thecapitol | She acts like summer and walks like rain

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She acts like summer and walks like rain

Who| Terezi Pyrope, Signless
What| Terezi has decided that she's going to mediate between the Initiate and the Signless... Now she just has to tell the Signless.
Where| D12 floor, Signless's room
When| A day or two after the arena ended.
Warnings/Notes| Nothing yet!

Upon waking up back at the Capitol, one of the first things that Terezi realizes is that she really needs to talk to Signless. She doesn't necessarily want to, but when you propose a three-way mediation over a broadcasted area? It might be a good idea to inform the third party.

She manages to stall for at least a day before she finds herself on the twelve floor, standing in front of Signless's room. She's determined not to take no for an answer, not after going through the trouble to get the Initiate to agree.

With a deep breath, she knocks on the door.

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"Hang on a moment," comes the response from inside, and there's the sound of shuffling (and what can only be described as a disappointed tribble noise). The Signless opens the door and there's a small moment where his expression flickers when he sees who it is -- he was expecting to have to have this talk sooner or later but not right now.

"Ah. I think I know what this is about. Come in."

He doesn't smell at all surprised to find her on his door step, so Terezi can only assume that he was watching the broadcast of that... ashen confession. Great. But at least he's still inviting her in. That's a good sign.

She takes the opportunity to step into his room--the second time she's been in his room now, she thinks. "I am going to go out on a limb and guess that they slathered my intended topic of conversation liberally across the Capitol televisions. As they do." She doesn't know whether to be grateful that she didn't have to break the news, or annoyed that she couldn't even be allowed to start this up properly.

"They're probably recording this too," she adds, pointing her knowledge of that out to both Signless and their dear listeners, wherever they may be. If they actually are listening. "So we should probably make this quick. Do I have to get down on my knee, or are we cool?"

"Oh, yes. I was lucky enough to catch it more or less live, so I've had time to think."

This is one of the very rare instance he's glad that the Capitol is so dedicated to broadcasting even the most private moments and delicate conversations of its tributes all over every screen. It means he had time to get over his initial negative reaction and actually think about what an ashen relationship with Terezi and the Initiate might be like. The consensus: probably a little awkward, and almost definitely a little tense, but sensible.

"And what I think is that it's worth a try. He and I don't have anything like an actual developing black relationship, but there's enough tension and bad feelings between us that it's negatively effecting the people around us, so..." He shrugs helplessly. "I don't see any better option. I trust your judgement."

"That's one good thing, I guess. If I mess this up, I'm not going to catch you two up against the wall with your tongue halfway down his throat." No, she'll probably end up catching someone getting murdered in some fashion instead. Still, the joking is clearly just that: joking.

The admission that he trusts her judgment leaves her feeling awkward. It's more than she expected from him, to be honest. She turns her head away, chewing on her lip, then turns back again.

"I've never done anything that wasn't to help someone." It comes out in a rush, and once the words have left her mouth, she realizes that she might have to explain just a bit more. "In the first arena... with the wire. I wasn't just being a bulge. And those other times, when I yelled at you--or when I tied you up and locked you in the closet. Those weren't because I hated you."

She lets another silence stretch between them before abruptly holding out her hand, as if to shake his. "I know I don't have a good track record of being on your side... But I'm going to make this work. I'm going to fix things between you, so we can focus on the more important things."

She doesn't say what those are, but she's sure that anyone who's spent even five minutes in this tower knows exactly what they should be.

It says something that he doesn't really hesitate before taking her offered hand. If they're going to make this work -- and he wants to, just as much as she does -- then he's going to need to trust her. Still, something about what she said bothers him.

"You don't really believe that I think everything you've done, you've done just because you hate me?" he asks, frowning. It's true he's never thought she liked him, but he never thought her actions -- most of them, anyway -- were born out of pure malicious intent.

Edited 2014-03-28 06:35 (UTC)

He takes her hand, and she gives it a squeeze and one solid shake before letting it go. The universal sign of a deal being made. No tacksies-backsies.

His question catches her a little off guard, though. "Everything? No... But some things, maybe. I can't honestly say that I think you have a good impression of me. But if you're going to offer trust like that, the least I can do is set your mind at ease about deserving it."

"I want very much to trust you. I want to believe you're better than circumstances have forced you to be. I don't think anything you've done, you've done out of hate."

He looks very hard at her shoulder. "It's hard, here. We all do things because we think they're the best choice we have, even if not everyone is going to agree with that choice. That doesn't make you, or I, a bad person."

Terezi wants to laugh a little. Better than circumstances have forced her to be? It sounds like something cheesy out of a self-help book. The kind that humans write. But she doesn't laugh. Instead, she just shrugs her shoulder a little.

