[FIN] Minuet of Forest

[Tymiko]

She blinked perplexedly at the mention of someone dying. It couldn't have been on accident, could it have? But even if he'd had no other choice, not many people had the strength to take another life. It must have weighed heavily on the young man's shoulders. Particularly if he had been coped up in his own house for seven years and had never really known the outside world. To have killed someone must have been devastating.

Ty wanted to comfort him, but she wasn't really sure how. She'd never experienced that sort of guilt. She couldn't even be sure of the circumstances under which someone had died, so she couldn't make assumptions. But she'd heard of others' stories, and she wondered if Luke had thought about the things she'd learned from those stories.

"A sword isn't always used for attack," she pointed out. "Often it's just used for defense. Defending yourself and others should be justification enough to use a weapon, don't you think?" Tymiko rested her elbow on her knee and her cheek in her palm.

"I know a couple of people who use weapons, but they've never killed anyone. This one person I heard of even used to be an assassin, but later on in life all he wanted was peace. That was when he started using the blunt side of his single-edged sword to fight. That way he could protect others while keeping to his vow of never killing another person again."

Her brows furrowed in thought. "I doubt you expected anyone to die, nor had wanted them too," she continued, careful not to accuse him of the killing. "But maybe...just maybe it was necessary. My dad once told me he thought that there was one reason that killing was justified, and that reason was to save the life of an innocent." Which, she was betting, was just what this teenager had done.  

[Suudonym]

"That's what I always thought," he said. "I said that I carried a sword to defend myself and to protect others. But protecting one person means hurting someone else. That's how protecting works." He spoke in a somewhat jaded tone that criticized his own former naivete.

The story the girl told sounded like a lofty ideal, but even that was a story of someone who hurt others. Did his wish for peace justify that? Was it even possible to defend people without hurting them? Luke still wanted to believe there was a way, but that jaded tone spoke into his thoughts: protecting one means hurting another. No one ever wanted to be hurt; with that basic truth, could it really be impossible?

Luke's expression was quiet and pensive, betraying no real emotions besides thoughtfulness. "I would disagree," he replied. "What makes my life any more important than someone else's? Everyone has a family and friends that they love and that love them. It's easy to label someone a 'bad person' just because they're doing something 'bad,' but they're still human. They still deserve to live and be happy."  

[Tymiko]

"Well - well it's their fault for putting you in that situation in the first place! They're practically asking to be cut down," she spoke up suddenly, a very childish quality coming into her voice. It was the sort of conviction a kid had that they knew a hero from a villain - idealistic and ignorant.

The fact that she had changed her tone, however, suggested that she was aware of this. It also suggested that perhaps she had chosen to believe what she said because she didn't want to consider the opposite perspective. She had no wish right now to sympathize with the enemy, and so she shoved those considerations to the back of her mind.

Calming herself a bit, Tymiko regarded Luke's expression once again. There was that flip-side she was trying to avoid. Of course he would have had to bring it up. That was probably the cause of why an enemy's death bothered him so much in the first place.

"Look at it this way," she suggested, absent-mindedly making marks in the ground with her stick. "You fight for what you believe and so do they. Naturally, when your beliefs clash with one another, there will be conflict. Like in a war, there are bound to be casualties. People don't go into battle without being willing to fight, get hurt, and die for their beliefs. And if they do, then they're fools."

"In some cultures, to let an opponent live is to disgrace both yourself and that person because you're denying them an honorable death in the name of what they've fought for." Her eyes narrowed at the ground and she murmured something under her breath. "Besides...what's one human life more or less?" Suddenly she began to wonder what she was trying to achieve. Though she genuinely wanted to help Luke reason things out and feel better, Ty was reminded that she was probably not the best person to empathize with valuing human life. At least from her opposite perspective, though, she might have been able to convince him why not everyone mattered.

"Not everyone has people who love them," the girl countered quietly. "I try not to judge people for their actions without knowing their reasons behind them. But I don't believe that all humans deserve to live and be happy."  

[Suudonym]

"Then it's my fault for allowing them to put me in that situation. Or it's both our faults for both reasons." He shook his head slightly. "No one's ever asking to be cut down, no one. All anyone wants is to be happy. What's wrong with that?" It was a very simple way to put, and even Luke was aware that it was flawed; one person's happiness often meant another's despair. It just didn't seem fair for everyone in the world to want something so basic and obtainable but for only a fraction of them to ever achieve it.

"Why does believing in something have to condemn you to death? If your beliefs are different from someone else's, then can't you just talk about it?" He looked to his company earnestly, "Aren't we disagreeing right now? But we aren't fighting, and we aren't hurting each other, and no one's dying. Why isn't this enough?"

He frowned at the idea of an 'honorable death.' How could someone ever want to die just because they had failed at something? It sounded like aimless bravery to him. The notion that just a single life didn't matter, though, struck him heavily, and he became somewhat distraught by the idea.

"No, that's-- That can't be right!" He quieted himself, turning his gaze to his lap and his tightened fists that rested there. "Anyone who's born has a right to be alive. No one has the right to take that away."  

