outsiderslogs | god forbid i would show some understanding

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god forbid i would show some understanding

who. Severa, York
what. Severa crosses the wrong turian and ends up in a bar fight
where. The Quad
when. After her gun training session, in the wake of the shuttle explosion
warnings. A very stupid, cocky teenager

"You wanna repeat that?"

Of course, Severa knew better than to actually answer, once she knew she'd insulted the birdlike creature—a turian, decked in a shade of blue she'd seen on a few other aliens around here. But there was no way he'd actually attack her. And even if he did, Severa knew that she'd probably win. Between Starscream and York, she'd gotten pretty good at using her pistol.

"What's the hardest part about treating—" was as far as she got into re-telling the joke she'd overheard from some other humans before she saw the turian start to stand up. He didn't even have to get to his full height for Severa to see that she was several inches shorter than him. Not that it scared her. As coolly as she did anything, she reached for her pistol at her hip, hoping that that would be enough to stop him from doing anything.

No such luck. He'd had something much bigger strapped across his back. Severa recognized it as what they called an assault rifle, though she wasn't sure what kind. This was really not the time. As the turian's gun readied itself, the other two people sitting at his table scooted their chairs away. Severa didn't see anyone else moving, so she exhaled and raised her pistol to eye level, lining any potential shots up with where a heart would be on a human. It was a gamble, but everything so far had been one, too.

It took a quick recollection of what assault rifles could actually do to people, especially those without armor, for Severa to realize she was in way over her head. "I don't want to do this," she said, not letting her gun drop. The turian wasn't budging either. This was turning into a terrible idea.

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"That wasn't supposed to happen," Severa protested, and it really wasn't. It's not like she woke up and said "today, I'm gonna piss off a turian and get in a standoff" or anything. "Do you have any idea what it's like having to live like I do? Gods, I'm used to less than ideal conditions, but at least the barracks had decor."

Making an obscene gesture towards ladylike behavior in her head, Severa quaffed her mead in an impressive amount of time, almost (but not quite) fast enough that she couldn't taste it. Without a cloth to maintain some illusion of decorum, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. The smile returned soon after, but more confident and sly this time, as though she'd just performed a magic trick.

"Considering we're all in the same boat? Yeah, I think I've got a notion." York snorted, shaking her head. Severa was really a piece of work. The girl could obviously handle herself -- she was definitely tough -- but she had this astonishing capacity to abandon all common sense the second she got a whiff of something she didn't like.

"Not so fast, kiddo, huh? It's not goin' anywhere." York took a few healthy sips, reaching for Severa's glass. All right, if York were really a responsible adult, she probably wouldn't be giving her a refill. "Look, I'm just sayin', that imperious attitude is gonna get you nowhere fast around here. You've gotta start pickin' your fights a little more wisely."

"Blame my dad. We're lucky he isn't here or the entire bar would smell like honey." Still riding a surfboard of her own smug sense of self-satisfaction on a wave of don't care, Severa was glad to bring up the positive influence her daddy had had. Well, positive on morale. Less so on her teeth.

"You don't seem too concerned about choosing wisely," she chides, just enough levity in her voice to make it clear she's joking. "You've never seen me drink before. If I am truly so impetuous, you'll only make it worse giving me more mead." She grabs her glass quickly, defensively, in case York actually takes her seriously.

"You are an adult, and I'm not responsible for you," York says glibly, raising an eyebrow at the way Severa all but snatches the glass away from her. She takes a long sip, sucking contemplatively at her teeth. It probably is a good thing Severa's dad isn't here, because with her luck, he and York would probably get on famously.

"Consider me an example to learn from," she says after a moment, with a wicked grin that pulls at the scarred skin around her left eye. "You said your daddy taught you how to pick locks, right?"

Wait, she's being appreciated for the adult she is? That's... strange. She's never felt that way before. You know, maybe York isn't so much like Cordelia after all. The smile she's sporting gets softer, but it makes her feel vulnerable and it disappears off her face in a couple seconds.

"He did," Severa nods, once she's got her countenance the way she likes it again. "But like I said, these locks are nothing like the ones on doors and chests back home." That look on York's face, though, that's something Severa totally recognizes in herself. They're about to do something that's going to get them in trouble.

Good.

