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[indent][indent][indent][color=#808080]By the time the next group was called forward, Maylisse had returned to her seat, her posture impeccably straight despite the dampness that still seeped through her clothes. The list of names River recited flowed past her like background noise; she registered the scattered cheers and the solemn pauses that followed each failure only vaguely. Her concentration was reserved for one candidate alone.[/color]

[color=#86a8ad]"Next up: Evelyn, Ariana, Tapeesa, Wes, and Anissa."[/color]

[color=#808080]There she was.[/color]

[color=#808080]Maylisse’s attention narrowed instantly, sharpening on Anissa as the girl stepped away from her companions. She looked slight—almost insubstantial—compared to some who'd gone already. Their physiques had hinted at a more natural suitability for the grueling course, and even the one in her group who lacked a limb appeared more able physically. Every aspect of Anissa seemed too fine and too unready (especially because of her stupid shirt). The observation, however, carried no scorn. It was more a cold, automatic valuation, measuring inherent potential against visible disadvantage. The girl had, after all, revealed an unexpected fortitude during their earlier exchange, a spine where Maylisse had first seen none.[/color]

[color=#808080]From the outset, Anissa did not move like an investment meant to yield any immediate returns.  There was no explosive confidence, no obvious leverage. Her start was cautious, almost conservative, as if she were feeling out the terrain that the tires and logs presented rather than asserting dominance over it. Maylisse noted it all with a faint creasing at the corner of her mouth. [/color][color=#808080]By the low crawl, the girl was filthy with her sweatshirt ruined and posture stripped of whatever fragile dignity she’d started with. Maylisse felt a bit of distaste, not so much at the mess but at the waste. Appearances mattered. They always did. But even as that thought formed, another followed close behind, unwelcome but undeniable: sometimes the ugliest investments survived the longest downturns, didn’t they?[/color]

[color=#808080]Yet by the time Anissa reached the rope climb, Maylisse had already categorized her as a non-factor in the immediate equation. Not unimportant in a grander sense, but here, now, she was merely a participant who would either pass or fall. Neither outcome warranted further investment of her attention, despite the dogged resilience on display. A minor risk, certainly, but like the girl herself, one that seemed more likely to exhaust itself than to disrupt the established order at camp. Even as Anissa fought her way upward, fingers slipping and grasping anew, Maylisse foresaw the impending stall. [/color][i][color=#a9c9eb]How predictable,[/color][/i][color=#808080] she mused. [/color][i][color=#a9c9eb]And how ultimately inconsequential.[/color][/i]

[color=#808080]As Anissa dangled, suspended in her struggle, Maylisse’s gaze grew restless. It was commendable, perhaps, that the girl refused to make a drama of her effort, but it made for a dull spectacle. Her eyes almost wandered of their own accord, drawn to the more compelling figure of the one-armed man, as his own earlier fall had been a jarring, unforgettable event. [/color][i][color=#a9c9eb]Now he, at least, offers a more aesthetically pleasing study,[/color][/i][color=#808080] her inner commentary supplied with unwelcome idleness. A subtle frown betrayed her annoyance at the frivolous thought, and she swiftly shut it down, turning her focus instead to the presence of her brother positioned near the rope climb.[/color]

[color=#808080]River’s attention, which should have remained evenly spread among the remaining runners, snapped to Anissa as if tugged by a wire. He paused briefly before closing the distance between them. Their words were lost to the general noise of the arena, but Maylisse had no need to hear them. The silent dialogue of their stance told her everything.[/color]

[color=#5a3e85][i]“He isn’t obligated to tell me everything. He doesn’t… even know who I am.”[/i][/color]

[color=#808080]Maylisse had initially mistaken that quiet statement for insecurity. Now, she saw it for what it was. This girl was not demanding closeness from her brother; she was creating a space for it, and River was stepping into that space with negligible hesitation. After all, his hesitation was born of nothing more than his own irritating nerves, quickly overruled by who knew what exactly. The proof, however, was the smile that touched his lips—a private, fleeting thing there and gone in a heartbeat yet irreversible once witnessed. In that unguarded moment, his authority appeared to soften into something more personal: familiarity and a spark of genuine interest.[/color]

[color=#808080]Then, Anissa slipped.[/color]

[color=#808080]River’s reaction was instantaneous, a raw instinct that outpaced his training. His whole body lurched forward, hands twitching out to catch a fall that wasn’t his to prevent. Discipline crashed back down a heartbeat later, but the damage was done. The clipboard in his grip fell, striking the hard ground with a [i]crack[/i] that silenced the immediate air around them. Maylisse didn’t flinch externally, but internally, everything crystallized into cold, still clarity.[/color]

[color=#808080]Because favouritism, even when checked, always leaves a trace.[/color]

[color=#808080]River caught himself. He stepped back. He enforced the rule. And on paper, it was the correct decision for him to make. But for Maylisse, the assessment of that single second was already complete. The issue was not his final decision. It was the blinding speed with which he had been ready to abandon it.[/color]

[color=#808080]Anissa descended, landed softly in the dirt, and turned away without a backward glance. River, meanwhile, straightened his spine, the mask of the detached assessor firmly back in place, though a telltale rigidity lingered in his shoulders like a ghost of the lapse.[/color]

