An Overachiever's Underachievement [Private]

"There.. are no... breathers in--" Rose had started to chant some sort of mantra she'd been programmed with while in MTA, but her own gasps and soft wheezes stopped her before she could sound too much like some ancient war relic. While she might not have participated in the ancient war, since she was a young human and all that, she had been intensely trained as if war was imminent since she was small. She'd been part of the skirmishes on the boarder between Arka and Mistere. And obviously she'd seen her share of combat, even though her loss of limb was actually an internal conflict between her military family and some mercenaries.

Frustration had her mechanical fingers digging into the dirt a bit. If they'd been human they'd have been trembling with weakness, but her horribly robot arms were steady as could be, which was a blessing since soon her small frame was wracked with coughs. Slowly she lifted her head and eyes, giving the unwelcome help and commenter a glance. The expression in itself was a mask of neutrality other than the feverish hue and general malaise. "I'm fine," stated the soldier girl, slowly leaning back onto her legs and sitting more upright. The knees of her green trousers turned brown once the redness of blood seeped in, and her gloves had ripped. That brought a small frown. Metal glinted through the rips in the palms from the sun overhead. She hid them quickly. What was he grinning at? She'd just underachieved every single goal she had again, which crushed the chronic overachiever. Since arriving at Eldritch Academy she'd been mediocre at best, only adding to the pressure she'd placed on herself and bringing more deeply buried anxiety.

Given all that...Rose wasn't rude. Perhaps more than a little isolated in more ways than one, but generally she was a polite girl through the frosty exterior. The boy was trying to help a girl who was obviously struggling, and had no idea how much it would embarrass her... probably. Rose reached out and reluctantly took the offered towel, carefully blotting her flushed face and soaking up any moisture. Her lungs burned, her abdomen convulsed and she leaned forward a little, hacking into the towel. Hopefully he didn't want it back, because now it was dotted in blood. Maybe he was right. She'd overdone it...again. But how would she ever return to normal at this rate? "Thank you," she muttered, blue eyes wrought with the sadness and pain she otherwise didn't show. Once she caught her breath more, she chose to correct his guess at how many laps. "It was twelve. The goal was fifteen," Rose informed him, moving aquamarine eyes up to his amber ones. "But it would be hard to keep track of how many times a random girl ran a lap while playing the drums."

Darn it if he wasn't right. She hated that he was right and that he didn't accept her 'I'm fine'. In fact, she found him pretty annoying in general. Mostly annoying for offering assistance she didn't ask for --and would never ask for-- but also just his attitude and repeated use of 'dude'. Arka was a rigid place. She had no choice but to absorb it into her being. It was in her DNA. Being so strict and militaristic afforded zero time for irreverence and frivolity, which were all the traits she could glean from this boy as he was right now. Perhaps just her core sadness and his perkiness had caused this friction, but whatever it was, he was the last person she wanted to take advice from. What did he know? He played the drums, and not even the type that conveyed marching instructions or provided moral in the heat of it.

Yes, her presumptions were a bit harsh. She may be polite, but she was also taught to not hold back the truth, no matter how brutal. If she was mistaken, she'd be corrected. That's how communication worked, correct? "I know my uniform is a bit shapeless, but I feel I must inform you that I don't have a dick, so I am not a 'dude'," she quipped as politely as she could, choosing her words a little more carefully. Here she'd been crafting herself the persona of a lady. An old fashioned modest, reserved, poised lady. For the most part that's true, but she'd also been in the trenches with boys including her brothers, so she could speak roughly on occasion. It was a strange duality, but she'd learned to live with it.

She was also taught not to let pride get in the way of good sense. Whether she wanted to admit it or not --she certainly didn't want to-- Rose was not in good shape, and all of her water was spilled in the fall. The irony taste in her mouth was starting to bother her, which was ironic considering how many other things were more evident in her body. Reaching for the water bottle, it was time to fully display how jacked up everything was whether she wanted to or not. Rose attempted to keep her hands angled so the metallic gleam would be away from his eyes, while also being very deliberate. Screwing off a lid when fine motor control hadn't been fully achieved was like asking her to thread a needle. It required intense concentration, of which she didn't have a lot of. To be honest, darkness was trying to invade her vision at the edges. Passing out right now was not the kind of strength she wanted to show in a stranger's presence. So it was no surprise when about the time she finally got the lid loose, she lost control of the other hand and he clamped hard on the bottle, rocketing the lid into the air and raining its contents down on both of them. She deadpan froze in abject horror. This was far from the first time she'd done something like this. Crushing dainty test tubes in chemistry, snapping pencils while trying to take notes, splintering any cutlery that wasn't metal during lunch, ripping pages out of books...these horrible, embarrassing things were becoming common place and more poorly timed than the incident before. A weaker, more expressive girl might have broke down in tears by now, but not Rose.

