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 Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:08 pm
Chase knew that she was angry, it was evident in the way she held herself and even how she laughed. His expression was impassive like her aggression wasn't phasing him. Whiskey eyes blinked slowly and he shifted, arms crossing over his chest with the leather of his jacket crinkling from the moment.
"Hate's an easy thing to let consume you." His voice was even, to his credit, as he watched Katrina. He wasn't criticizing or scolding, if anything he understood because he had disappeared and no one knew anything. No, two people knew and he did not expect Laurelite to go around proclaiming that the general Metallia herself had praised had been reckless and foolish enough to get himself into a situation that demanded punishment.
Part of him wondered if their queen would be proud of the way he struggled and suffered and survived. Maybe one day he would ask her, when he knew he could control himself in the presence of his mother's de-facto killer. "There were no orders because I was not in a position to give them." A simple fact that would probably leave her angrier. "I couldn't have told you even if I had wanted."
He was creating more questions than he was answering and he knew that helped nothing, but he was not willing to divulge the extent of things. No one, save for the witnesses, knew and he would have preferred to keep it that way. "Loyalty is a funny thing Kat, especially with combined with the impulsiveness that makes wild and dangerous when it gets the better of you. That same impulsiveness makes you rash and prone to acting without thinking." Which, of course was the definition of impulsiveness wasn't it?
"I trusted him because I had no trust and I had faith that his desire to protect you would be enough to protect the whole." He could clearly remember the sorrowful way Aluminite had looked at him when he forced the starseed into his mouth and the way he nearly cowered after, ashamed of what he had done. Fingers dug into the sleeves of his jacket as his lips curled in anger at the memory.
"But understand, I did not leave by choice and I do not return unscathed."
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 7:54 am
"Sorrow and anguish are worse than hate. Hatred can be sharpened and honed, shaped into something sharp and dangerous. Sorrow, anguish, loss-- those things are destructive, boring holes deep and brewing loathing." Self loathing as much as loathing for the source of the distress. It was a weakness; a weakness she had been trying to purge from her system in order to rise above. It had been hard... So hard. There were days when she slid back, still growing, still learning, fortunate enough that she had her original training to fall back on and build up off of. With a heavy sigh Katrina dropped to the curb, eyes closing in an attempt to gather her thoughts and pull everything back under control. She perched on the edge of the concrete, knees pressed against her chest as she wrapped her arms around them. She felt small; an odd feeling for someone who generally tried to live in a world larger than life. "No one whose life you touched has been left unscathed over these past few months. Your actions and decisions impacted all of us every bit as much as our own did. We needed you." I needed you. His cold nature was something she could have learned from. She-- No. It wouldn't have worked anyways. Her emotions and the way she wore them made her who she was. The fire in her eyes exposed her passion and she'd learned that it was hers to use not something to apologize for. "You're so important to all of us, but we don't even warrant an explanation. It was 'for our own good'. <******** that," she snapped, gaze lifting from the pavement at his shoes to his face so that she could glare at him again. "Being part of a pack isn't about one member shouldering the burden to protect the others. It's about working as a whole and supporting each other.... I thought you knew that. I thought that's what you were teaching us. All or nothing, sir."
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 11:11 am
"Hatred should not be the meter in which you motivate yourself." Like revenge, or even anger, the well would run dry too quickly and then one would be left with nothing to properly fuel the fire that burned within. It was like throwing water onto a grease fire, sure the fire would spread but when it burned out it would have consumed everything in it's path and left only ashes to sift through.
Chase erred on the side of living dangerously, motivation fueled by what he perceived as a rightful cause and a mix of other things. Once, he had let revenge be his motivator and when he had enacted it, he had felt hollow and empty in the aftermath.
"Anything can be perceived as weakness if it is a quality you despise in yourself." Or something one treasured too dearly, like he had his mother. "Some times the same things that make us weak also make us stronger." While he did not get too close to her, he did close some of the distance between them, one hand sliding into the front pocket of his jeans and the other tousling his hair, toying with pink and black strands between his fingers.
"I never said you had." The raven had told them that they suffered without him and how they looked. He knew but it did not change the fact that he had been gone and could not speak to them. "Nor did I say that my actions and the consequences that came of them did not have a ripple effect. We have all suffered, I hoped you would come out stronger for it." Aluminite clearly hadn't if he had turned and fled to the other side. Dia seemed stronger, the fiestiness in her ready to combat the struggles his time in the Rift had ingrained in him.
