Alisaie Leveilleur (
scattershot) wrote in
tinylittlebox2021-05-27 09:51 pm
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day 365 ● this space to rent
[So sometimes all you can think of to do about a situation is steal a horse and ride it anywhere.
[There's something not quite right about it, admittedly - the foursquare shape of it, the solid barrel of the body, the close, velvety hide. But Alisaie finds she knows how to saddle it; knows, after a brief period of hang-about-wait-what adjustment how to make it start and move and go; it's something the body doesn't know how to forget, for all her mind is a stubbornly intractable blank on the subject.
[After that it's simply a matter of working out where to go, and since all she wants to do is get lost, that's straightforward enough.
[At least a coastline is a coastline, no matter how strange the land it borders might be.]
[There's something not quite right about it, admittedly - the foursquare shape of it, the solid barrel of the body, the close, velvety hide. But Alisaie finds she knows how to saddle it; knows, after a brief period of hang-about-wait-what adjustment how to make it start and move and go; it's something the body doesn't know how to forget, for all her mind is a stubbornly intractable blank on the subject.
[After that it's simply a matter of working out where to go, and since all she wants to do is get lost, that's straightforward enough.
[At least a coastline is a coastline, no matter how strange the land it borders might be.]
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Besides, the coast is long enough that more often than not he'll be alone. ... Or so he thought, but by coincidence he sees a familiar face when he arrives. ]
Ah, fancy meeting you here.
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[Well, you're not the only one who was counting on being alone.]
[Another problem with horses: it makes conversing with anyone who did not have the foresight to also show up on a horse rather more awkward than it has to be. Alisaie suspects it might also make you look like a bit of an arrogant asshole, at that. Something's going to have to be done about that.]
One moment.
[It's easy enough to get off the horse, for that matter. Grounded, she takes it by the reins to remind it they're not done here yet.]
Sorry about that. It's probably high time we both rested for a while, anyway.
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It's no problem. I wasn't really expecting to see anyone else here.
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[She's looking around for somewhere to tether it.]
How have you been, anyway? I - well, I thought some space might help.
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That's fair. I'm not sure I care for the city, myself. I don't know whose world it is the Producers think they're replicating, but it certainly doesn't seem to be mine. At least there's only so much they can do to a coastline.
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[Reins dealt with, she pats the horse on the neck and steps out onto the beach proper. It's a pleasant day for it, and she tips her head back, taking a deep breath of sea air.
[She's starting to understand why Zhongli was cautioning her about staying away too long. It feels so much nicer out here. Turning right back the way she came and heading back into - all that - well, it already feels almost unthinkably stupid.]
I know little and less about where I do come from. But it does seem to have made me more suspicious than some.
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Well, I wouldn't consider it a bad thing. [ And he means that. ] A fair number of people here, though they may not necessarily have had peaceful lives themselves, come from places where ... [ He pauses, as he tries to figure out how to articulate this. ] ... I suppose you could say they come from places that distinctly lack hostility towards everything else? Or, mmm, where the worst possible scenario happening isn't thought of as being all that likely.
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[She sighs. Stoops. Picks up a pebble and weighs it in her palm.]
Perhaps... I don't think it's pessimism to retain a sense of perspective. To actually remember all the things that were said to me - all the warnings I got, at the very start of this mess--
[She breaks off.]
We were wrong. And it was only good fortune that meant it didn't matter as much as it might.
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[ He sighs. ]
... To be honest, I thought he knew better. Hope and optimism is one thing, but not taking into account the precedent the production has set is another.
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Exactly--!!
[Splosh. It's a good shot. Alisaie picks another.]
Optimism is one thing. There's nothing wrong with being optimistic. But when all you're doing is deluding yourself... and even that wouldn't have been so bad, if he hadn't dragged everyone else in the garden along for the ride. All those children - the guests--
[Therapy of action. She throws another stone.]
--what were they supposed to think about it? How were they supposed to know he was planning for failure? They had us all picking who we wanted to save!
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(Not that these were good circumstances, and in a more ideal world she wouldn't have had reason to feel this way.) ]
... I would have given him a piece of my mind if the worst had happened. He was basing his conclusions off someone who had a really difficult choice of pictures to give answers with. I don't want to imagine how guilty Tsukasa would have felt if things had gone wrong.
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[She hadn't known that.
[It's even worse than she had been suspecting. Even something as straightforward as expressing a color - even that had been too much to ask for?]
I should have known they'd have seen that one coming, too.
I think you should have given him a piece of your mind anyway. Mayhap, if he were to hear it from somebody else, he couldn't simply write it off as my not being sufficiently optimistic for his tastes, in the midst of mass slaughter at that.
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[ He sighs. ]
Well, there's not much point to me giving him a lashing when things did ... more or less turn out better than it could have. It doesn't really drive the point home.
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... Well, that's his problem, for whenever it happens. A person like him is only going to get a wake-up call when something or someone that matters to him personally is at stake.
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[She sighs.]
Mayhap I did go too far. I, I simply found myself so frustrated...
[It's easy to reflect on all the things she should have said now.]
And would that I could blame this place for it. I fear it may be more fundamental - that there is something in my nature that always will feel that way.
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[ He's curious, mostly. ]
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... To be fair, I can at least say that your frustrations weren't unfounded. Speaking from my own experience, anyway.
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[It all sounds extraordinarily trying to Alisaie. She sighs, and retrieves another stone, and wings it into the water.]
I'd like to believe 'twill be easier, when it's just the unit working together. And yet it seems to me that it would simply raise the stakes still further, if I were to disagree with the one group here I'm supposed to be able to trust...
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Man, just when he thinks it's been put away into a box for good. ]
Do you have any reason to think you might disagree with them one day?
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Every time things get difficult, everybody disappears.
I did.
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Disappear as in, taken away from the show?
I can't say I know much about the current unit, but does anyone give you the impression they'd be unwilling to try and reach a compromise in the event of a disagreement?
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Still, he's relieved that Zhongli apparently has tried to deal with that. ]
Let me guess, Hurricane is one of them? The shopping list is a pretty good idea, actually.
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How did you know?
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Hey Skylark this is what you get for just speaking your mind without thinking further ahead. Fuck. ]
I don't think anyone needs to have masterful powers of observation to notice he can get highly avoidant and guess it's him.
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I'm hardly surprised he might not wish to talk to me. I'm all but a stranger. And yet, if I am ever to be more to him than that - won't we have to take a chance on one another, sometime?
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I wish you good luck, then.
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