![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Growth;
Title: Growth
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Pyrrha Nikos
Rating: PG
Warnings: this is kind of self-indulgent, forgive me
Summary: She wondered, sometimes, when she would demonstrate the growth that she knew she had had.
Dedication: Happy birthday, kouhai! Forgive me for the slight belatedness, this ended up longer than I...anticipated... EITHER WAY, I hope that it brings a smile to your face and that you had a lovely birthday!
--
Pyrrha Nikos was a child of strength.
She was not yet a woman, so she could not yet call herself a woman of strength (not that she would do so were she even able to, as it felt far too much like praising herself). She was not entirely a child, either; that was also erroneous.
Pyrrha Nikos was a person stuck between child and woman, but nonetheless she was strong. In time, she would grow, she knew that much; perhaps not physically, but mentally, she had a long ways to go. Perhaps in that time, she would be even stronger in another way.
Pyrrha Nikos resettled her gauntlets and checked her weaponry, and prepared to fight.
In truth, her time in Cerealia had been short, and for the longest time, it was only the fuzziest of memories. She had strange recollections of robots acting in bizarre ways, and even stranger recollections of friends--no, people she was sure she had never met before.
Slumber parties.
Texting Jaune...?
Well, they were strange memories indeed, but they remained just distant enough that they did not bother her as she went on her day to day life. Perhaps she texted Jaune more often in response; he didn't seem to mind it much, judging by the smilie faces left on the messages.
Perhaps she was a bit friendlier to people, in the hopes that she would be able to recapture that feeling of making friends as she had, when they hadn't known who she was and had simply looked at her as Pyrrha. That one was harder to accomplish, naturally; they knew who she was here, and not there (where was "there"?) and so...
She shook her head, inspected a tiny nick on her spear, and made the mildest face as she pulled out a whetstone. She was always prepared, after all, and before a fight it was even more important to make sure that she and her weaponry were both in fighting shape.
There was another memory, though, one that niggled at her, and one that made her certain that it was a memory after all, and not just a strange uncanny dream. After all, she doubted she had the wherewithal to dream up someone like that.
Captain--what a strange title.
She thought, perhaps, it wasn't an entirely accurate title; he held himself like a commander, not a simple captain, but he did not seem the sort to put on airs either. Of all of the people she remembered, he was one of the strangest. They had danced, the two of them, and it had not been romantic in the least--she did not feel her heart speed up like when she had danced with Jaune, but even so it was something to remember.
They had sparred as well--and she had learned from him, and she knew now that she was stronger than she was before (was that an unfair advantage, to learn from people in other worlds, to remember it?). That was an argument for it being true memory, and not dream. Her muscle memory did not lie. She remembered those spars, heart-pounding and precise, intense and certain.
He had told her--
"As for myself, I believe I simply see you even more clearly, now."
And she had been grateful, grateful for the opportunity to have the chance to prove herself again, as Pyrrha, in a place where nobody knew her name, as the person she is now, and not the child she was before.
"Introducing Team JNPR!" comes the voice over the loudspeaker, the cheers reacting in response in the crowd, and Pyrrha casts a glance over her companions.
Jaune--nervous, pale, but as ready as he'll ever be. He may be smacked around, but he will nonetheless lead them to victory.
Nora--excitable, bouncing in place, ready to wreck havoc. Nothing to worry about there.
Ren--calm, quiet, impossible to read. She wonders what he's thinking, but doesn't know for certain.
They step out onto the arena, and she wonders if she truly had proven herself back there. Back there with fuzzy memories and friends who she wonders if they remember her as well. Then the fight draws her attention, and there's nothing but fluid, certain movements--
(Slash, stab, parry. Slash, follow-up with her shield.)
She takes out the first of her opponents without trouble, moves on to the next. Nora and Ren are tag-teaming, which left Jaune with two; she takes on the closest, and finds that she's an unusual opponent. A few steps (a dance?) and she knows she'll have to use everything at her disposal to win this quickly (she still must try to help Jaune with the one who got back up), and so she reaches out, a delicate movement with her Semblance.
Her opponent's weapon goes wide, and Pyrrha sees the chance, but suddenly it's closed off, the other young woman moving with certain, quick grace with her Semblance's nudge, recovering quickly, all too quickly. Before, Pyrrha would have been surprised by this, and yet--
(He'd done that too, when she'd opted to finally use her Semblance against him; it had taken him less than a split moment to recover, to move with it, and she'd lost that chance that that quick move had bought her.)
--An unorthodox move, and her spear slams into the side of her opponent with a quick, solid shove, because she knows where she's moving, she knows what will happen next, and Pyrrha Nikos has always been an incredibly quick study.
In the time it took to do such a thing, the others were successful as well, and Pyrrha can't help the smile that graces her face as the winner is announce.
Team JNPR.
Not Pyrrha Nikos, but her team--and she thinks that she really had proven herself. If not back in the metallic city, then here and now, she has proven herself, and the victory belongs to them all.
Jaune is making sweeping movements with his arms, encouraging them to dwell on their victory, and Pyrrha thinks that's a little tasteless, but even so she finds herself swept up in the giddiness and lifts a tentative hand to wave at the crowd.
But it isn't until they are moving off the stage, until Jaune is wrapped up in chatting excitedly with Nora as Ren watches them with a flat expression that nonetheless feels fond, that Pyrrha indulges properly, and murmurs to herself, a simple, "Thank you, Captain."
She kisses the tips of her fingers, and lifts her hand then, as if to allow the proper victory celebration to leave her, and perhaps nonetheless, in some way, he'll get it--
And he'll remember, and know that she has grown just a little more into her own skin.
