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[indent][indent][indent][color=gray][sub][right][color=dc143c][b]Location:[/b][/color] City Sewers -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color]
[hr][i][color=#A84B5E]“What’s wrong? Jealous that I made sure this party didn’t drown?”[/color][/i]

Rael gave a clever little retort just before walking away. She was good at deflecting. Good at hiding what was going on inside that thick skull of hers. It made Graves' blood boil. He could spill his guts to her and it could wash off her back like nothing at all. What was he supposed to get out of that? How was he supposed to interpret it? Maybe he hadn't expressed himself well. Maybe he didn't know how to turn the mayhem in his mind into words others could understand. What he'd actually said was almost cruel in its incoherence. Aggressive, contradictory, more a vomit of raw emotion than a conversation starter. But he meant it. He meant it, even if he didn't know how to say what he meant.

[color=dc143c][i]'Like you really know what you were even gettin' at,'[/i][/color] he sneered. All he'd accomplished was pulling her closer with one hand while pushing her away with the other. It was like he'd forgotten how to be sincere. Like he'd woken up from a years long, narcissism-fueled haze that had stripped him of all memory of how to be a decent human being. Things were easier when he was on his own. Life was simple. Hard, perhaps, yet uncomplicated. Then he met seven idiots in a video game and everything went to hell. Graves had hoped things would be easier after that first week's...events...were behind them. They knew he cared about them, right? Maybe he hadn't [i]said it[/i] to all of them, but he shouldn't have to. Not to her. Did his actions not make it clear enough?

[color=dc143c]"Fine,"[/color] Graves drew Alja's knife from his belt and started toward the tunnel entrance, desperate for some way to blow off steam. [color=dc143c]"Let's go kill ourselves more rats."[/color]
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