fandomhigh | Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

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living on the outskirts

Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

"Next week there's no class on Friday, so I suppose this week I ought to give you all something properly heavy to chew on until we get back, hm?" Yes, Jonothon was cruel, sometimes. At least it came in the form of a generally harmless sort of cruelty that he could inflict on his students by way of just doing what he was expected to get up there to do?

... There was some strange sort of logic in there if you squinted.

"Every now and again, no matter where you are, you'll step into something that's entirely over your head. Running... sometimes running won't be an option, particularly on Fandom, which seems to enjoy blocking the Causeway off when things are going their worst. Sometimes standing up and fighting isn't enough, either. Pushing for a fight that you cannot win can lead to you getting hurt, and in some situations can bring about even worse consequences."

He gave the room a wry smile. Yes, he was aware that this one wasn't going to be a popular topic with some of the more fiercely independent students.

"And sometimes, whatever that problem you've run into is, it's something that requires a solution you're simply not equipped to provide. Somebody's hurt and you need a healer to step in, in order to save their life. Things have gone rotten in a horrible way back home, and you need to round up the cavalry - something that's surprisingly easy to do around here, if you haven't needed to yet - to come help you clear up a situation that needs more firepower than even you can provide. Yes, it's okay to ask for help.

"I'm certain you've all had to do it at some point or another, to just swallow your pride and admit that you can't do something alone. You might have had to bargain, or beg, or turn to somebody you don't like, or don't even trust for assistance. I'm not telling you to throw caution to the wind. If you don't feel comfortable asking for help, there's probably good reason for that. But don't rule it out completely in all situations... putting pride before necessity can lead to some pretty terrible consequences that could have been avoided. Please, do try to bear that in mind. You are not weak if you need to ask for help with something. Different people have different skill sets, and you might excel in something that the people you're asking for help might not be able to do, in turn."

He gave a wry smile to the group.

"Being aware enough to know what you can't do on your own, and then being sensible enough to do something about that while considering the consequences of whatever choice you make is a sign of strength in its own right. Today I'm not going to make you lot do trust-falls or anything like that, since there are more than a few of us and there's not enough room in here for that sort of activity," and he was pretty certain someone would end up cracking their head open on the floor if they did, "so it's going to be another discussion class today. Share with the group one time that somebody asked for help and it went well for them. That somebody doesn't need to be you, if you're not comfortable sharing. And, if you really feel like proving me wrong today, go on and scare the class with a horror story about how asking the wrong person for help went horribly awry. We all have those stories too, I'm sure."

It was counter-productive, perhaps, but he didn't want his students blindly asking people who couldn't be trusted for help before taking the time to make an educated decision about who they turned to, either. When it mattered the most, he wanted them to be careful. Just not so careful that they damned themselves with stubbornness or fear.

[Open!]

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She smiled at him.

"Yes," Yeul said simply. "But it was a good lesson nonetheless. I think even if people do not like to hear it, it is a good thing to be heard."

"Lord knows, it took me long enough to learn," Jono noted with a little nod. "I still slip up, now and again, truth be told. But when it matters most, I remember."

Or, rather, when it kept someone else from getting hurt, Jono remembered.

“I think that is the nature of people,” she said, still smiling. “To learn and then make a mistake and have to relearn it all over again. Only, I wonder, if anyone will listen? I hope they do.”

But it was also the nature of people to assume that they knew better than someone else.

People would be people, so long as people were left in the world, unfortunately.

"I hope they do, too," Jonothon replied, bowing his head a little. "But sometimes even I find myself wondering if I'm the right bloke for this job. Still people keep coming back every week, so I suppose I must be doing something right."

Probably?

"Only time will tell in your case," she said, shrugging her shoulders slightly. "It depends on the students more than on you, if that is your concern. All you can do is your best and the rest will fall out as it will."

"I suppose that's the way of all of it," Jonothon sighed. "I'd rather know they're taking at least some of this to heart, but if they don't... they don't."

He didn't like that. They were his students, his responsibility. Damn it, he wanted to keep them all safe.

The thing was it was impossible to keep everyone safe.

"They don't," she said agreeably. "Which may bother you but there's very little to be done about it."

Not that Yeul would do anything about it anyway if she'd been in his position.

"I told Rapunzel of my power." It fell into line, thinking of things that there was little to be done about.

That was definitely one way to get Jono's mind off of one worry at least for a little while. He looked at Yeul for a moment in silence before his gaze drifted toward the door, toward the hallway.

