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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2018 3:43:20 GMT
He softened, ever so slightly. "No. They'd kill a hybrid like my daughter or use her as a soldier in their wars. I chose exile to stay close to the one light in my world. I never knew being a father could be so fulfilling. It takes me out of my selfish head and lets me be the man she thinks I am" he smiled, his hard blue eyes softening to something almost human for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers, spun around and finished scribbling. "This is experimental and a weird thought but it just might work. I'll do testing on it to let you know for sure what it does but for now I'll just run more tests to cement my theory or disprove it. Though my theories are rarely disproven"
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Post by skyeknight on Jan 11, 2018 14:06:55 GMT
The faeries would kill a little girl - just because one of her parents wasn't full fey. A little girl who had done nothing wrong expect for (in their eyes) be born. A wave of protectiveness hit her like a tide. She supposed that was her 'human' morals and justice shining through. She would have been different if she had been raised in the courts. She would have been a monster. She never would have known her friends on the human side. If she did, she would have hated them, thought them scum, perhaps even hurt them just for laughs. That thought made her eternally grateful her parents decided to run away and raise her on the human side, even if things didn't work out for them.
"I don't think you're selfish." Aqua said.
How could he be? He had his daughter. He clearly loved her more than life itself if he was able to turn his back on the courts. He protected and shielded her from the faeries. Not to mention the fact that when Omar was kidnapped, he was the first one to spring into action. He knew just what to do, where to go and how to save Omar from his captors. He wasn't a police officer. No one asked him to get involved. He chose to do all of that on his own. Sure, he was arrogant. Brash. Rude. Annoying. Hypocritical. But he wasn't selfish.
"Where did you study all this at?" she inquired.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2018 15:58:40 GMT
He looked over at her and shrugged. "Fey are inherently selfish. We'd rather protect ourselves or our twisted morals than help others out of the kindness people think is in our hearts. I am selfish" He looked over at the machines and smiled faintly. "Funny enough, I was doing this in the unseelie courts for my Queen Mab. She was interested in poisons and how creative Seelie could get administering different types. It was my job to figure out the poisons and how they were administered to entertain her. Then the Raven Prince got wind of it and decided knowing how his subjects died was useful in general. I generally used magic there but this is fun"
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Post by skyeknight on Jan 11, 2018 18:06:20 GMT
Aqua quickly forced herself not to think about whether she had exhibited any of those traits. Dorian already got her worried about the courts coming after her for some asinine 'shortcoming' of hers. She didn't want to get her friends hurt because the courts decided to get involved in her personal life. She didn't even know why she stuck around after handing off the sample. She was clearly trying to see 'good' in a person that was too frustrating to deal with. Everything in her was telling her she should probably go, stop listening to his abuse against her.
"Morbid curiosity." she murmured.
At one point, she might have been curious about the differences in the sciences that the faeries had versus what humans had. Instead, she wanted to retract as far away from her own kind as possible. Her interactions with faeries had been disappointing at best. She supposed the same could be said for Dorian. She thought he was a good person but he seemed dead set on proving her wrong on her assumptions. He almost seemed outright indignant that she even hinted that he wasn't as 'big and bad' as he claimed to be.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2018 21:37:35 GMT
"For you or for them? It could apply to either" he sighed and looked at her. "What do you want from me, Aquamarine? I am an unseelie, I represent all that is dark and unseemly. I murdered hundreds with a magic violin for land's sake. You really think we're going to see eye to eye? I cannot be what you are trying to force me to seem. I am grumpy on best days and unapproachable on worst. I am prideful and selfish. And you, bright eyed and idealistic, seem to try to keep making me an ally against the other fey. Correct me if I'm wrong" yes he was in exile but he still loved the monarchy of his people. He was mostly loyal in that but remained in exile for being unable to kill his daughter.
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Post by skyeknight on Jan 12, 2018 2:47:27 GMT
"For them."
Her eyes narrowed when he used her full name. She didn't share that with anyone. Not even Riku knew her full name. Only Terra and the humans who used to be in the department with them before the Others Unit had been formed. He had to really have done some digging to get that name. Or at least look at her personal files, which was all sorts of breach of privacy. Dorian was pushing her. Testing her. Seeing how far he could get away with egging her on, but she had tried talking. She tried being honest. He used that against her, twisting it and making her look bad and feel even worse.
"I didn't want anything from you except for you to do your job!" she snapped. "You're the one who started bringing up my past! How did you even learn all that? But I had hoped... You weren't like faeries who hurt Omar when you saved him! That I wasn't the only fucking faery in this damned city like me!"
This revelation only served to make her feel even more alone. Yes, she had friends, but they weren't like her. Not really. Dorian was a faery but he had his head so far up his ass he probably only saw daylight when it came with his daughter. She hadn't wanted anything from him. Except he had given her hope, dangling it slightly before yanking the rug out beneath her.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2018 23:11:34 GMT
He smiled slightly at the outburst. "I'm the only one like me and you're the only one like you. and if you really want to know...I don't like using nicknames. Ever. It's unseemly and disrespectful. Since no-one here knew your full name, I simply asked around with some...er...less than positively legal means and kept searching till I found out. Also, your past is simple. Anyone can nab some hair or clothes and scry the past. I also might have filched some voodoo ingredients to make the skrying even more potent so I could learn more about you. Because heaven only knows I'm not good with tears and there would probably be some if I just asked. Also, hello, unseelie, we're naturally mean spirited pranksters. It's in our DNA"
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Post by skyeknight on Jan 18, 2018 3:37:18 GMT
"It's my legal name. Not my given name." Aqua replied. "And don't you ever let me catch you researching anything about my past without my say so, do you understand?"
