[Flashback] Daddy Problems (Ronin)

[Raiyari]

Daddy Problems Spring 38, 509 AV Raiyari sat at one of the benches in the Courtyard of the Sky, lost in her thoughts. Two steel fragments lay on her lap: the two halves of her katana. In the fight yesterday, she'd not noticed where her sword had flown to, when it had been knocked out of her hands. She'd simply assumed that, since it was lying on the grass, it had ended its brief flight there, instead of bouncing off the boulder right beside it, and then landing. The young woman had simply been far too occupied with the events at hand, and hadn't thoroughly inspect the blade at the time. However, that night, at her rented room in the Darniva Commonrooms, she had gone through her regular routine of cleaning her weapon. She noticed the crack that ran through it, and after further inspection, that the sword was only attached by a thin bit of the steel. She'd slid it back into her sheathe, and that was when it had snapped completely. Rai wasn't much of a material person. Things could be fixed, clothes: mended, wounds: bandaged. It was simply that way, all things were bound to break, even humans. But her sword, the katana that had belonged to her mother, the flat edge that she had been beaten with, the blade that had seen her through so many years of hurt and grief: was broken. Her back rod-straight, she simply sat stock still, looking at the blade, utterly absorbed in memories. She relived past events behind her eyelids, both happy and sad. Her mother entrusted her with that blade, and now she had let her down. Rai's eyes narrowed as she glared down at the snapped steel, gazing on the shimmering metal that once had been a splendid blade, now just scraps of memories. Completely lost in her thoughts, Rai wouldn't have paid any attention to passerby. She already looked odd, considering that outsiders numbered very few in this city. Her tattered robes and arm in a sling did not help at all. But she was used to this by now, she'd completely blocked out the inquisitive glances of this red-haired race, who lacked the subtley to even try and pretend that they weren't curious about what this bedraggled girl was. Unless someone directly spoke to her, or even felt brave enough to tap her on the shoulder, Rai wouldn't look up from the sword.

[Ronin]

It had not been hard for Ronin to ascertain the whereabouts of Raiyari. With so few visitors in Wind Reach he simply had to ask around about the foreign girl with the sling. Getting to her, on the other hand, was going to be difficult. Ronin was still not used to the crutches the doctor had given him. He had spent the first day on them doing very little but falling over. His leg had been well-bandaged and he had been given a salve that relieved the pain. Ronin used the crutches to hobble his way to the Courtyard of the Sky and scanned the area with his brightly shining blue eyes. When he spotted Raiyari he slowly made his way over toward her. He could tell she was absorbed in her thoughts.

Ronin could see something was bothering her. It was not in her demeanor or her facial expression, it was something deeper. Perhaps it was the bond that is often formed between those who fight side by side, or maybe it was just a gut feeling. Either way, Ronin decided that it would be his duty to get to the bottom of whatever was on her mind. As he limped toward her he expected she would notice him. When she didn't Ronin became even more convince of his assumption that something was up. He sat beside her on the bench, silent for a second, before speaking.

"Something you want to talk about?"

That was all he said. He just sat there with his eyes resting on her face. He had not noticed the broken sword before he sat down. Sentiment for weaponry was something he knew much about, and he wondered if perhaps that was what had consumed her thoughts. He rested his crutches on the side of the bench and waited for her response.

[Raiyari]

