thecapitol | Beware the Tiefling

WHO| Neeshka and OPEN
WHAT| A very angry little demon-child
WHEN| Morning on the second day of Arena 05, after she's been revived and released
WHERE| Stalking the streets
WARNING/NOTES| As the title says. Beware the tiefling and her angry-words.

Neeshka is not a happy camper. She didn't even last a whole day. Not a whole day! Some-- some bitch just came up behind her and mocked her, not even to her face, and as she was trying to turn around, bam. That was it. She hadn't even had a chance to see who her attacker was!

Oh, she knows now. She's seen the instant replays. And next time she sees that blue bitch, someone is getting cut. Or something. Neeshka is better than that, and she knows it, and that just makes her more angry. So instead of sitting and stewing in her rooms, she's walking and stewing, and for once not paying attention to the shop windows or the pockets of people around her. She's just walking, shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets, toes kicking at the snow, and tail lashing about.

Approach at your own risk. She's not likely to be very nice, if you mention her horrible, embarrassing death....

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"Yeah. It's me," Neeshka mimicked snidely. "You really call anybody and everybody 'dear', just running into them in the street? That's just stupid, come on." She felt like being nasty to someone, and Valeria was just such an effective target last time.

"I hardly go around charging at people," Valeria protested, stung. She was still unused to these strangely outspoken Tributes. "And it may be a foreign concept to you, dearie, but we try to be polite around here."

"Yeah, but 'dear' isn't polite," Neeshka pointed out, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "It's condescending. Unless, you know, you're actually a friend or something." And never mind that she hadn't actually accused her of charging at people. Valeria took the unintended insult and ran with it, and felt badly; that was good enough for her.

Valeria sniffed. "Well, perhaps I'm the friendly sort, hm? And if you're hearing condescension, maybe that's your problem. People with self-esteem issues can such problems hearing what people are actually saying, you know."

It didn't take much to get Neeshka bristling, and calling her on self-esteem problems (which she did not have, thank you very much! hmph!) was apparently one of the many ways. "Hey! Now you're being insulting! Make up your mind! Are you nice or not? Huh?"

"I said I was polite, thank you, not nice!" Valeria, in fact, considered herself a very nice person, but she was hardly a saint. "There is a difference, if you understand basic dictionary definitions, sweetie. And on that topic, there is a difference between an insult and a simple observation. "

"And there's a difference between being polite and being condescending, which you obviously don't get," Neeshka grumped back. "You don't call somebody 'sweetie' in that tone of voice without meaning it as an insult. I'm not dumb, you know, I can tell when someone's just being a bitch." So there. Nevermind that she, too, was being somewhat bitchy at the moment.

"My dear, we passed polite a long time ago," smirked Valeria. "I am being insulting right now entirely on purpose, and I'm doing it without resorting to vulgarity, may I add." Not that Valeria really cared about such language generally, admittedly.

"What's wrong with vulgarity? It adds spice to any likely chat, I say." Neeshka flipped her tail and donned a condescending sort of expression. She wasn't very good at it. "But I guess not everybody grows up living on the streets, so not everybody gets used to dealing with all kinds of conversation."

"Oh, well, spice is all well and good, if you can't think of anything of substance to say." Valeria sniffed. "Yes, I feel so bereaved of life experience, living with a roof over my head my entire life."

"Exactly," Neeshka sniffed, right back, just as if Valeria hadn't been being sarcastic. She knew the girl was, but she was ignoring it to make her own point. "You don't get to judge people for being different until you've lived a life like theirs. You're not better than me just because you grew up with money and didn't ever have to fight for anything."

There was a little bit of quaver to that, as if Neeshka wasn't entirely sure of that, but her expression was still resolute.

"That's ridiculous," she said, even flipping her hair contemptuously. "I can only have one life, I don't need to sleep in an alley just to understand when someone's being an ass. And there are many, many reasons that I'm better than you that have nothing to do with money--and I'll have you know that having a lot of money hardly means I've had an easy life, thank you." She has a job, doesn't she? A hard job, even.

"Yeah, like I'm going to think someone who dresses like that knows what hardship is," Neeshka snorted, taking the hairflip as contemptuously as the rest. Only rich people even bothered showing off their hair like that, as far as she was concerned. The quaver was gone now, with only annoyance left. "You've never gone hungry a day in your life, have you?"

"Ha! I have, actually, I've gone whole days in my workshop forgetting to eat." Which isn't at all what Neeshka meant, but she was hardly in the mood to think about what she was saying anymore. "In my workshop making my incredibly popular and beloved outfits, thank you. What have you ever done with your life, anyway?"

"Oh please." In this, Neeshka was pretty sure she had the upper hand. "I have saved children from wolves-- and from cultists! And I've fought off an invasion of undead creepy-crawlies from a castle. I defeated a warlock who had a bunch of demons imprisoned, and I was going off to save the world from the King of Shadows, except I got kidnapped to come here, instead."

Nevermind that most of that she did largely just because the first guy who was ever nice to her was doing it, so she kind of went along for the ride. She still did all that!

"You--" Valeria sputtered, unable to think of a properly scornful reply, and finally just completed the sentence with an outraged, "You have not."

Secure in the knowledge that everything she said was true-- for certain variables of "true", of course-- Neeshka folded her arms and said, "Have so. Not my problem if you don't believe me." It was way better than making people clothes, anyway. Especially the garish stuff people wore here.

Nevermind that she was slowly adapting to some of the more garish stuff, herself.

"Oh, well," said Valeria as witheringly as she could manage. "As long as you know your delusions about warlocks and zombies and whatever are real, nothing else matters then, I suppose?"

Neeshka gave a little snort. "Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, you know. You are way closed-minded." She was glad to finally have the upper hand here, at least: she knew perfectly well she was telling the truth, and if Valeria didn't want to believe her, that just meant she was the dumb one here, not Neeshka.

"There's such a thing as have a mind too open, you know," said Valeria nastily. "You start letting anyone in. I'm sorry, anything." Yes, that was a weak attempt at a dig labeling Neeshka as the 'wrong sort'. Valeria wasn't actually used to insulting people to their faces, having to think up biting words on the fly.

Beware the Tiefling

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