A Cold Rain

It was raining outside, really hard. The temperature had sunk low in the night, and while the sun rose it was hardly any lighter than it had been all night. For someone with all the insulation of negative temperature, the rain was horrible. Ren had already been in the cold recently. She had on a light gray tank top under her hoodie, and of course her skirt and tights. A small hotel was nearby. It wasn’t in a very populated area, so Ren was not surprised to see only a couple of people in the building. Her hair had recently be trimmed, so her silver piercings were visible, glistening since she was absolutely soaked.

She wandered over to a corner and sat down on the floor. She’d had to take off her tights. They were slick and cold now. She folded them up carefully into a little black square. Her big hoodie was also folded up. She would have wrung them out, but she didn’t see anywhere to do so, just yet. Without the hoodie on, the underweight eighteen year old felt extremely exposed. Barefoot and still in damp clothing. She rubbed her arms, sitting with her back to the wall. Her guild tattoo on her neck was almost visible now, but she didn’t expect anyone would care about that. No monsters were attacking; it was just a bad storm.

With the events at the guild hall, things had been strange. Ren was there. Most of the people she knew had been home during the attack, and it had not been fun. Despite being, surprisingly, one of the strongest wizards in Lamia Scale, Ren did not have the willpower to do much. She had grown, but when things were in chaos, she had been happy to stay inside and work on ushering people into the basement. She was not a fighter; really, she was more simply capable of protecting herself. Eventually got up and found a bucket, where she began slowly ringing out her hoodie. She was wondering. She wasn’t sure why, yet, but she wanted to wander. It was better than feeling helpless at home.

Tatsuma happened to have been out and about during the rain storm, but as a creature of electrical nature, he hated being wet. As a matter of fact he had gone so far as to bring an umbrella and he wore a rice farmer's hat just for added protection in case the rain began to blow. While he walked he noticed there was a girl  just standing in the rain. At first he thought that she was simply enjoying being wet. The thought appalled him, but some people enjoyed the water. After watching her for a bit she seemed to be getting her clothes off to dry, though he wasn't entirely sure how much she would appreciate it.

Despite his inhibitions, Tatsuma had planned to walk ahead and wordlessly stand next to her, holding his umbrella over her head so she wouldn't keep getting rained on and waiting to see if she had anything to complain about. His previous attempts at chivalry had all been met with rejection, but this was just as much about the fact that someone was needlessly getting wet and he could do something about it. He closed his eyes as he stood there, listening to the sound of the rain hitting the umbrella and watching for a jerk or other movement that told him his attempts at courtesy weren't appreciated. He had thought about talking to her, but it hadn't really worked out for him before.

He deliberated on what he should do for far too long and she ended up walking into the hotel which... was "just wonderful" he thought sarcastically. If she had noticed him before she might be inclined to think he was stalking her, in truth though, he was planning on staying there the night anyway and already had his room readied. He hadn't really met with a lot of success in the ways of finding information. It seemed like the shadow lord had hit and then mysteriously disappeared. For tonight however, he simply walked in.

Once he entered he saw that she had more or less taken a spot in the corner and started tending to her clothes. Following the same logic as earlier he approached, but this time he was able to see her Lamia Scale Guild Tatoo. He shrugged his shoulders as he removed his hayori and handed it to her, though his actions were accompanied by words.
"It's cold out, at the very least you can wear this until you aren't soaked." He offered.

Ren felt the unease of being near other people. Unfortunately it had seemed to start before she got into the hotel. She was not the most perceptive person, but as a creature known for avoiding everyone else, she could usually tell about that. It was also helpful since she had the extra need for privacy when she had been homeless. She wasn’t now, luckily. She knew that she had least had a warm bed back at home that she could return to, and she was very grateful for that. For now she was just trying to fend off impending illness and dry herself off.