"Please, I don't wish to-" Raiyari started in very poorly pronounced Nari, but stopped when she realized that she recognized the person's voice. "Oh, Good Morning Ronin. I'm sorry, I didn't know that it was you. How is your leg doing?" The Acolyte surprised herself by blushing fiercely. She hadn't expected to see him again, but as coincidences went, this didn't seem to be a bad one. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so distracted, but the fact that she hadn't even recognized the voice of the Inarta from yesterday? It was absolutely mortifying. "I- I don't think-" Again she surprised herself, with the realization that she hadn't felt this sudden impulse to bow, to show him respect. To show that she was perfectly fine, thank you very much, and would deal with her own problems herself. That was how she dealt with anyone. Bow, greet, and leave. No emotions, nothing given away. But with Ronin, with the man she'd half dragged up the mountain, there was more of an easy familiarity to the way he spoke with her. It had been to long since anyone had treated her that way. But by no means had he gotten past her defenses, years of emotional buildup was still in place, making sure that no one could get too close. Deep down, she wished for the loneliness to end, for some sort of companionship, but she was too defensive, too quick to strike out and distance herself. "It seems silly, but for years, this blade has been my only companion. Since I... how do you say this in Common... Graduated from using a wooden training sword, I've worn this katana at my side. It's seen me through some tough times, and it simply snapped yesterday." She sighed, not knowing completely why she was telling Ronin these things, not understanding the faint sense of camaraderie that accompanied fighting alongside someone, fully expecting to die in the process. "I was right... It does seem silly."

[Ronin]

Ronin had to try hard not to chuckle at her Nari. Although she had used the right words, her accent was extremely thick. Ronin nodded slightly at her greeting.

"Good morning to you as well. My leg is doing better, thanks to you."

Ronin was still very grateful, and he hoped that some day he would be able to repay her. He pushed his hair back with his hand, as he listened to her speak. Ronin was not familiar with Raiyari's culture so he did not notice the lack of her bowing. Still, her pause gave indication that something had caught her off guard. He listened intently to her talk about her sword.

"I don't think it seems silly. My bow means a lot to me, and I would be quite upset if I lost it."

Ronin thought back to Maisa and how much that bow meant to him as a reminder of her. It had been almost a year since Maisa and Ronin had been in a situation much like the one Raiyari and him had just encountered. But on that ill-fated day, things had gone horribly wrong. Ronin had the urge to blurt that out and tell Raiyari about it all, but he was not ready yet. He did not know what she would think about what he did, or about the fact that it still haunted him.

"If you would like, I know some excellent blacksmiths. Perhaps they could fix it."

Ronin did not know it the sword was repairable, but he wanted to console her in some way. Despite only knowing her for a day, he cared about this girl. She was so different from anyone he had ever met, she had an air of knowing about her. Like no matter what he told her, she had already expected or anticipated it.

"Is there a story behind your sword? I mean, did you get it as a gift, did it belong to someone important to you, something like that?"

[Raiyari]

The girl shook her head absently when he spoke of re-forging the sword. No, there was no time. She couldn't linger here for too long, this was no vacation. Besides, would the Inarta even know how to forge a katana? To her limited understanding, different weapons required different techniques. "Thank you Ronin, while I do not doubt the skill of your smiths, there is no time to wait for it to be fixed. I can only stay for a short while." But she didn't want to talk about her Awakening, not with Ronin. Rai still deeply distrusted people, and she was afraid that he might think she was using him, as an Inarta, to get the item she required. Raiyari was afraid that he would think of her as dishonorable, that she helped him back to his home simply so that he could aid her in taking what she had been sent for. Rai averted her eyes at the question. How odd it was, to have someone asking her questions like this. Not about simple things, like how had she fared during kenjutsu practice, or when the evening meal was going to start. Questions about her past? Frankly, the fact that he even thought to ask that, and how he seemed attentive, genuinely caring about the answer, scared her. How could someone she'd barely even met, have done this? Rai blamed it on the Inarta's general lack of subtlety, but she wondered if perhaps she was wrong. There was something about this man, who was different in every way than a Lhavitian, that seemed to both soothe and fan the flames of her fears. "It was my mother's. She gave it to be shortly before she died. My father used to beat me with the flat of it, before I grew old enough to defend myself and take it back. I've wielded it ever since," the Acolyte answered tersely, seeing no point in dragging the conversation out, not with Ronin. "And your bow? There is a story behind that, no?" Rai asked curiously, looking up for a moment from her sword. His voice when he had mentioned his weapon, seemed to be holding back some sort of pain, some sadness that he had suppressed. She could understand this. Rai met his intense dark blue gaze with her own pitch black orbs, almost comfortingly. The girl cared, she wanted to make sure that Ronin wasn't hurt, least of all by her. Which meant putting more walls in place between them... But she didn't want to distance herself. Confused and conflicted, Rai looked back down, gazing at the broken sword as if there was something amazingly interesting about the broken steel.

