(closed)

[usurpers]

Who: eren + people
When: february
Where: aefenglom, dorchacht, respective wildes
What: a catch-all for closed starters! hmu on discord @owlie#3609, liberos or eren’s plotting comment if you’re interest in doing something!
Warnings: n/a, will updated where needed.

“eren let me see what you have” “a knife” “no!!!!!!!!!!”

Comments

[trouvaille]

( her expression tilts with sharp, sudden amusement; fey, feline, dangerous. not threatening so much as naturally predatory; the metaphorical gleam of teeth.

the literal gleam of teeth. )

What did you think I meant when I said I could have made you do things?

( she touches her fingertip to the end of his chin— )

That I'd ask very nicely?

( she sways back where she's sitting, the huff of air like a laugh but not quite gurgling enough to be what happens when gwenaëlle laughs. )

I just used to convince places that weren't ordinarily dog-friendly that they didn't mind me bringing my dog.

[usurpers]

[ eren’s scales brighten in color. stares from predator to predator exchange, though not so dangerously portending. his mind might be in silence already, but his gut speaks a truth he is uncertain of:

she already makes you do things. how does he feel about that? naturally, he wouldn’t want it at all. he has anti-command charms. now? he wasn’t sure there was any conflict to this and he didn’t know why (and that, itself, creates conflict). his pupils were still blown out like orbs and the inside of his mouth had gotten wetter, easier for his tongue to keep flicking (right when her finger is there and then away again; he has to follow). ]

That’s a lot of power to have without abusing it.

[ or, people. but he was in the same category, so. no hypocrisy there. ]

[trouvaille]

( she shrugs, one-shouldered. )

I don't have it any more.

( and she dislikes its absence when it makes her feel—helpless in a way that she hadn't once she'd understood what she was wielding. exposed and small; there had been nothing she could do about the rathmores. she isn't helpless, but the things she would naturally rely on have been taken from her and it leaves her uneasy, which—

leaves her unlikely to dwell much on the moral dilemma of the power that she misses having. not, frankly, that she gives the air of someone who dwelled on it much when the point wasn't moot. that is true, and not a pretty truth. but this, too, is true: )

I'm not interested in subjugating anyone to my will. People are interesting when they show you who they are—I don't want to just see myself. I think the choices people make are important. If it's a stupid choice, there are other solutions. If I were going to really use it, then it'd be like the first time.

[usurpers]

[ it's nice to hear, it's beautiful in that sort of context and resonates with something deep in him. yes, the eleutheromaniac. the dragon who has come to protect the movement of freedom that is deserved upon all, but granted to little. it was a long road filled with complicated holes where not everyone would have their way. he hopes he's seeing her true words there, and from his rational guard, he cracks just a little bit more. the irrational, well— it was already blooming.

eren considered himself skillful in seeing through most poorly told lies now, too, but he could never be too certain. ]

It's the reason why we're special. [ all of them. their choices were theirs, all unique, all done individually. they were free since birth, and even more so when they were old enough to start choosing, start molding who they were. ] For your friend?

[ he gestures to the over-sized bear. i mean, dog. it was the only hint she had given, and he was innocently following his curiosity. ]

[trouvaille]

( she looks blankly back at him for a moment, then seems to realise—she's already shaking her head before she speaks, some thread of rueful amusement in it, in spite of herself— ) That doesn't count.

( that is a matter of perspective, but: that's definitely her perspective. what's the harm in convincing someone that it's fine if her dog comes into their establishment? she's not abusing their free will if she could probably persuade them to do it without the extra push. she's persuaded places in aefenglom to let him sit under her table and she can't compel them the same way.

no; that's fine. it's just a little thing and it's allowed. )

No, I mean, in self-defense. I think if someone died because they pointed a gun at someone who could make them turn it on themselves, that actually is suicide because it's suicidally fucking stupid. I've never done that, ( thoughtfully, and with scrupulous clarity, ) but I know I could have.

I couldn't explain it, you know? Why would someone go to all the trouble of drugging me, putting me in a car, driving me out of London—and then just let me go when I told them to? I couldn't find a reasonable explanation for that, so there had to be an unreasonable one. And there was.

[usurpers]

[ nice to know that dog doesn’t count! but, back to the juice. eren huffs a little at the suicidally stupid comment, possibly for nostalgia’s sake. he’s been called a suicidal bastard more than not in the past, now it’s just. genocidal bastard, or something. then he is reminded of a chilly little cabin in the woods, one that held a girl tied in ropes. sounds familiar, but in her case, gwen miraculously saved herself. ]

You were smart for figuring it out, if you were a kid.

[ he can’t help but to rethink if a kid could even realize that that was possible— eren wouldn’t have tried asking, it’s not in his nature. he would’ve done a bad. ]

[trouvaille]

( what's a little finessing of someone else's ability to say no to her where her substantially more important than that person dog is concerned. a non-event.

but she laughs, abruptly— )

Jesus, that's a different crime entirely. I was twenty-two. I don't think many children are getting drugged in bars, but never say never to the depths of depravity plumbed by human evil, I guess.

( when she was a little girl, she got her way a lot. she did not, until that awful day on the side of the M-1, realise that it meant anything more complicated than being rich and spoiled. )

And it took me months to—figure out. I didn't do it on purpose, in the moment.

[usurpers]

[ definitely never say never, because eren’s seen it before— sans the bar setting. he considers that the men from his childhood only hadn’t drugged mikasa because they didn’t get so far into the plan to sell her. ]

It isn’t off the mark. A lot of people . . . [ he trails off as he picks up one of the grand hoops that should be hanging off the ceiling at some point. he was going to say more, but doesn’t quite find the words to. shitty was ample because he was shitty, too. murdering children was on his list of atrocities even though there were certain things that just didn’t compare. such casualties are things that make his gut churn. it pissed him off, of course. ] Are shit.

[ for lack of better wording, which had been obvious. and then, with a lift to get this along (he’s stalled her for plenty of time): ]

Where did you want this again?