Strangely someone came over to her. She moved against a wall, getting as far as she was physically able to get away without just running. She did, after all, need to stay close to her hoodie. Ren bit her lip as he held something out for her, saying to put it on to keep warm while her things dried. “B-but, I… I c-can’t, its yours. I’ll be j-just fine,” she told him hurriedly. She was not good at social interaction. She looked down at the floor. She didn’t recognize him because although she’d heard about him, she’d never seen him. She just fidgeted.

“Um… b-b-but thanks…” Ren added in hopes to not be too rude. If he suggested it again she would take the object to warm up, because she was very easily “convinced” of things. More so she just hated to argue and was utterly terrible at holding her ground. If it were something important she would be much better at it, but for now she was just hoping to shy away more.

Tatsu smiled and shrugged. He was pretty sure it was just his clothes since just about every time he had offered his haori to someone they typically refused. Still he was inclined to at least dispute her claim.
"Indeed it is mine, but it's also dry and fairly warm so I'm offering it to someone who could use it more than me." He said casually. It wasn't atypical for him to just go up to someone and start talking to them, at least not these days. She seemed to be pretty nervous, and she wasn't doing anything to hide that. At the very least that told him that she didn't feel like her life was in danger so she was probably not skittish which meant that the uncertain speech most likely applied only to social situations. Once he was done with his preliminary analysis he was ready for introductions.

"I'm Tatsuma," He said before extending his right hand out to her, the hand with his guild tattoo, and held his left hand out with the haori still in it. He wasn't exactly out to force young girls to take articles of his clothing so he figured he should back off if she refused again, still it was a sincere gesture and he believed it was fair to insist once. The nuances of social interaction were something he was only beginning to get hold of. He wasn't going to try to "wing it". This talking to people thing was a pain in the ass he decided.

Ren was utterly terrible at arguing. She was afraid of arguing, and she felt terribly guilty to be arguing. Even if she disagreed, it was as if she felt she wasn’t entitled to have an opposite opinion. Admittedly she would have felt shy about stating her opinion, even if it were in agreement with the other people. It wasn’t him, or his clothes, it was all her.

He reasoned that he was dry and warm, and she could use it more than he could. It made sense, sure, but this was Ren. She just nodded weakly. She didn’t want to be rude. She just didn’t want to accept anything from a stranger. She wasn’t comfortable accepting anything from anyone, except Kotone. Tatsuma certainly was not Kotone. He even introduced himself… Ren’s eyes widened. Tatsuma…

He held out his hand to her, which she started at. Did he expect her to shake his hand? No. That was not happening. She didn’t like being touched. She would accept the clothing, only if he insisted, because she was just going to stand awkwardly otherwise. “Um… Y-you… are Tatsuma… from Fairy Tail…” she said, explaining her reasoning with that small and awkward statement.

“You… were… um….” she was really bad at this. He was the boy from the job with Astra and Kade. He was the dragon slayer everyone talked about from the tournament. He was the man Kade hated. “You are a dragon slayer, like Kotone…” she said awkwardly. This at least told him she knew Kotone, or knew of her. Ren fidgeted.

Tatsuma made point of noticing details of her reaction without making it abundantly clear that he had. He eyes widened for an instant. She spoke the name of the guild he was from, but the hand with the tattoo was extended, but when she mentioned that she knew Kotone that didn't bode well at all. In his experience, anyone who was within three degrees of separation from Kotone, Kade, or Astra was automatically inclined to have a negative opinion of him.
"Well this is going to be a barrel of monkeys." He thought to himself before he went about responding. At first he was at a loss for words. She denied his offered hand but set the haori down next to her before he removed his left hand.
"Well if you know Kotone that's... good. Yes I'm a dragon slayer." He said simply. There wasn't much else to add to his statement.

She had refused his right hand and he speculated it was because she knew at least one person who had branded him an enemy. Well there was one thing he could do... Just assume she didn't share Koto's opinion and move on about his evening.
"You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know about me, but I don't know anything about you." It was true, but he wasn't going to get anywhere by rushing it or demanding information. She would either tell him or not, but he was already sure this wasn't going to turn out very well.