[Ronin]

A look of disappointment clouded Ronin's face for a moment when Raiyari said she would not be staying long. He had hoped to get to know her better, but now it seemed that her mind was already set on leaving soon. Ronin did not understand all the work that went into forging different types of swords and didn't understand the difficulty in repairing one that you were unfamiliar with. Since the vast majority of swords in Wind Reach were Talon swords, she was most likely correct in assuming that none of the blacksmiths here would know what they were doing when it came to Katanas.

Ronin realized that she had never actually told him why she was here. Perhaps she was doing something shady or illegal, and that was why she couldn't stay. Ronin could hardly picture the girl in front of him doing something anything less than honest. She was a talented warrior, but Ronin had a hard time seeing her as an assassin or a thief. He saw her as someone far to honorable to go sneaking around in the shadows. He decided that, if she had not already told him something so simple as why she was in Wind Reach, it probably wasn't a simple matter at all and something she didn't want to talk about. He pushed the question from his mind as he continued to listen to her and her story about her sword.

The revelation that Raiyari's father had beat her stuck a chord with Ronin. Although his father had never hit him, Ronin knew what it was like to grow up resenting your father. Ronin's had refused to raise him after his mother died, leaving Ronin an orphan stripped of the privileges of his family. Ronin blamed most of the bad things that had happened in his life on his father, since that one act had forever altered the course of his life.

"I am truly sorry to hear what your father did. I know what it is like to resent your father as a child."

Ronin assumed that Raiyari hated her father, but perhaps this assumption was incorrect, he knew little of her culture or how families conducted themselves where she was from. Regardless, Ronin figured that no race was so different that something like that could be common place among them.

With her question Ronin's face changed drastically. His countenance reflected every bit of the buried sorrow he felt. He paused for a long moment before he was able to respond. In this moment his eye looked anywhere but her, for he did not want them to give away what was in his mind.

"It belonged to a friend of mine." After another pause, shorter this time, he continued. "Perhaps she was more than that, I don't know." He seemed like any other teenager, confused about life, love, and even his own feelings. "I cared very deeply for her, more so than I have for anyone else. We grew up together, and we would always go out into the woods together. One time, he simply out there for the fun of it. We had our bows but he weren't really hunting anything, just enjoying each other's company. Perhaps if we had been hunting we would have been more alert and now let them sneak up on us." This last line he said sort of absently like it was a regret he had often though about. "We were ambushed by a small group of Yukmen, much like we were yesterday, but we didn't see them coming. They were on top of her before I could do anything, tearing away at her. There were four of them, and there was nothing I could do. Or at least I thought so at the time. So I ran. I would have died if I had stayed. I am as certain of that now as I was in the moment it happened, but maybe dying for someone you love is far better than living knowing you didn't."

This was the first time her had ever admitted that his feelings for Maisa were to the extent of love. Ronin felt exhausted from saying that, thought it had only taken him a couple minutes. It was a burden he had carried for a long time, and now he had shared it with this girl he only barely knew. He felt relieved but also ashamed. Raiyari had not asked for him to gush out his deepest secret, and Ronin felt guilty for forcing it upon her. Especially after she had been so short in telling him about her sword, ever though he sensed there was much pain involved in that story for her as well.

It had taken everything Ronin had in him to keep from crying, something he refused to do in front of anyone. He looked up at her face, for the first time since he had started his story, to try to somehow gage her reaction. He did not know if she would be sympathetic or repulsed, understanding or alienated. He desperately hoped he had not made her too uncomfortable.

