By the time Shiki had gotten to the table, it was a far less on edge faunus watching her return. Blake's shoulders had sagged from their tense posture, slumped forward as if the coiled spring she'd been moments earlier had suddenly lost all its bounce. If anything, her own gaze was apologetic by the time Shiki had sat back down, and she was on the verge saying something until Shiki herself suddenly spoke up.
She winced slightly at the first part. On point as it was.
But her demeanor slowly shifted from guilty to, well, still guilty, also with a tepid mix of horrified, fascinated, and...
Pity wasn't really the right term. Shiki still had that aura of lethal indifference about her that had Blake on edge from the start, and it sort of forbade such feelings from applying to the mystic eyes user. Its close cousin empathy was there though, Blake not sure she'd ever be able to
sympathize with having an ability like that, but...
She picked at her food a moment, not able to meet anyone's gaze and idly wondering if this was what Weiss felt like after that little 'faunus are criminals' debacle of an argument. Finally she huffed.
"..
.Sorry. About the Ruby thing, not... I don't think I'm really qualified to apologize or even consider what having that kind of ability must be like. Its just... I mean whether I'm going to trust you or not, even before I knew that you just kind of come off as... as scary. Ruby's one of my only friends, even if this one's a different one from back home the thought of something happening to her is terrifying."
Blake actually let out a short huff of a laugh, though there wasn't any amusement in it. "
I mean, I was having trouble with my normal life. I thought I was stuck in some extraordinary, awful mess back home, but this, all these other worlds everyone came from, some... thing screwing around with us, your problems, the deaths we haven't even begun to figure out, its... its just overwhelming. Makes my old problems seem tiny, and we were barely handling those."
"But that doesn't mean I should take it out on you when you've done nothing but make the occasional off color comment and have otherwise been one of the only people to take this seriously. Even if I'm not sure I've convinced myself we even can do anything except play along, I really don't think I could do it by myself." She rubbed at her forehead as she spoke, finally glancing up when she was done with a contrite frown. "
So thanks. Both of you. Hopefully I'm wrong."
Ugh. Not that she thought she was ever going to
actually be content as long as they were stuck in this hellhole of sunshine and murder, but even compared to the last few days her mood was pretty shot in a combination of guilt, frustration, and the ever present fear and anger at this whole mess. She pushed her plate away. and stood up. "
And we can start trying to prove me wrong now, if you two are up for it. I'm gonna pay a visit to the counselor in charge... person. Whatever we call this Olga girl."
before she turned to leave though, she did allow herself a small smirk as she added. "
And hey. Don't sell me short. Maybe this whole place has me a bundle of nerves and. I may not be able to kill everything I look at, but this cat girl is pretty good with her sword-that's-not-a-sword-because-it-has-a-sheath. And thats not even getting into whats inside the sheat-"
Oh hey. New girl. She blinked in surprise and gave Tsukimi a hesitant wave before glancing towards Shiki.
"
...Is she with you?"
@Jeremi @OrlandoBloomers @CCC Kouhai