#also unless you are avoiding a difficult topic because it's actually detrimental to your mental health (you know this and can self-regulate

[mumblingsage]

I just want to briefly circle back to the initial misunderstanding where, like, including violence is somehow interpreted to be a pro-violence message. Maybe people want to write horror fiction about violence because violence horrifies them and they want space to process these feelings. (Or maybe not, sometimes it's just fun to watch a corpse chase a woman in a nightgown around a rickety old mansion and the murders are an excuse! Still a reasonable thing reasonable people have done with storytelling for thousands of years!)

when internet people are like “i love gothic literature but i hate anything that discusses incest, sexual violence, oppression, misogyny, abuse, torture, gore, murder, or death”

[bisexualamy]

hi ren! i think you're so cool and soft at the same time!! how do u do that!! teach me ur ways!!

I’m not sure what you mean by soft in this instance? I’m a little skeptical of soft as an adjective for trans men because I feel like it’s always used to infantilize us (like the uwu cute soft trans boy stuff).

If you mean soft as “in touch with my emotions/emotionally vulnerable” (which I think you do) that is something I can definitely touch on because it is an aspect of my personality I’ve really tried to cultivate. In terms of cool, I don’t really think I’m cool. I appreciate that you think I am! I don’t really known what cool means? Why is one cool? The best analogous thing I can see for it in my own life is “confident” and “does/makes interesting/fun/creative things.”

This is a lot of preamble to get my thoughts out, but I do actually have some advice in both of these instances! I’ll try and be brief, though I probably won’t succeed in that. And like, obvious disclaimer that I’m speaking from my own life experience.

EDIT: very long. All of this is now under cut. This was a good post and I’m happy I wrote it, so thank you! Feel free to reblog it!

IN TERMS OF “COOL”: the best advice I can give to you is put things into the world you care about. This manifests itself for me in the art and writing I produce. I became a lot happier and more confident creating work that I actually cared about existing. I get a lot of joy and drive out of filling voids that I see as necessary to be filled. A concrete example of this has been the work I’ve been doing (that I recently won an award for) in regarding to documenting and creating around the stories of different LGBT people of faith. 

And this can be anything! This doesn’t even have to be necessarily “creative” work. There’s joy to be found in STEM fields, like building or doing math or science. It can be cooking or redesigning your bedroom! I find that always having a project to work on, no matter how small, gives me purpose that helps me do the other things in my life that I don’t want to do. Also!!! This doesn’t have to be “original.” I find that a lot of the hangups people get tend to center around filling a void that’s never been touched. My favorite professor I’ve ever had once told me: “don’t worry about doing something original. Just do something well.” I really like that and try and keep that in mind when I create.

I’ve noticed that when you’re working on things you care about it often creates drive, which looks like confidence. In my experience, people think I’m cool because I’m driven to do things I care about. I’m not like, cool in the sense of calm and collected, but I think I’m cool in the sense that I’m interesting. The other bit of advice I have for this is surround yourself with people who you feel safe and supported by. This also goes into soft as well, but your progress as a person is often hindered by unsupportive and harmful environments and people. Those two are often difficult to escape or avoid completely, but building up relationships in your life where you feel safe, where you feel supported, where you feel allowed to make mistakes, were instrumental in building my confidence and giving me the drive to stop settling for “this is the way things are.”

IN TERMS OF “SOFT”: Like I said above, a lot of this comes from being allowed to be soft in the first place. From being in environments and with people that don’t try to squash that softness. For me, I’ve made a conscious effort to be open, to be vulnerable, to be “soft” as you put it. I made this effort because I knew it helped people, and I get a lot of value out of helping people. I’ve been told that my openness about mental health, about emotional vulnerability, about LGBT things, has helped others when I see that I can be open and also succeed. That’s the reason I started this in the first place.

This mentality was very difficult for me to foster initially. I used to be very closed off and have many issues with trust, and I sometimes still do, but I’m working on self awareness. I started small and gradually adopted more and more emotionally honest practices and those grew into larger ones. The overarching theme to these is give yourself permission. Give yourself permission to be happy, to feel your emotions, to be in a world that makes you happy. Here are some of those specific things I worked on (not necessarily in this order):

When someone asks you if you’re okay, or how you are, answer honestly. Unless you’re speaking in passing to someone you don’t really know, answer truthfully. Don’t be afraid to answer “how are you” with “I’m feeling down” or “I’ve had a pretty bad day” or “I’m really angry.” This helped teach me that my emotions aren’t bad. I don’t need to hide them. I just need to be in control of them and know how to regulate them.

When you’re feeling a very intense negative emotion, stop. If you’re very sad, or very angry, don’t do anything. Stay still. Write down what you’re feeling. Talk to someone. Make no decisions in this headspace. Distance is important when assessing your own emotions. Distance will teach you what your reaction is saying. If you get very angry at a friend because they’re late, why? Did the situation hurt you, or is there something larger at play? If it was the situation, you’ll be grateful you didn’t over blow it. If there’s something larger, now you have the calmer headspace to figure out how to fix it.

Let yourself feel bad. I try to be a generally optimistic person, but acknowledging my negative emotions, and not shaming myself for them, really helped me get better control over them. Sometimes you feel shitty! It’s okay to feel shitty! Let yourself feel bad, acknowledge the badness, and then let it go when you’re ready. Don’t let yourself wallow, but don’t suppress your bad emotions. Letting myself feel everything helped me gain confidence in being vulnerable.

Tell someone if they hurt you, even if they didn’t mean it. This is not supposed to be an accusation, but being an open communicator has changed my life. If someone upsets you and you don’t tell them, it may fester and turn into something nasty. I tell my friends that if they have an issue with something I did or said, I want them to tell me so we can talk about it in a calm, open, non-accusatory way. I feel much better once I’ve talked through something that hurt me, because I usually learn the other person’s point of view and it feels less like a slight.

