It's probably a little weird, when Clarisse slides into the spot across from Gela at the dining hall.
It's not strange that the two of them are both there at the same time—Clarisse almost never skips meals, and Gela seems to like hanging out in here—but while Clarisse isn't opposed to sitting with someone if they invite her to, she's not typically rushing over to initiate conversation.
Maybe she's overthinking this.
"If you had to apologize to somebody, how would you do it?"
"Hello," Gela says happily when she sits, smiling: would you like some tea? She's got a pot there, a battered thing, and a cup for her and more nearby. She gestures with one, and mimes pouring while Clarisse speaks.
Yes, no?
"I'd probably just tell them 'I'm sorry', and nicely. How come?"
Clarisse gives her a little nod re: the tea. Sure.
"It's nothing specific. I just realized I never... learned?" She's fully aware that her answer sounds ridiculous. Six year olds know how to say they're sorry. But she continues on anyway. "I'm very good at being a soldier, but if you want to do anything more than that, you need to know how to talk to people. And you're in diplomacy, so that's your expertise, right?"
It's over-simplifying them both, but she's not the best at this shit, clearly.
She is poured a cup of reddish-brown tea, that smells very strongly of herb. A few bits are floating around in there... they might be petals.
Gela pushes it toward her with her fingertips, privately delighted that Clarisse came to ask her about this.
"It is." And she's happy to help. She adds, "I think that, when you're looking for a proper, meaningful apology, it helps to say what you did wrong. If you say 'I'm sorry', vaguely, it might cause the other person to wonder if you even know what you're so sorry about."
Bending over the cup, Clarisse gives a little sniff, trying to smell whatever's floating around in her tea. It's nothing she can identify, but it doesn't smell bad, so after a couple seconds she straightens up again to face Gela.
"So instead of saying 'sorry' you'd say 'sorry for shoving your head into a toilet,'" is what she's getting from this. "But then what if they think you're only saying what they want to hear? Like—what if they don't believe you?"
"Well," Gela says, after she's recovered from hearing 'sorry for shoving your head into a toilet', "There's not a lot you can do if somebody doesn't believe you. All you can say is you're sorry, and mean it, and then leave it be."
Not ideal, of course, but it happens.
She adds, "And then you never approach that person while they're near a toilet again, unless they get the wrong idea."
It sounds deceptively simple, the way Gela puts it. Just say you're sorry, but be specific, and don't do whatever it is again. If the person doesn't believe you, let it be.
"All right." Clarisse sounds a little bit mystified, like all of this has never occurred to her before. Is it that easy for everybody else? Has it been that easy the whole time, and she's just been making life harder for herself?
She sips her tea. It's good.
"Does it embarrass you?" she asks, without intending to. "When you apologize to someone?"
Gela can't tell if she's mocking her or not but she's not known Clarisse to act like that before. Not toward her, anyways. Naturally she's waiting for the punchline of the whole thing, and all Clarisse does is sit there and look at her, considering every word while she sips her tea.
Hmm.
She says, "You have siblings, don't you?" Gela has never said the word sorry more to anybody else.
And, "Sometimes, yes. Especially when what I've done is really bad."
She nods. Okay, that's something. At least she isn't the only one who feels mortified when they have to utter the word "sorry."
And then: You have siblings, don't you?
Clarisse screws up her face, trying to think of a way to answer the question honestly but without making it sound unhinged. There really isn't one.
"Technically, yes. But I didn't grow up with them. We only got brought to camp once we were old enough, and we all lived together there, but it wasn't like..." She shrugs one shoulder. A family. "We were like an army."
A small army. Made up entirely of teenagers.
"I wouldn't apologize to one of them any more than Flint would apologize to me."
That's a little sad to her, siblings who aren't really family. Growing up alone, then joining an army. "That makes sense as to why you're out of practice, then.
But the Commander would apologise to you, if he thought it were necessary. Wouldn't he?"
Actually, she doesn't know Flint. Maybe he wouldn't? She thinks that Byerly certainly would if the situation called for it. Musing, now, "It's so much harder to say sorry to people who outrank you, I think. It's hard to make it seem like anything other than groveling."
Clarisse doubts it, but it's nothing personal against Flint. More like a commanding officer thing.
Anyway.
"I guess I find it hard no matter who I'm talking to," she mumbles. "If I outrank them, it makes me look weak. If they outrank me, like you said, it's groveling." Uuuughh, why is this shit so annoying?
"Maybe you should try to think of it a different way," Gela suggests. "I personally think it takes a great deal of strength to apologise properly, especially when you don't want to do it."
She holds her thoughtful expression for a moment before her nose scrunches up.
Look, Clarisse isn't going to save anyone's feelings here, but at the same time she's not sure she totally disagrees with Gela's assessment. Maybe there's some middle ground she can land on, someday.