[Raiyari]

Rai looked back up in shock. Had he really just said those things? This was more than confusing, it was simply frightening that Ronin had just told a complete stranger his secret, and hadn't even tried to hide his emotions, judging from open sorrow on his face. That one would say that, and not feel a need to keep their emotions in check, to show that they didn't need them? It was a concept that Raiyari was altogether unfamiliar with. But coming from this man, who had stood his ground to fight the Yukmen, with or without her, it did not denote weakness. That challenged what Rai had been doing for most of her young life, hiding behind barriers and walls. The Acolyte's brow creased in worry, and she gingerly placed a comforting hand on the Inarta's shoulder. She was already doing odd things, so why not just continue? This was a situation she'd never imagined herself in, and had never wanted to be in. But there was no going back from this moment, she could only decide what to do now that she was here. Obviously her morals weren't about to help Ronin in this case. Dying for what she believed in, her people and her Goddess, was a perfectly honorable and good way to die, at least in Raiyari's opinion. But she couldn't say that, it would only add to Ronin's regrets and sorrow. But she could understand the feeling of being helpless to save a loved one. Perhaps she could say something about that? Rai remembered something her Sponsor, Dian Haru, had said to her before she set out on her Awakening. Using those precious words, she crafted her response. "In this life, we can only face forwards and continue our journey. We cannot look back to our memories, and not to either side to try and follow someone else's path. You are a good man, Ronin. Don't let your past haunt you, your friend could not take you with her. Live for the moment, for the sunshine, for a ripe strawberry. You're not living, Ronin. Not truly. Not until you realize that we only have a few brief moments on this world, and to appreciate them."

[Ronin]

Ronin worried that he had made her uncomfortable. He had no idea what she considered normal or what seemingly innocent thing he might do and accidentally offend her. It was not uncommon for Inarta to be very openly emotional. They tended to wear their heart on their sleeve, but this was something Ronin had refrained from telling anyone until now. Why now? He had no idea. He felt comfortable around this girl in a way he had not it a long time; Not since Maisa. He thought maybe that was the reason he felt compelled to tell Raiyari, because she reminded him of Maisa. No matter what the reason was, he had told her, and now he had to figure out where to go from there.

He realized her hand was on his shoulder and this comforted him. It made it seem like she understood, or at least accepted him still. Even more the the touch, her words spoke to him in a unique way. Letting go was not something Ronin was prepared to do, not by a long shot, but this was a start. He had taken the first step toward returning to normal, a place he had not visited in a very long time. Any sanity he had from that point on he could attribute in a large way to her. She had been there for him, battling both the Yukman and his past. This battle wasn't over, but Raiyari had just dealt a crushing blow to Ronin's adversary.

"You are truly wise, Raiyari. I can only hope that I may some day be like you."

Although he was well versed in Common, Ronin still thought in Nari. And to convey this level of gratitude he knew not the Common words. So this time he spoke in Nari. She had spoke some before, but Ronin didn't know if she would understand him or not.

"I am forever in your dept Raiyari. It is my deepest desire, though I would be unworthy, to call you friend."

His looked deep into her eyes as he spoke these words. He hoped, if his words fail to convey his meaning, then perhaps his face would succeed. He still had questions about her though. He did not think anyone could achieve her level of wisdom and maturity without some scars. She had draw out his, so he would now try to do the same.

"Tell me, one does become a mighty warrior without scars, whether their battle is physical or mental, so where are yours? What is it that you fight for? what is it you run from?"

Ronin had returned to speaking in Common for this. He asked out of genuine curiosity, but also for a chance to help her as she had helped him. Maybe if she bore her soul, even a little bit, she could feel the relief he now felt.



OOC: Sorry for how long it took me, I had a lot of trouble with this one for some reason.

[Raiyari]