Tatsu’s experiences with Kotone, Kade, and Astra certainly made anyone who knew them rather disinclined to trust him, sure. It just so happened that Ren was sort of in the middle of all of those people. She didn’t mentioned Kade or Astra though. Given her guild association it wasn’t especially hard to guess she’d met Kade or Astra. She kept her mouth closed, waiting for him to say something, besides setting his item down.

“If you know Kotone that’s… good.” And a Dragon Slayer. Yeah… She stood there awkwardly. While some people might have received her extra effort, this wasn’t one of those people. Complete strangers got no more warmth from Ren. She didn’t like being touched. It was strange for people to think someone so uncomfortable would want to be touched. It wasn’t a sign of respect to her; it was just an invasion of privacy.

He seemed to want to know about her. Or at least he pointed out that he didn’t know anything about her. Right, that usually did mean people wanted to know about others. Either to take away the “disadvantage” or because he was just curious. She couldn’t tell. She certainly knew a lot about him. “Um… I… I w-was in the tournament… thing… with Kade and Zahn… M-my name is Ren…” she told him awkwardly. Had she told him that? It seemed useful. It couldn’t do any harm to tell him her name, probably. It seemed like the thing to do, even while she was cold and awkwardly standing there.

Ren? That sounded vaguely familiar. As though someone had said it before in passing, but he couldn't for the life of him remember where. The tournament seemed so long ago that he couldn't really remember who all had been there on what teams. It seemed unimportant and there were other things to consider from the experiences on the island. Furthermore if she was in the tournament with Kade.. and whoever the other person was, she was most likely Lamia Scale, an observation based on the fact her guild tattoo seemed to indicate that.
He had run into two other dragon slayers that he knew of. He knew that they were supposed to be keeping it a secret, thus he assumed it possible he had run into more, but that they were better at hiding it than he was... and also actually cared about whether it was kept secret.
"Well um... this is awkward. I'll go ahead and say that you're Lamia Scale because of the guild tattoo. Thanks to that and the fact you mentioned you knew Kotone I'm also going to guess you've heard plenty of bad things about me, and all I'm left wondering is about your opinion." He said.

Tatsu decided that wasn't going to bring up Kade, that seemed like a sure fire way to turn her opinion if it wasn't already bad. He actually didn't have that much of the problem with the guy other than the fact he seemed to have mistakenly drawn a conclusion and spread it around to.. well just about everyone, or at least it had spread that far. Beyond that there wasn't any reason for him to talk about what had actually happened since most had drawn their conclusions anyway. At least this was a good way to gauge whether public opinion was as bad as he had heard or whether it was more isolated than people made it seem.

Ren had met a total of three dragon slayers now. It wasn’t even that she had met more. Except she had. She hardly remembered the awkward encounter with Raven. It had been nearly a year ago, and she had no reason to know he was a slayer. She’d never even mentioned the brief interaction. So three for four of eight? She was doing better than most, without having any idea of anything except the three. She didn’t consider meeting this one a good thing though. Which was far more normal than thinking it was good to know Kotone and Kade.

Tatsu spoke. It was awkward, according to him. Everything Ren did was awkward. She wasn’t used to it, but it wasn’t new. He pointed out that she was in Lamia Scale and she fidgeted. Generally speaking no one could see her tattoo because of her hoodie. It just served to make her feel even more naked and uncomfortable. She was proud of the affiliation but it felt like her life written on her skin for people to read. She didn’t like that.

He mentioned he was left wondering her opinion. No doubt she had heard plenty of bad things about him. Well yes. Kotone didn’t except like sharing bad things with Ren, but she’d heard some. Also from Kade. Also from Astra. Not everything, but she heard enough. Ren was a very good listener. Right, so he was left wondering her opinion. Ren raised her shoulder slightly, which made her appear slightly more like a cowardly turtle until she lowered them. It had been a very awkward shrug at least, instead of simply shirking away. “My opinion really… isn’t important,” she said quietly, looking around the ground. Everyone was scary and uncomfortable, what more could she tell this boy? She both trusted her friend’s judgments and didn’t think hers would matter. She was just going off of theirs anyway. She would still try to answer if pressed, but Ren was awkwardly resisting for now.

