Skipping Stones

[Septima Severa]

Who: Sev and the world 8D
When: Sunset, when the Warriors are /supposed/ to go to their evening meal.
Where: The main beach of the lake, by the rocky side.

---

Severa was lounging by the lake, skipping stones into the water. It was getting quite chilly as the sun left Haven for the day, but she wasn't hungry, and she was protesting, though she really wasn't sure against what. She just didn't want to do what everyone else did, didn't want to listen to rules. she just wanted to lay on the rock, skipping stones against the still blue lake.

It wasn't long until the Tournament, and this scared her more than she let it show. She might have tried to distance herself as much as she could from the Athenaeum, but she still didn't want to fight those she had know for the past five years, the people she'd shared her home with. It was difficult not to create a bond with them, even if it was one of rivalry, like with Ainia, or one with continued annoyance and dislike like with Tahirah. Still, she'd miss them both, the former more than the latter. And there was Augustin, too nice for his own good, she wouldn't like to fight him either. And a new boy, one she hadn't even really spoken to, though she'd heard he was some sort of pirate. She'd have no problems fighting him at least, she didn't even know him! and all the others, it was going to be a tough battle.

"I'll win," she told herself, skipping another stone in the lake. "I have to, even if I don't want to fight. I'll win."

[Guest]

Augustin stepped out from the building. He couldn't eat a junk. The whole Tournament came into his mind again, and it didn't let him think to anything else. He tried to practice fight, but it didn't really helped, it semmed to be unfair, he tried to read, but he already knew all pages.

The Tournament meant to break the friendships, which were built in five hard years, to forget everything and fight against them for the glory.

He hated this though. It was much better to work together in some unexpected situations, to win against some monster. But now they were just the toys of the Gods.

He didn't even noticed, and he was already near the lake. He recogniced the familiar silhouette. He hoped that talk with her would help.

"Severa" he stepped closer "You can't manage to eat neither?"

[Septima Severa]

Severa startled at the voice behind her, and quickly turned around, moving into a sitting position. "Oh, Augustin," she said, letting out a breath. She wasn't a fan of surprises or being caught of guard.

She shook her head in reply. "No, I've no stomach for food at this time, no appetite. I take it the 'neither' in your statement implies that you didn't eat as well?" she said, though she didn't wait for his answer.

"Are you ready? It's not long now, a month or so away. "

[Guest]

Augustin sat in front of Severa, and he looked at the girl. That was the question that he tried to answer since... he didn't even remembered.

"Can anyone be ready for this?" he asked back "We will have to fight against our friends" he sighed.

He looked down, and started to poke a little pebble, just to do something.

"But our work is winning it, right? For our own good. None of us want to get back I supose."

[Septima Severa]

She listened to him, nodding. "Yes, we are supposed to win, though I fail to see how much of this is for our own good. It's the Gods that gain the most in our winning, well for some of us at least." She cocked her head, watching him. What was his story, she'd never thought he of all people would have a history following him, but his last words had her wondering.

"Not that I have many friends, mind you," Severa said, with a crude laugh. She took up another pebble that was by her foot and threw it toward the water, watching it skip the surface three times before going under.

"At least we can always skip stones."

[Guest]

Ainia saw Augustin leave his seat and the Mess Hall altogether. Saturnina wasn't there either.

Damn, what were they doing right now? Practicing? Finding a way to stab the other in the back? The Tournament's close--very close. Are they nervous, too? It's a sort of choking feel. So far, Ainia's been pretty good at avoiding to make friends, but that emotionless mask has its limits--it's starting to break and crumble to the last bit. She envied Severa for being able to keep it up longer, or at least she thought so.

Frustrated, she stabbed her fork onto the wooden table and left. If those 2 were practicing, she shouldn't waste her time here. The Amazon spotted Augustin in the distance, headed towards the Lake. She followed and arrived some time after him.

She was quite surprised to find that Severa and Augustin were just talking.

[Guest]

Augustin watched the pepple going down and the he threw a little stone too.

"I'm just wondering how long can we really" he sighed, looking back to Severa's eyes, trying to find out why she's looking at him so strangely.

