Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kaatje was home, mostly because she had finally acquired permission to move off base. Actually, to be fair, she was painting--tempera was not a particularly fun medium, but it was enough for Kaatje to deal with it while she was reacclimating herself to painting. Or, well. She’d abandoned the paintbrush a while ago, and was busily smearing paint all over her canvas, like--like a four year old, she supposed.

The piece did have nice color harmony, though.

She frowned at the knock, and wiped her hands at least somewhat clean on the towel at her side. “What did you do,” she asked, opening the door to let Keren in. “Get something to drink and then sit down, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

Kaatje considered this for a moment--with tomorrow being her day off, she saw no reason to abstain from her own booze, and cracked open a beer--and then she said, “Okay, that’s pretty bad.”

For the first time, she considered that her endless egging-on of Keren to fight fight fight and kill might have been doing her protege a disservice. Sure, she emphasized different styles of approaching the war in her boot camps. She didn’t really hold those beliefs herself, though, and was trying to mold Keren in her own image more than anything. “Look,” she said, awkwardly. She settled down next to Keren and threw an arm over the girl’s shoulders. “Mistral’s, like, a special case. She’s… she’s a noncombatant, okay? She’s missing half her internal organs and her worth to us is in her brains. We protect people like that.”

She took a sip of her beer. “Like, harass Mintaka and people like her all you want. They’re total assholes and don’t deserve consideration. But like. Mistral. And Hvergelmir. One’s a cripple and the other’s a ******** idiot. I asked Finn about both of ‘em. We protect them, and anyone stupid enough to be like them.” Although it wasn’t Mistral’s fault the magic had picked her. It was the magic’s. ******** magic. “I’m not gonna say it wasn’t a b***h move you did. Because it was, and if she dies or gets more crippled I’m gonna be pissed, but, yo, this is at least as much my fault as yours.”

“Unfortunately we don’t have any right to demand people release their medical histories to us,” said Kaatje. More’s the pity. She would really like to be able to class people by their medical ability to do things. Order up the side of Order, as it were. “And a bunch of people don’t like talking about how they’re crippled. Which is stupid. But people are stupid.” She sipped her beer and gave the issue at hand some deeper consideration.

Then she sighed. “I think the best way to do it is, like, ‘are you not fighting because you’re an a*****e, or are you not fighting because you can’t fight’, because that’s literally the only thing we can ask. I guess knights can swear on their Wonders to like, not… fight? Which is stupid. But happens. And also the magic doesn’t pick for suitability. But: that’s what we’ve got.”

“In the future,” advised Kaatje, “don’t punch Mistral.” She patted Keren on the shoulder, companionably. “I’m sure they don’t hate you forever. And if they do, they’re assholes, because you’re alright and it was a mistake anyone could’ve made.” It wasn’t, but like, Kaatje personally could have made it so of course anyone else could have, too.

She sighed through her nose, and set her beer aside. “Apologize, but make it clear that it was a mistake. And if she’d told you what her deal was, you wouldn’t have done it.”

“s**t, yes, punch Mintaka all you like,” said Kaatje immediately. “Unless she learns how to punch back, in which case, spar with Mintaka. But as long as she’s playing tea party, it is your God-given right as a warrior to Godzilla her fine china.”

She got to her feet. “Do you need any more pep talk? I can do that. But I have some paints to mess with and I’ve been excited about that for a while.”