Order and Freedom

Charlotte chuckled, and Kotone wondered why for a moment. Earlier, she had taken offense to not having Kotone dive out of her way. But now that she’d calmed down she just seemed to take everything in stride. Kotone was made almost entirely of contradicting personality traits… and she was confused by the slightly older girl. “What am I talking about?” she mumbled to herself, repeating Charlotte’s words. “I mean I’m curious about you. I don’t know what to ask exactly because I don’t do this stuff.” She let out a sigh and tried again. “You’re confusing.”

She kept walking in silence as she waited for Charlotte’s answer. The daughter of Argon was putting on a front. That was what was going on. It dawned on her as she finished her sentence. Kotone put on a front all the time, and that meant that Charlotte was similar, in a different sort of way. Kotone wanted to know why this was, and hopefully Charlotte would give her some sort of insight to that. The dragon slayer brushed her hair out of her face and adjusted her ponytail so that it was a little bit less loose. Sid, now back in her backpack, mewed softly as they walked.a

“I’m confusing? That’s odd...especially considering the fact that you are confusing to me as well. Something about you reminds me of someone...someone whose face I seem to have forgotten,” Charlotte mused, walking along with Kotone again. There was an odd familiarity between them and for the first time in her life, Charlotte was left unable to identify this air around them. They had a lot of dissimilarities and she can name them one by one but they also had a lot of similarities which she couldn’t completely guess at that moment. It was just a distant feeling from the bottom of her conscious but it was taunting her none the less.

“I’m just me. I might be confusing to most but that’s because it is my goal to be so,” she chuckled, winking at Kotone before turning her attention to the road ahead. “There is a reason to this madness...” she trailed off not wanting to complete the sentence. She was aware of her real persona slipping back into place and she let it back in. Why hide from someone who had already guessed her little charade?

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself? hmm?” She finally asked, intended to gather some knowledge about this person that she had taken an interest in. ‘Strange,’ she wondered. ‘Who does she remind me of?’

Kotone was confusing Charlotte as well. She admitted as much. It brought a grin of satisfaction to the difficult young dragon slayer’s lips.  She also reminded Charlotte of someone. Whomever that was. Kotone honestly had no idea what she was babbling about. She’d never seen the daughter of Argon face to face in her life. She felt something there too though, and it only made her more secretly curious. She wasn’t going to tell Charlotte that though. Not until she learned more.

Charlotte told Kotone there was a reason to her madness. Kotone’s grin turned into a full-blown smirk at that point. “There’s always a reason, Charchar.” She told her, not using her proper name, as usual when it came to people she was talking to. She flipped her ponytail back over her shoulder as the wind blew her hair, looking confident and calm compared to how she’d been when they first bumped into each other. “Some of us don’t want people close to the truth.”

For Kotone, that charade hadn’t stopped. She didn’t drop it even when Charlotte dropped hers. The truth was, behind the mountain of defenses and abandonment issues, Kotone was actually a pretty sweet girl, and that was why she  did so many nice things, and managed to let off steam then have a nice talk with people she’d previously hated. Her hot-headed stubbornness and even her alternate uncaring exterior were learned responses, not who she naturally was.

“About me, huh?” Kotone asked, shrugging a bit and relaxing her shoulders as she looked down, eyes closed for a moment. She reopened them and stared ahead as she talked. “There’s a lot to say. A lot of it you don’t get to hear. A lot of it that isn’t true.” She looked over at Charlotte again, that smirk visible once more. “But I’ll tell you this. I was raised by a dragon after my family abandoned me. I was abandoned by that dragon. Shortly after I became the first and so far only publically known dragon slayer, and I was given the nickname Spellbreaker for defeating so many wizards as a child during that war your father cleaned up. Skip a few years, and here I am.” It wasn’t a lot. In fact, a lot of that was probably public knowledge if you were up on famous figure knowledge. But it was Kotone trying.

Oops’ Charlotte thought as she saw the sudden change in expression of the loud mouthed dragon girl. She seemed to have boosted someone’s ego up a notch without intending to. With this girl, she couldn’t praise or criticize her, Charlotte mused, keeping a calm smile on her lips. What was the use of putting on a mask now? The girl already saw her real self without it and it would be a bother to start grinning like crazy till her mouth hurt.

Charlotte raised an eyebrow as the girl called her charchar, making her chuckle at her ridiculous attempt at giving her a name. “You are right, Kotone. Some people indeed don’t want people near the truth and I certainly don’t want you near mine,” she smirked, giving her a wink as she started walking forward. “And it doesn’t seem like I’m the only one who has some skeletons in my closet,” she continued, turning her head to give Kotone a knowing look.

It was hard for most people to figure out but Charlotte is focused and observing. It didn’t take her long to figure if not everything, a few things about the girl she was currently conversing with. There was something off. She gave off an attitude that admittedly even got her mad but there was something else there too. It looked like they both lived with an outer character to protect themselves and for some reason, she felt happy she found something in common with the less than mature girl.

“So...abandonment issues, huh?” She asked as Kotone finished her speech. She was abandoned by her dragon and was left alone to take care of herself. Moreover, she is the first dragon slayer to be reported meaning there are many more. ‘That wasn’t a surprise’ she thought, shaking her head at the thought of more Kotones running around causing trouble. ‘ugh lord’ she shook the thought off her head as she shuddered.