"Yeah, there've been some advancements in the tech," York said loosely in what was probably the understatement of the year. "We've still got physical locks, y'know. At least we do in my world. You just don't see 'em so much in a place like this. It's all digital security now. But the basic principle's the same." She shrugged, draining her glass and setting it down on the bar. "So, what, your dad a locksmith, or is he whatever your equivalent of an infiltrations expert is?"

"That's easy for you to say," she muttered into her glass before taking a slower drink than before. (Not that that would be hard.) "I'm not a mage. And this is all magic to me. Even my father would be perplexed." Giving some thought to her answer, she finally said, "Officially, he's a mercenary. Like me. Unofficially, he's a thief." And a damned good one at that, but it would be a shame to spoil her own ego trip by inflating someone else's.

York can't help but laugh at the mention of magic. If it were magic, Wash wouldn't believe it was real. "Yeah, I guess it might seem like magic to somebody who's never worked with computers. But it's not, really. It's all just...numbers, when you get down to it. But I work in bigger abstractions than that." She pauses, then activates her omni-tool and swipes over it a few times before she brings up what looks like the 3D schematics of a complicated-looking lock. It looks sort of like the kind you'd find on a bank vault, but an awful lot more...malleable.

"See this? This is called a holographic lock. It's based on the same kinda interface the omni-tools use, which means you can interact with it manually. Except since it's digital, that means I can interface with it, with somethin' like this. Hell, I used to have a little buddy to help me out with this sort of thing all the time."

And she can't help a fond smile thinking of Delta, a little tinged with sadness, because man, she misses the little guy sometimes. She raises an eyebrow at Severa in curiosity, drumming her fingers on the bartop. "So I've gotta ask -- what I do, would you consider me a thief, too? I mean, by your definition."

She's... okay, she's not going to touch how the lock that York just showed her looks nothing like a lock from back home, or how half the words she used to describe it didn't make a lick of sense. She just kind of nods through York's explanation, pretending she understands—because she has a reputation to uphold here, come on.

Really, the easier thing to address is that question about whether York's a thief. Severa actually looks thoughtful for a moment, trying to come up with the best answer. She's not looking for one that'll hurt York's feelings the least, but the truest.

"Have you stolen anything lately?" she asks, simply.

All right, York wasn't expecting so...literal a definition. Then again, maybe she ought to expect that sort of thing from Severa by now. She'd figured there was some sort of semantic gap there, but...maybe not.

"Uh...well, it used to be my job to steal stuff, sometimes," she says glibly, with a shrug, although the security she'd run with Joker only a few months ago comes to mind. But that's not a secret she's about to let Severa in on. "I mean, really, breaking security was my job, but taking shit usually came with the package."

"Then you're a thief," she says in a very matter-of-fact manner. "That's not a bad thing. Sometimes people need to have things stolen from them. If they got it unfairly, for example," she continues, spouting more of her daddy's rhetoric than she expected to today. "It's the people who have unfair amounts of power who think getting it taken from them is a bad thing."

She pauses to look at her glass and decides against taking another drink from it. "It's when you steal from people who don't deserve it that you get in trouble." Like from daddy. Severa tried to steal his candy once. Once.

"Your daddy teach you that too?" York says with a raised eyebrow. Suddenly, she gets an idea of what she thinks Severa's dad might have been like, back in their world. For a girl who's used to swinging around live steel, she's sure got an awful cute idea of how the world works.

"Yeah, that's one way of looking at it," she says. "How I see it, though, is this: some people are willing to pay an awful lot of money to get people to do their dirty work. Or, y'know, things they don't know to do. Sometimes those people are your government."

"Of course," she replies in that same tone, though her face looks like she thinks York is stupid. Or maybe that York thinks she's stupid. "You don't have to explain mercenary work to me, York. My daddy was a free agent until he found allegiance with Chrom, Robin, and the halidom of Ylisse."

A smile crosses her face for only an instant before she realizes it's there and covers it up with the glass. She doesn't drink; she just speaks from behind it. "He always told me he quit because saving my future was more important than making a quick payday."

York can't help a smile at that. Whoever her dad was, he sounds like he was an alright guy. He obviously cared about his kid, that's for sure.

"Definitely some wisdom to those words," York says with a wry smile, even if they're not ones she's living by at the moment. But back then, before she'd been sucked out of her own world...that'd been what she'd been working for. For her Wash, back home. She clears her throat, giving Severa a little wink. "Your daddy had the right idea. Always take the cushy government job."

