Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri]

Diana

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Sept 21, 2018 14:48:41 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Sept 21, 2018 14:48:41 GMT -7

It had only been a few days since the entity attacked her homeworld. Diana was still a little miffed that it left no trace of itself (the gold didn't count since it was just boring mundane gold), but she had mostly gotten over it and her life went back to normal. Or at least what qualified as normal for her. Reading, doing whatever came to mind that day, beating up people that pissed Vieri off, it all felt pretty normal to her. That a world changing event happened barely even registered.

That didn't seem to be the case for Vieri. With Florence destroyed, it seemed like there should be less work for him to do, not more, but somehow he seemed to be even more buried in paperwork and other boring shit than usual. To the point that she wasn't convinced that he was even sleeping. Diana wasn't very good at reading people, but she could recognize the effects of exhaustion and stress and he seemed to be covered in them. She didn't say anything at first, figuring that they'd sort themselves out once everything became a bit less chaotic, but that didn't seem to be the case. Stupid moron couldn't even take care of himself. She'd never put it like that because the odds of him trying to turn it back on her were high, even though she never did something like this to herself, but it seemed to be what was going on. She really should have been less surprised when it turned out the issue with his eye was his own body beating him up.

Diana already finished what she wanted for the day, and it was around lunch time. It was bright and sunny, the sun high in the sky without a cloud to cover it. The day was beautiful, but he was insisting on keeping himself cooped up inside doing whatever clerical stuff he could probably get some random mundane to do instead. She hadn't tried today, but it felt like getting him to do anything even remotely fun was borderline impossible. Today she decided to settle for getting lunch. There was a family owned Chinese Restaurant on the edge of downtown that she went to whenever she needed to get food in this area. They were so used to seeing her by this point that she didn't even have to bully them for food anymore. They were resigned to their fates and would just give her whatever she asked for. She picked up Vieri's favorite and what should have been enough to feed a small army for herself. The entity did a number on her body and her fingers still hadn't fully regenerated yet. With as much work as her body was doing, rarely a moment went by where she wasn't at least a little hungry. She took that back to the shelter she last saw him at and started trying to find him.

"Oi Vieri!"

No answer. Did he go somewhere else? He normally at least said something when she shouted like that. Sure, the crowd was pretty thick right now and the room was pretty loud, but Diana's voice wasn't exactly quiet even when she didn't use her power to amplify the volume. Frowning, she kept searching, trying to figure out where he could have gone. After a few minutes, she found him sitting on a bench in the corner, looking tired and dazed. Sighing, she made her way over there and flicked his forehead to get his attention.

"I brought lunch," she took his out and forced it into his lap along with the cheap plastic silverware the store provided. "What's wrong with you? You look terrible."

---

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 180

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 25

Played By Robin

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Sept 22, 2018 0:28:09 GMT -7

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Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Sept 22, 2018 0:28:09 GMT -7

A building had been found. Food had been found, and people with clipboards and numerically-minded brains had been given the job of properly passing it out. People who could get others to move neat and orderly had been given megaphones, he’d found a box to shout at people from, and any fights that had broken out had quickly been broken up by his men. Dominico had his orders and more people he could boss around. Finally it was fine if he went off and took his damn lunch break.

He’d found a balcony on the second-from-the-top floor with a guardrail and a sliding glass door opening out onto it. The wall to the east blocked the wind, and the little corner of open air looked over the busy street below. He’d settled down on a bench at its edge, his elbows rested on his knees. A half-drank soda rested in his hand; he was lining the lid of it up along with the road, absentmindedly covering the rush of lights and cars below before lowering it again, simply because it was something to do with his hands while his mind worked out what it was going to do with itself.

For all that’d gone down in his world, this one was carrying on as usual… save for an extra bothersome lump of immigrants from a few hundred years ago. They’d settle in fine - he was going to make sure of that, even if it took more of his men staring down more of his opposition - but it was still weird after seeing his home crushed, feel thousands die, to see how normal it was here. He guessed it wouldn’t be long before Florence or Kyoto or any of the people permanently staying here returned to normal too. The bustling city below was a testimate to exactly that.

