The captain noticed the shift in expression and smirked, however briefly. Fighting wasn’t necessarily his thing, but there was definitely something about a good fight that was somehow…satisfying.
”I’ve heard of that,” he said, very narrowly avoiding the brunt of the next attack. “Never heard of anyone coming back from it, though.”
He sidestepped and slashed at Wolframite once more, up and across this time.
“Didn't even know it was doable.” Not that he had any plans to follow in his footsteps. He was curious, though, and had a few questions he wanted to ask. For now he went with the most obvious, since he couldn't dedicate a whole lot of brain time to organize his thoughts. “What made you do it? If you don’t mind me asking.”
He jerked back as he avoided the slash going deeper. Sidestepping, he felt unbalanced by the question. It helped that they were fighting as he often forgot the many concerns and anxieties he typically would have in a conversation when his mind was fully focused on attack and defense. He'd been so swept up in everything that he realized he had moved the conversation into his mistake of purifying and returning back. Things he typically would be a little more wary to admit.
But his sparring partner didn't seem malicious or even judgemental for his mistake. Instead, he was courteous and polite in asking further.
"I thought things might be different. I got spooked by a vision. So I left with my boyfriend. We purified together. Became knights together." That was the real reason, but he soon changed into old, bad habits. Revenge came to the forefront than the happiness of a new life and starting it with someone he loved. His priorities got jumbled in his anger and pain.
Though Carminite couldn’t imagine purifying being anyone’s dream–to each their own, he wasn’t one to judge–it certainly sounded like it could be a dream come true. The proverbial happy ending, driving off into the sunset with your one true love or some such scene. That is, of course, until the last statement. The twist surprised him enough to distract him, and he was a second too late to properly defend himself.
The kick was strong. Thankfully, he took the brunt of it on his non-bladed arm and only stumbled sideward a few steps before he was able to re-orient himself. Ignoring the quickly growing pain, he lunged forward with a jab-slash combination while asking, “And did you?”
The conversation was touching too close to a really dark part of his life, and he felt himself loosing focus more and more.
Had he? He could have. He could have killed Leto. He had her there, locked up and ready for a knife. Instead, he only bite her. Left his mark. Tried to make sense of it and tried to put some form of lasting pain on her that somehow would feel even a little bit lasting to the pain and fear he harbored. Did it work - he wouldn't know. It could have just been some desperate half-thought plea to the universe to make sense of everything and hope it would do something. Change something.
It had all been so - unsatisfying.
"No. I - I could have just - I don't know. Things were weird." He said, swiping and missing by miles.
He did notice the other captain’s dwindling focus on the fight, so between the missed blow and the sort of anticlimactic answer he took a quick jab for the ribs.
“Happens,” he said, “the important bit is learning. Seems like you’ve done at least a bit of that by coming back, probably more. One day at a time, it’s all we can do.”
"I think if I did succeed in killing them, I wouldn't have been allowed back. That probably would have been a step too far for even the Queen to forgive. We are already at war. The last thing we need is to make any allies into enemies. At least until word if given." And for now, they weren't in much of a position to do that. For now, allies were kept at a arm's reach but not so close to their underbelly.
Taking the nick, he adjusted his stance and lashed out again, a little more aligned in mind and body than before.
"Living for revenge is exhausting anyways. At the end, it's hard to find new purpose but the obsession - I'm glad to have left it behind at long last. It's like finally realizing you weren't living right all this time and having the whole thing ripped out of you and left to fester somewhere else." He felt the pangs of pain here and there, but it was less persistent than it had been in his life.
"Having another day is as best a blessing as I could ever have wanted. I'm glad to be here, in the castle, here, fighting with you. In the right uniform. White and red doesn't suit me at all."
Carminite took his words into consideration, pausing just to process the pain from a rather solid hit from the other captain, and eventually gave another nod. “Yeah, sounds like a lesson learned. For whatever it’s worth, I’m glad you chose to come back and get past all of that. Always good to have a skilled fighter in the ranks.”
When he saw an opening, he tried for another combination–this time a jab and hopefully well-aimed kick to the side.
“So what does your day to day look like now that you’ve freed yourself from living for revenge?”
He took another hard hit, and he felt how close things were closing in on him. However, there was something to say about the satisfaction of putting it right to the wire. Maybe in the eye of victory, the other would make more mistakes..
Or....maybe he'd just been the one making mistakes as of late. The conversation had thrown a lot of curve balls, and while he liked talking, it was twisting up a lot of old discussions he didn't tend to talk about. Leto. Revenge. His past life.
His current life.
"I mainly just go on patrol and do errands that need done here in the kingdom. .....and sometimes I just hunt things." Other times he'd go into the Rift, find a spot that was safe enough to not get attacked by the youma, and sort of just zone out. Let himself just sink into the other nature of himself to try and figure it out more - or maybe connect to it better. Sometimes it felt like a separate entity, and other times it felt like the same part of him, but repressed. It was hard to make sense of it, and while he was sure that his humanity was something to be cherished, there was still something curious about stepping closer to the other instincts harbored inside his core.
