12-02-2009, 07:33 AM
The tournament was clearly taking its toll on the both of them. She'd lost her calm and rationality. She'd stumbled over her aversion to cursing at times. Would the next step be to throw away her humanity, no matter how altered she had discovered it to be, and...
What was she supposed to do about it? This wasn't some kind of fantasy spellworld video game that they were from. This was reality, and even if the two of them were not entirely familiar with each other, they definitely shared no ill will toward one another.
"At least this... reality that they are giving us," she began, voicing her thoughts out loud. "Its not actually real, is it?" she suddenly asked, looking straight back up at Sophia hopefully.
"I... I think it..." Sophia stammered, unsure of how to answer.
"I mean, you get what I'm saying, right?"
The priestess stared at her. "No, I think-" she tried, having absolutely no understanding of the teenager's reasoning.
Ashe sighed for a moment before slumping down to the ground, her face in her hands. "Yeah... Me neither," she admitted.
The two of them stared off past each other for a moment, unsure of what to do next, when Ashe suddenly began talking again. "Its just that when I fought this guy earlier and somehow eliminated him," she rambled, catching Sophia's attention. "He just kinda shimmered suddenly and disappeared. Like those old school video games where you'd shoot the monster with a laser beam from your sword and it would just poof away magically. Ya know?"
Silence.
"Ok, so video games aren't the best way to explain it to you. Gimme a second then," she prompted, holding up her hand while staring into the sky, her lips moving over each other, seeking some perfect phrase. "There's some saying that my teacher taught us the other day when we had to read Through the Looking Glass. It brought up the concept of reality and perception of reality - like that movie about that computer program that people were unknowingly in - and what defined reality.
'Some guy thought he was hilarious and brought up the argument that maybe we were all just strung out sea turtles at the bottom of the ocean tripping on acid and imagining all of this. Funny thing is that the teacher actually agreed with him," she rambled, laughing as she pushed her hands forward to make her point about how ridiculous it seemed. With an extravagent rolling of her eyes and another wild wave of her hands, she continued. "He countered the argument with some quick story about an old man asleep under a tree dreaming of a grasshopper sleeping on his chest. And then asked us," she paused, taking on her best weird teacher impression. "Or is it the grasshopper dreaming that he is sleeping on the old man's chest?"
This entire time, the priestess was lost in her own thoughts, tuning in randomly as Ashe continued spilling out these chaotic bits of knowledge that she'd gained over her short life. "Kaden, what should I do?" she suddenly asked herself, catching Ashe's attention.
"Kaden..."
Sophia looked up at Ashe, the two sharing a sudden look of confusion and concern.
Ashe took a breath and continued. "He... He didn't make it, did he?"
Five seconds passed without another breath being taken before the healer suddenly drew in oxygen to reply. "I... guess not," she considered. "I haven't heard from him since his last fight."
The student nodded slowly, looking at the ground. "Yeah. Me neither." It was likely boring the life out of Damon Dukes to watch these two quietly talk to each other during a Combat Day, but neither of them particularly cared. "That last guy that I fought - the one I somehow eliminated," she added, continuing to use that term instead of kill, unsure if it was simply a coping mechanism or an acknowledgment of his strange way of losing the fight in this game. "He attacked me while I was with Kaden. Kaden got trapped behind one of those blue laser wall things and then he disappeared."
She rose back to her feet before stretching her cramped legs, setting her bag down on the ground and leaning up against an all too familiar lamp post. Her eyes drifted over it, studying the markings that the elements had left upon it. When she'd last leaned against this particular light post, Kaden had been talking to her during her fight against him. Before Damon decided to interfere in their game. "I haven't seen him since. Nor any notes or anything from him," she added, suddenly blushing. "Not notes like crush notes or anything, just notes to let me, or well, someone," she backtracked, realizing that she'd entirely assumed that the note had been left for her in the first place. It was entirely possible with Kaden and Sophia's friendship with one another that he had been wanting to reach her attention and Ashe had simply stumbled upon it. He had been constantly making it clear that he wanted them to find Sophia, usually when Ashe thought that the two were focused on each other and her training.
"Know where he went," she finished, her mood having soured greatly from the thoughts. That had to be it, she realized. Barring the time that they had spent together while under the effects of what had to have been some really good X laced into their food by Dukes, anything beyond simple friendliness was likely to have been entirely read too far into by the heartseeking girl. "Sophia, are you his girlfriend?" she suddenly blurted.