Be upfront about your expectations. People can’t read your mind, and expecting people to is wrong. For example, one of my biggest pet peeves is having my time wasted. There are many people who view meeting times in flux. For them, it’s okay to shift appointments around, to double book, to be a little late. That’s another way of viewing the world. So, if someone is historically late, I might say “I really need you to be on time to this specific event” or set a precedent of “it’s okay if you’re late, but you have to let me know ahead of time that you think you’ll be late so I can account for that.”

Trust your gut. Don’t doubt yourself. Self doubt has always bit me. You can typically get a sense of when something is awry. Don’t be afraid to trust your instincts.

Lay out healthy priorities. I try and prioritize my health and well-being above everything else. If a topic is triggering for me to discuss, if an environment is a significant detriment to my mental health, if someone is hurting me, I try and fix the situation, and if it won’t fix, I leave. From there, my priorities are in flux. Sometimes I prioritize people, sometimes schoolwork, sometimes self care. It depends on the scenario and the time. Prioritizing your health is not the same thing as not doing anything that you dislike, or that makes you uncomfortable. We have to do things we dislike all the time. You know within yourself what’s unhealthy and what’s just unpleasant or annoying.

Learn how to fail. Admit when you’re wrong. I used to have a terrible time admitting I was wrong. If you’re in a healthy environment with decent people, you won’t be shamed for admitting your mistakes. In this way, change your behavior if you’re wrong! I often have unrealistic expectations of people. When that’s been brought to my attention, I’ve adjusted my expectations. Also, I’ve tried to remove “I told you so” from my vocabulary. I don’t shame others for failure. And, understand that partial successes are not failures. 50% successes are okay! Anything is better than zero. Sometimes, you will hit zero. Sometimes, you will fail. Learning how to learn from failure, from not seeing failure as a reflection of my self worth, gave me more freedom to try my hand at creating things I care about. First drafts are supposed to be awful! Just start! Once you start, you can often work off of momentum.

Take time to be introspective and understand yourself. What are your values? What’s important to you? How do you typically respond to certain scenarios? What is something that makes you consistently happy? Sad? Angry? Journal, blog, talk aimlessly into your phone, talk to other people, talk to a therapist if you’re interested. Often, you need to get to know yourself like you’d get to know another person. Once you gain this sense of self, you’ll better understand a lot of what you do, say, and how you react out in the world. For me, this is an ever-evolving process. I change, I grow, and I need to consistently reflect. I think constructive and position self reflection is very important.

I know that was a long list. This took me years and years, and I’m still working on these. The path to emotional softness and regulation is often not linear. Learning to forgive myself, learning how to understand myself, learning to be gentle with myself, was hard. I see a lot of “be gentle to yourself!” positivity on here without any concrete steps are principles. These are a bulk of mine. Employing these steps helped me to foster those safe communities, and be safe in my own vulnerability. Softness tends to follow work and action.

[emberlynnrayne]

BPD- My struggle with mental health

[I wrote this for facebook, but felt it was important to have here, too. Opening up like this was incredibly difficult.]

I promised a few days ago to write about my struggles with mental health, so here goes.

My biggest struggles are with a combination of Anxiety, Depression, and something called BPD. While real education about anxiety and depression is sorely lacking generally, it’s still far more understood and accepted than BPD, and I’ve written about them before. So let me tell you about BPD. First and foremost, despite much confusion, it does not mean bipolar disorder. It means Borderline Personality Disorder, and despite how it sounds, it has nothing to do with having multiple personalities. BPD can stem from many things, but in my case, it boils down to the environment in which I was raised. With the combination of my own mother and father suffering from their own untreated mental illnesses, the sexual abuse I suffered, and a myriad of other environmental detriments, I basically did not learn to function in an emotionally healthy way. BPD is different for everyone. That means that you may know someone with BPD who acts completely differently, it means that it needs to be treated differently per individual, and it means that the lasting effects work us in different ways.

I’m going to tell you what BPD means for me.

First and foremost, I feel strongly. I feel in extremes. It’s black or white. Good or bad. Higher highs and lower lows. I feel too much, or nothing at all, and I don’t know how to manage it. I’m getting better, but you have to realize that I don’t know any different. This is just the way it is and always has been for me. Learning that it doesn’t have to be has been slow, and trying to put it into practice has been slower. I can feel utterly overwhelmed by my thoughts and feelings, too full to think or express, or even understand. And I can feel empty. Just, utterly empty. Like a black hole. There’s no bottom. There’s no filling it up, or turning it around. I just have to function around the hole. There’s not always a cause for either. I don’t even know it’s happening when it starts. I just suddenly realized that it is. It is. It also makes me an extremely empathetic person. It also applies to people. I am slow to trust, but when I do, oh my god I love you so much, you’re so amazing and I put you on this beautiful ornate pedestal without ever realizing it. I am loyal to a fault. And it goes the other way, too. If I don’t like you, I really don’t like you. I don’t want to be near you, I don’t want to look at you or talk to you. If you’re in the good with me, it is incredibly hard to break out. If you manage to do something or build up enough things to fall out of the good with me, it’s worse than having been in the bad in the first place. It is incredibly difficult to do, so you would have hurt me or someone I love in a deep and horrible way. You become less than a person to me, you become less than scum. You become nothing but something to laugh at and hate simultaneously. You will never come back to my good side.

It sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? Try living it. On a list of signs and symptoms, this would be ‘unstable relationships’ and 'mood swings’.