[color=#808080]Maylisse’s gaze followed Anissa as the girl moved toward the next obstacle, her mind refining its conclusion with ruthless precision. Anissa was not the rot itself. She displayed none of the voracious hunger for control, nor the sly impulse to corrode from within. Instead, she was something worse: a catalyst. Her mere presence within the system tested its soundness, exposing flaws and weaknesses no one, not even Maylisse, had thought to look for.[/color]

[color=#808080]And River, for all his principles and good intentions, had already shown a bend in his resolve because of it.[/color]

[color=#808080]Maylisse leaned back against the bench, fingers interlacing in her lap, posture once more immaculate.[/color]

[color=#808080][i]Rot[/i][/color][color=#808080]. It was a sickness to be cut out before it could spread. She had accepted that definition without hesitation, for it mirrored her father’s stated creed exactly: identify, remove, and cauterize for the greater good.[/color]

[color=#808080]But Anissa’s addendum resurfaced now, unwelcome and tenacious.[/color]

[i][color=#5a3e85]Sometimes rot isn’t the problem. Sometimes it’s the roots.[/color][/i]

[color=#808080]Maylisse’s gaze grew distant, sliding past the obstacle course and the camp’s perimeter to the blurred line where she imagined the land met the iron-gray expanse of the lake. Roots were not an infection. They were a foundation that was ancient, necessary, and driven deep by whatever formidable force had first planted them. Furthermore, you could not simply rip them out without threatening everything they upheld; the resulting collapse would bury you as well.[/color]

[color=#808080]It was a principle that Poseidon, with grim irony, had carved into her understanding before granting her this duty.[/color]

[i][color=#0b5394]You do not destroy what already governs the flow, [/color][/i][color=#808080][i]he had instructed. [/i][/color][i][color=#0b5394]You learn the source of its strength. You restrict its channels. You redirect its current. And only if it resists… then you apply pressure until it fractures into a shape you can tolerate.[/color][/i]

[color=#808080]Her focus sharpened, returning to the present. Anissa had progressed to the final obstacle by now, and though she seemed outsized by the challenge, she was still advancing—awkward, inelegant, but persistent. Not dangerous in herself, of course, yet clearly able to command attention and provoke instinct over reason. River had already demonstrated that in his single moment of hesitation. One almost-step across a boundary he himself had established. 

And sometimes, that was all it took.[/color]

[color=#808080]The rot she had named was not always loud. It did not always arrive as betrayal or open defiance. Sometimes, it wore the guise of compassion offered too soon. It looked like an attachment forming before authority had fully solidified. It was a leader who bent on instinct, only remembering the rules after his posture had already shifted.[/color]

[color=#808080]River was not weak.[/color]
[color=#808080]But he was unrefined.[/color]
[color=#808080]And unrefined structures tended to buckle under strain.[/color]

[color=#808080]Maylisse let the conclusion solidify within her, storing it away with the meticulous care she reserved for all valuable intelligence. Her evaluation, for now, was complete. Around her, the crowd was thinning, naturally sorted by success and failure. Those who passed drifted away, their relieved chatter fading into the general hum of the camp. Those who had stumbled remained, faces etched with frustration, now occupied with the grim work of repetition—whether to strengthen their skills or their resolve, it hardly mattered to her at this moment.[/color]

[color=#808080]Instead, Maylisse waited. She did not approach while River stood in the arena’s focus, nor while lingering eyes still sought his direction. She remained still until he had transitioned back into just a man: a figure on a bench, a jacket beside him, the vast, silent pressure of the ocean at his back.[/color]

[color=#808080]Then, and only then, did she rise and move toward him.[/color]

[color=#808080]Maylisse’s shoes made no sound on the packed earth as she crossed the arena, passing the stragglers now restarting the course without so much as a glance. River had just completely settled onto the bench when her presence entered the edge of his vision. She stopped a careful distance away—near enough for quiet conversation, far enough to avoid crowding him—and observed him for a moment longer than courtesy typically allowed.[/color]

[color=#808080]She noted the weary drop of his head.[/color]
[color=#808080]The absent way his hand rubbed the tension at the base of his neck.[/color]
[color=#808080]The quiet, absorbing fatigue that follows a performance delivered under someone else’s watchful eye.[/color]

[color=#808080]When she finally spoke, her voice was level, unhurried by the tension still hanging in the air.[/color]

[color=#a9c9eb]“You handled that well, even if it may not feel that way at the moment.”[/color]

[color=#808080]It wasn’t quite praise, nor was it empty reassurance. It was a statement delivered as a straightforward fact.[/color]

[color=#808080]Her gaze drifted briefly back toward the obstacle course, where a handful of determined campers were already a third of the way through, moving slower now but offering each other guidance over the logs and ropes that had defeated them earlier.[/color]

[color=#a9c9eb]“You made a decision,”[/color][color=#808080] she continued, her attention returning to him. [/color][color=#a9c9eb]“You upheld it. And you didn’t waver when the pushback came.”[/color]

[color=#808080]Maylisse let the words settle between them, her expression unreadable yet intent.[/color]

[color=#a9c9eb]“That matters. And it will matter to [/color][color=#a9c9eb][i]him[/i][/color][color=#a9c9eb].”[/color][/indent][/indent][/indent]
[hr][sub][color=9b9b9b][b][i]Location: Arena 
Interactions: River
Mentions: Anissa, Wes, all the top performers and failures (indirectly)[/i][/b][/color][/sub]
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