The cleric took a step back, turning a faint rose shade in her cheeks. "What?" she asked, surprised at the question during a time when they were supposed to be attempting to kill each other. "No!" she exclaimed with false bravado. "No way! Of course not..." she trailed off, feeling very put on the spot.
"Then who is?"
Sophia looked from side to side, unsure how to answer the question. "Uh, um..." Ashe hadn't asked with any kind of dagger attached to her question, but Sophia nevertheless felt verbally assaulted by the questions.
"Nevermind," the girl sighed, turning around and kicking her bag in frustration before crossing her arms. "I'm just being stupid anyway. Besides, you don't have to worry about me," she called over her shoulder. "I don't fall for hot blond messanger boys."
Her words were a bit harsher than she'd planned them to be, but she didn't want to get into some kind of girl power struggle for a guy's attention. She wasn't the type that would steal the guys that her friends were into. She left that type of selfishness to Becca. Besides, she wasn't entirely friends with Sophia, but the woman seemed like a nice person after all. She was a priestess.
Thankfully, Ashe's mind completely overlooked Sophia's declaration of FOE when in Rose's game during the previous deadly game, betraying another friend without the heartlessness necessary to fulfill the deed herself.
"No, spiky red heads are more my type. The kind that are into computers or something. Maybe punk rockers. Not package delivery."
Sophia's mouth dropped. "Excuse me?"
Ashe turned around to face her, looking at the ground. "Nevermind," she repeated. "I'm not calling him a jerk or anything," she falsified. "I'm just saying he's not my type. He's a great guy, don't get me wrong. But you don't have to worry about me trying to take him from you," she conceded.
The priestess burned red while holding up both of her hands. "I'm not worried - I mean - We aren't..." she spilled, completely unsure how to proceed.
"JUST COME AND HIT ME ALREADY!" the girl suddenly screamed at Sophia, stunning her into silence. The emotional release that had left Ashe spilling out her concerns while also attempting to provoke the other girl into doing the deed hadn't seemed to work. She picked up her bag suddenly and threw it hard at Sophia's direction, watching as the woman sidestepped it easily while jerking her head back in surprise.
"I can't..."
The pink and blonde haired girl pulled out her wand suddenly, trembling as she pointed it directly at the priestess before her. "I said you can have him!" she argued with no one, her eyes getting moist. "There are plenty of nice guys out there and I don't want him anyway." She hadn't been able to argue when her friend Claire had once accused her of falling deeply for guy after guy too easily. Becca had never been good with secrets, so Ashe had never really talked to her about the things that had happened with her and the boyfriends that she'd been with, or even those she'd been with that weren't boyfriends yet, but healing emotional damage was definitely something she'd been searching for with every new guy. "But we have to fight! Sophia, you can have him," she cried out. "But just... please, let's get this finished."
The truth was... She was scared. She knew what had happened when her and Kaden had been forced to fight, and knowing that Damon had forced Kaden to beat her in such ways, bringing back painful memories of years past, had been a bit much. Anyone watching would likely have been completely unable to follow the events that were passing, but Ashe flowed through it like a mistress in the midst of an emotional breakdown. Was it more chemicals? Or was it simply events unfolding? She had no way of knowing.
Sophia stared at the wand, her own arm shaking as she held up a hand and attempted to calm Ashe. "I can't hurt-" she began.
"No!" Ashe yelled, shutting her eyes while cutting her words short with her volume. Her hand snapped forward again and the beam fired from it, quickly closing the distance between the pair of combatants but missing entirely, striking the building directly behind the whirling maiden, causing the wall behind her to explode and sending dirt and shards through the air to cover both of them. The student kept her eyes closed as she dropped her wand suddenly, shaking hard from the emotions coursing through her as she fell backwards, landing on her rear with her hands grasping behind her in support. She hadn't intended to actually fire her wand.
Had she?
Her eyes were still closed as a tear crept out between the closed lids when she felt a hand somberly touch her on the shoulder. A thought crossed her mind, bringing a sad smile to her lips as her eyes slowly opened, the dirty rocks thrown all around her in the road at her feet.
She hadn't hit Sophia.
After a moment, she moved her hand to put her wand up, but the priestess suddenly kicked it away before she could reach it. Ashe nodded, looking up at her before she sighed. "I can't do it, Soph. I'm sorry, but I can't fight you..."