I’ve gotten better in this aspect. Of course I still struggle with the extremes, but Im much better about holding people up on unmaintainable pedestals. I recognize that the faults in my loved ones are not secrets to be ignored and hushed, but things to love and understand with them. When you manage to fall from my good side, it is not impossible to come back. It will take time, work, and a level of honesty that is difficult for most people. The honesty is imperative though, because I am incredibly sensitive to lies, and there is no room in my life for liars. So, it is possible, but I still need you to really want it, and be willing to work for it, because remember, whatever you did had to be extreme to go from my good side to bad.

That brings me to the next point, though. Trust. I mentioned that I’m slow to trust. That is an understatement. It is incredibly difficult for me to manage my trust in people. I know that having no trust in anyone is incredibly unhealthy and isolating, so (in my naturally extreme way) I tend to trust the people on my good side almost implicitly. Lies are the easiest way to fall out. White lies, I understand. I can accept now with understanding that the world basically requires them. Unnecessary, repeatedly, or maliciously lying to me, however, is a deal breaker. Generally, though, I don’t trust people. I don’t trust strangers to any extent. No matter your gender, race, or how much space is between us, it doesn’t matter how well I know you or how much I love you. There is a deep, however slight, level of mistrust. I suspect they intend me harm. It’s irrational, but there is only one person I trust without a shadow of a doubt. The ones you love the most hurt you the worst, after all. So who can you trust? It’s such a big part of my BPD, that it actually has sub-topics. Because of the incredibly unhealthy environment I was raised in, I developed an acute sense for people’s character, integrity, and trustworthiness. It is not a brag, it is not a fun game, it is not something I usually want to 'test’ or discuss. It is an unfortunately necessary skill I had to develop to protect myself. That being said, it is always happening. I know if I’m being lied to. If I like you, I will quickly analyze it, and probably choose to ignore it, but I rarely forget it.

Once again, it goes both ways. I consider myself an incredibly honest person. Unless I am in a professional environment, I don’t typically hide what I think or how I feel. It’s difficult to do if I want to. ( I’ve actually had more than one conversation about my eyes and eyebrows away my thoughts.) I joke about 'word vomit’ on the regular because I struggle to filter my thoughts and words. (Communication in general is a topic we’ll get to soon.) I am an open book, for the first few layers, and if you care enough to ask, if I’m comfortable enough with you, Im usually open to talk down to my core. If you’re on my good side, if I love you, I truly give you my whole self. My heart is yours and I genuinely love you. I can’t not.

Personal communication. Holy shit, guys, if you gave me a month’s notice to prepare and asked me to verbally express this to you, I could not. Verbal expression is incredibly difficult for me. I can’t think when I hear my own voice, and I process incoming information best by reading or watching, too. This one is another unique to the cause of my BPD. I could give you exact details why my brain works better this way now, but that’s another story. I can’t think when I’m talking, which makes filtering, controlling, and generally communicating incredibly difficult. I get overwhelmed by the sound of my own voice. When I hear it my brain screams at me to stop talking, to the point that sometimes I’m not even sure what I’m saying anymore. It is an overgrown scar from the fight or flight response, in which my voice fled, because fighting with my voice was a wet noodle against a brick wall. My voice meant nothing, and to exercise it usually brought trouble and pain. I can write, though. I was a caged bird with so much to express. It found an out through writing- my vocabulary the muscles I could flex freely, my escape was reading, my breath was writing. The only freedom I always had was writing. I can write. I can’t speak.

But it’s currently 3:40 in the morning and while I love to write, writing about myself and translating my massive struggle into something I feel accurately expresses it, is difficult and exhausting. For now, I may need to dial back the explanations and keep it simple. If I can, I’ll expand upon the parts I feel I should later.

I have intense abandonment issues, and practically no self esteem. I truly struggle with the belief that people don’t actually like me, they’re just being nice and tolerating me. One day, they’ll all get bored of me, or grow to hate me, or I’ll do something wrong, or we’ll just grow apart and I will 100% lose everything I have and everyone I love. I haven’t been able to tackle that yet. Its almost a fact in my mind. The sky is blue, and everyone in my life will leave me. Grass is green and I am a worthless pile of human waste. The sun is a star and I hate myself and I’m terrible at everything I will ever try to do or be. Forgive me, I know that’s the part people usually jump to argue with first, but please don’t. It’s not based in logic. I appreciate the sentiment, but it almost makes things worse. My brain says 'look at how they pity you, pathetic thing’. It’s ugly, but it’s my reality.

The second ugliest thing that people seem to struggle with is self harm and suicidal thoughts. It’s not always cutting or burning, or jumping or hanging. For some people it’s over eating. For others it’s substance abuse. For some it’s spending, for others it’s sex. Self harm, for me, it is either vivid thoughts of being roughly, uncomfortably bound with rope or wire. In a completely not-sexual way. Being able to tighten it or struggle against it and feel the pain. I don’t know why, but that’s what it is these days. The suicidal thoughts for me are much more passive. “What if that car swerved and hit me.” “What if I got really sick and there was no cure.” “What if a vein popped in my brain and I bled out.” Not actively trying, or even hoping. Just recurring thoughts of the end of my life. (Let me reassure you, right now, because suicide is no joke and it is not something I take lightly. I have no intention of trying to end my life. I have no intention of letting anything else do it for me. If I can avoid it, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I promise.) It’s just one of those things. Like a song getting stuck in your head. It just happens.

I am sensitive. I notice the slightest change in the tone of your voice. I notice the twitch of your brow. I see the wringing of your hands. These tiny changes can be absolutely nothing, and part of me will know that, but the other part of myself is already obsessing about what I’ve said and what mistake I’ve made and how much I’ve upset this person or how far I’ve just managed to push them away.

I take it to heart when you make a joke at my expense. Even if you’re kidding, and I know you are, even if its super funny and I’m laughing my butt off, even if I know that it’s absolutely untrue, a sliver of it goes straight to my soft heart. It will sting regardless, and I will stress and worry that it might be true.