"And how did she take it?"

He was going to have to make an attempt to check up on the girl at some point soon, perhaps. It was hardly easy news to digest even for people who were accustomed to death.

"I do not think she understands very well," Yeul said softly. "She wants to aid me in having as much fun as possible, to help with it."

There was no helping. That was what Rapunzel had really not understood.

"I told her that... that there could be no harm, in helping." Yeul's gaze drifted downwards. "That made her feel better, I think."

It left Yeul rather quietly bewildered but that had been worth the wobbly smile that Rapunzel had managed.

"She's... very young," Jonothon replied, well aware of the irony in those words, when they were said to somebody like Yeul. "Vulnerable. I don't know that she understands loss quite the same way many other students here would."

Or futility, for that matter.

"She's got a good heart, though. She wants nothing more than to ease any pain that she sees, when it's within her power to do so. I just... don't know if she realizes that most of the pain she's seeing on this particular subject is her own."

"I did tell her that it would be more of a burden on her than it would be on me." Yeul smiled faintly. "She said that friends are meant to help carry the burdens of each other."

She hesitated.

"I do not think she expected such a weight for all that I took her at her word."

"She'll be waiting for a loss," Jono noted softly. "It's difficult, when you only get one chance at life, to accept that good things have to someday end. You're a friend to her. And now that you've put a number on those days that she might have left with you, she wants to make the most of what's left."

But it would still hurt, once those days were up. He knew that truth intimately.

"I know," she said quietly. "I do know. Caius treats every life I have as a new person and mourns them individually. I know."

Yeul's smile faded. "It is hard for me to explain that I do not view it the same way. Even when I die it is not the end."

"For you, it would be almost... more like a new beginning?" Jono was trying to grasp it, himself. He'd only seen it once before, but Didi's lives and deaths were more like a continuation of the same, a short detour every century so that she could appreciate what it was that she led humanity away from, weren't they?

He chewed his lip thoughtfully.

"Perhaps that's what she needs to hear, then," he murmured. "That it isn't a finite ending, that it's just... you moving on to the next stage of your life. She might not see you again, but you aren't truly gone."

He'd spoken to Death, after Didi had left. Once, before she left the island, and then again, when she'd called him. She wasn't gone. She was only... away.

“Maybe,” Yeul said, nodding. “I will have to think of it. I do not view them the way that other people do. My life ends. My life starts. Dying doesn’t matter to me. It hurts.”

Dying always hurt.

“But it does not matter.”

"To people who are used to a goodbye lasting an eternity, it matters very much," Jonothon replied, softly. "It won't bother you, perhaps, but that doesn't mean you won't be missed, Yeul."

“In theory I know that,” Yeul admitted. “But understanding it eludes me. It has been a very, very long time since someone has mourned me who was not Caius.”

And Caius was a special case, in and of himself. He was always there.

Around for an eternity, there to witness every new beginning, and even he mourned.

"And Caius will get to see you again. And again. And again, into eternity. It still pains him. Will you return to us when this turn is over and it's time for your next?"

Mourning herself, that constantly, would have driven her to madness.

Her way was safer.

Yeul tilted her head. "In theory, there is nothing that would prevent such an occurrence."

"In theory," Jono echoed, nodding faintly. "Perhaps we'll get to see you again through your next life, and your next. Perhaps we won't. I suppose that might depend on how this turn works out for you, and what Caius makes of it?"

"Essentially." Yeul studied the desks. "If I die here, Caius will be unlikely to send me back to school again at this location. Once tried is enough if it does not work. Visits, however, he would be well enough with, if I insisted."

"While I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that, I think those still here who would remember your time spent here as a student... might appreciate that," Jono offered. "Visits for reunions and the like, a reminder that even though you left, you aren't ever truly gone..."

Reminders like that made a world of difference. He knew that one through experience, too.

"There are no futures where I am forever gone," Yeul said, which was possibly not as reassuring as she meant it to be. "Even when everything changes, I will be a constant."

Right up until and past the end of the world.

The corner of Jonothon's mouth twitched a little.

"You aren't even the first person to tell me something like that, you know."

And when the world ended, She'd be left to put up the chairs and turn the lights off...

"You'd think I'd be used to this sort of thing by now."

"No?" Yeul looked bemused, more than anything. Someone else like her. It seemed unreal but not unpleasant. "Perhaps you should be then."

Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

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