[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/FjVCFoQ.png[/img][/center]
[center][color=cyan][h2]Etoile[/h2]
[/color]

---[/center]

Etoile really, [i]really[/i] hated being incompetent.

Much of her life had been devoted to being as good as she could be at everything she could get her hands on, the devil take whatever it was. Single combat? She could do that. Squad support functions? Coordinating troop movements? Check. Provisioning and planning? Yep.  When she was younger, simply [i]being good at things[/i] had been an [i]obsession[/i]. And while she'd gotten a bit less intense about it as she aged--only so much time in the day to learn while still fulfilling one's duties, after all--it still frustrated her to be measurably worse at something someone else.

It rankled her like nothing else that she'd needed to rely on aides and assistants to track magic for her. She didn't know what was wrong with her, really; it wasn't genetic, clearly, as anyone capable of magic in her family had been able to feel aether in the air quite easily and intuitively. She'd spent months of time devoted solely to researching this...[i]defect[/i] of hers in an effort to overcome it and--yes, be more competent. Or, barring that, at least know what was wrong with her. But she'd found nothing. And then her research had been interrupted by her digging into the Nsiferum dynasty, and her subsequent arrest and escape. And, well, she hadn't exactly had a lot of time or resources to do detailed magical research since then. Being on the run tended to complicate such prospects. She'd philosophically accepted by now that she'd never be able to track magic without some kind of magitek compass to help her, but [i]accepting[/i] it certainly didn't mean she had to [i]like[/i] it.

And so, her mood plummeted as Pythia began to do what she'd never been able to. And then, horror of horrors, asked the rest to do the same. [color=cyan][i]Yeah, Etoile,[/i][/color] her inner critic mocked at Pythia's remark, [color=cyan][i]get your bearings. You don't want to be a[/i] burden[i], do you?[/i][/color] Her teeth ground together, and she leaned backwards against a tree, clenching her artificial fist behind her back to the point of hearing a creaking sound. Her neutral--if somewhat irritated, almost congenitally so--expression turned into a sullen frown, and she spoke quietly:

"[color=cyan]I'll just follow you and watch our backs then, Sparky.[/color]"