She chews her bottom lip, holding onto the cup of tea with both hands until the heat starts to hurt her palms. "My father would disagree with you. And for him, being weak is the worst thing you can be. 'Anything cracked will shatter at a touch.'" She exhales slowly. "I'm trying to figure out how much of what he told me is bullshit, but it's hard."
Gela mutters, under her breath, "He's not the first father to," disagree with her, that is, and then she cups her hand over her mouth like she didn't mean to say it. She waits for a moment, just in case there's more there that might slip out. It seems okay.
"I think a lot of it was." It seems important, to say this. "For one thing, plates crack and shatter. Cups too, or window panes.
But you're a person, Clarisse. We are more complicated than that."
That muttered comment gets Clarisse to raise her eyebrows. It's questioning, but she doesn't ask out loud—not yet, anyway.
"That's what I'm learning."
Even saying that, for her, is huge.
"I feel a little like I wasn't..." She stops herself from saying taught; that's a step too far over the line. "Like I didn't know much, before I got here," is what she settles on.
She tries not to point out that Clarisse is barely twenty years old.
... What was she like at that age? Did she feel like she knew much? She's thinking of a different person, a Gela unburdened by bad luck. She sighs, and cups her palm around the back of her neck underneath of her hair, holding herself, suddenly uncharacteristically moody.
Eventually, this shift in tone relents. She straightens, and reaches for her cup. "If the best time to learn it was before you got here, surely the second best time is now."
So she's doing well. "What else are you learning?"
The shift in Gela's mood is obvious, and Clarisse isn't sure what to do about it. For one thing, she's not sure what exactly brought it on—something she said, that much is clear, but what? Should she apologize?
She can't apologize. That's what this whole conversation has been about. She'd have a heart attack. She's looking a little sweaty about it already.
And then Gela seems to recover just as quickly, leaving Clarisse even more confused.
"That I don't have to take myself so seriously all the time, I guess." She takes a sip of her tea. "And how to, like... bake bread."
Gela, sensing this confusion, smiles to let her know it's all okay.
She says, "I'm learning to make friends again?" Which is slightly embarrassing to admit to! "It was hard to make and keep them while I was travelling around."
You can't even write to people, when you've no permanent address. She hooks her finger around a curl of her hair as she's speaking and pulls it out, straight. When she lets it go again, it jumps back into shape and nearly gets in her teacup, but she doesn't seem to notice that. "And how to use a knife properly. Ellie is teaching me."
Clarisse nods—she doesn't think it's embarrassing that Gela is figuring out how to make friends after years of being on the move. Sounds like a valid reason if you ask her—and is in the middle of snorting over Gela's curl nearly sproinging into her teacup when she's suddenly reminded of the fact that Gela knows about her and Ellie. Or at least knew that they were hooking up, doing that ridiculous "we're just friends who sleep together!" thing. Said they should have rules, apparently.
The tips of her ears go red, but she soldiers on.
"Ellie's great with knives," she agrees. "You couldn't find a better teacher. Well, except for me."
The look on Gela's face, so excited and genuine, gets Clarisse smiling too. She can't help it. What Ellie said earlier reoccurs to her: She was excited, it was kinda sweet.
"We can talk about it," she says. "I mean, if you want to."
Please, she's dying to dish about it, but she doesn't want to be the weirdo who makes someone else listen to her talk about her relationship. Still, this is already a better reaction than she's ever gotten from her roommate, so it's a good sign.
"Ellie told me it came up with you guys once before. Ellie told me recently, I mean. But your conversation must have happened a while ago, because apparently you told her we should have rules, but she ignored you and now we're dating." Haha! Wild!
And she has a feeling Clarisse does too, judging by the way she just sat up a little straighter in her chair and edged closer to the table. Gela leans in too, now that they're doing proper gossip, elbows up on the table.
She laughs instantly when Clarisse mentions Ellie telling her about that, interrupting delightedly to tell her, "Oh! I knew it! That's so nice. How long have you been dating for?"
Ellie hadn't said a word! Gela is making a mental note to bully her about it later...
Clarisse has to think about it for a second, and sounds almost surprised when she answers: "Since Guardian."
In her defense, it doesn't feel like it's been five months already. It's felt like it's gone by in a flash, and also like she's known Ellie forever. Then again, Clarisse is coming up on one year since she ended up in Thedas. It's at the end of this month, in fact. And she met Ellie pretty soon after she got here, and they were fooling around soon after that, so it makes sense, but—
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It's not strange that the two of them are both there at the same time—Clarisse almost never skips meals, and Gela seems to like hanging out in here—but while Clarisse isn't opposed to sitting with someone if they invite her to, she's not typically rushing over to initiate conversation.
Maybe she's overthinking this.
"If you had to apologize to somebody, how would you do it?"
Also, hello.
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Yes, no?
"I'd probably just tell them 'I'm sorry', and nicely. How come?"