Abandonment issues?! Who was this woman to say what kinds of issues Kotone had? Kotone let out a frustrated sigh. "People don't get to be close if they don't prove they want to stick around first," Kotone informed the older girl as she walked beside her. It was probably a good thing she couldn't read Charlotte's mind. It might have made her mad again. That said, she would probably hate more Kotones running around too.

"Who the heck cares?" Kotone shrugged off the topic, obviously changing it before they focused too much on her. "What about you? Too much trouble playing the part of princess for your big important daddy?" she asked, sounding more condescending than she was actually being. It didn't help that she didn't appreciate people poking at her issues without her permission. No one had permission. "Because last I checked you aren't the ditz you seem to want people to think you are. So why hide?"

Kotone raised an eyebrow, looking at Charlotte seriously. She had something that she wanted to achieve by fooling the world, or something she was hiding from. Maybe both. Could Kotone piece together the puzzle? Probably not in one go. Not if she was a fourth as guarded as Kotone was. But she didn’t exactly plan on coming to visit the girl either.

Charlotte had to bite down her urge to laugh at the sudden change in expression that Kotone displayed. The weather is what this girl reminded Charlotte of. She is sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy and most of the times stormy, she could bet. Her personality changed like the weather at its will. That said, she knew that she also hit the right spot with her words. So it really was abandonment issues, she thought as she nodded her head deep in thought. But there was one thing that she said that hit her thoughts. There is no point in keeping people close when they don’t want to be. She couldn’t completely understand Kotone’s problems since she hasn’t exactly been abandoned by people though she knew what it was like to don’t know who to trust and confide in when everything comes crashing down.

From the beginning, every single person she met became her friend not for her but for her position and the power she held on her own father. Reality came down on her like a ton of bricks only after a violent incident that left her alone with no-one as her support. Even one of the reasons why she first escaped into her outer charade was because of this. To keep people at an arm’s length, to make herself so useless that people wouldn’t see anything worth in her to take advantage of. Though this was the initial reason, once she figured out how people undid their masks in front of her thinking that she is the stupidest person to walk on earth gave her an opportunity to analyze and learn. Her outer character became her best weapon since then.

She snapped out of her thoughts when Kotone carefully turned the tables around to her. She smiled. “I have my reasons,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “Tell me have you ever had that feeling where you don’t know who to turn to when you are in a pinch? Ever felt like you are surrounded by nothing but lies? Ever felt that the world around you is going up in flames and fast?” she asked, giving everything but nothing away at the same time. Those words had most of her problems in it though she made sure to hide them all properly. “Let me say….everything is not always what they look like.”

Kotone listened passively as Charlotte told Kotone she had her reasons. She’d expected that much, and she wasn’t sure how much Charlotte would answer her, considering their earlier misunderstanding. Kotone wasn’t exactly over that, herself, but she did know how to behave, especially when she wanted answers. Besides, Charlotte had seen past her bluff as well, once they had started talking. The phrase ‘it takes one to know one’ went through her mind at that point, and she had to stop herself from chuckling. How true that was, it seemed.

She finally smirked a knowing smirk, crossing her arms as Charlotte asked her own questions. They were probably rhetorical, but it didn’t really matter to Kotone. She felt like saying her part anyway. “Princess,” she started in a tone that sounded more like ‘Princess’ was a nickname than a title, coming from her. “Running around without much support is the story of my life,” She gave Charlotte a slightly dismissive shrug. “As for the politics… it’s kind of what your family was asking for when they took over. I guess it’s up to people like you to sort through them, eh?” Kotone shoved her hands in her pockets, considering the last parts of what Charlotte told her. They weren’t friends. But Kotone did respect Charlotte’s defiance of her father’s orders, considering she could have easily tried to capture her, but hadn’t.

“Look,” Kotone paused, thinking about her thoughts as she was saying them aloud. “Heroing is kind of my thing, even if it gets a bit messy from time to time,” She jabbed a finger into her chest, pointing at herself. “If you ever need a bit of backup putting out the fires your people... or anyone else... causes, you know who to call. I’m not afraid to get a little dirty if it helps people.”

She smiled… a genuine one after a long time as she listened to Kotone. The girl in front of her must have been immature and hot headed, not to mention she got her mad like no other. But in the end, that same girl had given her a reason to smile, had understood something nobody bothered to understand and had reminded her of why she was fighting. “You know, kid, you aren’t that bad after all,” She chuckled as she took soft steps towards her before ruffling her hair a little as if she was a little kid. “You somehow make me think of my little sister,” she said as she moved away.

A darkness had plagued my heart. The darkness spread over, filling the holes left in my chest with painful memories. I had seen my mother drenched in blood, motionless as my father sat beside her with unshed tears. The sky seemed to have heard our voiceless cries for the heavy rain that fell upon us had helped us hide our pain. What we lost that day cannot be compared to anything. A piece of my own origin had gone missing. Those days were nightmares that we fought so hard to forget. We had pushed them far away from our consciousness so that we can move on. I wonder....where are you, sis?

If she hadn’t gotten the kid wrong, then it would be a matter of seconds before she would start giving off some attitude. But then again, the kid, she had to admit, was full of surprises. In a way, they both had some similar stories to tell. Both of them were lonely despite the strong front they put up. “And don’ worry. I will keep your words in my mind. I am sure I am going to need someone like you at some point to get some things done,” she carried on, already plotting some things in her head. Trouble makers like Kotone who instead of getting scared of the law has the guts to rebel against it when its wrong is exactly the type of people she as well as the council needs. But first, she had to figure out about what’s going on with her father. Something had made her great father shake like a leaf and think like a coward. But what?