"I don't suppose you have another?" she asked calmly, also resigning to her fate of probably requiring his help. She barely waited for a response before she changed her mind. The next question tasted bad already, but she couldn't sit here on the track forever. "I...may need your help. I need to get up, but I don't think I can," she started. So many resignations Rose made at once, because going on with this request would make hiding her metal limbs previously pretty pointless. "Can you help me up? I think I should go to the nurse's office," finished the frosty words, hanging in the air over them like some sort of shameful surrender. One hand reached out for him to grip. One touch would betray that it wasn't flesh, and all of her brain power would go into not squeezing his arm or hand too hard.

Rose deadpan stared at him for his 'wet' comment. This was the first of many of this type of expressions to be tossed toward the boy most likely, displaying her level of done with his antics she was. So he was clever, but the useless kind. The humor wasn't lost on her, but being a girl that rarely smiles let alone laughs, it would take far more than that to reveal even a glimmer of the person under the stoic mask.

Thankfully as she took his hand, his flesh didn't react like the water bottle moments before. "You...swim?" she asked, connected a few dots. Making idle chit chat, as much as she disliked it, was a good way to distract from the more gleaming questions and topics they could talk about. Slowly she pulled herself up, and while her metal arms were strong, once on her feet it was more apparent how weak her human body was. It quivered under its own weight. She'd overdone it again. The nurse would be furious. Medically, she wasn't cleared to be back at a full regimen of exercise, and she'd lied and told them she was taking it easy. The opposite had been true. To try and just make up for everything wrong in her life, she was pouring one hundred and ten percent into every single thing she did. Her body and mind didn't really have it to give, but Rose was headstrong. The girl charged on like a bull until she literally couldn't anymore, which seemed to be the moment they'd encountered now.

Rose silently acquiesced to following slowly along side him back to his bag, though it was clearly a struggle. Her stubborn independence made leaning on him seem impossible, though he was right beside her. She glanced up into his grinning face, but her deep oceanic eyes quickly darted away and back ahead of them. He'd had a smile on his face for nearly their entire encounter. While her instinct was to not trust it, she did consider that he was just being kind. This boy had no reason to cross the field to aid her, and she could think of nothing he'd gain from it other than an excuse to leave practice.

As they moved, though, her movements slowed more and more. Her knees were sore and the bloody fabric stuck to them. Worry over the removal of stains and the repairing of the rips cluttered her rapidly fogging mind. The pain should have been the first priority, but instead she was trying to plan how she'd remedy her uniform. It was the last she had from her soldier days, and had no way to replace it since she'd been effectively exiled until she was recovered. It had been foolish to work out in it to begin with, but she had no other clothing with her besides a couple long skirts, blouses, and button ups. Those weren't conducive to training at all. All training had been done in uniform, but only now did she consider she should purchase something better that she could ruin. This uniform was needed to return to the service.

"So...stupid.." she muttered, admonishing herself. Her free hand gripped her middle, favoring her left side a bit as she coughed. Said coughs disrupted the pattern of her footsteps. Her toe caught on a small rock. Rose started to fall, her consciousness edging on a blackout.

"I...did..." she muttered, refusing to pass out on principle. Yes, she'd pushed herself too hard. Now she paid the price with both her pride and her body. Maybe it was the light headedness literally talking, but Rose seemed to actually explain. Sorta. "I have to recover...or they won't let me back. They don't let me back in..." lamented the girl in a tense voice. She offered no context. From her airy tone, it was probably pretty obvious she was saying things she normally wouldn't. She was a very closed off girl, but when the defenses were offline, she was just like anyone else.

Now she was faced with another issue. While she stubbornly pushed on for a few steps, trying her hardest to keep being a strong independent girl who don't need no man, she also realized she was never going to make it off this field on her own two feet. He offered to carry her. Screaming internally, she tried to fight it. No one would carry her in Arka! She'd have to make due on her own, or die trying. Survival of the fittest! She'd once been plenty fit to outlast most, but nature called for her. The injured and weak fell to the strong. Her continued life in the enemy country was a sin as it was. Her father had been too soft, keeping her from her fate and sending her off as a pitiful invalid to try and find another life for herself, rather than face facts. Go find something else she was good at other than military stuff. Become a writer. A mathematician. A teacher or scholar. Anything, but don't come back at the same level as before the defeat; be harder, better, faster, stronger. Rose had seen it in his face. The painful forever goodbye when there could not be an acceptable one. Her father never expected to see her again, and only took comfort that his parents in Mistere might provide her the support she needed when the money and food ran out.