Vieri only realized the danger of being alone with his thoughts after they’d tapped him on the shoulder, guided him friendly away, and now had him trapped alone in a corner. They’d lost a lot in that fight, and his mind slowly ended up drifting towards the one the academy had lost in it all. It wasn’t technically confirmed, they hadn’t found a body, but at this point it was pretty damn certain.

It was dumb as shit, he knew, but he’d never had the chance to show her his plans. For however much a dick she was, cornering him like that and pushing him as far as that self-centric asshole did, some part of him appreciated someone who cared enough to want to see what he was doing. Give it all a look over, even if he expected her to tell him he was all wrong for dumb moral or feeling reasons.

It was dumber that he kinda wished she was here, just so he could mention how many people died again, even if it was off-hand, no emotions attached. He felt like of anyone, she’d get it.

It was stupid. He hardly knew her and he knew that, and feeling bad over one dead person wasn’t going to do more than make his lunch break take twice as long as it needed to be because he couldn’t help but feel sad for himself. People died. That’s what happened. He only became aware of this one after she put a pretty face over her mean thoughts, and it wasn’t like he’d bumped into very often other than that-

He violently jerked back as he felt a light pain in his forehead, nearly knocking away the silverware she was trying to force on him. It was rare for people to be able to sneak up on him, just because the noise they put out with their brain was similar to if each of them were playing their music without headphones. This floor, however, was mostly windows, and Diana was one of those people who’d become so normal to him her presence was about as unusual as a cloud passing through the sky.

He huffed and took the fork in his fist. “Then stop looking. It’s nothing, I’m fine. People downstairs are just noisy as all hell and I’ve been stuck with them all day.” He grumbled, trying several different things to try to get her to drop it.

Diana

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Sept 22, 2018 1:01:49 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Sept 22, 2018 1:01:49 GMT -7

"Uh huh," she said not even trying to hide how obvious it was to her that he was lying. "So trying to get away from all of them is why you didn't hear me coming right?"

She cracked open a huge plate of noodles and another container with meat in it. Absent mindedly and without looking, she dumped the meat onto the noodles and started shoving them in her mouth with little regard for how much it could hold. Noodles were hanging out of her mouth while she chewed, but she didn't really seem to care.

"So if you don't want to deal with those morons anymore," she said between slurping more noodles into her mouth. "Don't. Go do something else. You've been burying your head in this stuff for days now, you can stop you know. And if you're going to whine to me about how there's so much that needs to get done or whatever I did find a good construction company in New York we could pound for some extra materials if you need to blow off some steam."

He wasn't going to come. She knew he wasn't going to come, but offering something like this was important anyway. There was something wrong, she just had no idea what. Was he angry about all his work in Florence being smashed? That there hadn't been much progress in the science department? That he kept doing all this boring shit and didn't seem to know how to live anymore? Annoyed that the entity disappeared without leaving a trace for them to study? All of that was driving her crazy, save for maybe the first thing. Normally she'd just let him deal with it, but it was getting kind of unsettling and pathetic at this point. She'd pry it out of him sooner or later and driving him into a corner was the first step.

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 180

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 25

Played By Robin

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Sept 23, 2018 14:40:35 GMT -7

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Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Sept 23, 2018 14:40:35 GMT -7

"I can't help it that giant mass of panicking idiots gives me a headache. I swear they wouldn't be able to form a straight orderly line if their lives depended on it." The lid of the box was popped open with the kind of force that would've ripping part of the styrofoam lid off if he'd been just a bit less careful. The realization that she'd gotten him a box of the sweet chicken he liked was enough to get him to pause- and soon after, violently stab one of the pieces with his fork.

"And I'm not lying." He made a sound that was like a snorted scoff made through half-eaten chicken. "Why the hell would I be lying? You said it already, I've been around these noisy sacks of meat for days, of course I have a damn headache."

Another large piece of chicken was stabbed and stuffed in his mouth. In all the shuffling people about, making sure no one else died, and generally trying to keep peace and order when he wasn't even up to the shoulders on some of these people, he hadn't realized how hungry he was. Food was in its own way calming - it gave his hands something to do, and however frustrated he might be, there was something unequivocally nice about something that tasted good - and was lowering him from wanting to start shouting about the idiots and how wrong Diana was and instead just grumble about all the wrong things she was on about.

