tushanshu_logs | [OPEN] You tell me of our future that you planned...

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[OPEN] You tell me of our future that you planned...

Characters: Bakura & OPEN
Date: February catch-all log
Location: Various around Khatronma for the first half of the month, then Keeliai and outside the city.
Situation: Assorted run ins. Open starters in the log, closed starters in the comments. Or add your own!
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings if needed in subject headers.

A. KHATRONMA DOCKS, LANDFALL, EVIDET
He's spent almost the entire visit to the continent in Khatronma, having not realized he was desperate to get away from Keeliai for a while until he was actually way from it. Once he was, the air seemed less heavy around him, and he began taking interest in the things he saw. The massive shipyards were fascinating, and the temperature controlled dome let him spend hours walking up and down the berths to examine them.

At the moment, he's stopped his wandering in favour of sitting on the edge of a personal boat shed, the door propped open and an older Bresilykian man inside, working on the overturned hull of a sailboat, or something like it. The Evidet native is keeping up a steady chatter of conversation, and seems to be mid-story about a sailing race that his parents met during.

For the sentimental content, Bakura doesn't even look like he minds. He's even listening, at least well enough to interject with observations and questions during pauses, but he's not carrying the prickly aura he normally projects.

B. WATER SECTOR, KEELIAI
back in Keeliai however, the weather was still bitterly cold. Unfortunately, he still had to go out in order to buy food and necessities, and the hassle of walking all over to find kedan who were willing to sell to Foreigners without ripping them off left him distinctly frozen. He would have been glad to return back to his accommodations had he not been stopped on the street by a crowd of kedan partly blocking the street that ran alongside the canal. They were pulling on skates and venturing out tentatively onto the frozen waterway, and one of them offers a pair of rudimentary skates to the thief.

"No," Bakura said, shaking his head. "Not interested. I don't know how, anyway."

C. JADE SCHOOL OF KUNG FU DOJO, WOOD SECTOR, KEELIAI
Bakura hadn't been here in almost a year (almost two years, if one counted the year that had passed in the Dreaming, and while he was away) and he'd only stopped because he'd been passing by while on his way to something else. But the something else wasn't pressing, and the dojo looked once again abandoned, and so he'd let himself past the low gate and onto the property. He wasn't sure what he expected to happen -- no angry elements came crashing down on his head -- and he touched the clean metal lock on the door.

Ryou must have put that on there. He knew that the dojo had been deeded to the teen when Korra had left the turtle. Now, with Ryou gone as well, it seemed as though it would slip back into disuse.

The lock takes only a moment to pick, and he leaves the door open to step inside. It's immediately obvious that efforts were already made to clean it, but that they hadn't gone very far. Bakura takes a quick tour around the building, making mental notes about what he finds, until he ends up back outside of the dojo's front entrance, staring up at the building with a contemplative frown.

"Hmm..."

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For something Solomon had hoped would help work out his thoughts, this was rather spectacularly not helping. "Do you intend to have some advice in there somewhere, or do you only wish to criticise what I might or might not have done?" he asked irritably. "Yes, I left, because it was obvious I had interrupted and Raine hasn't seen him in rather a long time. As I happened to enter with some tea and cakes, I rather imagine I gave the impression that I did have every right to be there, given it was our room they were in."

Really, it seemed like Bakura was accusing him of two opposing actions at once--either inserting himself unduly in the conversation or departing it to give them space. He could only have done one, and apparently both were equally shameful.

Bakura stared hard at Solomon for a moment, wondering if the man really was that dense. Of course it wasn't that Solomon had left the room -- that was the right call. It was the impression he'd likely left by the way he'd done it.

"Advice," he repeated skeptically. "On how to break your habit of thinking that you're the most important person to Raine? Did it ever cross your mind to ask the boy if he wanted you to leave? Did you even ask her? Or just sweep out the door imperiously, as you're prone to doing."

"On how to break my habit of--" Solomon frowned. "What are you talking about?" The comment about advice had been facetious. Most of all, he wanted some peace and quite to know his own mind, and apparently even that was too much to ask.

"He was about to leave himself," Solomon said irritably. "Since it was my arrival which caused the impulse, it seemed prudent to remove myself." But he felt a moment of doubt. If Genis had left anyway, that meant Raine would be alone regardless. Still--it was his presence that had made Genis want to go. Surely Solomon's absence would have removed the problem?

"So you made the decision for him, based on your assumption. How well has that habit worked out for you lately?" It was petty, but Bakura had to point out the parallel, albeit in his own way.

But then he resumed working on his task at hand, unwilling or unable to sustain his ire for long. "You can only get so far in helping people when you do it because you're convinced you're in the right. You're never going to be first in line with Raine whether her brother is here or not. Someone needed to tell you that, because I don't think it's ever occurred to you."

The jab was, arguably, deserved, but since Solomon had no intention of getting into that fight when he was already wrong-footed, he didn't answer it. Besides, Bakura's following words were far more important, and for a few moments Solomon stood there frowning and trying to figure out exactly what the point of telling him that was. It hadn't sounded like it was said out of bitterness, but then why say it?

Solomon felt another twinge of doubt, and this time he didn't know where it had sprung from.

"What are you saying?" he demanded at last. "That there's no point to a pursuit? I've never said Raine ought to prioritise me over anyone else. If anything I've told her the opposite." He'd made it clear that his death might be necessary to safeguard others, and she was the one who insisted on staying with him when it would have been safer otherwise.

"But you expect it," Bakura pointed out. "You don't realize you're doing it, so likely as anything, she'd never hold it against you, but you are expecting the same level of dedication as you're putting into that relationship. She is your wi'iyat," he said, and the word was another that had no precise translation to English; a primary, or first, of importance.

"And you're not hers. It's driving you crazy, and you don't even recognize why."