I am socially inept. I second guess EVERYTHING I do socially and if I make a slip that you’ll forget in seconds, I will still be mentally beating myself up for it the unforeseeable future. (As I write this, one slip I made 4 or 5 months ago comes to mind, and it still makes my stomach drop and anxiety raise.)

I am incredibly hard on myself, with a massive guilt complex, and have absolutely no idea how to to cope with or express it. If I accidentally stepped on your toe, I am immediately burying myself in insults and scolding and hating myself. I am imagining the rough ropes binding me, and wishing I could just disappear. I’m already so far gone in my mind that in reality I am clumsily trying to apologize and the worse it is, the worse I feel, the less I know how to express my regret properly. No one wants you to cry with guilt over stepping on their toe. So I can seem stilted and callous. I know sometimes it seems like I’m not sorry, but I just don’t know how to express it in a socially acceptable, healthy way. I genuinely blame myself completely for things I had absolutely no control over, and I’m always apologizing. Sometimes I’m apologizing just for existing, taking up space and your time with my foolish self. But that’s not socially acceptable to say. To I apologize again with a laugh or joke, so it’s easier for everyone to move on.

I, personally, struggle with the need for validation and reassurance in a very big and real way. I can’t really express why and how, but it’s so, so important to me.

Trying to juggle this issue and trying to remember and practice functioning like a healthy person absolutely contributes to my anxiety and depression. It is exhausting and isolating, and even as I write this, I’m not sure if I’m actually learning to function in a healthier way, or of I’m learning how to pretend better. I am happy and life is generally good, but these are deep set scars that are going to take a long, long time and a lot of effort to work through.

So there you are. An incredibly intimate and honest look at my struggle with mental health. My cards are on the table and Im nearly out of words.

I know that being around me requires a level of patience that not everyone has. I know that loving me can be complicated and challenging. But I feel your support. It is immeasurably appreciated. It is held with serene awe and gratitude. To know that people actually choose to spend their time sharing any level of existing space with me, always surprises me and brings me strength.

Thank you for reading.

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 7: X Days Until Naomi!

Here’s a weird one! I feel like the references I was trying to make in this chapter threw the tone off, but I count it as a learning experience!

After their brief meeting with the Headmaster, Roland and Charlotte went about their business for the day. Charlotte retrieved a few books she'd been interested in reading from her room, and Roland decided to go clean the clothes he'd been wearing the day before.

Charlotte, who'd just sat down in one of her preferred reading nooks, just next to the steps leading up to the entrance of the Tower of Void, pulled one such book out of a small stack, and began to look it over.

The book was small, scarcely even eighty pages at most, and it had a simple leather cover with the title and author embossed on it. This book was one of the few printed on its subject, and it was odd that she was able to find it in a Magic Academy, odder still, since it was originally printed in Gallia, but she supposed that wasn't something to complain about. In truth, she'd never heard of the book until a few days ago, when she was skimming through the books in the school library, but she figured it would be a good idea to read it and see what new information it had to offer.

"Okay! So you've gotten my book because you're looking to master a new and potentially horrifying skill? Great! That's what I wrote it for, now I'll skip the introduction and get right down to it!

So the first thing you'll want to do is acquire a target. I suggest you start near your own home, but you can still do it regardless of where you find yourself. Once you have your target, get to know as much as you can about them. Learn about their routines and habitat, and don't be afraid to ask the locals about them if you need help with your reconnaissance, but be careful of whom you ask! Some people can be pretty tight lipped about things, and others might figure out your intentions and sabotage you, so always be on the lookout for anyone who seems like they might offer up the information without hassle. I'll go into more detail with this step in the next chapter.

Next, after you've taken the time to gather information and gone over it, it's time to use that information to your benefit. With what you know now; start to plan out your excursions accordingly. Take care to place yourself in your targets habitat in unobtrusive ways, and for now, you'll want to make yourself as close to a natural existence there as you can be. You don't want to end up scaring off your target, so caution and patience is key here. Just remember, your time and effort will be paid off in full, should you be successful, so don't try to rush things. You'll also want to keep your eyes and ears open so you can continue to learn about your target and avoid any potential dangers to yourself and your goal. This topic will be covered in more detail in chapter three.

So, now that you've learned as much about your target as you can at a distance, and you've hopefully integrated into their habitat without much notice, it's time to push the envelope, so to speak. You'll want to get closer to your target, while masking your intentions. Much like the previous step, you'll want to take your time getting close and make it seem as unobtrusive as possible, while being careful not to scare off your target. Stealth isn't something you need for this, unlike the previous two steps, but you don't want to run in flailing your arms and screaming either (unless you're certain that'll help). More often than not though, I find a stealthy approach to be detrimental for this step, as it'll likely put your target on guard, causing some… Complications. This'll be expanded on in chapter four.

Now we get to the crux of the matter! Hopefully, you'll have read through the whole booklet by now, instead of just reading each step as you come to them, and have prepared yourself mentally (and physically) for this step. You can now use your newfound proximity and knowledge of your target for, what is likely the most daunting task you'll face. But don't lose heart just yet! You've prepared for this, so take a deep breath, throw your shoulders back and go in there with the confidence that comes from preparing for a difficult challenge! Believe in yourself! Barring that, believe in the me that believes in you! Now…

Talk! Converse! Discuss! Use all the knowledge you gained to start conversations with your target. With some luck and ingenuity, you might just be able to close the gap and create a relationship with your target, be it friendly or romantic.

For a lot of people, especially those who seek out a book like this (no judgment here, I'm just words on a page, after all), this is the most difficult part, so you'll want to use what you've learned already and come up with some topics to speak with your target about. It doesn't have to be a huge deal, just a few words in passing, or a short exchange here and there whenever you see them is fine, but try to build on it quickly. I'll go into more detail with this in chapter five, but remember, you're the one who needs to decide what to say, and then say it.

