#armand is just my silly little girlfriend

[ivygrowncowboy]

assad zaman has captivated me body and soul like any negative emotion i feel towards armand’s character completely disappears when his big stupid beautiful bambi eyes appear on screen

[ghostpaynes]

I hate thinking of names because I want to write my silly little Armand basically adopting one of Daniel's kids au but I need to think of a name for her lose boyfriend and rename her ex girlfriend (which isn't actually as bad I have a thoughts) and I just want to go ham on writing

[zahra-kha]

Dear Diary 31

You’re starting to fill up, huh? If this keeps up I may have to buy another diary eventually. At least I’m keeping up with this!

I met up with Trystan for that lunch I promised him, it was nice to catch up and talk. I tried to push off the unpleasant chatter as long as I could and just talk about happy things, but eventually we had to get down to business. It’s a lot more fun to talk about the past, our adventures, and things we can look forward to in the future. It’s not like I don’t want to talk about my troupe or the things wrong - but it brings the mood down and that feels so vexing. I don’t want my business to be the reason such a great atmosphere gets destroyed. It makes me feel awful.

I also just don’t like being the center of attention if I’m not performing. It was one thing when I was just talking about Sahrin with Tachi and sorting out my thoughts. I feel frustrated since I was unconscious for a lot of what happened, so there’s information I’m missing too. After the slumber party at Gail’s I’ve been hovering around the encampment but everyone’s been huddled in their spaces and I haven’t been able to do any digging.

But I’ll backtrack. Cecilia showed up at Plume which I was happy about, because I wanted to bring her to the party. I got to fight Trystan at Plume and I forgot how devastating he could be in a fight since I usually just watch him. Oh, we’ve fought side by side before, in adventures and in Murea, but it’s not quite the same as getting an actual boot to the chest.

That hurt like all the hells. I blacked out for a while, too. Would definitely fight him again though.

Venomtongue was being herself and placed bets on me, but I saw her hovering at the medical cot when I was coming to. She didn’t say anything, but I like to think maybe she was a little worried about me. ♥ I should probably tell the others it doesn’t bother me when she calls me Barbarian. It’s like we have our fun little snarky nicknames for each other. I wanna fight her again, it’s been a while!

It was a pretty easy night for Plume. There was this huge guy named...Hikaru? He didn’t seem to speak common so it was a little awkward trying to see if he wanted anything, but I liked his look and he fought well! He fought against Tamala’s sister and won.

The matches went on to time for almost each one that night, it was insane! Really great bouts, everyone was great at holding their own. And then at the end Jasper pulled up Zhao and Quin (who was surprised, I don’t think he signed up initially) to help him train. I think he’s trying to sign up for some sort of tournament but he’s not satisfied with his current skillset. I didn’t quite catch all of it, but considering how well he fended off two people at once, I think he should be proud of the skillset he has. It’s not easy fending off two people at once, especially someone with a gunblade.

Also poor Quin, we might have messed with him too much. He is still learning and for someone just getting into it, he’s doing a good job. I just like to give my friends a hard time. He’s amazing when he’s doing his usual thing though!

After Plume we went to Gail’s shop (with all the poisonous plants in the front, yikes! It’s really pretty inside, though) and chattered. I think there was some overal general confusion regarding how we were going to use the baths but that got sorted out well enough.

I don’t mind using communal baths, and I love hot springs, but I wasn’t exactly sure if Conor wanted to bathe with everyone or not, so I opted to just take a quick bath first because I was sweaty and stinky and I wanted to be clean more than I wanted to soak. But then he walked in as I was about to get undressed and started taking off his coat and I was...confused? Did he or did he not want- I didn’t get it.

So he left me to bathe, with me still a bit confused as to what was happening, and when I finally finished and go out, a few more others had arrived. Cecilia was quiet during most of the exchange, which I guess is to be expected since she’s been through an ordeal and she doesn’t really know anyone there. It is a little sad to see how much she’s changed, though. She used to be sassy and full of life. I don’t know what all happened to her, but I’m so angry it occurred because someone manipulated her for...I don’t even know why.

In more pleasant news, Conor has a girlfriend! She’s got a rather unusual name but I feel with his personality, they fit pretty well together! I hope it works out for him, I was a bit sad when the last lady friend he had didn’t work out. It happens of course, but I like to see people happy. Maybe it’s silly of me, but I don’t think it’s wrong to want people to find true happiness with their special someone if they’ve found someone they want to be with.

He was happy to gush about her, which I thought was cute. It reminded me of my father when he gets into talking about mother sometimes. If she’s around, it’s one of the few instances where she’ll lose her cool and get flustered. When Cahil and I were young we thought they were so gross and mushy. Now that I’m older and a romantic at heart, I think back on those moments fondly.

I may also be a bit homesick. 

After Conor left, I talked to Gail about if there was anyway her people at GHOST could hide Cecilia or protect her. I didn’t even think about if I could give them anything to offer in return, I guess I’ll have to take that into consideration. I was so focused on just finding a way to secure a line of safety for Cecilia but maybe if I offer my services or something they’ll consider that a form of payment. I don’t plan to ask them to tackle on my troupe’s problems and offer nothing in return.

I was hoping Cecilia would be able to offer us more information about what happened to her and whoever the hells this Sabe woman is, but we did find out it was Armand that passed the message to her that Sahrin was kicking her out. Cecilia is new to the troupe so I can’t really blame her for not challenging Armand and trusting his word. I mean, when you think you’ve joined a family, why would you distrust anyone within it?

Hopefully Gail can coax a bit more information from her regarding whoever Sabe is and what happened while she was gone.We all know Armand isn’t behind whatever is going on, and Gail thinks whoever is must be trying to get rid of anyone who isn’t a founding member. But why now? Armand’s been in the troupe for years and so have I. Armand joined when I was twelve, then I joined officially when I was fourteen. I’m twenty now, I’ve been with them for six years.

Why would someone decide to get rid of us now? Why not do it while we were still back in Radz-at-Han? It’s appallingly easy to make the right people disappear if you have the right connections back home. Why wait to come to a foreign country with no connections and foreign laws?

I want more answers. I’m upset, hurt, and sad that there are those in the troupe willing to go to such lengths to hurt our own and I don’t even know why. I feel so exhausted being in the dark, not knowing who to trust.

I’ve cherished these people since I was a child. Have we all been just sitting on a bed of lies? Have I been smiling, laughing, and performing with people who have wanted to see me dead all this time?

I hate this. Every time I think on it it makes me feel alone and scared. Bonds outside of family are so fragile.