"I disappeared because it was the will of our Queen." Boots shuffled closer but he did not sink down to her level. "I only left one order, keep you safe." The you was for the whole, but he would let Katrina take it however she would. "I won't lie, the circumstances revolving my time away were unpleasant and likely would have sent you or one of the other's into a frenzy. With the state of the divisions and the unrest between the senior generals, their subordinates and teams, and the newly christened general-sovereigns anything that might so much as whisper mutiny or coup was something I would hope those under my wing would seek to avoid."
But the were all passionate things, like he had once been, and perhaps that had been his biggest folly- seeking recruits too similar to himself.
"They tell me that things have fallen apart in my absence." He was not surprised about the news, Chase was aware that he had been the glue that bound some of them together. "I had hoped to prepare you all better, but they also told me that you were promoted." He did lament that, being gone when several of his had ranked up. What a proud leader he would have been. "Congratulations." Sincerity was evident in his voice. "You have endless potential Katrina, but you are emotional and impulsive and Aluminite likely worried that you would act rashly in an attempt to bring me back from a fate I had brought about to myself."
He had stopped trying to tell himself that he hadn't deserved it when he had been in the Rift. He made his bed and he would lay in it.
"You're right, I think that we are stronger together than we are apart and it was my own ego that got me into trouble. I cannot give you back the time lost from the struggles brought on or endured during my absence. I can only offer to do seek to do better as we look forward and hope that you'll still stand with me."
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:49 pm
Katrina could have said a number of things to the words he used to respond to her. '******** the Queen' was among those lingering at the tip of a tongue that she bit in order to hold them back. The follow up thought to that was 'punish one and you punish all'... Would the Queen's punishments have been so harsh for General Labyrinthite if she'd known just how much those under his command would stumble in his absence? What kind of ruler had they if she thought ripping a General away from a group he'd groomed and trained without making sure that they knew something was wise? She scuffed her own boots against the asphalt as she continued to listen. They tell me that things have fallen apart in my absence. They? Who did he speak of now? Mysterious, faceless creatures who had spoken to him, wherever he had been? Others? Who else knew that he had returned in order to feed him information before he picked who he showed himself to? How many others had known before she had? Kat pushed herself to her feet, standing as tall as she could before him. She had no reason to cower or feel small. He had brought her in to this organization, taught and trained her, but she had continued to work to earn her place. She let the darkness embrace her, shadows crawling up over her biking leathers and replacing them with the armor of General Tourmaline. "You should have been there," she murmured, voice softer than the fierceness of her new attire. After a brief moment she added, "...just as we all should have been there to stand by and support each other. That's who we are, that's what we do and we did it miserably." It was as if the moment he'd left the glue that had held them together began to dissolve and no single one of them had enough of the glue left to put a ******** thing back together. "You're right. We can't go back, we can only push forward, be stronger, work harder and do better. I'm up for that challenge if you are, Sir."
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Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 2:55 pm
Chase was a fairly tall man, one who had the tendency to posture to seem larger-- more imposing and threatening -- when he wanted but it wasn't something he felt he needed to do with Katrina. He had yet to see reason to 'put her in her place' so to speak as he had to do with Wolfeite many a times before and saw no reason to do so now.
Instead, whiskey-gold followed her movements; the shift of her body as she stood and the ripple of chaos as it took the girl in front of him and replaced her with the general she had become in his absence.
"I should have," he agreed, keeping any additional comments to himself. They wouldn't help and now, the past was in the past. He could wish that things had been different all he wanted and it would mean nothing. Chase couldn't give either of them back any of their lost time.
The man seemed to regard the woman in her new armor and the cape that adorned her shoulders for a quiet moment, as if he was searching for something. If he found what he was looking for he did not say it nor did his expression change much. Instead, his own outfit changed. Chaos rippled through him easily, like it had been trying to crawl out from his chest the entire time.
It seemed like a rippling effect, the change crawling up his form and replacing his black boots with pink spats and his jacket for the tattered cloak that fluttered around him, hood automatically drawn over his head. His left hand was extended, glove as dark as his coat, and he waited to see if she'd take it.