This last step is optional (but highly recommended!). Using your repository of knowledge on your target, you'll want to pick out a few things that your target might like. They don't have to be big or valuable, in fact, it might be better if they're just simple or easy to get things.

What you'll want to do with this stuff is give it to your target. But not so fast! You don't want to just show up some day and shower them with gifts, and giving them something everytime you see them is out of the question too. After all, you don't want them to like you only for what you can give them (or think that you're trying to buy their affection), you want them to like you for your other, probably innumerous aspects. To that end, you'll want to only give them one or two gifts a week, three, if it's their birthday. More details on gift giving will be graciously given in chapter six.

The rest of this chapter will be used to cover a few details that don't warrant their own chapter."

Charlotte sighed as she slowly closed the book.

"What the Hel is this? How is this supposed to help me make friends…?" She thought to herself as she looked down at its cover. The words "How to Connect With People on a Deeper Level" were printed on the cover, and underneath them was printed the authors' non de plume. Though, unlike the title, that was Germanic in origin.

"Actually, that kind of makes sense…" Charlotte considered as she looked down at the cover. The terminology she'd seen so far in the book was unsettling, to say the least, especially with how it seemed to advocate hunting or stalking the would-be friend in question, but if it was written by someone who spoke Gallic as a second language, the strange tone made some sense. They'd likely not have as strong of a grasp on the language, and could potentially misconstrue a few meanings here and there, but the overall command of the language that the author demonstrated contradicted that, so she thought it might just be the author's attempt at levity, or at least, she hoped that was the case.

"Hey, what're you reading!?" A familiar voice called out from above her as she sat with the closed book held in front of her, breaking Charlotte out of her train of thought. As she quickly craned her neck upward she was surprised to see black panties, and long-plump dark-skinned legs covered in white stockings jumping down from the stone railing she was leaned against.

"N-nothing!" Charlotte responded as she hurriedly inserted the book into the stack in a random place, knocking the top two books off in the process.

"Oh… 'Kay… Anyways, I was looking for you, Charlotte." Kirche spoke as she turned to face her seated friend, and sat down next to her, opposite the pile of books. "So how'd the meeting with the Headmaster go?"

"It went fine." Charlotte responded as she replaced the two fallen books on the top of the pile. "They just finished up confirming whose Familiars had gotten killed."

"Yeah… That's a shame. I'd heard it was only a handful of Familiars, but they were all pretty big." Kirche spoke, then, noticing the questioning glance her younger friend had shot her, continued. "Ajax mentioned it last night. Apparently he saw Colbert bringing them in."

"So, do they intend on sending a few teachers out to secure the area?" Kirche spoke again, and received a small shrug from Charlotte, who didn't know. "Is that so…"

Charlotte, who noticed the sudden shift in her friend's demeanor, looked over at Kirche, who was looking toward the main entrance of the school.

"Don't." Was the only word Charlotte said.

"Don't what?" Kirche asked.

"Don't go looking for more of them."

"What!? I have no such intention!" Kirche responded with exaggerated offense, then immediately changed the subject. "Anyways, I was looking for you because I was wondering if you wanted to play a board game. Gimli bought one recently and we need at least one more player to make the game interesting. He said it was a game from the Far East, and said it was about… Racing animals…? I think that was it."

Charlotte turned away from her friend, and leaned back against the stone railing, slouching a little further down. She knew better than to believe Kirche wasn't going to go out looking for trouble, but she knew there wasn't anything she could do about it, which frustrated her immensely.

"Hey!" Kirche leaned forward to get into Charlotte's line of sight. "Do you want to play or not?" She continued, pointedly ignoring the irritation painted across Charlotte's face.

"No… I have to… Study." Charlotte responded as she tapped the stack of books beside her.

"Suit yourself." Kirche shrugged as she leaned back. "So do you have what you're going to bring to Gallia packed yet?"

Charlotte shook her head in response.

"Neither do I. Do you want to pack together later this week?" Kirche asked in a relaxed manner.

Charlotte nodded.

"Great, how about we do it in two or three days?"

Again, Charlotte nodded.

"Alright… Actually, I should probably get permission from the Headmaster to go with you. Baah, I'll do it tomorrow." Kirche said dismissively. "Anyways! I should probably go. Gimli gets a little pissy when it comes to board games for some reason." Kirche leaned over and gave Charlotte a light peck on the cheek before standing, and then the girls waved to each other as the older of the two departed.

With her friend now gone, Charlotte turned her attention back to the stack of books at her side. She pulled out the booklet she'd started reading before, and opened it back up to the page she'd left off at. Slowly, as she began reading, the frustration she felt had begun to fade, giving way to concern, but she kept herself focused on her current task. It didn't take long for her to finish reading the booklet, and afterward she moved onto one of the larger books in the pile, an advanced book on Magical Theory, which took up a sizeable chunk of her free time that day.

__________________________________________________

Roland was currently hanging laundry in the courtyard near the fountain. Originally he was going to clean his own clothing, but found the equipment he needed, as well as the fountain itself, was already in use. So, without much else to do that day, he offered to help the two maids that were working there. Luckily, he was already acquainted with one of them, who easily accepted his help, and so he took over hanging the cleaned bedding while the two maids worked together to wash it.

Due to the way he'd folded his clothes before coming, the blood stains weren't as noticeable as they could have been, so they didn't catch the attention of either maid as he laid them down behind them on the edge of the fountain, and while their faces contorted as the scent reached them, they didn't seem to know what exactly the smell was at the time, and the new scent quickly became overpowered by the smell of the soap they were using as they continued to clean. He placed his club down against the fountain next to his dirtied clothing, and then began hanging the cleaned laundry to dry.