Severa laughs and decides to take a drink after all. "I don't think he wanted to freelance much longer anyway. It was hard to find enough work to keep up with me. I have very expensive tastes," she adds, mostly as a joke, even if it is entirely true.

"I didn't expect you to be so similar to my dad when we first met, to be entirely honest." Perhaps that mead she quaffed has begun to loosen her tongue, if nothing else. "You seemed far closer to my mother." She doesn't bother hiding an unfortunate scowl.

"Should I be insulted?" York cocks an eyebrow, but she looks amused. She might not know anything about Severa's world, but she knows a colorful family when she sees one. She can only imagine Severa's got some stories. "What's your mom like, anyway? And how exactly did I remind you of her?"

Severa starts to speak, but stops herself—she doesn't actually want to insult York, but describing her mother as she typically would would probably be an insult. This is more delicate a situation than she's used to.

"She's perfect at everything," Severa finally decides upon, at least to begin with. "It's like she never has to work to be good at something. It feels like she's rubbing it in my face sometimes." There's a pause as she realizes that those last two sentences are totally unflattering. Meeting York's eyes, she says, "It's just the first part that you remind me of."

York raises an eyebrow, and after a moment, she can't help but laugh. "Perfect at everything, huh? I'd like to know where you got that impression."

She doesn't look offended, just surprised. She gives Severa a lopsided smile. "Sounds a little like someone I used to know, actually. But nah, that's not me. Kid, I make plenty of mistakes, trust me."

Severa holds back a derisive kind of laugh as she goes back to avoiding York's eyes. That's the exact kind of thing her mother would have said to try to assuage Severa's budding inferiority complex. Just because one person says they make mistakes doesn't mean they actually do, and it certainly doesn't mean their mistakes come with the same kind of consequences as one's own.

"You fell into place here as though you were cut from the same cloth," she says, deciding to tell York just where she got that impression. "It doesn't seem like you've ever had to struggle to fit in around here. Even the concept of alien species doesn't faze you anymore, does it?"

Perhaps Severa gets honest when she gets drunk. It's harder to keep walls up that way. She thinks through a sentence about how if York weren't so personable, she'd be worse than Cordelia, but doesn't actually say it out loud.

York's used to this universe dumping thing and the fact that it tends to take all kinds -- she knows the places that she's been stuck in haven't been too far of a cry from her own universe, and that others have come from universes far more radically different. But she's never seen anyone struggle with it quite like Severa does.

"Hey, the reason I didn't have to get used to the aliens is 'cause I was already intimately familiar with the idea," she says, reaching to put her hand on Severa's shoulder. "Granted, back home they were makin' war on us, so you bet it took me a while to get my head around that. But also consider that I've been doin' this a long time. Before I got here, I spent eight months in another place a whole hell of a lot like it. I haven't been home in over a year, Severa. I've had time to get used to some of the weirder shit I've seen."

She sighs a little, knowing that it's Severa's weird placing her on a pedestal that's making it harder for her to connect. "Look, you can believe me or don't, but trust me kiddo, I've made plenty of my own mistakes. I've made mistakes that cost me a lot -- that cost others even more. Hell, you don't believe me, just look at my face. That was 'cause I made a mistake, and it wasn't even the first time."

"You got that injury from a mistake?" Severa repeats, almost incredulous. Considering her frame of reference for eyepatches, it's hard to believe something like that could have come from anything other than a deliberate action. "I had assumed you had been in a battle. I knew one other person, back home, with a patch much like yours. He was one of the strongest warriors Ylisse could have had on its side."

For a moment, she's quiet again. She fills it with a drink, slow and careful, and then speaks her most recent realization. "Constantly comparing life here to life in the halidom isn't going to get me anywhere, is it?" It's a rhetorical question, but it's damned hard to give up a frame of reference just like that. Especially when she has no idea if she'll ever be able to return home. That realization shows on her face in the furrow of her brow.

"Just 'cause it happened in a fight doesn't make it less of a mistake," York says, but when she sees the look dawning on Severa's face, she lets it drop. She thinks the kid's gotten the point, now. Or...at least arrived to it on her own terms. It's probably better that way. It's better to trust yourself.

