“I’m sure you know that there is a lot of effort which goes into making something look effortless.” Oh, Azure was well aware of how much effort had to go into an effortless appearance. The scars on her calloused fingertips, having formed from years and years of playing guitar until her fingers began to bleed, served as proof of that. She had lost count of how many times she had wasted away hours upon hours to get a small section of a song perfect, how many times she’d pulled an all nighter just to practice guitar; she could never be satisfied with anything less than perfection when it came to music. If she couldn’t do something perfectly, she’d practice nonstop until she could. And even then, she’d still want to practice more. Many called her a try hard, or an overachiever for how much time she spent practicing songs, but she didn’t care;
she was the one who could play
Cliffs of Dover, after all;
they couldn’t, so who were they to make fun of her practice habits?
“Honestly, same here. If it wasn’t for music, then I doubt I would have gotten to where I am now. Literally. I don’t think I could have made it into Beacon without music. I can see why you’d want to keep it separate, though. If it’s what you’re known for it kinda loses that release, that escape, in a way. It’s no longer a way to separate from the rest of reality, is is reality.” That wasn’t to say she didn’t like music as much as she used to, she still loved, maybe even more than when she was younger. But now that music was her job, it was less of a thing she could resort to that felt outside of everything else, and more of a way to keep everything else together, a way to ground everything.
“You’re a team leader?” Azure questioned. Saffron had mentioned fighting Grimm alone, which had lead her to believe she wasn’t part of a team.
“Is the rest of your team here at Beacon too? Or did they stay behind?”Azure fiddled with Renegade, making sure it was perfectly tuned, brushing nonexistent dust off the surface of it. She leaned it up against the tree as she took the boomerang from Saffron, holding it up to examine it. It was heavier than she had expected. She lightly ran her thumb across the carvings, many of which she didn’t recognize. She wasn’t very knowledgeable in the myths and legends of Remnant. Or
any history of Remnant, really, History had always been one of her worst subjects, she found the memorization of dates and events pointless and mind numbing, and therefore had never really been able to concentrate on any material she was supposed to learning. The only exception had been the Faunus Rights Revolution, for obvious reasons.
“So they’re boomerangs... hatchets... and shotguns?” She wondered out loud, slowly turning the weapon over in her hands, trying to figure out how so many styles could fit into such a small object. She didn’t dare attempt to activate the weapon, though, she figured she’d probably break it if she tried. The carvings, the slight build of weapon, made it seem almost... fragile, like it was something too valuable for her to be holding. She handed the boomerang back to Saffron, quickly picking up Renegade once more. The weight of the guitar felt much more natural in her hand than that of the boomerang.
“Yeah, maybe you’ll be able to teach me some more proper techniques,” Azure commented with a laugh.
“My style can be defined as ‘literally nothing went according to plan but we’re rolling with it anyways’. Which, ya know, can have its perks, it’s pretty inconsistent and hard to plan for, I’d say, but it also isn’t always the most efficient method. So anything you can teach me that isn’t just ‘swing an axe and hope for the best’ would be appreciated.”“Sometimes I think my entire career is just a political statement,” Azure said, glancing around the garden as she brushed several strands of hair from her face; the breezes that kept passing through were having a field day today with playing with her hair, she should probably just pull it back to keep from having to fix it continuously.
“Being a rockstar is already enough of a statement when you live in a kingdom that thrives of off classical music-- at least, that’s been my experience anyways. And then to be a faunus and a rock artist... it all just becomes some big political thing. It’s like the more I defy the status quo, the more money I’ll make. That’s how my manager seems to see it anyways.” While, for the most part, she did hold control over what type of music she produced and how she presented herself to the world, there were times when Azure felt that Hunter just wanted to use her because she “new,” and “different,” and “rebellious.”
“That would be great, really. I’ll be forever indebted to you,” Azure joked as Saffron mentioned letting her borrow her notes. Maybe then she could at least catch up some to the rest of the class. At the mention of messaging, Azure realized she was still holding the cardboard strip that had Saffron’s number in it. The cardboard was now severely bent, curled like a ribbon as Azure had subconsciously been wrapping and unwrapping it around her finger while talking. She quickly took out her scroll and added Saffron as a contact, before looking up to examine the watch the girl wore.
“Hey, yeah, that’s actually really cool,” she said,
“definitely more accessible than a scroll.” She didn’t find she needed to use her scroll in combat all that much, so accessibility had never been much of an issue for her, but maybe other people used it more. She thought back to the person who used a computer as their weapon, maybe they had something more portable like what Saffron had?
“Well, Atlas is definitely colder,” Azure noted as she continued to pull up grass.
“Vale seems... a lot more relaxed that Atlas. Atlas is so... rigid, for lack of a better term. Like everyone is holding their breath, hoping no one will notice is they accidentally step out of line. And here is Vale, there aren’t any lines. And- wait, hold up,” she liked the sound of what she’d just said, so, like she did whenever she found a good line, she took out a pen and quickly scrawled
everyone is holding their, hoping no one notices when they step out of line on the back of her hand in her slanted, messy handwriting. She capped the pen and stuck it back in her pocket.
“And everyone is a lot more accepting too. I don’t get as many weird looks walking down the street.” She finished.
“Honestly, I’d like travel everywhere. I’m hoping my next album will land me a bigger international tour, then I could have an excuse to travel all over,” she joked. She resumed playing with the grass, always needing to be doing something with her hands.
“What ‘bout you? Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world?”She smirked as she looked down at the grass she had been ripping up, there was a nice, small pile of pulled up grass sitting in front of her. She took three of the longest strands and began braiding them together. Her gaze passed idly over Saffron as she lounged in the grass, letting the sunlight spill across her lap and torso. She couldn’t believe that she was having such a casual, civilized conversation with someone who was not just an Atlas student, but an Atlas
team leader and
specialist in training. Usually she’d expect those types of people to be the physical embodiment of everything Atlas stood for, but here she was. Strange.
She began humming a little as she braided the grass strands; a tune to a
random song that was stuck in her head. Her tail twitched slightly, curling up to rest on top of her body. The action cause it to drag through the pile of grass she had created, the green blades getting swept up in the thick, white fur.
“Dammit,” she muttered, pausing in her humming as she took a moment to comb the grass from her tail. While holding the grass, she was hit with a rather stupid and incredibly childish idea. But Azure had never been one to care for if an idea was stupid or not, she’d go ahead with it anyways.
She reached over and gently sprinkled her handful of grass over Saffron, smirking playfully as she did. She had no idea how the atlesian would reacted, but she hoped it wouldn’t be anything too bad. Hopefully she hadn’t just ruined whatever friendship had been forming between the two of them. As she awaited the girl’s reaction, she resumed braiding her grass strands, pretending as if it had never happened. She continued to hum, finishing up her braided grass, she wrapped it around her wrist and tied it like a bracelet.
A large cluster of student walked by suddenly, laughing cheerfully. Azure’s semblance was already tuning into people around her, so the sudden rush of happiness from the group hit her hard. A grin split her face as a laugh bubbled from her lips, she flopped backwards so she could lie on her back, looking nearly delirious. As soon as the group of students passed on, the feeling passed. She crashed back to her previous mood, wrinkling her forehead in slight embarrassment and disgust.
“God I am so sorry for whatever just happened, I really shouldn’t have picked such a public place to hang out right after traveling,” she said. Because she was still tired from traveling, she was feeling the effects of her semblance more than she usually would, which was why the small crowd had prompted such a reaction from her.