"So like I was saying, apparently the war in Albion is going poorly for the royal family." A short, brown haired maid was talking.

The entire time Roland had been helping the maids he'd been silent, but the two maids had been filling the air with idle chatter and some rumors they'd picked up around the school. Apparently, there was a civil war happening in one of the neighboring countries to the north, though that didn't affect him in the Academy, and he doubted it would become relevant when he went to Gallia in the south.

As time went on, the two maids continued to prattle on about the various rumors they'd heard, talking about the war, sharing fears that it might spill over into Tristain, and eventually working their way around to discussing some of the lighter rumors that were floating around the campus. All the while, Roland was still silently hanging laundry as he absentmindedly listened in. He wasn't particularly interested in their conversation, but he felt it a better option than letting his mind wonder or letting his thoughts stagnate.

Roland overheard a few things about the students and staff members of the Academy, like how one student was caught cross-dressing, or how another had gotten hurt and accidentally destroyed their bed when they were sleeping with their wand, and how one teacher's Familiar had gotten loose and made a mess of a few lecture halls before getting caught and calmed down. That was an alleged prank by one of the students, but nobody knew for sure. After that, there was a short silence that fell over the two maids, before they both tried to speak at the same time.

"You know-"

"Hey! I was Wondering-"

The maid Roland knew, Siesta, and the other maid stopped to let each other finish, then after a short back and forth between the two, each egging the other on, the one he didn't know continued her question.

"Hey! So I was wondering… Are you… You know…" The brown haired maid, who was directing her question toward Roland, as opposed to Siesta, who had been directing her statement toward her fellow, paused for a moment to consider her next words carefully, then, with as much reckless abandon as the motion could contain, she shrugged and continued. "Are you that Orléans girl's paramour?"

"Renée!" Siesta exclaimed as she elbowed her fellow maid in the side.

"Ouch! What? I'm not the only one who's wondering… I figured I'd ask since he's here." She spoke with a faux hurt tone as she rubbed her side, and then moved closer to Siesta to whisper in her ear. "You can't tell me you're not a little curious."

"I don't know what that is." Before either could speak again, Roland responded indifferently while still hanging up the laundry.

"That's… It means you're her lover." The maid he now knew as Renée responded as if she didn't believe Roland wasn't familiar with the term.

"I'm her Familiar."

"Yeah, I heard you were 'summoned', but a lot of people were saying that since you're… You know, human, that it was faked." Renée paused to readjust herself. "And that you were chosen to be used as her Familiar because you two were… Well…"

"You're the only one saying they're lovers." Siesta spoke in a quiet, dismissive voice as she continued her work, but was seemingly ignored by Renée.

"… I'm her Familiar." Roland repeated himself as he bent down to grab another large sheet. He'd overheard a few rumors like that when he'd been in her classes or walking around, but none of them implied that the relationship between the two was a mutual or equal one, as Renée had.

"So if you're not her lover, then what's your relationship with her?" The short maid continued to question him, leaving the actual work to Siesta, who seemed to be intent on not listening to their conversation any further, but her hands begun moving much slower than her previous pace as she looked down at her work.

Roland didn't respond as he reached down to grab another sheet and hang it on the line. He straightened it out on the line, and then folded it over on itself like the rest of the bedding being hung. He figured they were being hung that way to save space on the line, and hadn't given it much thought past that. It wasn't until after he reached for the next sheet that he spoke.

"… Again, I'm her Familiar." Roland repeated the same answer he'd given twice already, though with noticeable irritation this time. However, the redundant questioning had prompted him into considering if their relationship really did go farther than Familiar and Magician.

He'd thought about the fact that she was teaching him how to read, but they didn't have the sort of relationship a teacher would normally have with their student, based on his interactions with Logan and the other Sorcerer's he learned from, and the strangeness of those differences made him feel uncomfortable. Aside from a few conversations here and there, and the aforementioned reading lesson, they didn't talk much, so he figured they weren't friends either, though that was to be expected. And, despite being summoned by her as a Familiar, and having reaffirmed that fact several times, he still wasn't entirely sure what that meant.

Normally, being summoned as a phantom to another's world meant he was bound to protect or kill them, and while protection seemed to be a part of being a Familiar as well, it seemed there was more to it than that. Aside from just being treated like a pet, he saw a few students and teachers using their Familiars to help with spell casting and gathering materials, but considering how old a few of the teachers were, and the fact that they still had Familiars with them, he also guessed that being a Familiar was a lifelong thing. Of course, he wasn't willing to let something like how he arrived in that place dictate the rest of his time there, but that didn't mean he'd just ignore what his current role entailed, or how that role was normally carried out.

"Huh… That sounds really boring." The maid responded with another shrug as her hands resumed their work. It seemed like she was considering saying something else, but choose not to after looking toward her co-worker, who seemed upset as she pointedly ignored Renée's glance.

The next few minutes passed by without anyone talking, until something odd happened. Just as Roland was about to pick up another sheet, now refocused on his musings about what a Familiar is, the ground underneath his foot seemed to shift slightly. It buckled under his weight, and then moved to the side quickly, causing him to trip and almost fall over into the fountain, but he caught himself in time.

A few students could be heard laughing in the distance, and when he looked over, Roland could see that one of them had their wand out, and it was pointed his way. The boy who was holding it was one he recognized, it was the overweight boy that was making a ruckus in the first class he'd attended.

Of course, aside from the boy's unpleasant voice and apparent lack of respect for his classmates, Roland knew nothing of him, but that was enough. Knowing any more than that wouldn't change the fact that the boy just tried to harm him, even if it was in such a minor way. With that in mind, Roland began to approach the group of boys, not bothering to mask the aggression he felt.