What was she supposed to do about it? This wasn't some kind of fantasy spellworld video game that they were from. This was reality, and even if the two of them were not entirely familiar with each other, they definitely shared no ill will toward one another.
"At least this... reality that they are giving us," she began, voicing her thoughts out loud. "Its not actually real, is it?" she suddenly asked, looking straight back up at Sophia hopefully.
"I... I think it..." Sophia stammered, unsure of how to answer.
"I mean, you get what I'm saying, right?"
The priestess stared at her. "No, I think-" she tried, having absolutely no understanding of the teenager's reasoning.
Ashe sighed for a moment before slumping down to the ground, her face in her hands. "Yeah... Me neither," she admitted.
The two of them stared off past each other for a moment, unsure of what to do next, when Ashe suddenly began talking again. "Its just that when I fought this guy earlier and somehow eliminated him," she rambled, catching Sophia's attention. "He just kinda shimmered suddenly and disappeared. Like those old school video games where you'd shoot the monster with a laser beam from your sword and it would just poof away magically. Ya know?"
Silence.
"Ok, so video games aren't the best way to explain it to you. Gimme a second then," she prompted, holding up her hand while staring into the sky, her lips moving over each other, seeking some perfect phrase. "There's some saying that my teacher taught us the other day when we had to read Through the Looking Glass. It brought up the concept of reality and perception of reality - like that movie about that computer program that people were unknowingly in - and what defined reality.
'Some guy thought he was hilarious and brought up the argument that maybe we were all just strung out sea turtles at the bottom of the ocean tripping on acid and imagining all of this. Funny thing is that the teacher actually agreed with him," she rambled, laughing as she pushed her hands forward to make her point about how ridiculous it seemed. With an extravagent rolling of her eyes and another wild wave of her hands, she continued. "He countered the argument with some quick story about an old man asleep under a tree dreaming of a grasshopper sleeping on his chest. And then asked us," she paused, taking on her best weird teacher impression. "Or is it the grasshopper dreaming that he is sleeping on the old man's chest?"
This entire time, the priestess was lost in her own thoughts, tuning in randomly as Ashe continued spilling out these chaotic bits of knowledge that she'd gained over her short life. "Kaden, what should I do?" she suddenly asked herself, catching Ashe's attention.
"Kaden..."
Sophia looked up at Ashe, the two sharing a sudden look of confusion and concern.
Ashe took a breath and continued. "He... He didn't make it, did he?"
Five seconds passed without another breath being taken before the healer suddenly drew in oxygen to reply. "I... guess not," she considered. "I haven't heard from him since his last fight."
The student nodded slowly, looking at the ground. "Yeah. Me neither." It was likely boring the life out of Damon Dukes to watch these two quietly talk to each other during a Combat Day, but neither of them particularly cared. "That last guy that I fought - the one I somehow eliminated," she added, continuing to use that term instead of kill, unsure if it was simply a coping mechanism or an acknowledgment of his strange way of losing the fight in this game. "He attacked me while I was with Kaden. Kaden got trapped behind one of those blue laser wall things and then he disappeared."
She rose back to her feet before stretching her cramped legs, setting her bag down on the ground and leaning up against an all too familiar lamp post. Her eyes drifted over it, studying the markings that the elements had left upon it. When she'd last leaned against this particular light post, Kaden had been talking to her during her fight against him. Before Damon decided to interfere in their game. "I haven't seen him since. Nor any notes or anything from him," she added, suddenly blushing. "Not notes like crush notes or anything, just notes to let me, or well, someone," she backtracked, realizing that she'd entirely assumed that the note had been left for her in the first place. It was entirely possible with Kaden and Sophia's friendship with one another that he had been wanting to reach her attention and Ashe had simply stumbled upon it. He had been constantly making it clear that he wanted them to find Sophia, usually when Ashe thought that the two were focused on each other and her training.
"Know where he went," she finished, her mood having soured greatly from the thoughts. That had to be it, she realized. Barring the time that they had spent together while under the effects of what had to have been some really good X laced into their food by Dukes, anything beyond simple friendliness was likely to have been entirely read too far into by the heartseeking girl. "Sophia, are you his girlfriend?" she suddenly blurted.