[Septima Severa]

"That's simple," Severa told him with a smile, though not one that reached her eyes. "We'll go on as long as we need to, do we really have another choice?" Another stone was thrown at the lake, this one she threw with as much force as she could, and it didn't even skid, it just went down with a splash.

"What is your story Augustin?" She asked suddenly. "Everyone has a history in this place, from the warriors to the mentors to the slaves, so what is yours?"

She shifted, pulling her feet to her side so she was facing him. "Tell you what," she said, with another dishonest smile. "Tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."

[Guest]

If you would like to know, then why not?" Augustin answered. There were a long time ago when he told his story for the last time, probably way back in the first year.

"I was an unexpected child, my mother - who was the princess of our country - had affair with a creature, secretly, while she should marry her candidated husband, the prince of the neighbor country." he started.

"When she found out that she's pregnant, she frightened, and left that two-sided life, and pretented to be perfect. She married with that guy, and started a whole new life. But what could she do with a pegasus son, she couldn't show me to the world, because then they would all found out her secret, and would've lost her power. So she invented that I'm dead, why she locked me to the room in the palace's tower." he stopped for a moment.

"From there it's easy to find out what happened, the biggest part of my life peel off there, so I read a lot, I learn to paint too. The years left, when I almost became 15, I learned about a terrific murder series, presumably my stepdad found out everything. Night by night I saw murdered pegasus corpses. Everything was covered by blood." he grimace while remembering back.

"Apollo saw me a day, and offered to pick out from this nightmare, if I fight for his name. That seemed to be the best chance, a chance to survive... and also make some friends, for the first time in my life." he sighed.

"And what happened with you?"

[Septima Severa]

Severa listened to his story curiously. It was odd the way it affected him, with the men she'd known all her life, she'd expect such a situation to leave a boy bitter and vengeful. Augustin was neither of that, well not that she knew, he was the boy she knew as too nice for his own good. How did that come?

"Reminds me of a tale I read about, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," she said sarcastically, before realizing that it wasn't the most tactful thing to say. "Wait, I'm sorry, I should not ridicule your past, it sounds awful at the very least."

"Alright, mine it is," she sifted again, she didn't think she'd told anyone about her past. No-wait, she'd told Mnemosyne after she found, but that was a very long time ago. "But here is where it gets complicated. As you should know, humans get taking straight out of their timeline, and if we lose the tournament we get sent straight back to fulfill our lives, without any knowledge of this," she motioned around her.

"Well what happened to me in my past is not that eventful. I was a daughter of a senator, wealthy if not a bit head strong. Nothing more important in my life then finding a good husband, knowing how to optimize my beauty and learning to manage a household. Nothing about fighting to say the least," she said with a laugh.

"The fun part starts after the time when Mars put me here. I think he showed me this in my second year? Yes that's about right." It was also the time when the nice, if not a bit forward Severa turned into the bitter and distant Severa that stuck around.

"My parents found me the ideal husband, a retired prefect and once commander of one of the legions, it was a terrific match. Too bad he wasn't the nicest man, not after the wedlock. And especially not when I prove practically infertile," another laugh, a self-defense mechanism of hers to keep the walls up.

"You don't need all the details, in the end I give him a daughter, and as I'm carrying his son he turns to Livia and tries to beat her, I get in the way, he beats me, I lose the child and go mad. I murder my husband and my daughter. I get executed shortly after. This all happens..." she closed her eyes for a moment, searching in her mind for the memories that aren't memories, while keeping her mental walls as high and thick as she can, to not let the emotions escape. She's gotten pretty adequate at that during the years.

"Right, not very long from now, I was almost at my twentieth birthday, I remember that. Well that is that," she said, stretching, keeping a tone that suggests it doesn't phase her all. "My mysterious past- or future."

[Guest]

Augustin listened Severa quietly. He didn't say a world to the girls remark on his childhood, becase she was right some way, and because she though it again.

Listening her past was startling. That explained so much, why she always fighted so hard. He couldn't understand Mars first. Why would anyone be so evil? But after a second, it explained itself. Because he could get Severa fighting even harder, and cause her much more pain.

Augustin tried to find his words "Look... I don't know what will happen during the Tournament, and I know that we can't do anything, we all will fight with our greatest power... But I pray for your future and I hope that you won't have to pass through that."