It was borderline creepy behavior for him to go to the extent he had to dredge up the past she was trying so hard to let go of. The obsessive tendency to need to know so much about the 'target' was things she saw in her line of work in stalkers. All this, so he could 'prank' her? This wasn't mean spirited. It was cruel. It was spiteful for the sake of being spiteful. Spitting in the face of someone before you even got to know them as a person yourself and judging them strictly on hearsay. Naturally, this left her seething in anger.
"If you want to know about me, ask." she grit out.
She wasn't as prone to tears as he thought she was. Only around people she cared about. At this rate, Dorian was likely to never make that cut. Nor would he be on any list of people she could trust, just like Constantine. She hated lumping someone in the police department in with that car salesman of a djinn, but neither inspired much trust.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2018 20:12:38 GMT
"Please. If you knew the courts truly you'd know I was giving you a compliment. Studying who you are and what makes you tick means I acknowledge you as a worthy rival or ally. I always made sure my daughter was well versed in the ways of the courts, even if I have no intention of bringing her to either court. Your parents would have been wiser to do the same so you could adequately play the game. But, obviously, this isn't the ways of the police department. Interesting. I will adapt" He raised an eyebrow. "Why?" he asked, genuinely curious as to her reasoning.
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Post by skyeknight on Jan 22, 2018 2:41:54 GMT
Aqua's shoulders slumped. She sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly weary. Was this just a cultural thing she was mistaking? She didn't know. But she certainly didn't want to play any more 'games' with the court. Her reaction to Dorian's prying was a very human reaction. She had gotten so used to living with humans, she all but counted herself in the population save for the fact she was winged. Only her glamour made her look human enough to pass for one. She had spent a long time trying to forget what she was.
"Because it's a sign of respect to let someone come to you with personal information when dealing with humans. When they do tell you these things, it's their way of showing trust," Aqua explained. "I was raised by my parents in a world of humans. After they died, I was raised by humans. I didn't learn about the courts. Maybe my parents would have told me when I was older but I was far too young for any court lessons to stick before their deaths."
But Dorian said his extensive research into her meant he acknowledged her - at least for a faery. Even if he did do a lot of criticizing. So her own ignorance was her own undoing. She couldn't remedy the fact she didn't know faery customs. She had no one to teach her. If she did want to learn, it meant going back to the court and that was out of the question. She supposed she could ask Omar, but this meant traveling further down the rabbit hole of things she would much rather not know about faeries - as well as traumatizing Omar further with further faery talk. Because what if he thought this would change her?
"I'm sorry I got cross." she sighed. "I didn't realize what this meant to you."
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2018 19:10:19 GMT
"Do you want to learn our customs?" he asked abruptly. "Granted you will have to learn alongside a mute child and will probably pick up sign language, but if you are so woefully ignorant this is a case of emergency. Though strictly speaking I am in self imposed exile over my widely different views on the proper treatment of servant species. As in they shouldn't be servants. But we can set that aside for learning the generals"
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Post by skyeknight on Jan 23, 2018 19:36:32 GMT
She had to stop herself from openly staring at him. This guy was giving her whiplash with the way he was constantly changing. One minute mocking her for not knowing congealed sand to her life choices and the next offering to teach her the customs of her species. However, the benefits outweighed the negatives. He was right, she did need to know these things. She was likely to be able to escape the courts forever. She needed to know how to best protect herself from them. She could swallow her pride and learn. At least they shared the opinion that servants shouldn't be servants. They were treated more like slaves.
"Yes," she decided, "If I could do something to return the favor to you."
He was getting nothing out of teaching her - both her customs and apparently if she learned sign language along the way. But she would not allow herself to be in his debt for a favor. She wanted to give something back to him so they could say they were even.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 3:34:43 GMT
He chuckled and steepled his fingers. “Missy” he stated with a dark gleam in his eye and took out of his vest a set of dice. “The first thing you need to know about the fey is everything is give and take. I fully expect you to owe me, and I fully expect to take you up on what you owe. It’s like a wish; we barter, and give one service for another. The one on top is the one who exploits the system and make sure everyone owes them and not the other way around. But don’t worry, I won’t ask anything that demeans you, unlike my King, or secretive. Like your Queen. Believe me, she’s got a network of spies for things that her spies owe her. And then there’s the servants….life debts usually, things they can never pay back”
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Post by skyeknight on Jan 24, 2018 14:10:24 GMT
"And what do you want in return?" she asked.
She did feel a little better knowing he wasn't going to take full advantage of her 'debt' to him. Nothing that she couldn't deliver. Unlike the Queen or the Djinn. But the thought of playing that same game, where people owed her favors didn't sit well with her. That was her human rational and morals fighting against this notion. Humans did nice things simply because it was the right thing to do (not always but most of the time this stood quite firm). Most humans weren't cruel just for the sake of it. Sure, sometimes they lashed out, but it was through them Aqua learned kindness.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 23:12:14 GMT
"Eh, when it comes to deciding I'll do that when absolutely necessary" he said with a shrug. "I might need your skills in a drastic emergency, such as more kidnappings, and I don't want to waste my favour owed by you. I prefer to call in favours only when necessary, so rest easy. It won't be anything drastic unless the situation truly calls for it. Probably a "heal this person" or something. Nothing too big"
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