[Tymiko]

"Allowing them to...?" The girl laughed hollowly. "That's like when a person is bumped into and the one who was hit apologizes because they were standing in the way. If that was the case, then everyone would end up blaming themselves for everything."

She got up and pointed to the dirt and grass beneath her. "Like, I could blame myself for crushing those blades of grass. But then I would be sorry for every single step I took because something would have been stomped on by my foot."

Ty sat back down and criss-crossed her legs. "Anything can be taken a different way. I just don't think this particular instance is something you can blame yourself for, particularly when you're so regretful about it. It's not like you wanted the person to die."

The girl shrugged at his comment. "Sure, most people don't ask to be cut down, but I wouldn't say 'no one'. People suffering or in pain don't usually want to prolong their life. There's nothing wrong with people wanting to be happy, but when it crosses the line and imposes itself on someone else's happiness, that's when conflict arises."

Sighing at Luke's reasoning, the water trainer lay down on her back and folded her arms behind her head. She stared up at the stars as she spoke, her gaze distant and sad. "Not everyone is satisfied with just talking. I'm sure you know this or else you wouldn't have learned how to use a sword in the first place."

"Yeah, we're disagreeing, but we're also considering each other's opinions rather than merely trying to impose our own. Not everyone is so tolerant. Some people have such extreme beliefs that they don't allow room to consider anyone else's."

If Ty had known what Luke was wondering about concerning someone wanting to die, she would have laughed, but she remained unaware. She was distracted instead by the noble's sudden outburst which was abruptly followed by softer words.

"Maybe you're right," she conceded with a small, sorrowful smile. "I agree that people don't have the right to decide if others should live or not - at least if they can help it, unlike you. But, personally, I don't think most people value their live enough."

She turned her head to grin at Luke mirthlessly. "You said no one has the right to take away someone else's right to live. Would that, in your opinion, include that someone themselves? Even if they want to die?"  

[Suudonym]

Luke couldn't really respond to that knowing that he was, in fact, blaming himself for everything. It just didn't seem right to blame someone who had died, especially not knowing what the man's circumstances were. There was also his understanding that his wish for the man's life was retrospective; at the time it had happened, he had wanted to kill his enemy, believing it the only way to defend his friend. This was what frightened him the most.

Another vague shake of his head to indicate disagreement, "No, that's not... I never wanted to fight." A slight breath of a laugh, "I was just bored. I wanted to be good at something." He had left his sword at home when he came to Kodo, after all. It wasn't until danger had presented itself that he had thought to put the skill to practical use. He never imagined that things would happen as they did, though.

The fact that there were those who refused to listen to reason was a sad fact that Luke had no choice but to accept. It wasn't always even a matter of extreme beliefs; sometimes people simply wouldn't listen once they had made up their mind. He knew that firsthand from trying to have civil conversations with Asch.

The slight shift in the discussion to the matter of once deciding their own death was visibly disquieting to Luke, and he fidgeted idly with his jacket. "I... I don't know. I think so, though... Just by being alive, you affect a lot of other people's lives, right? I think it would be kind of selfish to just decide something like that on your own when it would affect others too..."  

[Tymiko]

"Really?" Seemed an odd pastime for someone who didn't want to fight, but then again, she couldn't talk. She'd wanted to learn sword-fighting for pretty much the same reason, but when one was actually faced with combat, the concept seemed a lot less fun and a lot more serious. "Well...I'm sorry you chose that of all things to be good at. But you couldn't tell the future, so it's not your fault."

Close-minded people were one thing Tymiko could not tolerate. She would have been more than happy to have the world be rid of them all. But worse so to Ty were those who forcibly imposed their opinions on others. Those were the people she would have gladly disposed of herself.

"I'd like to think that if one stays away from others as much as possible and keeps to themselves, then their effect on others' lives can be kept to a minimum." She sat up. "But I guess you're right. It is selfish."

As if they hadn't talked about anything more serious than the weather, Tymiko hopped to her feet. She turned to him cheerfully, all trace of her sorrow having vanished. It seemed she was either very fickle or good at hiding her emotions. "So, what was that song about? The one you were singing earlier," she inquired, proceeding to pull her shirt up over her head in an effort to remove it.  

[Suudonym]

He couldn't tell the future. He'd heard something similar to that once before, when he was berating himself over his decision to skip out on the contest. It was a simple, basic fact, but apparently he had a tendency to forget it.

Her comments on affecting others as little as possible struck Luke as strange. She couldn't have been talking about herself, with how enthusiastically and insistently she had involved herself in his affairs. There was something strange about the entire course of the conversation, though, in essence, and the boy was nothing short of relieved when the subject disappeared in its entirety. The sudden switch was slightly disorienting, but welcome nonetheless. He wasn't exactly thrilled to have the topic return to his singing, though, and it showed in the slight shift of the color of his face. But he didn't outright reject the question, even if he answered with a faint reluctance.

"It's not really about anything... It's just a song from the place I grew up that got turned into a lullaby somewhere along the way-- Wait, what are you doing?" Kinda looked like she was taking her shirt off as naturally as one might discard a jacket in warm weather. Had she mentioned something about changing her clothes and he'd just missed it or something? Was he supposed to turn around, or...?  