"I can't say I agree, but I guess I appreciate the sentiment." Though her words are sufficient as an answer, she feels like a little explanation is on order. "I don't think the circumstances have forced me to be anything that I wasn't already prepared to be. I'm not saying that you're wrong. I do disagree with some of your choices, but I certainly don't hate you. So you're right about all that. I just don't think I can lay my blame on the circumstances. I do what I have to do, regardless of the circumstances. I don't want to pretend like I wouldn't have that conviction if the situation was different."

That's the unfortunate thing about trying so hard to Not Be Kankri that he looped right around into Totally Being Kankri; sometimes, when he thinks he's phrasing things in the best way possible, he actually just sounds like a dink.

"It isn't a matter of having or not having conviction so much as having or not having cause. I don't believe you would have killed me back in the desert arena if you didn't have a reason, regardless of the circumstances that lead you to having that reason. The circumstances aren't to blame, they're just part of what shapes your actions, and I do believe that the circumstances here are ones that could push anyone to have cause for actions that may seem extreme to someone who doesn't know the reasoning behind them."

"But that doesn't excuse the actions." She doesn't know why she wants to make this point so badly, but she does. It's important to her, to make sure that she takes the responsibility for the things that she did. She doesn't want it swept under a rug and chalked up to circumstances.

"Each person has lines that they won't cross, regardless of the circumstances. Where we put those lines is part of who we are and the choices we make. You can't ignore that and say that it's part of the circumstances. Not when some people would willingly do what I did without any reasoning behind it, and others wouldn't do it for anything, regardless of the situation."

She frowns at him, very serious. "The circumstances didn't shape my actions. I shaped my actions, just like everyone else."

"I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying," he says, hoping that it comes off not as an accusation. The last thing he wants is for this to turn into a fight.

"I don't mean to say that context is an excuse or that it invalidates your own choices and conscious decisions. Informing and excusing are not the same thing."

He knows a lot about lines and crossing them, now, because for a very long time after he crossed one of his own he wasn't sure he was himself anymore or even that he wanted to be. And he could have walked away instead.

He almost wants to ask her why she killed him -- for the longest time all he had to go off of was the assumption that she hadn't done it simply because she could. He'd always wondered, and it wasn't as though he could ask, and maybe he can now -- but it seems counter-intuitive to bring up old hurts when there's so many more recent issues.

"There are things you've done that I don't understand, because I'm not you and I don't know your reasons. But that doesn't mean I assume the only explanation is that you're fundamentally a bad person."

She's not a fundamentally bad person, he says. Like he knows anything about her. She recognizes the urge to be contrary, to somehow prove that he's wrong about her. Because she's not good. Good people don't club innocent people to death. They don't slash the throat of their friend's moirail open. They don't stab their sister in the back. But if she's not good then she has to be bad, and that's not something that she can admit. Her mind chases away the idea before she has a chance to dwell on it.

"It doesn't matter what you assume. I didn't come here to talk about your assumptions." It comes out harsher than she really means it to. She huffs, and tries again: "I just... I wanted to tell you about what I'm doing. With you and Fraysong. And I did. So I should probably go for now." Before she says anything to mess this up, before it's even begun.

Talking to her is so difficult. No matter how he tries to communicate with her, to meet her halfway and assure her he's open to working things out rather than condemning the whole situation to being a bad one, he's met with what he sees as dismissal and harshness.

Maybe she doesn't mean for that. He doesn't think she does, because if she didn't genuinely want to help she wouldn't have suggested this. It just makes him worry for how this ashen relationship is going to go, if even when he's on his best behavior and trying so hard to foster a good relationship with her, it's going to turn out like this. Maybe he just shouldn't have said anything, and this conversation would have been a lot nicer and a lot shorter.

"That may be best." Before he makes more of a mess of this. "And thank you, for offering to do this."

"Yeah," Terezi agrees, but for entirely different reasons. It's a shame that they aren't both psychic. It's probably also a blessing, all things considered.

"...And it's no problem. I just want the fighting to stop. Before someone else gets hurt." Because walking in the no-man's-land between friends who are fighting is one of the worst places she's even been. And it's not a place that she wants to be in again.

He nods.

"I understand. I'll do my best to help you make that happen."

This is going to be hard starting out, but they both want the same thing. Hopefully they'll be able to connect in light of that, because he doesn't want anyone else to get hurt because of him either.

She nods in return. There doesn't seem to be much else that she can say to him now. It's not the most fluid or romantic of propositions--certainly nothing as heartfelt as the one she gave to Fraysong in the arena... But it's a hand offered. She wouldn't be making the offer if she didn't mean it.

"We can talk more later."

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She acts like summer and walks like rain

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