fandomhigh | Breaking The Glass Ceiling, Tuesday

"We've all got to start somewhere," Kerrigan began, pacing in front of the class with lithe grace. "Whether you've just gotten smashed to the ground, or you're wide-eying your way in. Anything worth having is something you have to fight for. In order to fight, you need to be aware of your assets."

She stopped in front of the table, and leaned her hands on it, looming. "These can be physical. Military. Monetary. But your first and foremost asset is your... image." She gave it a pause. "People are eager to help a lost sheep. An unlikely ally that comes out of nowhere when the times are most desperate will be more easily taken into the fold. Or use someone else's image; sometimes, if you want to be effective, the most important first step is that you find someone who'll say what you'd like other people to hear."

Like Matriarch Raszagal. May she rest in peace. "If you want to get anywhere, you need to know what your target is so that you can work out how to get there. I realize this sounds obvious, but half the idiots in this multiverse have flamed out because they couldn't concentrate on their goal."

In case you'd thought last week was just a generic introduction session. "Think about those who stand in front of that goal. What do they want to accomplish? Why are they in your way? How do they expect you to behave? Play on that - and then exaggerate one attribute so they'll buy into it the way you want them to." Which was clearly very ethical. "Personality is your primary asset." Beat. "After that, guns... but we'll talk about that later..."

"I want you all to do a little roleplaying exercise I've thought up," she continued. "Pick someone you know, or someone you've already wondered about. Try to figure out how the other person thinks of you. Subtly." She put down an apple. "You want food. The other person has it. Convince the other person they want to give it to you. If you are succesful, or loudly put down, switch."

Beat.

"Take the fact the other person knows you want the food as a challenge." She never said her workshop was going to be easy.

[[ ~~wait for the~~ ocd up! have at! ]]

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"Got enough of that apple to share?" Triela asked, keeping her tone friendly.

"Nope," she said, eyes wide and innocent. "It's a very important apple. All for me."

"Huh." There was a reason Triela wasn't very good at this sort of thing.

"Why so greedy? If I had an apple I'd split it with you, you know."

"You wouldn't," Ino insisted. "Not if it was your mission."

"Point," Triela had to admit.

"But as you've pointed out before: you're not like me that way." Ino had a choice. Not that Ino would give up the apple if it were her mission, either, but that wasn't the point.

"Are you implying I'd deliberately choose to fail a mission?"

Triela considered that. "Perhaps. If the circumstances were right." She couldn't imagine what those circumstances might be, of course. Because Ino was a professional.

Ino's smile was faint.

"Correct, really; anything can happen and I might have a good reason." A beat. "I don't got a good reason for failing this one."

"It's not a mission," Triela pointed out. Which was... quibbling, sort of.

"Kerrigan never assigned you the role of making sure I don't get the food. She just said I had to get it."

"In order for you to get it, you must convince me," she replied lightly. "Which makes keeping it from you a mission to me."

"So you're saying that because I have to convince you, you've decided to be unconvinceable?"

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," she said glibly.

Triela considered that for a moment.

"Considering our skillsets and personalities, I suspect that you'd force me to resort to violence in order to get the apple, wouldn't you?" If Ino was going to treat this like a mission... Well.

"Entirely possible," she confessed. "Or giving me something I would consider more interesting and useful than an apple-that-is-a-mission."

Another silent pause to consider. "Something more valuable, huh." What was something Ino might like...

"I could get you a new pair of boots..." Triela did have a truly amazing cobbler after all.

"I don't need boots," she said, smiling. "I don't normally wear them."

"What about for formal occasions?" Triela pressed. After all, boots were very good for formal occasions.

"I wear heels," she replied, wrinkling her nose. "I like dresses and dancin' during those. Or else, I'm in uniform."

Triela's nose wrinkled at the mention of heels, even though she was wearing a pair herself.

"A suit, then?" She also had a very good tailor.

Ino raised her eyebrows.

"Can you really imagine me in a suit?"

"Yes," Triela answered immediately. She looked Ino up and down thoughtfully. "You'd look good."

Of course she thought everyone looked good in a suit.

"I'd look weird," she insisted. "And I'd have no reason to wear it."

Triela disagreed, but getting into an argument with Ino over it wouldn't really help her get the apple.

"A dress then?" She was sure her tailor could recommend someone, after all.

Breaking The Glass Ceiling, Tuesday

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