[Septima Severa]

"Don't pray for me, and don't pity me!" Severa snapped violently. "Pity is the most worthless of human emotions, I want nothing of it!" She swung her legs around, dangling them over the rock and turning her back on the Pegasus.

"Just know that when the Tournament comes around, I'll fight you, no matter what! I'll fight you as if I never knew you," she snapped at him, putting as much ferocity in her voice as she could. It didn't matter thats he wasn't certain of her own words at all.

[Guest]

"Belive me, I know that well. Really well" he answered. He knew Severa since enough time to learn that.

"As I said, we all will have to fight with all of out power. Just after knowing you since years, I don't belive that you deserve this happen to you. " he tried to explain himself, and hoped that this sentence will be the last which he has to say about her future. It wasn't nice to talk about her death.

[Septima Severa]

"Only fools talk of who is deserving and who is not. Things happen and there's nothing we can do about it, and that is that." Severa told him with finality. The walls were threatening to crack and she wouldn't let that happen.

She turned half-around, looking out over the lake and tossed in another rock. "In any case, how is your training going?" she asked in a weak attempt to change the topic.

[Guest]

He didn't know if he should answer after this sudden topic-change. Then to the he decided it's better to not say anything to the insults.

"Nothing really happens. There's no much new movement that I could learn now, mainly I'm practising fight while flying" he said slowly. It seemed that Severa liked to talk much more about fighting than about herself.

[Septima Severa]

Severa didn't answer for a little while, simply looking at the water. "So..." she started, looking up into his eyes. "What would you do? When you win I mean, what would you do?"

[Guest]

Augustin watched Severa for a moment, and he didn't got what she just said. Then probably he would have laught if he wouldn't know the risk of the Tornament.

"I would find a solution to stay here, as a gardener or someting like that. Though I would be a awful mentor" he smiled "I wouldn't go back for anything. Expect of course, if Apollo decides that way."

[Septima Severa]

Severa nodded. "I cannot imagine life without the Athenaeum, it has been my center of life for so long. I imagine I'd stay here as well, or close anyway. But I'd like to just not do anything for a while." She smiled at the image of it.

"No responsibilities, no fighting, no people around me. Just to be." She glanced around. "Perhaps somewhere by the lake, it's a large lake. that should be nice I think."

[Guest]

"We all came here because of a bad fate or someone to save, but for most of us it turned to be a big family." he smiled while thinking to the others.

Thinking to what Severa just said "But you will have to eat something, don't you?" he gave her a little smile.

[Septima Severa]

"So, you're going to fight your family is that it? Would it not have been wiser to not let yourself love them? Then again, it is only those in you year that shouldn't be loved," she said almost more to herself than to Augustin.

"True, but there would be plants to eat, and animals to hunt. I'd be fine on my own."

[Guest]

"Yes, probably it would be wiser. But I got five years when I could be happy, with friends in a big family. Probably I will never feel this again. I just couldn't leave this five years pass away without that" he holded himself to his opinion.

"Won't you be TOO alone?"

[Septima Severa]

"I have to admit, there is a bit of wisdom in that. I still think you a fool, but perhaps not entirely beyond saving," Severa said with a hint of a smile.

"Too alone? No, I don't think so. I could do without human interaction for a little bit, it was humanity that started this thing in the first place. Humanity in things divine as well as things mortal."

[Guest]

Augustin thought about her words. He took a little stone, near from his feet, and threw it to the water, doesn't caring about the fact that it would come out from the water, or not.

He watched the surface of the water, how the last rays of the Sun reflect from it.

"Hey, have you ever flied?"

[Guest]

Ainia had been watching and listening from behind a tree. She felt like she would interrupt them if she just walked in, so she's content where she was right now. They exchanged meaningful words...

Family, huh?

Can that even exist in the Athenaeum? It wasn't even a wise choice to open up to each other right now--especially when the Tournament is this close...

The Amazon perked when Augustin asked about flying. She wondered what he's planning to do.

[Septima Severa]

Severa looked up, alert and questioning, when he asked about flying. "No," she started carefully. "I've not flown, not everyone has wings."

She eyed him carefully, wondering why he asked, why so out of the blue. He should know she had never flown, she had no wings or air magic of her own, how could she have?

"Why... are you asking?"

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