"Not really," she admits. "I know it's hard, kiddo. Trust me, it took me awhile to get there. There were things about my own world, things that weren't the same when I left, that I spent too long clinging to. It just made it harder. This place...you've just gotta take it for what it is."

Edited 2013-08-14 01:44 (UTC)

Easy for York to say. "What this place is," Severa starts, "is entirely unfamiliar in all the strangest ways." She's been known to adapt, certainly, but there's a difference between asking something to adapt to a new environment and violently uprooting it and forcing it to grow into dry, cracked ground.

Gods, she'd been talking to Donnel too much again.

"If nothing else, I suppose I'm no longer alone here," she says, not louder than she needs to. She has a friend and confidante in York, and the other people she's met—at least, those who've not tried to kill her—seem approachable enough. She raises the nearly-empty glass to her mouth, and then a little higher, so the glass distorts her features. It's far easier to hide a smile that way, though still not entirely perfect.

Nice try hiding that smile, Severa, but York's got nieces and nephews and Severa's not much good at hiding things anyway. York grins at her fondly, shaking her head. For better or worse, she's glad she's here, and not still on Sacrosanct. At least here she can do some good, some of the time.

"Kiddo, so long as I'm here, you're never gonna be alone," she tells Severa, reaching over to tousle Severa's hair affectionately. Odds are Severa hates it at least as much as Marco does, but hey, that's part of what makes it so cute. "You don't hesitate to ask me if you need somethin', you got that? I mean it."

Severa wants to grimace and grumble, but the mead has begun affecting her too much for her to protest as vocally as usual. She'll settle for a snarky comment running at half power. "Can I ask you to never mess up my hair again?" It's not all that messed up and she doesn't care enough to straighten it, but that's not the point. It gets her to smile even more.

The smile remains even through her next statement. "That puts you another rank above my mother," she says, though she knows in the back of her head that it isn't true. If anything, Severa was the one who abandoned Cordelia and Gaius. If she'd been a better fighter, she might not have had to travel back in time in the first place. Just assuming that York knows what she's talking about, Severa doesn't clarify.

"You got it, kiddo," York laughs, withdrawing her hand from Severa's hand, but it's an unintentionally empty promise. It's just as likely that the next time York's struck with the urge to give her a noogie, she'll forget she promised not to in the first place.

It's easy to tell that Severa's got some reservations about family, or at least hers in particular. York gets on well with her own family, sure -- or at least, she did back in her world -- but she'd had her rough spots with them. Joining the military hadn't sat well with her dad for a long time. "Was she not around much, back home?"

All well and good; Severa doesn't stand much of a chance of remembering any part of this evening with the way she's been pounding mead.

"She was around, but she was always practicing. Trying to get better, as though you could build on perfection." Her eyes half-close as she conspicuously grimaces. "This isn't really the kind of conversation I want to have. I need to stop bringing up my family." Her better judgment is telling her she shouldn't go for a third glass of this sweet ambrosia, but her emotions are fighting back. "I'm drinking; it should be a time of celebration, not depression."

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god forbid i would show some understanding

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i really cant handle how cute severa is uGH

it's only because of her awesome space aunt

god theyre SO CUTE TOGETHER I CANT HANDLE IT

BEST SPACE FAMBLY

I WANT THEM TO FALL ASLEEP ON THE COUCH TOGETHER WATCHING TV OR SOMETHING EQUALLY CUTE

NO BABS NOOO

I WANT THEM TO HAVE A HEARTFELT FEELINGSY CONVERSATION AT SOME POINT OKAY

PFF SEVERA DOESN'T HAVE FEELINGS SHE HAS MUSCLES

YET

GO AHEAD PUNK MAKE HER FEEL

TOO LATE YOU ALREADY MADE ME FEEL JESUS CHRIST THAT'S UNFAIRLY CUTE

I LITERALLY DID NOTHING SHUT UP ps cmere for hugs

i love u bro youre the best

say that to a mirror so you're saying it to yourself

ITS A TWO WAY MIRROR SUCKER

YOU ARE A FILTHY PEEPING TOM

I'M NOT WRONG, SOCIETY IS WRONG

SCREW SOCIETY LET'S GO OUT FOR FROSTY CHOCOLATE MILKSHAoh by the way

YOU FUCKER

8))))

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