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 Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:54 pm
Zia hadn't found herself in a social conflict in a long time. When Chris showed up to drag her out for patrol, she went, but with a substantial amount of guilt. She had to choose to blow off either Chris or Pascal and chose the latter because she figured he'd ask less questions.
And while that might've been the case, the guy was still full of questions.
Which is why she was being incredibly rude and just straight up texting him back and forth the entire time she followed Valhalla around looking for youma and dragging the bat he gave her behind her. She was totally keeping that bat,
"Uh huh," She muttered absentmindedly when she thought she heard Valhalla say something, in a full on rapid texting fury when her halfassed excuses for the other boy were rebuffed with terrible logic and forethought.
>>So you're not coming over tonight?
No. I have a work thing.<<
>>Party?
Yeah.<<
>>You take me to those parties.
Well. Also, I'm Batman.<<
His next answer was so terrible it made her laugh and then try to hold it in, suddenly snapping up and hoping whatever Valhalla was going on about was funny and warranted a laugh. "Yeah, totally."
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:08 pm
She could totally keep that bat... until baseball season, at which time he would need said bat to practice with. But until then...
Valhalla was trying to be nice. He really was. They were doing this for her after all... Or was it for him...? Either way! It got her out of her apartment and the end result would hopefully give her a reason as to not keep pushing him away.
They couldn't take to the roofs while she was just a civilian, so they were stuck on the ground, searching for any signs of a youma. Valhalla didn't want to cross the path of an agent of chaos, not thinking that would be a good idea at all. He didn't want to get into a fight with the other side... just trigger an awakening for his best friend.
He couldn't shake the memory from his mind, and the more he thought about it, the more sure he was as to what he'd seen.
Zia was an unawakened knight.
"You're not even listening to me!" he finally snapped after asking her if she might consider going with him to his wonder again, which would hopefully result in another memory being revealed, but her response was too enthusiastic and fake for him to continue to ignore. "Who are you talking to this late?" he scowled, pausing where he stood to move closer and try to peer over her shoulder. "Some other guy whose name you don't know?"
Okay, he was a little bitter about finding out she was fooling around with who knew how many other people, but come on! She could at least pretend to care!
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:17 pm
Zia reacted like someone walked in on her doing something terrible and quickly covered her phone with half a surprised screech, especially since with the few pixels she could see through her fingers hinting that the next text had a photo attached. And she couldn't look. But she could imagine, oh god, just the thought embarrassed her enough to bring a flush to her cheeks.
"None of your business!" She shouted, disproportionately protective of her smartphone. Partially out of instinct, because it had a large chunk of notes on it she'd converted to a more mobile format she'd hate to have other people see, and partially because she wasn't ready to be that embarrassed about her personal life yet, god.
"Look, I got out of the apartment, I am going on your stupid quest, I'm just texting a friend, jeez, Ch-- Val. Cut me some slack."
Overly defensive? Yes. But between being kidnapped earlier and the comments that occasionally slipped out, she was ready to kneecap him with that bat.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:28 pm
Camelot was out on his patrol when he felt an aura nearby that was familiar to him. It was a strange kind of way to recognize someone, because really, most auras felt alike. But there was a kind of warmth to one he knew he had felt before, and this one was strong in that sense. He moved to follow it, peering down over the railing of the building he was standing on.
There were two people below. The knight he had felt, and a familiar face that he was rather surprised to see. He leaped over the railing and fell faster than he anticipated, because apparently he was bad at gravity, and then landed hard on the ground in front of them.
He was just glad they hadn't been walking faster.
Straightening up and dusting himself off in that wholly unnecessary way that embarrassed people often did, he looked at Valhalla and Zia and smiled.
"What are you two arguing about? I almost heard it up on the roof," he pointed from where he had come from. He looked at Valhalla and grinned. "You look well, Valhalla! And Zia! It's a pleasure to see you again!"
He had no idea he was interrupting something, and he realized that only after he had babbled his hellos. He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Er. Am I... interrupting something?" Might as well ask, just to be sure.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:02 pm
"If you think it's so stupid, then why are you even bothering?!" he retorted, throwing his hands into the air in an exaggerated show of giving up. "You'd obviously rather mess around with nameless men than try and get out of this dangerous rut you're in, and don't you dare try to argue with me! You were saying all kinds of self-endangering things to Michael and then that nonsense about pushing me away so I wouldn't get caught in whatever blow up happens! I don't want you to blow up, or be lobotomized, or any of that, metaphorically or not!" he nearly shouted in his frustration.