“And I know how to live just fine.” He huffed, picking his next topic of distaste. “Why do you keep thinking that shit about me? I know it’s not flashy or exciting,” he waved his fork in a small circle, “but look, if we want to have those scientific discoveries you’re so on about, we’ve got to get the infrastructure and the people in place. And it’s not because of any of that shit that I don’t want to go smash stuff with you right now, I’m just not in the mood, okay?” He made a small grumbling noise and waddled his legs away from her a little on the bench. A dirty look was cast over his shoulder at her. “You’re just here to make me angry until I start yelling, aren’t you? I’m not in the mood right now for that either.”

Diana

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Sept 23, 2018 15:20:15 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Sept 23, 2018 15:20:15 GMT -7

"Uh huh," she said with the same flat disbelieving tone as she slurped up the rest of that mouthful of noodles.

And yet he had no trouble finding her after she got flung across the entire battlefield when the entity showed up even though Florence was way more crowded and way more chaotic. The people here were freaked out and annoying sure, but the people there were freaked out, annoying, and on fire. Just because she had trouble spotting liars didn't mean she was stupid. This whole argument was so dumb it wasn't even worth commenting on. He was lying. Period. She wished they didn't have to go through this song and dance every time something was wrong.

"Fuck if I know," her face flattened. "I don't understand why you do half the things you do. A lot of it sounds annoying and not worth the effort, but whatever. Not the point."

She scooped up another fork full of noodles, trying to fit way more noodles and meat onto it than any fork should be able to hold, and continued devouring it. Diana wasn't sure what was worse, how hungry and tired her injuries made her or Vieri being a stubborn jackass again. It would have been easy to argue everything he was saying. He hadn't seemed particularly happy since he started taking on all this extra work and he kept locking himself away indoors with a pile of paperwork. It had to get tedious and grating after awhile. Was he even enjoying the fruits of his labor as he worked through those mounds of dead trees? She certainly hadn't seen it.

They'd been building up Florence for months and with in about 20 seconds it was flattened to the ground. As long as the only building materials they had were these flimsy things and as long as mages and whatever the hell that thing was continued to exist, there didn't seem to be much point in trying to build. Plus, she had learned more in the time before they started trying to get this infrastructure and people thing going than she did after. It took way too long and nothing was coming of it.

He wasn't 'in the mood' to make demands, potentially punch people into the dirt, or even get into a shouting match? Geez, he might as well have outright admitted that there was something seriously wrong. He was so bad at this it was embarrassing.

"No, I'm here to get you to stop floundering around like you've got a 200 ton weight strapped to your shoulders. Making you angry enough to start ranting about it is just one of my tools."

She met his glare with a flat unamused expression of her own and, rather than pointlessly waving her fork around like him, she lightly stabbed him in the forehead with it. From there, she quickly stabbed downwards and stole one of his pieces of chicken, quickly shoving into her mouth in one swift motion to try to get it before he could react.

"Come on, I already know, so out with it. Then I can go stab whatever it is and we can move on with our lives."

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 180

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 25

Played By Robin

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Sept 26, 2018 20:53:31 GMT -7

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Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Sept 26, 2018 20:53:31 GMT -7

Vieri jerked back in surprise from the fork to the forehead like he’d been struck much harder than he actually had, yanking a hand up to cover the spot and dropping on a highly offended look. This made two for two of Diana getting the drop on him at time she shouldn’t. And then she stole some of his food. Food that she’d gotten for him, but that didn’t matter so much as she was trying to taunt him. His head whipped around, deep breath drawn in and eyes wide with the kind of surprised anger that normally launched him into long winded rants about bad logic.

“That was different, I was looking for you then-” and arguing was pointless. He felt himself getting increasingly aggravated - ‘she’d just come out here to bother him’ flashed into his mind, as obvious as she made it she was here to help. He wanted to feel the petty annoyance that she wanted to stab a problem that didn’t have anything to stab, or that she was actively trying to make him angry like that was somehow helpful, but… honestly, he couldn’t work up the mental effort. He was tired. He was stressed, and he’d yelled his lungs out already at idiots who hadn’t even figured out right and left yet. There’d been all this death and suffering, the sort people either didn’t or couldn’t broadcast, but he could feel it. These people hurt. The ones who’d died hurt even more. It was draining and exhausting in a way that made him just want to lie down or stab the cause of it like she said.