OOC: Don't worry 'bout it! His words, kind though they were, caused the olive-skinned Lhavitian to sigh. He didn't know her, for all that this sense of camaraderie might have fooled them both into thinking. Ronin knew nothing about her, and it didn't bring Rai any pride to hear him say that he wanted to be like her. If anything, she hoped to learn more about these Inarta, who seemed to have no problem with being strong, and still displaying their emotions. But she was too young, too proud to want to give up her ideals. The ways of this red haired race just seemed too unrealistic for her. "No, Ronin. You shouldn't," She whispered, taking her hand from his shoulder. She hoped that he would not ever have to feel a need to hide all his weaknesses, to only display strength. To pretend at being a true warrior. To force any and all true emotions down, hidden behind a porcelain mask. She utilized that mask now, the only thing she could do to keep herself together. It was truly an odd experience for someone, who in comparison to her, practically wore his emotions on his sleeve, compliment her. Perhaps it might have challenged what she believed in, but Rai dismissed such thoughts. She dug herself deeper within the recesses of her mind, locking her emotions behind those pale alabaster walls. Her face remained blank as he spoke. Her Nari was terrible at best, and the only words she recognized were her own name, 'I', and the word 'friend'. She met his gaze unabashedly, not knowing what it was that he spoke of. His expression was of sadness and hope, one that she had difficulty deciphering. Her blank expression softened the slightest bit as Rai gave him a dry smile. Scars? Oh, she had plenty of those, both physical and mental. She knew she could trust him, after all, he'd just told her something very important to him. But trust wasn't factoring into the question anymore. It was whether she was able to tell someone else about her problems. Things that she'd never told a soul, though her peers had seen her return from brief family visits, bruised and limping. She'd never admit it to them, out of pride. But could she admit it to Ronin? The Acolyte pulled her bandaged hand up, holding it by the wrist, hanging in front of her chest. The Inarta would be able to clearly see that her hand possessed only four fingers. Not much of a battle wound, but it wasn't like she was about to strip and show him the more minor scars. Her pinkie-less left hand was her most obvious weakness, and she preferred to keep it that way. "I fight for my people, for my Goddess. I wish I could say that I was a brave protector of Lhavit, but I'm only an Acolyte. I'm only a weak little girl who plays with swords, is locked up by her father, beaten by her brother, and loses fingers to a magic that I don't trust farther than I can throw a boulder," Rai reported, unable to keep a certain sharpness out of her voice. It was hard to admit one was weak, and even harder to catalogue one's weaknesses. To someone who'd spent their life trying to hide those weaknesses from others, she couldn't help speak with a bit of an edge to her voice as she summarized them. Raiyari knew it wasn't fair. The Inarta had told her, in detail, what he battled against. Why shouldn't she? Or, perhaps that question needed rephrasing. Why couldn't she?

[Ronin]

Despite Raiyari's protest, Ronin admired her. Just like most young people, he saw something that he had never seen before, and he found it intriguing. He didn't know how she lived the way she did, so closed of, so strong. He didn't see all the pain and loneliness that it could cause, but only the apparent strength it had given her. He smiled at her until she lifted her hand in front of him. Ronin hadn't noticed before, though he didn't know how he had missed it, and it caught him off guard. Before he could ask he about it she was answering his question.

He listened in stunned silence. He was still shocked that he hadn't noticed her missing finger and this new information on top of that was surprising. She was brief, but it conveyed a lot. Ronin had gained some small insight into who sat before him. She had removed her hand from his shoulder, but now, Ronin returned the gesture. He would have liked to embrace her, to let her know he was there for her, but he knew he had already made her uncomfortable enough time in the conversation, so he refrained. He was angry about what she had said regarding her father and brother. Ronin could not believe that someone who she should be able to trust would do that to her. He was grateful that she had opened up to him, but there was one thing that bothered him ever more that her family. She had called herself weak, and this didn't sit well with Ronin. If she considered herself weak, he could not imagine what she must think of him after he had nearly fallen apart in front of her a moment ago.

"I think anyone who can face all that and come out the other side has a lot of strength. You may see yourself as weak, but you fight with unimaginable courage. Personally, I think courage is the ultimate manifestation of strength, and you have shown more than I have seen from anyone else."

He didn't know how she would take his statement, but he meant it as a compliment. Now, Ronin wanted to know more. She had opened up, and he greatly appreciated it, but he wanted to know more. He was fascinated. That meant he was going to be a little more inquisitive and pray she didn't mind. Hearing about her family had outraged him so that is what he would ask about.

"How could your family do that to you? I can't imagine growing up like that..."

His voice trailed off toward the end. He had hated his childhood and his father, but it paled in comparison to what she now said.