GRAAAAAAB BAAAAAAG

[restoretherace]

[Inside: ADVENTURES]

Comments

[restoretherace]

And if not me, then who?

It doesn't matter now, though. He was sent back almost as soon as I found out about what he really did. He lied to me over and over out of concern for nothing but his own safety... and maybe my happiness, I guess. Said the same things as you do about my self-sacrificial nature, and I figure you assume that sort of thing makes me miserable.

[piratey]

Doesn't it?

[restoretherace]

[That makes her think... uncomfortably.]

I don't know. But how much would it matter if it did? Whenever I want something and try to get it by force - hatching the orb, blood, whatever - it's shot down. So the main alternative is satisfaction derived from others anyway.

[piratey]

Yeah, your life sounds like it sucks, Kanaya.

[restoretherace]

Couldn't you find another term?

[piratey]

It sounds shitty.

[restoretherace]

I won't dispute the sentiment - just, you know, [points at fangs haha...]

[piratey]

You're too hung up on semantics.

[restoretherace]

A skill I have tried and failed to stop cultivating.

[She wishes the conversation weren't directed on herself but can't figure out how to fix that]

It's a remmant of my resentment about giving up our dialect, really. That was probably easier for you as a highblood.

[piratey]

Maybe! But I don't think the number of words had much to do with it. I'm just kind of over trolls.

[restoretherace]

That kept happening to people... I've never really understood that. It seemed like I somehow had worse experience with humans compared to everyone else.

[piratey]

Yeah. I had some really, really good experiences with them.

-- Hey, bartender! I definitely want that scotch right now. How about it?

[restoretherace]

[The bartender will oblige!!! And Kanaya will let the bartender oblige, honestly. She's remembering Roxy.]

Sometimes... sometimes I really wonder if the happiness available centuries ahead of us is actually determined primarily by the results of some shoddy decisions made at the age of six sweeps.

[piratey]

How do we know what's shoddy and what isn't? That's the thing. I'm almost twenty-five years old now and I'm still not sure if I'm making the right choices with some stuff.

[restoretherace]

[She puts her chin in her hand.]

That's a good point.

[She takes out some of her marques and sifts through them - they're iron coins.] What's reasonable...

[piratey]

[the alcohol is loosening her up a bit; she's saying things and asking questions that she'd normally be more guarded around, considering how long it's been since she's seen Kanaya]

There was a guy. Is a guy, even though I pretend it's all in the past tense. I haven't seen him since I was fifteen, but...

[restoretherace]

[Glances over. She hadn't expected that... presumably not Tavros?]

Hey, that applies to most of our team, and the way you say that makes it seem like you knew him since thirteen. It doesn't matter where or when you met. [Is she contradicting herself? Yes. She hadn't gone into this conversation with a prepared platform. Lapsing back into patterns of providing narcissistic supply.]

[piratey]

I knew him since... I guess thirteen, yeah.

And it matters.

[restoretherace]

Maybe it does. It doesn't automatically invalidate, is what I mean.

[piratey]

Well duh, Kanaya.

[restoretherace]

...sometimes I think when Prospit was destroyed it took my ability to be right about anything along for the ride.

[piratey]

There you go, focusing on the past again! Not that I'm any different, I guess.

[restoretherace]

With your guy you last saw at fifteen who you still describe in the present tense.

You know what pattern I could never deduce is if he'd be fifteen or twenty-five were you reunited. [siiiiiince she assumes this guy was her age at the time]

[piratey]

He was twenty-five to begin with, so it'd be more like twenty-five or thirty-five.

[restoretherace]

Oh. [She's... not extremely comfortable with that idea but isn't sure whether to show that]

I'm surprised he'd let you think about him that way. [There's nothing strongly suggestive in her inflection of "that way"; she's not even sure if what Vriska's describing is concupiscent, conciliatory, or just custodial]