But they’d already stabbed the thing that’d caused this. They’d killed it until there was only those useless golden rings left of the bastard, and there wasn’t much left to blame for the chaos it’d left behind.

He let out a long, exasperated sigh and rubbed his brow. Diana wasn’t going to leave him alone until he gave some kind of explanation, even if she was just going to snort or roll her eyes and call it dumb. At least she might leave him alone after he did.

Plus, he did kind of want to talk about it, if only so that he could finally swat it out of his head with a broom. Saying it outloud tended to help with that.

“Look, a lot of people died, okay? One of our own mages died. That’s fucked up.” He stabbed a piece of chicken, but didn’t get much farther from there besides staring at it. “I don’t have some goddamn weight strapped to my shoulders, I’m fine. I just need some time to process it so I can get it to stop,” he made a frustrated gesture with his hands, “popping up into my head at these random times while I’m trying to do important things.” Exactly as it was trying to do then, coloring his face an upset shade of red. “I can’t be trying to get the water lines set up and then suddenly hear the last, pained thoughts of my neighbors, or see her face show up in the back of my head. Just- I knew her and she’s gone now, and that’s fucked up.”

Diana

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Sept 27, 2018 6:42:25 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Sept 27, 2018 6:42:25 GMT -7

Diana just stared, slowly chewing the chicken she stole from him, as he started going on about how he was looking for her at the time and that was somehow totally different. Even though she was now sitting right in front of him and successfully managed to stab him in the forehead with a teriyaki-covered fork and then steal a piece of sweet chicken he liked even though he should have absolutely seen it coming. In every sense of the phrase. If he continued it, she would have stabbed him in the chest this time, but it looked like he was starting to give it up. She wouldn't believe it until she saw it, her fork still at the ready in case he started ranting about how everything was completely FINE.

"Oh, is that all?" she raised an eyebrow and returned to shoveling noodles into her mouth, talking with her mouth half full of them. "It's weird to think about mages dying. It's easy to forget that we're still human and thus still mortal." She swallowed hard to get everything in her mouth down then prepared the next forkful. "What's that statistic? Like 2 people die every second even when there's not any kind of disaster happening? Death is just part of life. There's not much we can do about it."

This was the second person in the last few days that was talking about death, and she still didn't get it. Death happened. She'd seen it often, even when she wasn't the one causing it. The one person being upset about her sister was one thing, but Vieri was being even weirder here. He was talking about people he didn't even know, or at least it sounded like he was lumping them into the same group as the mage. Diana tried to wrap her head around it, but it didn't make any sense to her.

"You know, the mundanes can probably setup the water lines. They were doing it before magic was as common as it is now. You don't have to stay here."

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 180

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 25

Played By Robin

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 6, 2018 23:50:12 GMT -7

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Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Oct 6, 2018 23:50:12 GMT -7

He looked at her sideways, the fork he'd finally raised hanging a little from his mouth. She really didn't get it, did she? "You've seen death all the time, though. How can you not? It's like," his other hand opened and closed a couple of times in front of him like he was flicking water from his fingers while he tried to get his words together, "it's a lot of pain, before nothing. I know people die all the time and that's just how this dumbass world works, but that was a hell of a lot of death. Way more than there should've been, and..." He shifted uncomfortably on the bench.

He hated talking about death. He hated thinking about death; it was that thing he liked to ignore existed before his powers appeared and shoved it in his face, and now was the glowing molten blob in the corner he wished he could just toss a sheet over and turn into a side table. Putting it to words was as awkward as it was painful; some part of him felt childish, like he should give as many damns as Diana was. Another part of him felt like he was pulling out his ribs. The feeling wasn't going to go away until he did, though.

"That mage who died meant stuff to people. Look, I know I didn't know her, and I kinda hated her guts, but that didn't mean I was ready to never see her again. Now she's just... gone." His voice went quiet, hardly audible over the sound of cars rushing by below. "There's usually still some thought the moment people are dying. It's... a lot of fear, usually. Of what's happening, sometimes of if they're going to be okay, or if the people they care about are going to be okay. Sometimes it mixes into regrets, sometimes it's nothing but blinding pain. Something's lost there, something that could think and do stuff and probably wanted to do stuff is just gone. Even if you can't feel it, you've got to at least be able to see that shit."