Yeah, sure, it was rude of him to try and get a glimpse of what she was typing, but she didn't have to completely ignore him either!
He had to stop almost shouting when another presence suddenly made himself known. Valhalla hadn't even noticed Camelot until he was approaching them and calling out to them. Part of him scolded him for his lack of attention to what was going on around him... but the other part didn't care at the moment.
"Camelot," he greeted in partial surprise, before frowning towards Zia. "No, we're just looking for youma," he grumbled, and then muttered under his breath, "Or at least I am... Maybe it would be easier if you stayed home and I tracked some down and brought them to your apartment? Then you can have a good time with whoever you want while you're waiting and won't be bored."
Sorry Camelot... he would be more happy to see him if he wasn't already in such a grumpy mood...
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:27 pm
"Yes, let's dramatically shout in the street!" Zia said sarcastically, raising her voice and throwing her hands in the air. As if she wasn't already pissed about private conversations and their possibilities of being broadcast around. Camelot arrived, and that was met with a smile, but mixed feelings.
On the one hand, he was a friendly face. On the other, she didn't want 'kindly sitcom dad' Knight around while Valhalla went on and on about s**t. And on another again, he knew him, and she was so going to tell on him.
"He's dragging me around to throw me in front of youma because he thinks I'm a knight because he had a weird memory when he dragged me out of bed and zapped me to Jupiter and threatened to leave me there if I don't start acting nice," Zia babbled with her best 'surprised big brown eyes' face, but Valhalla's last comment was met with a death glare she was well practiced at.
"It's none of your business," She snarled in a lower voice through grit teeth.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:03 am
Camelot stared at the duo, not able to quite keep up with what was going on in front of him. He had dropped down to say hello, and had managed to stumble into a hostage situation of some kind?
He blinked at Zia. He was learning more than he wanted to, he was sure of it, by the snide jabs being thrown her way and he felt his awkward capacity quickly filling. He started to shake his head, and noticed that his hands had joined in on the effort.
"Everyone calm down," he directed, with more hope than he probably should have voiced. It required confidence instead. "What's this about a youma? What? Valhalla, that is a reckless and terrible idea, you can't just put someone in danger to prove a theory!"
He paused, realizing they were young people arguing, and he had only gotten one side of the story. She might have been overreacting, right?
"What in blazes is going on here? Someone explain this to me again. Calmly." His own request and questions would have to wait until later, it seemed, but he was patient enough.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:11 pm
It wasn't because of Camelot's request that Valhalla stood frozen to the spot, staring at Zia in disbelief. No, it was more than just disbelief, it was edging towards feeling betrayed. How could she stand there and whine to Camelot about things that he, Valhalla, had done, and yet it was perfectly okay for her to go about doing whatever the hell she wanted, with little regard towards how anyone else felt, at least anyone from her past.
"How dare you?" he asked cooly, staring at who he thought was his best friend, or who had at least once been his best friend during the years of middle and high school. "How dare you pull your childish bullshit now? In front of Camelot? Grow the ******** up, Zia."
He had about reached his limit with his temper. And now Zia was pushing him even past that with her little tattling tantrum. He respected Camelot, he liked Camelot, but if he was going to start blaming him for being reckless and having terrible ideas, then whatever. He'd about had it with Zia's spoiled, woe-is-me attitude. Best friend or not, he was not going to start a 'he said, she said' argument, trying to prove himself to a fellow knight.
For all he knew, Camelot wouldn't even care to hear more of his side of the story, just as long as Zia kept whining and moping. How would anyone ever know that he'd only threatened to leave her on Jupiter because she had threatened that Zia was gone and only Zirconia remained. That Zia had been wiped from existence and some space cat who sympathized with murderers and torturers was all that was left to control the body of his best friend? He'd called her bluff, but he was not going to play these games with her. If Zia had been lost to them... to him... then he didn't give a ******** about what happened to Zirconia. It was all her fault for everything happening, anyway. It was her fault he'd been drawn into the alley the night he'd powered up, her fault he looked like a complete a** in front of everyone at that meeting before she'd stormed out. No one stepped up to defend him, because why would they? He was a nobody, but he was trying his damnedest, and if she was going to give him s**t for trying to free her from a cursed fate...?