[Tymiko]

"Oh, that's lovely," Ty replied at the story of the lullaby. "It's nice you still remember it, especially so far from home."

Hearing the sudden change in his voice, she glanced over. "Hmm?" She'd pulled off her top and was wearing a one-piece swimsuit under. Giggling at Luke, she continued on to remove her capris and flip-flops, dropping them to the ground in a little, careless pile.

"I'm just going for a swim, silly," she laughed, as if not having realized that Luke had expected a warning. "Might wake me up a little more. All this 'serious business' stuff is making me drowsy again. Wanna come?" Removing the scarf around her hair, she gestured to the lake before tossing the cloth onto the pile of her other clothes.  

[Suudonym]

He nodded vaguely. The melody was one that had sounded familiar to him even despite the loss of his childhood memories, so it had always been something that interested him.

A little warning would have been nice, yeah. Did people usually wander around wearing swimsuits under their clothes? He was pretty sure that wasn't the case, but then people didn't wander around tossing their clothes off often enough for him to know for sure.

No, no, that was definitely just weird. He shrugged it off though. "Nah, I'm not much for swimming." Nor for spontaneously undressing, but that might have been due in part to the fact that he didn't make a habit of wearing swimming clothes everywhere.  

[Tymiko]

"Aww, why not?" Ty whined with a grin. "It's just water. It won't hurt you." As if to demonstrate this, the girl sat by the edge of the lake and flicked some of the water toward Luke.

"Oh! Almost forgot." Turning to lay on her stomach, the girl reached back for her pile of clothes, digging around until she found what she was looking for. Pressing the central button, the Dive Ball expanded in her hand.

Without a word, she released the pokemon inside to the water of the lake. There was a brief splash, and then all was quiet. A few seconds later, the surface was as glassy and still as before save for a few ripples from time to time.

"If you're not going to go swimming, you should sing some more," Tymiko encouraged the red-haired teen. "How long do you think you'll stay? Maybe you can have dinner with us."  

[Suudonym]

He raised an arm reflexively to guard against the splashed water but made no indication that he was particularly offended by the gesture. "Well for one thing," he said, "I don't walk around ready to go swimming at a moment's notice. And for another, I'm not really good at it, so." He shrugged and leaned backwards against the tree, crossing his wrists in his lap and watching with interest as the pokeball was drawn out and its occupant released. Some kind of water-type, Luke surmised. He really needed to make some kind of effort towards acquiring one of those, between the incident with Emil and the Sharpedo and the knowledge that Asch had pokemon that were weak to the element.

The girl's suggestion pulled his thoughts from the matter, and he waved a hand dismissively, "I don't know about that..." The idea of not having to go well out of his way to completely isolate himself just to clear his head a little wasn't an unattractive one, but it certainly wasn't attractive enough for him to spontaneously drop years of avoidance. The offer received a shrug, "I don't really have anything to do after this, so I could if you wanted."  

[Tymiko]

The girl giggled uncontrollably for some time. She fell to the floor and held her stomach, still laughing. "So that's why you were giving me such a weird look," she gasped once her laughter had died down some. "I didn't realize it was so abnormal to be ready to go swimming. But I guess since we come from different places, we're bound to be used to different things."

"I love water," she explained, "So I love swimming. That, and fishing. It's pretty nice when you have to eat out in the wild." Getting up, she jogged over to Luke and took his hand to tug on it. "Come on! The temperature's just right now because the afternoon sun heats the water up. And if you're not so good at swimming, now's the perfect time to get better at it! Fathom and I can teach you."

Hearing his nearly indifferent reply to the offer of dinner, The girl dropped his arm and sulked. "Well if you're going to be like that, it won't be any fun! Just doing something because you have nothing else to do...If you're not careful, I'm going to dump you in the lake when you're sleeping. Or maybe just stick your hand in some warm water."  

[Suudonym]

He ran an idle hand through his hair, "I don't know about abnormal... There wasn't a pool or anything at home, and the only time I saw the ocean was on the way to the boat to Kodo..." That was probably more abnormal than wearing a swimsuit around, really.

Ahh, fishing. He resisted the urge to make a face at the thought. Luke had quite had his fill of fishing, even if only after a single experience. Not something he really wanted to do again. Swimming, though, that was another matter entirely, and resisted her tugging insistence steadfastly, looking mildly startled by the sudden attack, "No, really, I'm fine..." What, did she expect him to just swim in his clothes or something? Then they'd be all soggy and uncomfortable to move around in. Not an option. Swimming was right out.

Phew, she gave up. He rubbed at his neck with his released hand and offered an apologetic smile, "Sorry, I just thought I might be imposing or something."  

[Tymiko]

"Really?" She blinked at him, shocked. "That's so sad! Now you have to come try it! Just keep your pants on and take off everything else or something," she suggested, not noticing that her choice of words might have sounded slightly awkward.

"Do I look like someone you can impose on?" Ty asked, holding out her arms. "If anyone does the imposing, it's me. Come ooooon. Pleeeeease?"

From the edge of the lake, a Vaporeon's head emerged from the water to watch at the two humans on land.