He swatted absently at the readied fork as though she had teasingly jerked it forward a little, missing its fork prongs by several lazy inches. "I know they can set it up themselves but I have to tell the right people to do it and where. That's my job."

Diana

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 7, 2018 0:28:40 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Oct 7, 2018 0:28:40 GMT -7

"'More than there should've been?' What? So how many people should have died when the monster with power that rivals that of dozens of mages attacked? A monster that the academy claims could have destroyed the entire universe, a claim that seems reasonable all things considered? I mean, we weren't perfect, but I thought we did pretty well given the circumstances," she slurped up another mouthful of noodles. "You're not making any sense. Shit happens. Sitting around brooding about it isn't going to change what happened."

The more he tried to explain the less it made sense to her. He was complaining about pain and fear when he put explosions through people that made him mad? Wasn't he trying to run this entire organization on pain and fear? It was part of why she did some of the things she did, especially when it came to dealing with his enemies. How was this any different? Diana knew he was a total sap who didn't seem to have that level of willingness to hurt people necessary to run the organization like that, but she never argued it with him because she knew it was effective and that other people could handle it. Maybe she should have argued more.

What she was more concerned about though, was that the academy seemed to think this was going to keep happening. There was no way to avoid a large number of deaths around creatures like that. Hell, she doubted that myriad could even cover the amount of people that died before they even realized what was happening. Was he going to freak the fuck out every time they had to fight? That wasn't really acceptable. Diana paused for a moment, chewing her noodles and the next batch of meat in contemplation. She was going to have to find one of those psychobabble kind of researchers to punch for answers for this kind of thing. Even that century knew basically nothing about the brain, but they knew a little bit. Unfortunately, her own knowledge was largely limited to structure and chemical changes, actual behavior and how to manipulate it was way outside of her knowledge. The most she had was intimidation and how to make people mad, but she didn't think that was going to help here.

"Yeah, everyone that died meant something to someone," she swallowed hard on her food to make sure it all went down. "Don't see how that changes anything. If she was annoying and you hated her then isn't it a good thing that she died? Now you don't have to worry about her being annoying or getting in your way," she looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "I don't even know what you're trying to say. That fear of death is useful. It's why I was able to get the food we're eating so easily and half the materials we're using to rebuild the city here. It's a basic evolutionary response because any organism that doesn't have it will die in some stupid way. But people are afraid of a lot of things. The people here are still freaking out over what happened right? If you don't want to deal with that then why are you even here? All the plans are written down on diagrams right? What's the point of even having mundie servants if you're just going to do everything yourself? You can do what you want.
You don't owe them anything."

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 180

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 25

Played By Robin

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 7, 2018 23:25:19 GMT -7

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Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Oct 7, 2018 23:25:19 GMT -7

For the tumble of thoughts churning through his head, he still had to stare dumbfounded at Diana for a moment. Vieri's voice and fork hand were getting more animated. "That four-faced flying bastard wasn't normal. Shit like that isn't supposed to happen, you don't get told as a toddler you're going to grow up to be fried by some giant world ending monster that can't even get its anatomy right. Yeah, that freaks me the fuck out, and if it happens again it's going to freak me the fuck out too. How can I not?! It's not wrong to be scared when shit like that happens, it's-" he spun his wrists upwards and was starting to sound a little desperate. "It's terrifying, okay? People I care about could die. Lots of people die, and it hurts, and- look, I can run this organization, okay? I can hurt people, I do that shit all the time and you know it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it!"

His voice had raised to the sort of panicked, aggravated yell that someone a hallway down had heard, decided going further was a bad call, and turned back around. He huffed, dropping his gaze down to a piece of chicken soon after stabbed by the fork gripped in a fist. "I'll do what I have to. I'm not some coward who's going to lie down and cry for help the next time one of those shit heads shows up. I'll be right there punching its lights out as always, and I'm not going to let this organization fall either because I'm afraid of hearing someone's brain scream. But..."

His brow crossed. He honestly had no idea how to explain this to her; death equaling bad and an unpleasant thing was an idea most people got intrinsically, so he was entirely unequipped for trying to put together some sort of argument for it. Normally he was busy arguing why it was fine for him to kick the asshole in the shins or, on occasion, order the death of a particularly bad dissenter.