Patient as he was at times, it was pretty difficult to talk to this girl. Her general demeanor said she shared the opinion of most of lamia scale, but he wanted to try to smooth things over at least a little bit.
"It very much matters, it's why I asked. Technically though I suppose I can't force you to share your opinion if you don't want to." He started. "Though it does make it hard to talk if you aren't going to.. you know... talk." He finished, pausing between the words to make what he was saying sound more observational and less judgmental. Still, he had spoken the truth, and that was all anyone could really ask of him. If she didn't want to interact he could be on his way back to his room by this point. He wanted to ask more, but so far just getting basic answers out of her was driving him crazy. He would try to read her personality, but so far she hadn't given him much to go off of, save for the fact that she was quiet and that was not enough to use. She knew Kotone, she knew Kade, she knew Astra, and none of that boded well anyway. Was she scared of him? Did she hate him and was one of those overly polite, non-confrontational types that were afraid to communicate their true feelings? Did she not want to draw her own conclusion? There were too many questions and not enough to get any real answers about anything.

It was not uncommon for people to find Ren difficult to talk to. Given the general path her life had followed, it was a wonder she talked to anyone at all. It would save both parties a lot of trouble, surely. She did talk more. This right now was more than she used to talk. She’d met a red haired man and had a much less smooth encounter. She trusted her friend’s judgment, but it was rare for Ren to fit the “most of Lamia Scale” dynamic. Her near silence wasn’t really attributed to what she’d heard before.

Well, she hadn’t asked him to come over and talk to her. She knew it was hard for people to talk to her. They could talk to her, actually, just not so much with her. Ren didn’t think she was that awful to be around. She didn’t communicate like other people. That didn’t really mean she was broken. She had to remind herself things like this. She wasn’t broken. She was just awkward. This boy wasn’t saying much of what he wanted, perhaps out of some illusion of politeness. It simply meant she didn’t know how much he was getting frustrated. She could probably feel it though. “I think…” he wanted to know that, right? It mattered very much what she thought, according to him. “that…” she gulped, “after meeting you, a very… happy girl was depressed, a very calm man was enraged, and a very confident woman was unnerved… and those are all sad things…”

Tatsuma accepted Ren’s judgment. If she was just now starting to open up, albeit it was a bit one sided, but very few people had the ability to compartmentalize well enough to not make judgments based only on what their friends said. It was only natural that she would take their word, but the only one he had actually wronged was Kotone. The rest… had sorely misjudged the situation, but he wasn’t about to repeat all of his thoughts with her. There was no way that she was going to simply accept a stranger’s word over her friends, and the way she had worded it informed him that she most likely wouldn’t have any interest in hearing it anyway.

”Fair enough I suppose. Though I don’t know where to go from here, I don’t know any of your friends very well, but I’m of the mind that you probably won’t be interested in what I have to say about those situations.” He responded. He didn’t have anything to say beyond that. He had shared enough of his own thoughts that he wouldn’t have been a hypocrite, but he wasn’t much one to play a game of contrition with anyone and this was going to end up turning into that.

”I’m sorry to have taken up your time. I do hope you get dry though and don’t get sick.” He said, genuine in his concern for her health, but now thoroughly convinced that all of Lamia Scale had been swayed to the thought that he was some kind of monster for defending his life, though the one thing he had done that he felt lived up to their expectations was with Kotone and he already had plans to apologize for that. The rest… he wasn’t going to be the type of person that responded to people who wanted his life by protecting theirs. That was fundamentally stupid and even though he had resolved to keep himself from killing wantonly, he wasn’t the type to simply value the life of those killed innocents over those very innocents or even acquaintances.