Alain and Polexia talk about choices and chances, with (mostly unspoken) culture clash LIEK WO

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Alain comes down the stairs. He's wearing the old shirt he came to the bar in today, pale blue faded nearly grey, with the usual jeans and boots and weaponry.

He's looking a little pensive, a little distracted, but mostly he is pushing that feeling back, and focusing instead on the barful of people.

Comments

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

*Polly sees Alain and walks over because it's friendly and polite*

Hello again.

*she smiles*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He smiles back at her, which is also friendly and polite.

"Hello, Polexia. How do you fare?"

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

I'm doing quite well, Alain. Thank you for asking. How are you?

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Fine, thankee." It's not entirely true, but he says it casually and cheerfully.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

*Well, truth be told Polly wasn't that honest either for she is Bored Bored bored! and usually is but a positive response if the usual thing so so be it*

Well, that is good to hear. this place has a tendency to be boring and horrible at the worst of times so it's nice that you are fine.

*she grins*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Sympathetically, "Say sorry that you've found it so. It's good indeed that you're doing well, then."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

It's just like that sometimes. No concern of yours really. It's probably my own fault.

*she shrugs*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Now, say not so." A shrug. "As you say, life's like that, sometimes. Here as anywhere."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

*she nods*

Exactly. I suddenly realized a while back that this place coulda been my chance for a new life. But I just continued with the life I had. Sometimes it's just impossible to most past stuff.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes," he agrees neutrally. "Though sometimes it is worth trying, and failing, and trying again. Many chances here, I think."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

Yeah but the failing bit makes it seem pretty silly to try again. I'm not very fond of the failing bit.

*she frowns*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"It's hard, say true."

He doesn't know her well enough to argue about this, and so he is polite and smiling and neutral.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

That's just my opinion though, I know people who have tried and tried again and have eventually succeeded in making something good happen. But failing once is enough for me.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"You might never find the good you could in life, if you're so easily discouraged."

It comes out a little tarter than he meant it to, though he bites back most of the edge. Such a life philosophy hurts his heart, and angers him. Worse, now, with the feeling that's been haunting him since yesterday, the nagging ka-shume sense of something precious and beloved slipping from his grasp.

But he knows courtesy and he knows restraint, and so it comes out mild with only a slight underlying edge.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

I know.

*she resigned to that cause she does know and he is right and isn't really wanting to say that. It's no so much a life philosophy as a discouraged teenager being discouraged and she doesn't know him so she doesn't feel like unloading on him cause it wouldn't be fair.*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Then stand for the good you may find, for your father's sake.

Then face the truth and embrace it, and don't pay lip service while shirking.

Then your life will never be what it should be. What the White and the rose call for it to be.

And, faintly, Cort's growling voice: Stop your snivelment, maggot. Cort was no nurturer, but he had his own harsh wisdom, and imparted it with clouts of his heavy hand.

He bites all this back, and says, "Then you know all I could tell you of it, I wot."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

Doubtful but I know what I know of it and you should just ignore me feeling sorry for myself. I could pick myself up anytime if I wanted to and I know I should but i am stuck here and it's annoying and i could have something here but then it would gone when I went home and as good as I am at taking chances at home it seems different here.

*she shrugs*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He doesn't want to snap at a stranger, and a young girl at that. Whatever her age in years, she's younger than he feels he's ever been; gunslingers grow up swift and hard. Self-pity is a luxury, and a society that allows luxuries is no bad thing.

He reminds himself of this.

Instead, he says, neutrally and quietly, "Yar, things are different here. But some of them are things you can take home with you, I wot. If you had a mind to."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have learned quite a bit here and I probably will take it back with me. I hadn't even thought of that.

*She smiles*

I just keepthinking if I do stuff here I'll just lose it all when I go home but I guess some of it will always be with me. It's nice to know.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Anything you do or learn, you carry with you," he says. Another lesson from Cort and Vannay both, and more from experience than either. "Whatever you bring back in your gunna -- in your belongings, if you ken it -- Milliways will be in your mind and memory. And whatever you do here, for good or ill."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

*she nods*

Yeah, thanks. I mean I know it's that way at home but I had a choice to end up most places at home I just landed here and can't leave so it seems different but I guess it's not.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Ka works and the world moves on," Alain says, with a crooked shrug. "And we do what we may, wherever we find ourselves."

It is like lessoning a child, one raised all her life among what Roland derisively calls grass-eaters. When he thinks of it so, it is easier to be patient. At what he guesses as her age, he had been three or four years a gunslinger -- but she is not, and was not taught so, and if her father taught her nothing of ka and the hard choices it is not all her fault.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

Ka?

*it's an honest question*

That makes sense. A lot of sense actually.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

A crooked smile. "It means... fate, or destiny. Where you are going, at its root, and the force that carries you there, and sets your path before you. And obstacles, too. Say sorry; I forget that almost no one here seems to know the word."

He doesn't really forget, but he hasn't yet found a word that works as a proper translation.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

No problem, there's lotsa stuff here I don't know. Believe me quick learning is a skill I had to have to live back home, so new stuff doesn't really bother me. I've had it shoved in my face for years.


*she tries to not sound too bitter but it can't be helped*

I kinda like learning here though, no one is saying take these lessons or you're grounded, here.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

A word for a word; he looks inquiringly at her. "Grounded?"

Beaten, he is assuming, but he's never heard the term before.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

Punished, basically. If you are grounded by a parent you get stuff taken away from you, can't leav the house. It's not very fair when you say "I don't wanna practice the piano today" and they send you to your room.

*she shrugs"

But, that's life.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Ah."

There is a brief memory-flash of his old teacher Cort's knotted fist slamming into his head -- flaring pain and the salty taste of a cut lip, and a rasped flat reprimand. You were slow. Say your atonement, dullard. And No supper. No breakfast. You'll sharpen your reflections with hunger.

This was not the way all children were raised, of course, but boys born to the High Speech were trained to the way of the gun by Cort, and to the softer side of the world by gentle Vannay.

"You say true."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

*Polly nods*

I don't know if it did much good I mean I can do stuff now that I couldn't but I am not sure they shoulda forced me. But i'm here and they'renot so I really don't need to dwell.

*she sighs*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Alain... honestly cannot imagine speaking of his parents so. Never during their lives, and certainly not after their deaths. It is a moment before he manages to find words.

"You take the lessons you need from the past. Though often we don't realize the true lessons until long after, I think."

In an absent unconscious gesture he brushes a hand against the butt of a gun -- not threatening, but only a brief touch of his fingers to the ancient sandalwood grip of his father's guns, heirloom of his family and the bloodline of Eld.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

*she notices the gun and knows it isn't a threat. She smiles.*

Yeah, you're right.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

A small smile, in polite response.

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

* she nods politely back, she's ran out of words.*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

And so the silence stretches. After a moment, he smiles, with a glance at the bar, and says "Say sorry, but I've a friend I've been meaning to talk to, over there."

[bandaid-polexia.livejournal.com]

Okay, well it always nice talking to you, Alain.

*she grins*

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He inclines his head.

"Long days and pleasant nights, Polly."

He turns and heads for the bar, towards Eddie and continuity.