witchesreign | Garden Festival day three

Maria.

[He's very very serious about this.]

Sephiroth does that without magic. He was genetically engineered and raised to be the perfect tool of war. He is.

I may be a crazy Turk who's not afraid of dying from torture but I was never stupid enough to get on Sephiroth's bad side if I could help it.

If he was really trying to end the whole world, I think you were on it one way or the other. Maybe not in a personal sense... although I guess you managed to get there too, if he nearly killed you personally.

[She shakes her head.]

But it doesn't matter. You don't pick the fights you can win. You pick the fights that need to be fought. If you didn't have to fight him before, sure, it would be stupid to do it... but as soon as that changes, then you have to.

I had something he needed. He took it.

[He sighed.]

I've never picked the fight I was involved it, it was handed to me on a sheet of paper for he most part.

[Go ahead, ask him what his job was.]

[Tseng's telling that to a SeeD. She knows what that's like. But...]

Well, Aerith's going to pick this one, fully aware of what's going to have...

[Hello, time travel tense trouble. She shuts her mouth, frustrated by ruining her own point.]

It hasn't happened to her yet, so are you really going to let something that hasn't happened rule your actions?

[He's also said that being a SeeD is like retirement.]

It happened for me, that doesn't make it as if it's never happened. That's like saying that because I've never seen a Sorceress, they don't exist.

Besides, she had a boyfriend and I'm rather... the opposite of him.

What does that have to do with anything? No one's saying you two should elope, or something. [Maria, you hypocritical liar.] But you and her are both acting like she's dead already and just waiting to stop breathing. In general.

[THAT, more than any ~~shameless shipping~~ other concerns, is truly what bothers her the most about all this.]

Maybe that's what happened in your past, but time compression doesn't play nicely with causality.

I'm not acting any differently that I did back home. I'd rather see her happy with someone else than just settling with me because it's the easiest option.

[He's the Turk in the shadows making sure she doesn't get harassed by ruffians, not the dashing SOLDIER who sweeps her off her feet and builds her flower carts.]

[She sits bolt upright, then stands as almost part of the same motion to come around and stand directly in front of him. Her (massive) arms folded across her chest, she faces him with what isn't exactly a glare, but certainly is a hard look.]

You brought it back to this, but I'm going to tell you something as a general rule. You don't make decisions for anyone about what is 'settling' and what is 'happy'. That's not up to you to choose for anyone. If you care about what she wants, then you care about what she wants, not what you think she wants, not what she should want according to you. Whatever that actually is, you respect it and don't try to make it what you think it ought to be.

[Someone had been told more than once what she ought to want -- not romantically, but in life in general.]

[Tseng rises as well, something in his head flipping like a switch as his demeanor shifted over to Turk mode. It's a subtle but somewhat obvious shift from peaceable to 'this man's more than capable and willing to torture someone within an inch of their life before going for cocktails in high society right after washing up'. There's ice in his tone, more than he's turned on anyone in Garden to date.]

If she chooses to pursue a relationship with me that is her choice. I, however, am not going to encourage it. I care about keeping her safe, and I am far from that. I would have no qualms with killing every person in Garden no matter how young or how I feel about them.

I've done it before.

[She straightens her back a little. Maria doesn't really know the meaning of the word 'intimidated' -- the only thing that's ever really scared her to date is a T-Rexaur, and those days are past. Of course, this isn't necessarily a sensible trait.]

Safety based on your protection is an illusion, sir.

[Oddly, she has a weird hang-up about using his name -- it would put them on too much of the same level on her mind. As much as she isn't intimidated, she's well aware he has a lot more experience of all sorts than she does.]

All it takes is you ending up dead on a mission for all that fake, constructed safety to vanish, and every threat to her has a free shot at her. And given what you've told me, that's exactly what did happen if she ended up dead because you were almost dead.

Meanwhile, whatever your world was like, she's a SeeD now, not exactly a pushover! If she's got a problem, then her safety is a lot more certain if her friends and people who care about her rally around her to help, instead of one man going off and doing his own thing. As capable as you are, and I'm not disputing that you are, a team with a shared goal and purpose is safer and more effective than you alone.

[Tseng really wants nothing more than to grab her by the larynx but he's mostly promised not to hurt his fellow residents of Balamb Garden. It's about the only thing stopping him really.]

She's never been a pushover, if you think that you're a moron. Midgar isn't kind to pretty girls.

[His laugh his hollow, short and almost forced.]

She didn't die because I wasn't there, she died because those around her couldn't 'rally around her to help' fast enough. She wasn't wandering the planet alone and I was a bit busy keeping my own head on my shoulders to go skipping off with them on their jolly little adventure.

You're also an idiot to assume I'd stop people from wanting to defend her. I'm not going to lock her in an underground bunker or shoot her in to space for safety's sake.

Safety is always an illusion, I thought people here were intelligent enough to realize that but I was wrong.

Now if you'll excuse me I am going to leave this conversation before something regretable happens and you find yourself having difficulty breathing. Good. Day.

[And he's definitely moving to walk away now.]

At least you're not putting me on a pedestal, so I'm grateful for that.

[She makes that as neutral as she can, though she's still disgusted by what she sees as his false equivalence. Not disgusted with HIM, so much... whatever he's been through has shaped his opinions, after all. That doesn't make them less wrong though, just more understandable!]

[Beyond that comment, though, she seems uninclined to continue further, though.]

Garden Festival day three

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