Then ******** that...
Valhalla realized he was ignoring Camelot and felt bad, but at least this way... Zia would have someone to coddle her once he'd finished — just what she was aiming for, most likely. He might be younger than her, but how the hell had she regressed in maturity since they'd last been close?
"If you don't want anything to do with me, then fine," he said lowly, his voice shaking just barely with anger, but it was no where close to the shouting he was capable of. He knew he had his own displays of immaturity, but in the wake of a serious matter such as this... he'd reached a level of anger past the tantrums. "If you want to hole yourself up and waste away, not knowing what's going to happen to you because of Zirconia and Ares, stop caring... then be my guest. But don't give me this bullshit about 'starting fresh', because you're not. You keep secrets and you play games and you toy with people's feelings. But you know what? I'm not going to waste my time when you don't give a s**t."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:31 pm
Zia nodded at the whole 'throwing girls in front of youma thing' because she wholeheartedly agreed, though, more or less because she was lazy as ******** and didn't want to deal with them. Still, her whole demeanor had an infuriatingly casual flair to it. It was obvious she didn't really feel like sh was in danger, but still wanted to tease him endlessly about making her do things.
Doing things was hard.
And then she went and broke him, which she honestly hadn't meant to do just yet and thought she was going to get at least a little more fun before he took things way past being too serious and practically drove the car off a cliff of taking it way, way too seriously.
"Yes, I pull childish bullshit in front of Camelot. Look at him. Look at him! How can you not?" She laughed. Joking about things was her epic defense of falling into a pit of SERIOUSNESS which she did not want to be in. It was half the reason she fought Zirconia so hard to let her off the leash. All of the seriousness was crushing.
"Okay," She sighed and let her shoulders deflate and shrug up and down. "Calm down, dude, like, really, just.. deeeep breaths," She said. It was in her nature to try to calm down freak outs, stupid guardian cat instincts and all.
But also her stupid kid instincts were much easy to break through without the actual cat entity being very active.
"I can be cranky about guys busting in my apartment and zapping me to Jupiter, I totally have the right to be cranky about that. And if you can have secret boyfriends so can I," She said with a childish flounce out of his reach, apparently fully aware she was poking an angry bear. "I left the apartment tonight, I deserve a cookie. I mean, come on, man, it's not easy to just doooo it after an inspirational chat or two."
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 11:32 am
Yep. He had clearly stepped in the middle of something. He stared at the duo in wonder, trying to put together their relationship and figure out what exactly was going on here. It was not just taking it for what they said, but how they said it. Their tones, their body language. Everything told him more than their argument really did.
"Everyone, please," Camelot said, raising his hands in a show of peace. No weapons drawn here, everyone could put the barbs and knives away. He watched them, trying to be sympathetic, but the arguing was making it very difficult.
Hey, was she teasing him?
Blinking at Zia, he let that pass and glanced at Valhalla, seeing how upset he was and feeling bad about it. It wasn't his fault, of course, he had not been involved in any of this and just got dragged into it largely on accident and literally because he had dropped himself in the middle of it.
"You two need to calm down. Zia, you teasing him is not helping, and being flippant about something he is very serious about is just making things worse. Val, you need to calm down a little bit. Reacting just on anger and fear isn't going to convince her of anything. You both seem to be very close to one another, and surely that means that you can find some middle ground here? I'm not sure I fully understand the issues, but maybe the approach needs to be slower, and more rational."
He offered his opinion carefully, but with a tone he reserved largely for Nathan. So it was not a very good tone, nor a successful one, but he couldn't help himself. He cared about both of them, and that was what was most important to him at the moment.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:51 pm
"Stop calling me dude!" he snapped regardless of whether or not she was trying to get him to 'calm down'. "I'm not a frat boy, I'm not anyone's 'bro', I don't live in a 'happy little bubblegum pop world' because I'm out here risking my life for people I don't even know! For this city that doesn't give a s**t about anyone in it! If I'm spoiled, at least I'm not selfish, if I'm an inexperienced peon, it's because no one gives a s**t about anyone but themselves and are unwilling to help someone out because they're, heaven forbid, lower in rank. And if I've got a god complex," he fumed, reaching what may be the height of his anger, "Then it sure isn't doing me any good. Everyone likes to talk to me like I'm a child and don't know anything, when I suggest things only for others to take credit for it!"