"Oi, what do you think you're doing? Get back to work, slave!" The plump boy calmed his laughter and addressed Roland as he approached, filling his hoarse voice with as much contempt as he could muster, but received only silence in return.

"Are you deaf? I said get back to work!" The boy waved his wand toward Roland at face level as he continued to advance. "What, are you angry? Well I don't care! Turn around, before I make you regret it."

While the boy's threats did nothing to stop Roland's approach, something else did. There was a hand holding his, and pulling him back.

"Come on, let's just finish the laundry!" It was Siesta, and she had a surprisingly strong grip for someone of her size, but not strong enough. Roland quickly shook her off of him and continued forward, but she grabbed him again, holding on even tighter this time.

"You can't fight a noble, it'll only end badly for you!" But she was shaken off again.

"Stop!" This time she didn't grab his hand, but instead placed herself between the group of boys and Roland, who exhaled sharply with a look of frustration plastered across his face. After a few tense seconds, Roland turned away from the maid with a roll of his eyes and walked back over to the fountain. Siesta sighed with relief before following at his side.

"Yeah that's right, you better walk away, filthy slave." The boy called out, but Roland only responded by waving him off in a motion similar to how one would shoo away a fly, which infuriated the stout boy. He aimed his wand at the ground and with a short spell he formed a tiny rock, then, with a flick of his wrist, preceded by another short spell, the rock went flying toward Roland, striking him in the nape of his neck.

"Oyy, that's what your master does, right? She throws things around because she can't cast any real spells!" The boy called out again mockingly, then broke out into laughter again, seemingly trying to be as obnoxious as possible, but again received only silence in response.

Without bothering to check the back of his neck, Roland turned on the balls of his feet and immediately charged in. The action surprised the three boys and Siesta, who, despite reaching out to him, didn't react in time to stop Roland's approach.

__________________________________________________

Later that night, Charlotte and Roland were sitting in her room, wrapping up a reading lesson. As an addition to the normal curriculum, Charlotte also pulled out a book of short stories and had Roland pick from a few she'd listed. Story in hand, they began their normal lessons, with the addition of having Roland read out the entirety story to the best of his ability.

Overall, Roland was picking up her language quicker than either had expected, given that he'd only started learning it less than a week ago, and while he had a few minor issues remembering the seldom used portions of the language, the main issue holding him back from being able to read and write properly was the difference in syntax between their languages. He could understand short sentences with little effort, but when what he was reading became longer or more complex he ran into difficulty organizing the statement, this problem was compounded greatly when the writing included wordplay, as he tended toward more literal interpretations.

As she continued to watch him write and read, and saw where and how he failed to grasp the language, she began to develop a clearer understanding of his native languages' syntax, though at first it did just seem like gibberish to her. Charlotte noticed that in most cases, the syntax of his language dictated that the subject be spoken first, and often the predicate would be last. And while she still wasn't entirely sure of the order between the two, it seemed to go: clause, indirect object, and direct object. There was some variability with this order, which had confused her at first, but she recognized this one the most.

This was odd to her, as she thought Contract Familiar worked by implanting knowledge of the Magician's language into the Familiar, but now that misconception was debunked. She'd considered that it might act as a sort of translation spell, as that was the second most likely option, but she threw that idea out almost immediately. There were seemingly too many moving parts to the spell for it to be able to function that way.

"You're doing really well." Charlotte spoke as she replaced the books they'd used on the bookshelf. "It shouldn't be long until you won't need these lessons at all. That's… Surprising."

"Hmm." Roland replied after standing to stretch his now-stiff body. Much like their previous lessons, sitting there with her for a few hours had done more to tire him out than a whole day of sitting through her classes, but he choose not to say that, or express his relief that their lessons would likely be ending soon. Bringing attention to the fact that he'd found her to be a boring person to listen too seemed like an idiotic idea, considering she'd been doing him a service by teaching him to read.

After she finished putting the books away, she sat on the edge of her bed across from Roland, who was still standing, and looked up at him silently for a moment. Her face made it clear she was thinking about something, and that whatever it was, it made her feel at least a little uncomfortable, but despite this, she spoke.

"So… What did you do today?"

Roland didn't respond, instead, he looked back over at the young girl with a blank expression, silently wondering why she'd asked. Most questions she'd asked him over the past week were general questions about his world or knowledge, so something as mundane as what he did that day was thoroughly unexpected.

His lack of a response caused a small frown to form on her normally flat face, until she became disheartened and turned toward her nightstand, positioned by the opposite corner of her bed from her current seat, where a small pile of books lay.

"… Nothing much. I just took a walk and helped with the laundry." Roland responded finally. Though, unlike the previous day, he failed to mention that he'd had a run-in with one of the students.

The interaction with the boy who summoned golems was something substantial for Roland. In his mind, there was a real sense that he could die if the situation actually came to violence, and that stuck out to him, so he told Charlotte about it. After all, even if being a Familiar was different from being a phantom, he was still supposed to protect her, so not telling her about a potential threat would be terribly short-sighted on his part.

His interaction with the rotund boy, on the other hand, could hardly be considered dangerous. Yes, he'd taken two spells directly, but being tripped and having a small rock flicked at the back of his head weren't dangerous enough to warrant concern from Roland, this, coupled with how easily he'd defeated the boy only further liquefied the thought, making it far easier for it to drain from his mind as he answered her question.

"Is that all?" Charlotte responded, now facing Roland again.

"I went with you to your classes… And to meet those two men." Roland spoke with a questioning tone, but that gave way to one of understanding halfway through his statement.

"First that maid and now you… I'm not interesting enough to receive this much attention." He thought. The same feeling of discomfort he felt in the bathing room began to crop up again, but now he had a clearer picture of how he felt, regardless of his attempt at avoiding the thoughts. It felt weird, almost wrong, to receive what was probably just basic human kindness, and if he were to be honest with himself, it was something that scared him.