After swirling his chicken around, he finally came to an idea. "Look, it's like this. How would you feel if I'd been the one to die in that battle?"

Diana

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 8, 2018 0:04:46 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Oct 8, 2018 0:04:46 GMT -7

"But it did happen, and people were going to die because of it. You're changing the subject. It doesn't matter if it's 'normal,' it happened and there was no way to prevent death. Trying to claim people 'shouldn't have' died there is strange. I don't see any other possible outcome. We had no way to match its power or stop it from at least getting someone. It's not like parents tell their toddles that they're going to grow up and be hit by a car, but that happens all the time in this universe. People just don't talk about death, doesn't stop it from happening or mean that it 'should' somehow never happen, or whatever."

Diana slurped up some more noodles and went back to starting at her plate with a flat expression. This conversation was already starting to bore her. It seemed like some of this was stuff she said all the time, but some of those problems were easier to deal with. It wasn't hard to move her lab outside of his power's range so he didn't have to deal with what she was doing. It was easy enough to wait until he wouldn't be in Florence to take care of his enemies. But it seemed to happen every damn time and she didn't get it and it was getting annoying. She didn't even know how to go about making him freak out less about it. It happened all the time, shouldn't he be used to this by now?

The next topic wasn't much better in terms of what felt like repetitiveness.

"That's my entire point you know," she groaned. "The 'I don't have to like it' part. This is your organization. You can do what you want. You can run it however you want. Why the hell are you running it in a way you don't like? I mean, I know people have to do things they don't like sometimes to function, I still eat and sleep even though it's inconvenient, but it's like you have to run things this way. There's other options. I swear you just make life more complicated than it needs to be," she sighed, shoving more meat into her mouth.

The question got a pause out of her while she thought about the answer. Her chewing slowed, and her fork hung in the air instead of stabbing at more meat and noodles. It was difficult for her to picture, but that was because she was bad at hypotheticals in general. The odds of her letting him die, or not taking the hit that would kill him and dying in his place, were slim, but that wasn't the point of the question, so she tried to ignore every bit of shouting the logical part of her brain was doing.

"Nothing."

It was the only way she could describe the feeling that came up. The feeling wasn't quite like how most people described it. Less synonymous with apathy and more that hollow, empty feeling that came up occasionally. It was more common when she was younger, but still happened in certain situations. Typically when she got sufficiently irritated at something. At that point she'd go from being mad to feeling nothing at all in a split second, as though someone sucked all her feelings out of her with a vacuum. Diana couldn't picture even Vieri dying as something that would interfere with her life. She'd take care of basic things, like moving his body somewhere better so it wouldn't rot in the streets, maybe make sure his sister was okay and had a place to stay, but after that she'd go right back to what she was doing before. It might be a little awkward at first given how much of her time went to doing things Vieri wanted done, or otherwise trying to help his goals, but she learned enough about herself in the past two years that doing what she wanted to do all the time wouldn't be hard. Plus, there were like 10 billion people across the multiverse, and that was only counting the people in the universes they knew about, so she had little doubt that she'd be able to move on and make new friends.

But perhaps most importantly, it wouldn't be much reason to freak out. It's not like freaking out would bring him back. Continuing to live in the way she wanted to was the only reasonable thing to do in situations like that.

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 180

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 25

Played By Robin

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 8, 2018 16:58:26 GMT -7

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Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Oct 8, 2018 16:58:26 GMT -7

Vieri was going to grumble that it was plenty on subject, and how was he supposed to stay perfectly on subject when she didn’t seem to get it at all, and something about how none of that mattered, the way you were ‘supposed’ to die was old age or whatever other half-thought-through argument his scrambled brain could come up with in the moment. He was going to grumble more about how this method was working fine because nothing was breaking down, he actually knew how to lead like this, and it worked fine for his father. But, when she answered his last question, both aloud and then more fully reasoned not, all he could do was stare at her.

Slowly, color started to rise up into his cheeks and eyes, drawing with it his face from a disbelieving stare to pain that clenched at the brow and shoulders. He knew Diana didn’t care about a lot of the things other people did - people, for her, were especially hard and he knew and expected that going into this conversation. She was someone to talk at, not get empathy from.