"....I've been looking to work? I've been told I need to build more of a human life. Get those kinds of memories back." He said, feeling more and more exhausted.
He wasn’t used to having conversation while fighting, but it seemed to be working in his favor this time around. He’d gotten a few solid hits in, and taken a few solid ones in return. All things considered, a decent fight. It seemed to be winding down, though, and after taking yet another good hit Carminite did his best to focus so as not to make a mistake that would cost him the fight.
“It’s funny,” he said as he looked for his next opening. “My general’s been drilling it into me that I need less of a civilian life. Can’t deny that my civilian life used to dominate, but now I think it’s more balanced.”
When he found it, he made his next move. “Any luck with the job search?”
HP: 18/40 DMG: 4
Attack: 2d8 - 6 Defend: 1d6
MoonKitsune
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MoonKitsune
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Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2023 9:56 am
"Who's your general?" He asked, curious which one was pushing for more of a focus on the Negaverse than a balance between the two. It had been pushed more and more that half-youma had the disadvantage to how useful they could be because they couldn't be civilians long. The more someone had a civilian life, the more they could do things outside of uniform without being detected. They could find work within the Negaverse network and influence the general public in ways that greatly supported the cause.
"That sounds good. I've been told a lot that I've been going too hard on the Negaverse life and while my civilian side is limited, it needs to be focused on more to maintain some normality in my mannerisms."
Another landed true and he jumped back, staggered a little and then made a giant T with his arms. "Time!"
He called out,and then slowly eased himself down to sit.
"You win. I'm beat. If I take another hit, I'm going to not be able to walk home." And now that the fight was called, he could let the facade of still being in tip-top shape fall so he could catch his breath and relax.
"That was good. You're really good. I haven't had a good fight like that in a while."
its_ p a o
Winner!
Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2023 10:53 am
Carminite dropped his general’s name when asked. He didn’t sound too attached nor that he felt one way or the other about them, and he was content when the conversation moved right on forward. Exhaustion was creeping up on him as well, so he was doing his best to focus on the fight so he could make it to the end.
So when Wolframite called it he felt a wave of relief wash over him. Like the other, he relaxed, dismissed his weapon, and ultimately took a seat and leaned back on his arms so he could catch his breath.
“Thanks, so are you. You push as hard as my general does,” he said, though purposely excluded that his general did fight with intent to harm. Said it was training for the real deal, so why pull punches? Carminite had learned to take it in stride, and it’s been beneficial to him in a lot of ways. “That was definitely a good fight. Mm, going back to civilian life stuff, I mean it’d be hard to find balance given,” and he nodded at the man’s claws, “but if there’s anything I can do to help just lemme know.”
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Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2023 11:27 am
"I used to have a lot of very hard teachers. Back when the Negaverse was a lot newer here, when we didn't have the queen like she is now. It wasn't strange for a general to throw someone out a window or break a limb for doing something wrong. Tough love sort of training was commonplace. You didn't bat an eye. Back then, we'd usually have a full scale meeting, all divided into rows by rank. You'd bow and you would know where you stood among everyone else. It kind of made you want to push harder to get a little ahead. Made you also see who was all with you, together." He said, reminiscing.
"It's harder to figure out your place in the other world. Among people. There isn't orders or a set place for you to be in. There's a lot and there isn't a general or Queen to give you some direction or purpose. I know my purpose here. I know how to do my job. I know what's expected. I've been doing it for so long. Being a civilian, it makes me nervous. I messed it up before. Probably more than once."
He looked over at Carminite. "I appreciate the offer. I'll - think about it."
"So, um, do you mind another spar sometime again? It's nice to have someone around who's into fighting. I get restless here sometimes in the Negaverse." He asked.
its_ p a o
Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:42 pm
Carminite lay back after a moment, propped up on his elbows as he watched and listened to Wolframite reminisce about how things used to be. It all sounded familiar; his general had likely been around back then, and carried those ways into the present despite all the changes in the Negaverse. Ultimately the intense training had been to his benefit, so suffering through it and getting to where he was now was well worth it as far as he was concerned. He was even grateful, to a degree. A very limited one.
Okay, grateful might be a stretch.
“Anytime,” he said with a nod, “and yeah, the other side has its own challenges. I was already an adult when I became an agent so I kinda already had all that sorted out.” Probably a good thing; he couldn’t imagine how much harder he would have had it given his situation out of high school and having to balance it with being an agent.
He imagined he would have opted to immerse himself into the Negaverse, actually. An odd thought, but there it was. Thankfully the next question pulled him out of his own head, and he blinked as he thought about his answer for a second.
“Not at all, just let me know," he said with a small smile. "A good spar with good people is something I could get used to doing on the regular.”
