Batten Down the Hatches [Mature]

[Leoric]

“Heartless?” Leoric finished as he turned to face her again. “When the world turns its back on you, just because you exist, you learn not to give a damn about that world.”

Felicity crosses her arms, "Actually, the world hates me for existing too. But I don't see myself extorting people. Try again."

"Oh really? there is a bounty on my head to be brought back dead to my father, My mother and her husband have no idea or do they care that i am alive. I can't go back to the kingdom I was born in without being tortured or murdered on sight. and to top it all off, the only person i ever cared for is dead. not a soul cares about me, so i don't care about any other soul. I do what is good for me, or whatever sounds like fun." Leoric tried to get up but let out a pained grunt as his back protested against the movement.

Felicity looked down for a moment, in deep thought, then looked up. "I came from a country with two warring races. I was conceived in a violent assault in one of those wars. I'm an abomination, a hybrid who never should have existed."

She raised her left hand. "I've been brutally treated since I was a kid. My uncle couldn't protect me all the time, when I was three I was attacked in my own yard and lost my left pinky. I've had stones thrown at me, people with pickaxes and torches lined up at my house and demanded I be sent out to be tortured and killed. I was a child."

Felicity clearly shuddered, starting to hug herself, "I couldn't escape the scorn even when I moved to Corone. The last time I saw my uncle alive, we had been in disagreement. I learned over a year after our fights that he died from a stroke. My cousin was murdered in front of me."

Felicity carried a look of twisted anger and shame, "Every time I make a connection with someone, they die or leave me. Every time I actually make an effort, it's dashed. The reason I'm in Salvar right now is because I'm a failure who couldn't protect my current home."

Her fists tightened, teeth gritted, "Fate itself seems to hate me. Want to talk about being hated and abandoned by the world? I've spent my entire life learning to hate myself alongside it."

"And yet, you try to play the hero, you said it yourself you are a failure, why bother being a hero when you can just take a few jobs whenever you please to make the money to live and do your own thing? do what is fun! life is too short to get hurt for strangers." Leoric shrugged and tried his best to look around him without moving his back. "Where's my booze? i thought i had some left around here"

Felicity raised her hand, taking a step forward. She was ready to strike him, obviously. "Because I'll be damned if I become what they are! I refuse to become a self serving monster, then they were right! They win!"

Felicity tightened her fists again, body ramped up and energized by passion. "No! I'm going to make sure nobody has to go through what I did! I'll be the one kind soul who made a difference in someone's life. When I fail, I try again! I refuse to let them win!"

"Except, you decided to help this crew and myself in the fight, now look at me, i am injured beyond belief because of you. if that is what 'being a good person' means, then fuck that, i can protect people without getting those who stand with me hurt." He turned back to face her, his usual cocky smirk gone and instead a very serious look upon her. "You want to protect people, yet how many did you just kill? or how many did you leave to die in the frozen waters? how many of them had families? friends? that will now hate you cause of what you did?"

Felicity lowered her body, trying to calm her movements. "And I'll rise from nothing. I'll become somebody. No one will hate me when I'm the hero who saved the day. They'll finally respect me."

Felicity flinched, as if struck with too many arrows. She raised her arm as if defending from a physical strike. "I know! I know I make mistakes, I know I can be a failure already! I'm sorry already! I don't mean to hurt people, I swear!"

Tears flooded her eyes, "I didn't mean to destroy the ship. I didn't think the explosion would be that bad..." She looked down at her wounded hand again, "And I'm sorry I can't control my powers. I never can... Because my blood literally boils, you're here."

"Really? if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have crashed onto our own ship, impaling my back and making me unable to do anything, not to mention whatever rash or scar i am going to get from having you splash your damn blood all over my face." Leoric accused as he gingerly touched his face and seethed in pain. "Why would you blow up the cannon deck? to disable the cannons just close their hatches and seal them shut, and then we just have to disable or slow down the ship, which could have been accomplished by disabling the rudder chain, or shredding their sails. I thought you could handle an easy task to save lives. but i know now that you can't"

Felicity lashed out, tears falling from her eyes, "I was always taught the violent solution! My old mentor would have approved! I don't know anything else!"

Unable to deal with the guilt, she had tried to deflect. It still left her feeling that horrible shame. She grasped her hand, "I get it. You hate me. The world hates me. I..."

As her tears pounded on the floor like heavy rain, she turned and reached for the door.

"If i hated you, I wouldn't have begun to train you, I wouldn't have brought you over to the other ship with me. I know you have the potential to be great, to be everything I can't be. but you are failing, and it is very disappointing. If you want to do everything you can to save people, then save everyone, not just those on 'your side'" he sighed and turned away from her

"My mother was the King's main maid, out of fear of saying no to him she agreed to sleep with him. however when she found out she was pregnant she hesitantly told my father, and he ordered her execution. my step father, the captain of the guard couldn't murder someone just for being pregnant, so he ran away with her. he saved my life and my mothers. However the king eventually tracked them down, and instead of staying with my family for whatever was coming our way... I ran away, I was a coward. it was that day that I decided I would never be a coward, that no matter what comes my way i will deal with it, with a smile on my face."

"Of course I'm failing." Felicity mumbled, "Of course I'm a disappointment. Always have been."

Her hand was frozen inches from the door. Tears still fell, "The one who took me in said he didn't recruit losers. Then why did he recruit me?"

Still gazing at the door nob, she winced. "But I can't stay like that. Then they were right, they win."

Felicity turned to Leoric with a pained, infuriated look, "Good luck not being a coward. You're being brave alone with that attitude on life. Take it from one of the loneliest people in the world, it's a wretched path."

She opened the door with a sudden, loud crack.

"see you when you wake up from your nightmares for more training" Leoric sighed as he sunk into his hammock to get as much rest as he could.