Room 504, Monday Evening

[intraspective]

Ino was in a bit of a Mood. Not really cheerful, despite being bouncy in class, but not really grumpy or anything either. Mostly thoughtful.

On the bright-side, it was mainly manifesting itself in her muttering, almost inaudibly, to her plants as she went about reorganizing them and debating if she ought to just… get rid of the extra bed entirely, somehow, as she’d been without a roommate since the summer and that sounded about fine to her.

But it wasn’t like the plants cared if she kept them on the other bed, and for the moment it was being used as stage-zero for her to put them all, and then decide from there where they ought to go.

[Open door, open post!]

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[intraspective]

"Why?" she teased. "Too scared to fight me?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"I can't fight without orders," Triela explains. "Not more than sparring." And they both knew that sparring only went so far.

[intraspective]

Sparring hardly covered anything, geez.

"And you can't have a real fight that way," she said, rolling her shoulders. "Not when there's limits like that."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"I can fight with orders. It's because I'm so good at it that they won't let me do it without them."

[intraspective]

That got a frown.

"Triela," Ino said, "you know that there's always going to be someone better, right?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Not than me," Triela insisted with the easy confidence of someone who was in for a nasty surprise somewhere down the line.

[intraspective]

Yeah.

Ino was getting that.

"Lucky you," she said, her tone saying anything but.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't call it luck," Triela shook her head. "It's sort of what they built me to do."

[intraspective]

She just shrugged.

"Hope it holds out for you that way."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Until I run out of time," Triela nodded.

[intraspective]

"Time?" She raised one eyebrow.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"I've got a shelf-life. A couple more years, maybe."

[intraspective]

"A couple more years," she echoed.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"It's all guess work, really, but if the projections base on Angelica's experiences are any good, then, yeah. Three at the outside."

She didn't sound at all bothered.

[intraspective]

Ino noted that.

"Sounds a bit creepy, knowing you're so close to the end."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"It's time I wouldn't have had otherwise," Triela pointed out with the sort of speed that indicated that she didn't think about it much.

[intraspective]

"Well, yeah, but it's not like you've got many choices anymore," she said.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela just shrugged casually.

[intraspective]

Ino shrugged back. "Weird."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Hey," Triela pointed out, "It's not like you make all of your own decisions either. You don't pick your missions."

[intraspective]

"But I can refuse them," she said. "It would get me in trouble, and I'd have to deal with the consequences, but I can refuse them."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Have you ever done it?" Triela asked, eyebrow arched in challenge.

[intraspective]

"No," she said, shrugging. "But it doesn't change the fact that I can."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"A choice you never make might as well not be a choice at all," Triela pointed out.

[intraspective]

"No," she disagreed. "Because not having a choice is completely different than not taking the choice."