Exploring The Datsan

[Nox]

Nox had turned to start his walk but Lucas said something, Nox could have sworn it was an apology. Something he didn't expect, nor thought warrented. Lucas had every right to not like him. He lived with his girlfriend. His girlfriend was Nox's partner and best friend. Nox knew his mouth was probably what got him in trouble more often than not. But he couldn't exactly change things, he was who he was and there was no stopping the way he thought about a pretty girl, and Nox had no intention of changing that, watching his mouth maybe, but it wasn't going to go away and definitely not overnight.

Nox shrugged, "No big deal, Lucas."
He turned around and grinned, "You confuse me more than most women do."
He laughed, "One minute you are okay she can move in to your house, I'll even help. Then you are pretty bent out of shape at the mere thought that Aria might go out someplace with me when all we plan on doing is working. I understand if I was bringing her out here without you to say have fun. Now I wouldn't mind throwing a few snow balls around in jest with her, showing her how to live and not be so uptight all the time."


"Look, I get it. You come out here to spend time with her, that's good, but don't do it because of me. No matter the words that may come out of my mouth, Aria is not on my list to try to bed. That time has long since past my friend. She is like a sister to me,"
Nox grinned.

Lucas raised an eyebrow and smirked. "I confuse you....okay."
He shrugged. "Well, I guess I get that. It's not exactly a situation I've been in before. And I trust her. And you. You've given me no reason not to. So there's that. So. Good then."
He looked off to Aria. "So...what are we doing here? What's she looking for?"


"Honestly, I have no idea. She told Borovsky that she was looking for insight into Ascendancy, a way inside his head. Maybe leverage I guess, knowing what happened here. But she really looking for a reason to solidly say she has no merit to kill the Ascendancy. To cement in her own head, that Ascendancy is a god, he's powerful, but he's not evil."
At least he was pretty sure that was the real reason she was here.

Lucas jaw dropped and his brow furrowed. "Say what now? Kill The Ascendancy?"
He turned back to look at Aria. "Are you crazy? Is she?"
The awe his voice was clear. "He's...the Ascendancy. You can't..."
He shook his head, looking like he was trying to understand. "What...why?"
More words looked like the tried to come out and failed. Lucas started walking to Aria.

Nox caught up to Lucas and grabbed his arm, "Leave her be, we can talk. She won't change her mind, Lucas. It's not hers to change."


Lucas turned to him, eyebrows drawn down. For a moment it looked like he would challenge him. But he turned to watch Aria, for all the world looking like someone had told him Aria had just a few days to live. "What is wrong with you people? She'll die."


"Why the hell do you thinks she hasn't done it yet?"
Nox took a deep breath, "Aria has had this mission longer than I have known her. When she went to the Vatican to get a book on Ijiraq, she came back knowing what she was. Knowing she'd been lied to her entire life. AND she came back with a mission from our leader on high. Directly from him. It was the only way she saw to survive another day. Taking a suicide mission because it was the only way to walk out of the Vatican alive. Aria does nothing but survive, Lucas. Nothing."


He looked out at her as she walked the ruins, touching and sensing everything, completely ignoring their conversation. "Aria knows it's a suicide mission. She's reaching out, trying to find away around killing Ascendancy, but one day, Borovsky will push her hand, and she'll have to try. She knows she'll die if she tries. But she has to try, find away to kill him, or at least appear to. Aria researches every possible encounter of gods we've seen in the Atharim. She's gone back in all her journals, and every other recorded one she can find. She's looking for a way out. She doesn't want to do this. Yet she does, and she lives everyday, so if you go over there and you cry about it. If you make a big deal out of her life, and you change the way she's living her life, with fear that the next day she'll die, I swear to god..."
Nox cut off before the words left his mouth, he meant it with all his heart, he would kill the man if he made Aria fear for her life, made her dance with death worrying every second that she'd die. She knows it, she feels it, she lives it. She doesn't need him making her pity her life.

Nox saw the square of Lucas' jaw tighten and the anger that flashed in his eyes. There was no fear there. Instead there was fury. He glared at Nox, then slowly shook his head. Then he walked away without another word.

Well that could have gone better. But Nox was seriously in a bad place right now, he was glad Lucas walked away. Nox turned and started his walk, a weave of fire and air floating around him, he wanted to throw the fireball so badly, he wanted to watch his anger burn. He wasn't mad at Lucas, and Lucas had every right to hit him, he half expected it. He probably deserved it. Their lives sucked! It just plain did, and there was nothing any of them could do about it. You dealt with it, you lived your life the best you could with what you had. And he and Aria both had death sentences hanging over their head, and that was something Lucas was never going to understand.