"I don't see why we wouldn't be able to handle it. Together," a pause and a curl of lips into a dark smile. "General"
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Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 8:21 pm
Tourmaline's spring green eyes rose to meet Labyrinthite's whiskey-gold peering from beneath his hood, holding on to his gaze for a moment before dropping down to his extended hand. She seemed to ponder whether or not to take it, to slide her own gauntlet clad hand into his. For the briefest period of time it seemed like she might not... And then she didn't. She wasn't going to let her emotions get the best of her, and there was no guarantee at all that he'd even let her get closer to him. He could view any sudden movements as a challenge or an attack, but she was stubborn and determined-- she always had been, and likely always would be. Hands down at her side, Tourmaline banished her weapons, leaving her hands and forearms bare. She stepped forward and in a fluid motion took a risk in throwing her arms around the General's middle. Hand shakes were for business transactions and beneficial agreements. Hugs were for family. For Pack and welcome backs.
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Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:46 pm
He waited, half expecting her to take his hand as she had when he'd first awakened the wildcat inside. Instead, she let his hand hang there, looking at it like she couldn't make up her mind.
Normally a patient man, his time in the Rift had weathered him to be restless, on edge and he was ready to drop his hand when she moved. Shoulders tensed and his Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed, gold following her movements before she was in his space--
Her arms were around his torso and she was...hugging him.
For perhaps the first time in a long while, General Labyrinthite was completely caught off guard and did not know how to immediately react to the situation. He was not a hugger before the Rift and certainly not one now. The general was a man of casual and carefully executed touches; palm pressed against the small of the back, hand on a shoulder, the careful brush of arms, and more.
He did not hug her back, one arm falling almost limply to his side, but he did, quite awkwardly, pat the top of her head and the shorten locks that she had sheered in his absence.
"...There....there?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:41 am
Tourmaline drew in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as she stepped away from the awkward one-sided embrace in order to look up to the man that had brought her into the Negaverse. They had both changed in the time he'd been gone; more so than she was certain either of them wanted to admit. There was a tightly wound tension about him that she couldn't remember from before...It had likely been enough excitement for both of them that night, although now she'd have to work harder on her next ride to make up for the evening's loss. One loss is another kind of gain. "For what it's worth, it's good to have you back... And if there's anything I can do to help you settle in to things I hope you'll let me know."
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Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:00 pm
Visibly uncomfortable, despite his attempts to smooth out the tension that had built between his shoulders from the sudden hug, Labyrinthite took a moment to observe the young woman who made up C--General Tourmaline.
He should have felt proud when he looked at her but instead there was an aching hollowness. He had missed Dia's promotion to eternal. He had also missed Tourmaline's promotion from the eager captain he remembered when they'd gathered before Metallia to the general before him.
He could see slivers of the girl he had known just as surely as she could she shades of how he used to be when she looked back at him but he was quickly realizing that he didn't know enough anymore.
Perhaps something to work to rectify later.
"...It is good to be back, Tourmaline." His response came more slowly than he had intended, teeth grating against each other as if he was suppressing some sort of unsightly urge. Her offer he seemed to consider and he gave her a curt nod. "I'll keep that in mind."
It had yet to be determined if that would be something he did.
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Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 6:41 pm
Tourmaline suddenly felt incredibly uneasy. The feeling prickled the short hairs at the nape of her neck before cascading through her as though someone had just walked across her grave. Despite a firm desire to stand her ground and remain proud, she took a step back, giving him that extra space she had taken away in crowding him. "I should get out of here. I'd made plans to meet up with someone after the race tonight and he's not a fan of being kept waiting." One day she would like to properly catch up with General Labyrinthite, maybe even introduce him to Uvarovite, Kian, whichever the silver haired Professor at Romano's happened to be at the time they crossed paths. "My number hasn't changed, and my communicator still works. I will always come if you call me, Sir." Bright green eyes lingered on him for a moment longer before she took another step back to reclaim her bike as well as her helmet. For a brief moment she thought she'd caught a glimpse of the man she'd known what felt like ages ago. How long had it really been? Why had it all passed by so fast? Why had the most painful parts remained so slow? "Until we meet again, Midnight." And just like that the pink and black General was gone. Along with the determination and dedication she'd picked up from being trained under his expert attention, she also seemed to have picked up his flare for the dramatic, deeming it worth the additionally expended energy to take her bike with her as well... No sense coming back for it later when she'd need it to get herself back from Kian's come morning. Nuxaz Thank you so much for this, and for your patience with my pace. <3
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