[PRP] is it always like this [Estel, Shun]

[Luridel]

Estel hadn't spoken to her reaper friend since she had passed out during training, and it was a couple days before she set out to find him again. She was a little humiliated - in her mind, it had been her own fault - and, she was learning, her approach of choice to messing something up was to never speak of it out loud again.. but you couldn't do that with mistakes in combat, or you'd never learn anything.

It was fairly early in the school day when Estel set off to the reaper dorms, climbing the stairs to get to the roof.  

[Blade Kuroda]

Shun happened to be up on the roof once more. He wasn't meditating or anything like that this time around. He was simply watching two of his minipets, Yin and Yang flying about. With everything that had been going on, he hadn't been able to let them stretch their wings as much as either of them would have liked.  

[Luridel]

"Hey," Estel called, wandering closer. "I wanted to say sorry for... y'know."

Sorry for practically cutting herself to ribbons because she didn't know how to fight any better? It was something along those lines, anyway.  

[Blade Kuroda]

The reaper turned around and blinked at the ghost's apology. He wasn't really certain what she was apologizing for.

"I'm not sure why you're saying sorry. If anything, I suppose I should apologize for knocking you unconscious the other day. I don't make it a habit of going easy on anyone."  

[Luridel]

Estel shrugged, twisting her hands together behind her back. "I wouldn't expect you to, yeah?" She had noticed the minipets, but hadn't really made the connection that they belonged to Shun just yet. "I just, well... I guess I feel like I should be able to take a bit more than that."  

[Blade Kuroda]

Shun gave a light shrug, "You'll improve in time. I've been spending years honing myself. You've only just begun as far as I know."

She was weak right now, yes. But he didn't expect a great deal just yet. His role right now was to help strengthen her, so that perhaps she could stand on her own with all the dangers about. He wasn't about to handle this in a way that his father would either. The reaper wasn't entirely certain why he took this upon himself and felt this way but he felt that it was something he could do to maybe actually help.

...He really had softened in time.

"Is there something else you needed?"  

[Luridel]

It was true, she hadn't had any reason to fight before attending school. There was something about the situation that bothered her, though, and she wasn't quite sure how to put it into words.

Maybe it would come to her later. Estel sat down a few inches off of the ground, crossing her legs. "There's a hill you can run up, for extra credit, and if you mess up you get hit by lightning. I've... dissipated four times trying already and I still haven't made it up."

She looked down at her lap. "Is it always like this?"  

[Blade Kuroda]

"Thunder hill. I've had to face that one myself before. It's an unforgiving course," Shun stated while placing his hands into his pockets. He tilted his head in thought, then looked up at the black and white falcons soaring overhead, "Yes and no."

He then went on to elaborate, "You will get better at the hill. You will become more resilient. However... things are rough around here. The schoolwork as well as the outside dangers. Not all of the courses are quite as hazardous but..."

The reaper shrugged.

"It's all apart of the learning. Pain is weakness leaving the body... so I've been told."  

[Luridel]

Maybe that was it. "I feel like I should already be... resilient. It's not the pain that bothers me. I don't mind that so much. It's just that at some point, I just can't keep standing anymore." Estel shook her head, frustrated at her own inability to explain.

She couldn't say she agreed with the saying, either. "Well, it's not anything like that. It's just pain. It hurts. You don't get anything out of it."  

[Blade Kuroda]

"You're a ghost, but at this point, your fear is still weak. Untapped," Shun replied, "But that's what the school is for; to help you strengthen your fear."

Unless she was talking about something else. In which...

"We all have our limits, Estel. Even I have a point where my body gives out and I can't continue despite my will wanting to. It's happened during training and while fighting," he admitted quietly, looking down for the moment, "I always take it as a sign that I need to continue my work. To continue pushing my limits so that I could improve."

Another shrug.

"That may just be me, though. My upbringing was one where weakness was not tolerated."  

[Luridel]

Estel sighed. He was right, but that didn't mean she had to like it. "...I'll get better."

Weakness was not tolerated. She frowned, folding her arms. "Not tolerated? What d'you mean?"

She hated the word 'weak'. Dividing the world into 'strong' and 'weak' felt like such a simplication of everything. It wasn't like sentient beings could be ranked above or below each other on only a single scale.  

[Blade Kuroda]

Shun nodded curtly at her for the moment, before furrowing his brow. "It means what it sounds like. Showing signs of weakness was not tolerated. Perfection and strength was expected at all times. Especially when it came to things regarding combat. When weakness was shown... there was punishment, basically."  

[Luridel]

"That's not right," Estel said without hesitation. "That's not how you raise someone."

She was angry, she realized in a detached sort of way, angry in a way that had nothing to do with what Shun had just told her but also had everything to do with it. "I'm sorry that happened to you. It shouldn't have."  

[Blade Kuroda]

"Perhaps not, but it is what it is. There's no changing the past," he replied quietly, "It was shitty, yes. At the same time, it was that which forged me into the person I am now."

Shun had noted her anger, but he didn't really make much of it.  

[Luridel]

"It's still wrong," Estel insisted, realizing that she had clenched her hands into fists. Slowly, she relaxed, smoothing her skirt down over her legs.

"I guess you turned out better than I did in the end, yeah?"