But that hurt. Really hurt, after someone had died and she couldn’t seem to understand at all why that bothered him. If Hikaru’s death had been a stab to the gut, this was getting hit by a car and more than anything, it hurt because he knew it was absolutely true.

“How could you say something like that? Do you- do you not care about me?” His tone kept alternating between a quiet, shocked and strained voice and wanting to shout because that’s what he did when something hurt, and every few words it switched. He was starting to get up from the seat, leaving the take out behind with the minimum effort required not to spill it. Tears were beginning to well up in his eyes and show up in his voice. “I thought- we’re family, aren’t we?”

Diana

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Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 8, 2018 20:22:47 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Oct 8, 2018 20:22:47 GMT -7

Diana went to get another forkful of noodles and meat, but only got as far as getting the food on the fork and bringing the fork half way up to her mouth. Then, she stopped and turned to look at Vieri like he grew a second head.

"What are you talking about?"

What did not getting broken up over death have to do with caring? Especially with her. She didn't get upset over much of anything, and she was pretty sure the last time she cried was when she was a toddler. Diana couldn't understand it. Based on how most people acted, it seemed to be the 'normal' way to react to this kind of thing, but it never made any sense to her. Dead people were gone and nothing could change that. It didn't make sense to dwell on it.

Then for some reason he was attributing this not being mopey about dead people to not caring about him. That made even less sense. Why did he think she was here today? She brought him lunch and was making a point to try to get him to do something else because he's clearly been out of sorts lately and being in the thick of all this clearly wasn't helping. She helped keep the organization afloat, whether that meant keeping people in line, eliminating enemies and obstacles, or just getting resources. She'd put a great deal of time and effort into trying to figure out what was wrong with his eye so that she could fix it. She didn't take her eyes off of him when the entity attacked despite being seriously hurt for pretty much all of it. This was why she hated hypotheticals, they assumed a very narrow amount of options and that was rarely the case. Diana wasn't going to let him die. But if it did happen somehow? Well, that was it. What point was there in thinking about it further?

"What, would you have preferred if I said I'd be so distraught forever that I wouldn't be able to do anything and I'd never be able to move on? Do most people like the idea of the people close to them being in pain or something?" she looked back down at her plate and shoved the next batch of food into her mouth. "I would have thought that was the 'bad' answer. I wouldn't want you to be like this when I eventually die."

Vieri di Adatto Isabello

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Posts: 180

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 25

Played By Robin

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 9, 2018 12:42:58 GMT -7

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Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Oct 9, 2018 12:42:58 GMT -7

As was quickly becoming recurring, he couldn’t do more than stare at her for several moments of silence while he tried to figure out why the deeper part of his head hated what she was saying while his logic said she was right. If he died, he didn’t want her to be in so much pain she couldn’t do anything with the rest of her life.

“You’re not supposed to let it ruin your life, but you are supposed to-” he dropped into silence while his hands tried to pull the right word out of the air, “I don’t know, mourn? You’re supposed to feel sad and like life kicked your stomach in. Not forever, but for a little while. Like,” he sighed in frustration, “Dad’s death still hurts, and I care, but I don’t sit around and mope. I still do shit. Mom’s death hurt him a lot too but that just made him work harder. A lot of the stuff he did for my sister and me was because her death hurt so bad.

“Look, this shit isn’t a hypothetical. It just happened, not with you or me but with another mage who shouldn’t by any means have died either. And yeah, I’m fucking sad about it, okay?!”

The look of confusion was growing on his face, and with it the volume of his voice.

“And- I need some fucking time to process that there’s these- things out there that can slaughter thousands in a second and can even kill one of us, a group of people who are for most intents and purposes supposed to be semi-immortal!” It at this point was less he was shouting at her than shouting in her vicinity, at one of the internal things she’d been trying to poke with her fork. “It’s not even just that they exist, we’re the one thing we’ve got to fight them. No one told us this very important piece of information until they kicked us out of bed with a loudspeaker and told us we’d better get off our asses if half of us wanted to save the world we grew up in, like couldn’t someone have just dropped a heads up, these are the things we’re going to have to go and punch, maybe this is how you kill it without getting killed yourselves? No, we didn’t know shit! We still don’t know shit! And we’re the front lines Diana and the headmaster said that was a small one! And on those shit-head, happy nonsense, secret hoarding staff-asses--”

He looked ready to go off on another rant about the shadowy people behind this whole academy operation and how much he wanted to punch their faces in. He had his hands raised for it- but, while he drew in a deep breath and got out a first, loud syllable, he couldn’t get any further. He stalled, before all the energy dispersed like air from a balloon. All the energy he’d had was already spent winding himself up.