He knew it wasn't Zia who had said all that to him, and even though she's sort of apologized for what Zirconia had said to him in front of everyone, he couldn't brush away the feeling of abandonment and embarrassment. She was his best friend, but she had done such a good job at pushing him away that he had built up all this bitterness without even realizing it.
He'd even achieved knighthood after working so hard and so long and no one had made a comment on it. Not that he wanted comments, but it added to the bitterness after seeing everyone oohing and ahhing over Babylon and Camelot and every senshi he knew who'd reached their full potential.
"You don't know me, Cam," he shot, disliking the wannabe-authoritative bullshit almost as much as he despited the use of nicknames in 'serious' situations. If Camelot knew he was serious and angry, then why the hell would he not give him the respect of using his full name? It was worse than being called dude! "You don't know our relationship! So of course you don't fully understand the issues! You're not my father, so stop acting like you are!"
He hated this. He hated taking his anger out on Camelot, out on Zia, but it had been so long since he'd actually released any of his more negative feelings. Sure he would have disagreements with others from time to time, but really venting like this didn't come around that often. He wasn't proud of it and could only hope that the two of them would understand and give him another chance when he wasn't feeling like he was being backed into a corner with nowhere to run from their patronizing suggestions and half-hearted condolences.
"And I don't have a secret boyfriend!" he added, almost as an afterthought, as if he didn't want to drag Paris into this argument when it had hardly anything to do with him. "If you hadn't been avoiding me for months, then you wouldn't be the last to know! The difference between my boyfriend and yours is that I'm not ashamed of mine!"
'Texting a friend' his a**.
"Just... forget you both," he growled defensively, taking a step away from them, as if making an attempt to escape. He didn't want to run away like a coward... but he also didn't want to deal with this...
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:27 pm
Zia would've been ashamed later to admit she totally buckled under Camelot's authoritative tone. Maybe it came from being the closest thing to a parent in her own family that it just crossed too many wires to fully process and defend being talked to like that by, well, a grown up.
"I... nevermind. Sorry," She said, pausing her backing away from Valhalla to let her arms deflate by her sides. "The issue is he thinks he can turn me into a knight and cure me," The verb was openly dripping in disgust. She wasn't sure she liked other people having opinions on whether or not she needed to be fixed. "And he did totally zap me to Jupiter in the middle of the night and threaten to leave me there for not playing nice." Zia might've had lingering control issues and one of them was harping on situations where she was cornered. Forever. ******** you and your corners, universe.
And Valhalla lost it, and Zia managed to hang on just long enough to at least keep her thoughts in a snarl for a few sentences. "Oh don't take it out on him just because the world isn't bending to your will like usual. Camelot... I... he just knows what he's doing, okay?!" Which was just followed by more frustrated stammaring and not knowing what to say. No, this was clearly wrong. Zia was supposed to be snarky and emotional and destructive and Valhalla was the straight man peacemaker.
She didn't know how to react to him stepping away from his role in the dynamic and losing it.
"UGH," She grabbed the sides of her head in frustration. "What the ******** do you want from me, Valhalla?" She ended up finally shouting in frustration. "You're mad when I'm not around and you're mad when I am a-and... and just.. God, I can't turn off being a mess in one day, especially when you keep making jokes about what a slut I am and how I... I just... argh." That was about all the coherence she got out before she just devolved into a flurry of half syllables and swear words until she kicked an empty garbage can and just ended up quietly raging about how much her foot hurt. Well, quieter. Tears may have also been forming, but she was so not going to admit that. Zirconia was much better at this angry speechifying thing.
Even worse, she felt this creeping feeling that by poking Valhalla until he exploded on every victim within range she had just obliterated whatever connection he clearly had with Camelot before this snit. And Camelot had quickly gone from hope for a referee to an innocent bystander brutally destroyed in her wake of destruction. "I'm just sorry, god," She murmured, if anyone could hear her in her distracted one foot hopping motion to look at her ankle, wishing she could remember she had a sprained ankle two weeks ago and should really stop kicking things in rage fits.
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