Rasali's mouth curled tighter and tighter as Sonnie continued to self deprecate. By the time he'd trailed off, Her lips were little more than a tight, upended "u." She steadied her own breathing. Hot-headed as Rasali was, she'd been training Sonnie enough to have picked up a few tricks of her own. Getting up in his grill wasn't going to do much more than freak him out worse. Rasali didn't want to know what that would look like.
"Sonnie." Rasali hadn't shouted, but the intensity of her voice still felt like it was echoing through the training space. She positioned herself in front of Sonnie. Her shoes braced against the dirt. Her fists braced against her hips. Her mouth hadn't untwisted, but her eyes were a whole spread of emotions.
"Sonnie," she tried again, focusing her composure. She was mad, certainly, but not at Sonnie.
"Sonnie... you couldn't make me do s**t, even if you tried."Rasali eyed Sonnie's crumpled form. She could probably pick him up and dribble him like this.
"I'm doing this--not 'trying,' doing this--because I want to. Same reason I do anything 'round here. I want to help. I wanna help the Initiative, and I wanna help you." She stared at Sonnie pointedly, as if that would help her sell her words.
"I'm not expecting to make you a champion of the people or something spectacular. I'm trying to protect you by teaching you to protect yourself. And by my count, you're a lot stronger, a lot faster, and a lot more knowledgeable than you were when you first started training. It might not be as good as, I dunno..." Rasali waved one hand through the air, conjuring a name,
"Shield! Or me," She allowed herself a self-indulgent smirk,
"But if you can last even a minute longer in a fight, then this has all been worthwhile. Even that much can be enough to find an opening to attack, or run, or for help to arrive. And before you say anything, you are absolutely more than a minute's worth of time better at all this. You were like half as tall as you are now when we first started this. You can jump a hell of a lot more rope with the frog legs you got now." Rasali gestured to the appendages currently shielding Sonnie's face from view.
Rasali huffed, and with it, some of her tension released. This was hardly an unrelatable situation for any troll. Even she had these crises on occasion, as much as she hated to admit it. Alternia was just the kind of place to demand too much from its kids. Rasali hoped they'd eventually be able to move society past this, but it wasn't about to be this night.
"You gotta stop trying to make yourself to be what you think other people want. Some people are just the way they are, and even if Alternia thinks that's a bad thing... it's not. That's what the Phoenix Initiative is all about. It's not like you could make yourself some kinda super assassin anymore than Byakko could change her blood color." Both of Rasali's hands swam through the air as Rasali tried to sort her thoughts.
"This is just a means to an end. Keep yourself healthy enough to pursue what you're really good at. Even if you don't think it's as good as some other skill... like I said, sometimes just one minute can make all the difference. You'll never know if you're too busy beating yourself up about stuff that's out of your control."Rasali's expression softened fully. As fiercely as she chased victory, it was times like these that reminded her the real reason she fought.