The cleric took a step back, turning a faint rose shade in her cheeks. "What?" she asked, surprised at the question during a time when they were supposed to be attempting to kill each other. "No!" she exclaimed with false bravado. "No way! Of course not..." she trailed off, feeling very put on the spot.
"Then who is?"
Sophia looked from side to side, unsure how to answer the question. "Uh, um..." Ashe hadn't asked with any kind of dagger attached to her question, but Sophia nevertheless felt verbally assaulted by the questions.
"Nevermind," the girl sighed, turning around and kicking her bag in frustration before crossing her arms. "I'm just being stupid anyway. Besides, you don't have to worry about me," she called over her shoulder. "I don't fall for hot blond messanger boys."
Her words were a bit harsher than she'd planned them to be, but she didn't want to get into some kind of girl power struggle for a guy's attention. She wasn't the type that would steal the guys that her friends were into. She left that type of selfishness to Becca. Besides, she wasn't entirely friends with Sophia, but the woman seemed like a nice person after all. She was a priestess.
Thankfully, Ashe's mind completely overlooked Sophia's declaration of FOE when in Rose's game during the previous deadly game, betraying another friend without the heartlessness necessary to fulfill the deed herself.
"No, spiky red heads are more my type. The kind that are into computers or something. Maybe punk rockers. Not package delivery."
Sophia's mouth dropped. "Excuse me?"
Ashe turned around to face her, looking at the ground. "Nevermind," she repeated. "I'm not calling him a jerk or anything," she falsified. "I'm just saying he's not my type. He's a great guy, don't get me wrong. But you don't have to worry about me trying to take him from you," she conceded.
The priestess burned red while holding up both of her hands. "I'm not worried - I mean - We aren't..." she spilled, completely unsure how to proceed.
"JUST COME AND HIT ME ALREADY!" the girl suddenly screamed at Sophia, stunning her into silence. The emotional release that had left Ashe spilling out her concerns while also attempting to provoke the other girl into doing the deed hadn't seemed to work. She picked up her bag suddenly and threw it hard at Sophia's direction, watching as the woman sidestepped it easily while jerking her head back in surprise.
"I can't..."
The pink and blonde haired girl pulled out her wand suddenly, trembling as she pointed it directly at the priestess before her. "I said you can have him!" she argued with no one, her eyes getting moist. "There are plenty of nice guys out there and I don't want him anyway." She hadn't been able to argue when her friend Claire had once accused her of falling deeply for guy after guy too easily. Becca had never been good with secrets, so Ashe had never really talked to her about the things that had happened with her and the boyfriends that she'd been with, or even those she'd been with that weren't boyfriends yet, but healing emotional damage was definitely something she'd been searching for with every new guy. "But we have to fight! Sophia, you can have him," she cried out. "But just... please, let's get this finished."
The truth was... She was scared. She knew what had happened when her and Kaden had been forced to fight, and knowing that Damon had forced Kaden to beat her in such ways, bringing back painful memories of years past, had been a bit much. Anyone watching would likely have been completely unable to follow the events that were passing, but Ashe flowed through it like a mistress in the midst of an emotional breakdown. Was it more chemicals? Or was it simply events unfolding? She had no way of knowing.
Sophia stared at the wand, her own arm shaking as she held up a hand and attempted to calm Ashe. "I can't hurt-" she began.
"No!" Ashe yelled, shutting her eyes while cutting her words short with her volume. Her hand snapped forward again and the beam fired from it, quickly closing the distance between the pair of combatants but missing entirely, striking the building directly behind the whirling maiden, causing the wall behind her to explode and sending dirt and shards through the air to cover both of them. The student kept her eyes closed as she dropped her wand suddenly, shaking hard from the emotions coursing through her as she fell backwards, landing on her rear with her hands grasping behind her in support. She hadn't intended to actually fire her wand.
Had she?
Her eyes were still closed as a tear crept out between the closed lids when she felt a hand somberly touch her on the shoulder. A thought crossed her mind, bringing a sad smile to her lips as her eyes slowly opened, the dirty rocks thrown all around her in the road at her feet.
She hadn't hit Sophia.
After a moment, she moved her hand to put her wand up, but the priestess suddenly kicked it away before she could reach it. Ashe nodded, looking up at her before she sighed. "I can't do it, Soph. I'm sorry, but I can't fight you..."
![[Image: Ashe.jpg]](http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/symbiosychotic/Ashe.jpg)