strongly, but not only he could be pinned for all the blame. Reed influenced the events just as much as Ariel! To be honest, they were both kettle pots boiling beneath the surface. Inevitably, they would explode. Reed matched Ariel's stubbornness, as seen so far. He did not know Reed's tipping point as of yet, however. But as they clashed on two opposing sides, something about that day triggered something. For Reed, stress overcame his as he attempted to make sense of his family. For Ariel, he resented Reed for slipping through the cracks in his walls. Yet as he resented Reed, he despised himself for having forgotten to patch up the holes in the first place. He managed to keep a rationale opinion about the whole matter. He managed to keep the guise of a perfectly rational person, rather than someone undergoing trauma and the recollection of past trauma. As a result, Ariel's emotions stormed rampantly, not suited for reasonable discussions. Once his walls fell, a can of worms was opened.

"Shutting yourself from the world is not the solution, idiot!" Ariel spat. Call him out as a hypocrite. The world exhausted him to the point he began to ignore the world. Having disconnected from reality for so long, someone piercing his walls sent shockwaves into his mind. Now that he thought about it, Reed only claimed the title of second place. Lapis first crawled her way through after so long of floating in a devoid world. He regretted his realization. He wished he stayed ignorant. Ignorance, as they said, was bliss. If only he could move forward from today the same as he always did. But how could he? The rules of the game changed. And that meant, for the sake of survival, he too also must change his ways, in accordance with the rules. He would be forced to dive head into the icy and frigid water. Whether he would make it out alive all depended on his ability and fortune. Yet he knew no amounts of training or preparation would pull him through the end. For a shaky mind rendered ability and fortune useless. He was weak. So. Goddamn. Weak.

"You don't want to be alone. You want people around you. You're tired of being alone," he accused Reed. His body moved without his mind's consent. Anger pushed him forward. It provided the momentum and fuel. It surrounded him, blinding until he moved without thought. Uncontrollably. He found his resolve slipping through his hands. Anger melted it into sand. He strongly disapproved of violence. Just another example of his hypocrisy, he supposed. And maybe, it wasn't that he couldn't stop, it was closer to he wouldn't stop. He felt skin - Reed's cheek - beneath his hand. A tingly sense ran through his hand. His hand lingered to the side for a moment, before he wisely retreated it.

verbum comitem [ cmiii ]
word count [ 903 ]

"So, you want to fight, is that it? I can do fighting..."

'No,' Ariel told himself, 'I don't want to fight.'

Yes, he realized the inaccuracy of the statement. He felt an urge to meet Reed's challenge. His alive and ferocious eyes betrayed his excitement. It clashed with his slight shaking, caused by his own disbelief. He had not expected himself to resort to violence either. But like a ball with momentum, he could barely restrain himself now that he had begun. All his retreating in his room and reading, only to be dragged back outside by Reed, had thrown him into a spiral of hidden confusion and frustration. At that point, he did not want stop, defying his general pacifist stance.

"Let's go then, Ariel. I was born to fight!"

"I don't doubt it. Your family as a long tradition of creating fighters out of their sons. Why would you be any different?" he agreed.

He slightly regretted his words. His family probably was a sensitive matter for Reed. Talk about his certainly upset Ariel. But no, this wasn't time to regret. If he was to regret, he might as well apologize. And sure he would probably regret it later, but he refused to apologize. He was too stubborn to apologize.

verbum comitem [ mxciv ]
word count [ 1094 ]

Peculiarity decorated the day with mind-twisting confusion. Reed blew up like a closed tea kettle brewing a long song. Ariel reveled in the possibility of a fight. Even with his unstable temper, he rarely engaged in the heat of fierce battle of the sword. More often than not, he found himself convinced - read threatened - to dispose of Magnostadt's enemies. His display of aggressive behavior shocked him. He, a pacifist, only resorted to minor acts of violence for the purpose of sustaining himself (after all, every creature held the right to live) and as a result of the petty ongoings that never allowed Magnostadt's head to touch a soft pillow or drift to a tranquil sleep. Otherwise he abstained from beckoning the rukh to arms against a fellow human being and instead fought with vigorous and sharp words. After all, as often said, 'the pen was mightier than the sword.' And he did not doubt its power. But like a sword, words specialized as double bladed terrors. They possessed the ability to bring peace, but they also beckoned foolish humans to their death. Like any tool, whether they brought prosperity or despair depended on the motives, intentions, and skill of the user.

"You make it sound like all I do is read," Ariel noted. He shook his head and sighed. No doubt, he read avidly. Most people stumbled across Ariel hovering over a book with unparalleled concentration. His vast knowledge of foreign concepts served to only support the idea Ariel spent his entire day only reading. However, Reed's assumption allowed no explanation for his blatant abilities. He controlled the rukh with such familiar ease it invalidated the assumption that Ariel spent his entire day reading on an average basis. Reed could testify Ariel was familiar with the rukh himself, further ridiculing Reed’s thoughtless words. (It barely crossed him mind that Reed thought the same of Ariel’s previous taunt.) The irony of it all was not lost to Ariel. Him, a so called pacifist who trained his body with an iron will. He doubted his reason’s ability to stand the judgement of others - so let everyone call him hypocrite. But his purpose weighed heavily on his mind, and not time nor anything else could drain Ariel of the thoughts which called him to uphold the mantle of a warrior.

Just as Ariel assumed Reed’s ridiculousness reached its maximum capacity to utterly amaze and exasperate him, Reed further proved his idiocy was an incomprehensible wild creature. He questioned Ariel’s resilience with such dare, it disgusted him. He probably deserved it after his comment about Reed’s family, but it had yet to occur to the difficult brown-haired man. ”How arrogant of you, Reed, to speak of mettle! What of mettle do you know of? Oh, I'm sure living in that pretty villa has been plenty difficult, what with all food and clothing and roof over your head you were blessed with!” he snapped.


The silence between the two, and the metaphorical and literal distance which separated Ariel from the green magician declared its profound effects on Ariel all too quickly. It wrapped its arms around Ariel’s neck and slowly suffocated him like a snake entrapping its prey. Privately, he begged whatever deity in the sky to gift their legs with speed that of the wind so they might reach their destination and cut the awkwardness.To ward off the awkwardness, Ariel quietly retreated to his thoughts. From said thoughts evolved a realization and regret. Time, in its omnipotent power, brought upon a conflict. In the heat of the moment reasoning closed for fear of burning, touched and swallowed by the fire. But after the danger passed it blossomed. It rebuked Ariel for his actions - how stupid of him to have fallen to the trap of anger and how he should repair the damage. And normally he would have listened to the voice - normally. However, pride presented its own argument. It held a surprising strength over him - although perhaps it was not that surprising considering his history of prompting pointless, pride-driven arguments.

By the time they reached the arena, Ariel’s conscience had thoroughly befuddled, tripped, and annoyed him. By now reason and pride split him in half. One side roared in indignation: what unfounded arrogance Reed shamelessly displayed; the other side shook its head in disappointment: how could he compromise his ideals to settle a dispute over his pride via fighting? Either way, violence ensued. While he regretted his actions, Reed seemed too caught up in his fury to quit so soon. In fact, Reed radiated with contained energy. How anyone could anticipate a fight with such energy - Ariel could only shake his head in amazement.

”What a generous offer but I'm afraid I must decline,” he said.

verbum comitem [ mcmii ]
word count [ 1902 ]