Her mother and brothers had given her the proper Arka goodbye to a fallen soldier denied an honorable death. They'd remained upstairs on the balcony, their backs to her as she was wheeled out into a cab. She'd had to be rushed to Mistere for her new arms, while the nerves in her arm stumps were still alive. "I'll prove myself. I swear...or there's nothing..." Rose mumbled on sadly, though finally she was able to shake herself from her stupor and regained a bit of her stoicism back. Only a bit. Because her next statement was a bit odd. "Fire duck," she stated, using that as his name since she didn't have any other to use, "I think...carrying me would be more efficient. I'm going to collapse."

Rose's body moved willfully under his encouragement, her metal hands on his shoulders, then her frame being swooped up effortlessly. Being someone borderline obsessed with strength, the girl did notice right away that he didn't struggle at all. While she wasn't extremely heavy, between her muscles and metal arms, Rose was a little heavier than she looked. Most here in Mistere glanced at her and saw a fragile, feather-like young woman. Like if they breathed on her or knocked into her, she'd break. Now, given she wasn't as strong as she once was, she was far from the delicate flower her name and current condition suggested. "Fire duc--...Leo, you're very strong, aren't you?" she asked lightly, her body thankful to be freed of its need to work. It slumped into his arms. Her hands hadn't been able to feel the definition in his shoulders, nor the muscles in his chest now that her arm was against it, but she could feel his arms under her knees and behind her back, and strangely they weren't the arms of a teen that only swam and played drums to her. They seemed more suited to battle, as if he'd been trained similarly to her, though their difference in species could account for that.

While she was certainly thirsty, that wasn't the important thing here. "You're probably right...the nurse..." she agreed with a nod. She could get water there among other things. Also, her intense embarrassment over Leo having to help her could end, and she could work on repaying him for the effort and praying he'd forget it ever happened.

"I know..." Rose groaned, her body tensing in a wave of discomfort. The blonde didn't even notice they hadn't started moving again. The swimming in her head certainly hadn't stopped. But at least her ears still seemed to work, amidst the face-flushing fever that had taken hold. "I know...I'm going too hard. I know. But I can't not.." the ailing girl tried to explain in discombobulated sentences. If she could have an out of body experience right now and see herself while mentally not succumbing to her own idiotic decisions, she'd surely will herself to death. Her words ceased after that for a while.

There was no life for her here in Mistere. No purpose. All she had to give her any meaning was being the best in the academy and gaining all her physical abilities back, so she could go back to Arka with her head held high. She'd be able to show them how improved she was compared to herself before her devastating defeat. Waking up in this strange place, unable to return to her real life, was torture. Forcing herself out of bed to spend endless hours studying things she knew would never help her back home, studying things the military training academy had tossed aside as unnecessary. When not studying, her real work began, trying to make up lost training time. Self boot camp. Wash, rinse, repeat.

His joke missed her. Right over her fuzzy head. He mentioned war, and though she was definitely too young to have been in the ancient one, that didn't mean she was sheltered from the skirmishes on the border between Arka and Mistere. In fact, she'd been right in the middle of them. However, she did get that he was talking about his arms, which was the sore spot with her to begin with. "Don't get too ducky, cock," her words jumbled, though her expression and tone announced she was quite serious. It was probably unintentionally humorous, since she was very rarely one to joke. "I once put all my faith in my arms. They were the key to my talent, but once they were severed, I was useless..." Rose lamented, her metal hands flexing beneath the gloves. She had a new talent blooming from the replacements, but so far it was no comparison to her original talent. She was no comparison to her original self.

Her body, small in comparison to his, tensed in a wave of agony. Her teeth gritted a little, but otherwise she staved it off. Losing her arms hurt much worse, and after her crushing defeat, no pain seemed especially bad. Was that weird? Rose had already been a tough cookie, conditioned endlessly to endure any sort of merciless agony the enemy or even her own people might inflict on her. Mental fortitude was nearly a religion of its own. Show no weakness, show no mercy. No mercy, not even for yourself. It'd only been a few months since she was released from the hospital, but she wasn't programmed to take it easy. The best, or death.

"Balance, hm.. I get it, I just can't help myself...when your world is tilting...there's no balance left, is there? And if it shatters, what's the point?" Rose muttered, her cheek lulling toward Leo's body. Her cheek came to a rest against his shoulder. "My way is different. All or nothing...all or nothing..."