He dropped back down onto the seat, wiping at a puffy eye that hadn’t quite gone to tears with the back of his hand. A weight had settled over his exhausted frown. He spoke in what was hardly a mumble, with a scratch that sounded like an old record and like a child who knew he was being a little spoiled. This felt important enough to him he only sort of cared.

“Yeah, I want you to be sad for me when I die. Not forever, but a little while.”

Diana

Character Sheet Link

Posts: 256

Zenith: 190

Power Level: 24

Played By Kitten4u

Isabello Family

Snap Out of it Stupid [Vieri] Posted Oct 9, 2018 22:23:24 GMT -7

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Post by Diana on Oct 9, 2018 22:23:24 GMT -7

It was always weird to her that he seemed to be assigning more judgments to the world, especially to things that might as well be a force of nature. Something that can kill thousands in an instant 'shouldn't' exist? What did he think mages were? Did he forget that the two of them killed thousands in an instant the first time they started worming their way into this city's power structure? Without even trying that hard no less, it was clearly an accident on Vieri's part at least. People 'shouldn't' die in car accidents, but it only made sense that they would. Those things were death machines given to the average populace. What did they think was going to happen? Hell, even physics, one of the purest things in the multiverse, one of the only things that truly should have defined how things 'should' be, was broken open by the existence of magic. Diana supposed it made sense with how he tended to think. Rigid structures, clear rules, obvious retaliation when they're broken. But she never fit any of the definitions for how anything 'should' be, so she found it impossible to wrap her head around it.

'Supposed to' was in the same vein. She didn't understand why people did half the things they did. They made life far more complicated than it needed to be. People seemed perfectly content to let themselves suffer because they were 'supposed to' do something a certain way, or because they firmly believed that was just the way things were. Didn't make any sense to her, and she hoped it never would. Diana already found it difficult to get upset over anything, the entity not leaving a body was the first thing that pissed her off in a long time. Getting upset over something she couldn't even do anything about just sounded terrible and she didn't understand why anyone would wish it on anyone. And then go onto complain that she was the one that didn't care enough. Customs never made much sense to her, but this was making even less sense to her. She couldn't wrap her head around it.

Talking about the dead mage was just as weird. Immortal? Did he seriously think that? Was he stupid? Maybe it was a good thing that one of the first things she said in this conversation was how mages seemed to forget that they were mortal. Tougher, maybe. Exponentially more powerful definitely. But they were still human and that never changed. Did Comet get seriously injured from getting bitten by a dog of all things? How could anyone think she was anywhere close to immortal? And this was coming from someone that let the cops shoot her in the face regularly because she knew their mundane weapons would be hard pressed to kill her. Diana knew she was still completely mortal. She was starting to think that the people that didn't understand death was everyone else rather than it just being her. That said, she still couldn't wrap her head around their feelings.

Diana was quickly realizing that this might have been one of those situations she couldn't help with.

She stared at her food for a moment. Understanding what was going on in his head seemed completely impossible, and she doubted that being able to read his mind like he could hers would even help. People were weird, and while she could read him better than most, she still couldn't understand what he was saying or why he was acting like this. None of it made any sense to her.

That was fine. She was aware of her weaknesses and wasn't the type to feel powerless because of them. There was still stuff she could do, it was just that trying to talk about feelings like this was completely pointless. Diana didn't understand people, but there were a few things that she understood on some level. He was sad, she didn't get why, but he was and that was what mattered. Physical contact was always nice, even if he liked to pretend it wasn't. She set her food to the side, and in one swift motion she slid a bit closer to him on the bench and wrapped her arms around him like a carnivorous plant trying to devour its prey. Something gentler would have been nice, but she didn't trust him to not run away once he realized what was going on, so she had to work fast. However, once she did have a good hold on him, she gently pulled him closer to her chest and rested her head on his shoulder, saying absolutely nothing.

Diana knew she wasn't 'supposed to' do this in public, but she was a mage. The rules didn't apply to her anyway.

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