This was something he'd felt far less with Siesta than with Charlotte, as she had only gone out of her way to get him some extra clothing and teach him how to clean them, both of which he could dismiss as her just being instructed to do so, despite how frail of an excuse that felt like. Charlotte, on the other hand, was harder for him to shrug off.

She had given him a place to stay, and while that seemed expected of Magicians when they summoned Familiars, a lot of the Familiars he'd seen that were around the size of or larger than a human were left to make their own homes on the school grounds, much to the displeasure of the school's staff, or in the forest surrounding the school, though that had become problematic as well, due to the recent demon attack. That contrast between Charlotte and her peers was made all the more jarring due to his own experiences up until now, which mainly consisted of him being denied respite until he took it by force, so just being given a place to stay felt so utterly wrong to him when he stopped to think about it that he wanted to reject it out of hand.

The way she'd shared her own food with him, unbeknown of his distaste for eating, was something else that he'd found disturbing. He didn't need to eat, but he knew that it was needed for most beings to survive. He also understood how huge of a motivator good food was for the living in general, though his understanding of that was roundabout at best. So someone freely sharing such a basic necessity as food, even in an environment that seemed to have it stocked in excess, was more than he could bear.

She'd also gone out of her way to teach him how to read, something that, given their situation, was wholly beneficial to him and a waste of her own time, especially considering that neither of them thought he'd learn as quickly as he did. He could have tried to justify it by thinking that she was just doing it in case anything where to damage her eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to believe something like that, considering her other actions.

"This wouldn't be a problem if I was actually human…" Roland concluded internally as he sat down on the bench across from her. Again, he could feel fear playing at the edges of his mind, and the urge to run away began to rise inside him, but he didn't. He realized the discomfort and fear he was feeling was unreasonable, but that realization did nothing to alleviate how distressing it felt, it only gave him clarity of mind enough not to try and escape it.

"Oh… Well…" Charlotte began, but was thrown off by how suddenly Roland's mood seemed to sour as he sat down. Still, his willingness to respond had encouraged her to keep going. "So what did you think of the story?"

"Hmm? It was fine, I guess." Roland spoke as his face reset to its default expression. "I don't understand why the man in the story decided to help the dragon. Well, I don't know why the dragon tried to save the child either."

The story was about a dragon, who, after attempting to save a human child's life, was caught in a trap lain out by a group of Dragon Hunters. Though, luckily for it, a strange man came in and slaughtered the hunters before they could finish it off, and then treated the dragon's wounds.

"Wasn't it out of kindness?" Charlotte spoke her mind as she studied Roland's expression. She'd begun noticing recently that, more often than not, any emotion to show up on him would quickly fade into nothing if something where to catch his attention.

"I don't think so." Roland replied as he leaned his arm on the windowsill. "He said he wanted to be king, so he might have wanted to make the dragon into an ally to exploit its strength."

The man, after patching up the dragon's wounds, had explained his goals, and how he wanted to go about them when the dragon questioned him, but hadn't asked for the dragon's help or tried to make a deal with the dragon.

"Maybe, but I don't think that was his goal. I think he just saw the creature in trouble after trying to save the child, so he felt he needed to help it." Charlotte countered. "Even before he knew it could talk, the man could see that the dragon was sentient, and more than that, it was selfless enough to endanger itself for a child. If he wanted to be a just king, he couldn't just ignore the murder happening right in front of him."

"But he could have seen that as a chance to ingratiate himself with the dragon, taking advantage of its kindness. The dragon was clearly badly injured by the time he jumped in to help it, so if he did see it attempt to save the child, and truly wanted to help it, he would have came to its aid sooner instead of waiting until it was so close to death. It makes more sense that he was waiting to rescue it until the act would have had a bigger impact on the beast." Roland grimaced slightly as the image of Charlotte running out to face the demon played over in his mind again, but let out a small sigh in an attempt to alleviate the tension he felt building as he leaned his elbows onto his knees. He didn't think that statement was applicable to what Charlotte had done, and that bothered him as well.

"The dragon was fighting too fiercely for him to get close to it, and using his bow to pick off the hunters could have ended up giving his position away and endangering them both further. He could have also accidentally hit the dragon." Again, Roland's face reverted to its neutral position as she responded. She wasn't sure why, but it didn't seem like he was getting distracted, it was more like he took special care to focus heavily on whatever stimuli presented itself whenever he seemed upset or off.

"True, and I suppose it's possible that the dragon could have misunderstood his intentions and killed him, thinking the man was another hunter." Roland straightened his back as he responded, but didn't continue past that.

"So… What did you think of the ending?" Charlotte asked after a brief silence overtook the room.

After the man had patched up the dragon and it had rested for some time, reinforcements that the dragon hunters called for before their demise had shown up and attacked the pair. The ending of the story involved the dragon ripping out its own tongue and giving it to the man. When it did, the man pierced the tongue with his sword, which imbued the sword with the dragon's power and caused an enormous gout of fire to burst forth from it, incinerating the remaining dragon hunters, though in the end, the dragon still succumbed to its wounds. After the battle, the man carved off a few hand-sized scales from the dragon, and made a small monument in its honor.

"I think the dragon died for nothing, and only served as a stepping stone for that man's ambitions." Roland readjusted himself on his seat as he answered. "I think that, had they never met, nothing would have changed for the man, save for his sword."

"I don't think that's a fair assessment." Charlotte responded, with her cheeks slightly inflated in frustration at Roland's answer. "It seemed to me that the meeting had served to fortify his resolve to become king."

They both continued to discuss their opinions on the story from that point on, until it came time for them to sleep, but neither could win the other over to their opinion.