Welcome to Gaia! ::

"She's changed." Jordan stood far enough back to be out of range, watching Ro train. He'd seen Sylvia enough times to know that the scythe's shape had altered. A deeper connection, a stronger bond. That was a good thing, they agreed.

Ferros wasn't yet summoned, though they'd also come out to train.

"It seems to happen around promotion time." Jordan tucked his hands into his pockets, not moving any closer. "The changes come from deepening the weapon bond, finding out how you work together. I'd guess that it gets to that threshold where the changes are going to happen around the same time as you've gained the skills and knowledge necessary to promote. You can't really develop your skills if your weapon bond's weak." He shrugged. "That's my theory, anyway. Does she have a new charge yet?"

An awkwardness lay between them, unspoken, not quite a chill, but something that Jordan wasn't certain how to address, wasn't sure it should be addressed at all. Some things needed to be aired out and discussed, but there were matters that were best dealt with by steadfast denial as well.

The stillness in Jordan's expression thawed a little, a flicker of sympathy surfacing in his eyes. "I think most of us are more of a mess than we let on," he said.

"Excalibur offered all of us the chance to forget something. I thought about it, too." Jordan ran a hand through his hair. "Decided, after I thought about it, that giving up what hurt would take away a part of me. But it was tempting, and some people did." He sighed. "I think, maybe, that taking that option, that says more about her than it says about you."

The corners of his eyes pinched a little with a flicker of something that might have been regret, might have been sorrow or exhaustion. "Things that might have happened, somewhere else," he said. "If life hadn't gone the way it has." He shook his head a little.

"Not hate, I wouldn't think," Jordan said mildly. "Hate, that's not something you forget or put away, not willingly. Hate's something you save." His thumb rubbed over the band of Ferros's ring, dragging across smooth warm metal.

"Clarice was a good person." He tilted his head a little, studying Ro. "We're more broken here, all of us." A moment's hesitation. "Every time I've seen another of me, he's been stronger. Better at keeping himself together. I'm not them, though. They're like -- funhouse mirrors. Reflections, but altered. Trying to be them will break you."

"You can't put somebody else in that empty spot," Jordan said, and then stopped, looking almost surprised, oddly unguarded for just a moment.

You should listen to yourself more often, Ferros said.

Jordan shook his head a little, put the thought away delicately to examine in more detail later. "I'm better at looking like I've got it together," he said to Ro. "It's a skill developed through years of practice."

"I don't have an answer for you," Jordan said quietly. "I've barely got one for myself. If you fake it too long, you can forget there's anything else that's not pretending." He looked away, off towards the coast. "Find out what's important in you. About yourself. Don't build on sand."