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Pyrrha Nikos
Rating: PG
Warnings: this is kind of self-indulgent, forgive me
Summary: She wondered, sometimes, when she would demonstrate the growth that she knew she had had.
Dedication: Happy birthday, kouhai! Forgive me for the slight belatedness, this ended up longer than I...anticipated... EITHER WAY, I hope that it brings a smile to your face and that you had a lovely birthday!
--
Pyrrha Nikos was a child of strength.
She was not yet a woman, so she could not yet call herself a woman of strength (not that she would do so were she even able to, as it felt far too much like praising herself). She was not entirely a child, either; that was also erroneous.
Pyrrha Nikos was a person stuck between child and woman, but nonetheless she was strong. In time, she would grow, she knew that much; perhaps not physically, but mentally, she had a long ways to go. Perhaps in that time, she would be even stronger in another way.
Pyrrha Nikos resettled her gauntlets and checked her weaponry, and prepared to fight.
In truth, her time in Cerealia had been short, and for the longest time, it was only the fuzziest of memories. She had strange recollections of robots acting in bizarre ways, and even stranger recollections of friends--no, people she was sure she had never met before.
Slumber parties.
Texting Jaune...?
Well, they were strange memories indeed, but they remained just distant enough that they did not bother her as she went on her day to day life. Perhaps she texted Jaune more often in response; he didn't seem to mind it much, judging by the smilie faces left on the messages.
Perhaps she was a bit friendlier to people, in the hopes that she would be able to recapture that feeling of making friends as she had, when they hadn't known who she was and had simply looked at her as Pyrrha. That one was harder to accomplish, naturally; they knew who she was here, and not there (where was "there"?) and so...
She shook her head, inspected a tiny nick on her spear, and made the mildest face as she pulled out a whetstone. She was always prepared, after all, and before a fight it was even more important to make sure that she and her weaponry were both in fighting shape.
There was another memory, though, one that niggled at her, and one that made her certain that it was a memory after all, and not just a strange uncanny dream. After all, she doubted she had the wherewithal to dream up someone like that.
Captain--what a strange title.
She thought, perhaps, it wasn't an entirely accurate title; he held himself like a commander, not a simple captain, but he did not seem the sort to put on airs either. Of all of the people she remembered, he was one of the strangest. They had danced, the two of them, and it had not been romantic in the least--she did not feel her heart speed up like when she had danced with Jaune, but even so it was something to remember.
They had sparred as well--and she had learned from him, and she knew now that she was stronger than she was before (was that an unfair advantage, to learn from people in other worlds, to remember it?). That was an argument for it being true memory, and not dream. Her muscle memory did not lie. She remembered those spars, heart-pounding and precise, intense and certain.
He had told her--
"As for myself, I believe I simply see you even more clearly, now."
And she had been grateful, grateful for the opportunity to have the chance to prove herself again, as Pyrrha, in a place where nobody knew her name, as the person she is now, and not the child she was before.
"Introducing Team JNPR!" comes the voice over the loudspeaker, the cheers reacting in response in the crowd, and Pyrrha casts a glance over her companions.
Jaune--nervous, pale, but as ready as he'll ever be. He may be smacked around, but he will nonetheless lead them to victory.
Nora--excitable, bouncing in place, ready to wreck havoc. Nothing to worry about there.
Ren--calm, quiet, impossible to read. She wonders what he's thinking, but doesn't know for certain.
They step out onto the arena, and she wonders if she truly had proven herself back there. Back there with fuzzy memories and friends who she wonders if they remember her as well. Then the fight draws her attention, and there's nothing but fluid, certain movements--
(Slash, stab, parry. Slash, follow-up with her shield.)
She takes out the first of her opponents without trouble, moves on to the next. Nora and Ren are tag-teaming, which left Jaune with two; she takes on the closest, and finds that she's an unusual opponent. A few steps (a dance?) and she knows she'll have to use everything at her disposal to win this quickly (she still must try to help Jaune with the one who got back up), and so she reaches out, a delicate movement with her Semblance.
Her opponent's weapon goes wide, and Pyrrha sees the chance, but suddenly it's closed off, the other young woman moving with certain, quick grace with her Semblance's nudge, recovering quickly, all too quickly. Before, Pyrrha would have been surprised by this, and yet--
(He'd done that too, when she'd opted to finally use her Semblance against him; it had taken him less than a split moment to recover, to move with it, and she'd lost that chance that that quick move had bought her.)
--An unorthodox move, and her spear slams into the side of her opponent with a quick, solid shove, because she knows where she's moving, she knows what will happen next, and Pyrrha Nikos has always been an incredibly quick study.
In the time it took to do such a thing, the others were successful as well, and Pyrrha can't help the smile that graces her face as the winner is announce.
Team JNPR.
Not Pyrrha Nikos, but her team--and she thinks that she really had proven herself. If not back in the metallic city, then here and now, she has proven herself, and the victory belongs to them all.
Jaune is making sweeping movements with his arms, encouraging them to dwell on their victory, and Pyrrha thinks that's a little tasteless, but even so she finds herself swept up in the giddiness and lifts a tentative hand to wave at the crowd.
But it isn't until they are moving off the stage, until Jaune is wrapped up in chatting excitedly with Nora as Ren watches them with a flat expression that nonetheless feels fond, that Pyrrha indulges properly, and murmurs to herself, a simple, "Thank you, Captain."
She kisses the tips of her fingers, and lifts her hand then, as if to allow the proper victory celebration to leave her, and perhaps nonetheless, in some way, he'll get it--
And he'll remember, and know that she has grown just a little more into her own skin.