Solomon's impulse to be defensive was effectively nulled by Bakura's bluntness and the lack of sardonic vitriol Solomon had been expecting given Bakura's previous jab. He opened his mouth to answer and then found he didn't have one.

Was it true? If it was, then was there a point to the relationship? Solomon wasn't accustomed to this sort of relationship; he'd promised Raine he'd try. But wasn't it the sort of relationship that was meant to be equal, and if it wasn't, why continue it?

Wordlessly Solomon turned to walk back to the place he'd chosen as his starting point, and began the set again. He was badly off-kilter, but at least something with boundaries he could define, something on which he knew how to improve, was a better use of his time than the sudden doubt and confusion Bakura's words had left.

Bakura let him go through the whole pace, even as poorly done as it was, before he spoke again. Solomon hadn't reacted with surprise -- defensive, yes, even if it went unspoken -- but not surprise. That told the thief that he wasn't dismissing it outright, and that was a good start.

"Say what's on your mind, waheh-maw. You won't make sense of the problem by just letting it rattle around your skull."

It took one more round, markedly better than the first, before Solomon stopped and turned. He realised the irony of talking about relationship troubles with a man who had been dead and enspirited for the last three thousand years, but Bakura had asked and it may just be quicker than letting it rattle.

"If what you say is true and I can't expect the same amount of dedication, then what's the point of the relationship at all?" he demanded.

"That depends, waheh-maw," Bakura said bluntly. "How long are you going to keep considering yourself better than what Raine is already giving to you? Because as I see it, given what you've done, she's already gone above and beyond what should be reasonable. You don't believe the allowances she gives dealing with you, with what you can do, entitle her to one of her own? Wake up."

When Bakura put it like that, it made Solomon feel like the worst cad in the world. Then he had to wonder why; wasn't it a feature of a proper relationship to be equal? It was true Solomon had done things--but it was also true that he didn't want to become some fool like Skulduggery, crippled by guilt and self-doubt. Skulduggery had made terrible mistakes precisely because he didn't believe he was capable of being better than he had been, and accepted whatever dregs he allowed himself.

If Solomon did the same thing, how was he any better than someone who'd lash out with violence at the drop of a hat? How could he divorce his life from the Temple and all its teaching unless he did consider his worth more than that?

Which, come to think of it, was precisely Bakura's problem. He didn't expect or even want anything more than agony, as long as his goals were achieved. Where was the self-worth in a man who didn't think his own being was good enough to save on its own merit, if only for the sake of others? What kind of life was that?

You murdered her, you fool. At this point her accepting you in her life is more than you have the right to expect. Why else would you tell her to let you go?

... Which was also true, and entirely unhelpful, and left Solomon at no better understanding than he had been before. For a very long moment Solomon stared at Bakura, and his expression was an odd mix of contemplation and regard, as if he was seeing things for the first time.

"You may be right," he said finally, because he wasn't sure how to articulate the rest of his thoughts without stepping into territory they weren't ready to rehash. He'd done a terrible job of it last time. Solomon turned to walk back to his spot. If Bakura was right, then all Solomon had left to do was exorcise the emotions currently making him unfair, and for that he needed to not think about them for a while. This time, his round was intent and vigorous, rusty but closer to the mark than before.

"I may be," Bakura answered, and despite that the words could have sounded any mixture of smug, arrogant and mocking, they were none of the above. They were as contemplative as Solomon's own. "But maybe that'll serve you better than it does for me."

Solomon's observations on the thief weren't off them mark, either. But Bakura was used to looking at the world through the lens of putting something -- someone, someones -- in primary focus, and that changed the way one did things. Not usually to the extents that Bakura went to, of course, but his situation was unique. It still gave him the context for accepting that some things would always come first, above his own needs. It was, in a way, rather a shame that Solomon was an only child; this would surely have been an easier concept for him to grasp if he still had living relatives.

"Let me know when you get the revelation that this isn't because you've done something wrong," the thief said idly, returning to his repair work. "And I'll spar with you a little. If you tried it now, you'd end up slicing your own ear off."

"It may be an improvement," Solomon muttered self-deprecatingly, slightly breathless from the force of his run-through. He didn't begin immediately, however, only tested the weight of the foil. If it wasn't something he'd done wrong, then why did he have to settle for less?

"This is too light," he said absently, turning the foil in his hand. "Foils like these are for sport and competition, or emergencies, not any true battle. Something sturdier, like rapier, would be more useful to train with for anyone seeking to defend themselves." Did Bakura know that? Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't.

Even Bakura's broad scope of sharp, dangerous and pointy things didn't cover the technical differences between all different types of swords and their uses, so he only shrugged at Solomon's observation about the foil.

"As if you'd want to go into a battle with that little thing anyway," he answered. "You're better off using a knife. The added distance on a strike you'd gain hardly makes up for the fact that your opponent could snap it like a toothpick if they knew what they were doing. But go and get a different one, if that's what you prefer. I'm charging by the hour, not the equipment."

"I would, but you have no rapiers or anything more applicable there," Solomon replied, whipping the foil until it rang. "Foils for play; it's a toy, not a sword." He sighed. "There are times I miss swordsmanship and I don't even like them." He'd always depended on his magic. Not so much that he couldn't use a sword if he had to--but that didn't mean he liked them. He didn't like guns either.

Still, working doggedly through the run made it clear either the discussion or the repetition was sinking in and re-igniting some old muscle memory. (The comment about charging went unargued. Fair was fair.)

Bakura went back to his task at hand while Solomon continued to practice, apparently content to let that be the bottom line of the so-called advice session. There was both value and familiarity in doing something like what the necromancer was, and Bakura himself often fell back on things like practice when he needed to clear his mind.

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[OPEN] You tell me of our future that you planned...

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