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"It's nothing specific. I just realized I never... learned?" She's fully aware that her answer sounds ridiculous. Six year olds know how to say they're sorry. But she continues on anyway. "I'm very good at being a soldier, but if you want to do anything more than that, you need to know how to talk to people. And you're in diplomacy, so that's your expertise, right?"
It's over-simplifying them both, but she's not the best at this shit, clearly.
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Gela pushes it toward her with her fingertips, privately delighted that Clarisse came to ask her about this.
"It is." And she's happy to help. She adds, "I think that, when you're looking for a proper, meaningful apology, it helps to say what you did wrong. If you say 'I'm sorry', vaguely, it might cause the other person to wonder if you even know what you're so sorry about."
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"So instead of saying 'sorry' you'd say 'sorry for shoving your head into a toilet,'" is what she's getting from this. "But then what if they think you're only saying what they want to hear? Like—what if they don't believe you?"
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Not ideal, of course, but it happens.
She adds, "And then you never approach that person while they're near a toilet again, unless they get the wrong idea."
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"All right." Clarisse sounds a little bit mystified, like all of this has never occurred to her before. Is it that easy for everybody else? Has it been that easy the whole time, and she's just been making life harder for herself?
She sips her tea. It's good.
"Does it embarrass you?" she asks, without intending to. "When you apologize to someone?"
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Hmm.
She says, "You have siblings, don't you?" Gela has never said the word sorry more to anybody else.
And, "Sometimes, yes. Especially when what I've done is really bad."
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And then: You have siblings, don't you?
Clarisse screws up her face, trying to think of a way to answer the question honestly but without making it sound unhinged. There really isn't one.
"Technically, yes. But I didn't grow up with them. We only got brought to camp once we were old enough, and we all lived together there, but it wasn't like..." She shrugs one shoulder. A family. "We were like an army."
A small army. Made up entirely of teenagers.
"I wouldn't apologize to one of them any more than Flint would apologize to me."
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That's a little sad to her, siblings who aren't really family. Growing up alone, then joining an army. "That makes sense as to why you're out of practice, then.
But the Commander would apologise to you, if he thought it were necessary. Wouldn't he?"
Actually, she doesn't know Flint. Maybe he wouldn't? She thinks that Byerly certainly would if the situation called for it. Musing, now, "It's so much harder to say sorry to people who outrank you, I think. It's hard to make it seem like anything other than groveling."
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Anyway.
"I guess I find it hard no matter who I'm talking to," she mumbles. "If I outrank them, it makes me look weak. If they outrank me, like you said, it's groveling." Uuuughh, why is this shit so annoying?
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She holds her thoughtful expression for a moment before her nose scrunches up.
"Too cheesy?"
Might be, huh.
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Look, Clarisse isn't going to save anyone's feelings here, but at the same time she's not sure she totally disagrees with Gela's assessment. Maybe there's some middle ground she can land on, someday.
She chews her bottom lip, holding onto the cup of tea with both hands until the heat starts to hurt her palms. "My father would disagree with you. And for him, being weak is the worst thing you can be. 'Anything cracked will shatter at a touch.'" She exhales slowly. "I'm trying to figure out how much of what he told me is bullshit, but it's hard."
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"I think a lot of it was." It seems important, to say this. "For one thing, plates crack and shatter. Cups too, or window panes.
But you're a person, Clarisse. We are more complicated than that."
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"That's what I'm learning."
Even saying that, for her, is huge.
"I feel a little like I wasn't..." She stops herself from saying taught; that's a step too far over the line. "Like I didn't know much, before I got here," is what she settles on.
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... What was she like at that age? Did she feel like she knew much? She's thinking of a different person, a Gela unburdened by bad luck. She sighs, and cups her palm around the back of her neck underneath of her hair, holding herself, suddenly uncharacteristically moody.
Eventually, this shift in tone relents. She straightens, and reaches for her cup. "If the best time to learn it was before you got here, surely the second best time is now."
So she's doing well. "What else are you learning?"
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She can't apologize. That's what this whole conversation has been about. She'd have a heart attack. She's looking a little sweaty about it already.
And then Gela seems to recover just as quickly, leaving Clarisse even more confused.
"That I don't have to take myself so seriously all the time, I guess." She takes a sip of her tea. "And how to, like... bake bread."
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She says, "I'm learning to make friends again?" Which is slightly embarrassing to admit to! "It was hard to make and keep them while I was travelling around."
You can't even write to people, when you've no permanent address. She hooks her finger around a curl of her hair as she's speaking and pulls it out, straight. When she lets it go again, it jumps back into shape and nearly gets in her teacup, but she doesn't seem to notice that. "And how to use a knife properly. Ellie is teaching me."
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The tips of her ears go red, but she soldiers on.
"Ellie's great with knives," she agrees. "You couldn't find a better teacher. Well, except for me."
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"So it's going well, then."
Presumably.
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"It is." She takes another sip of her tea, because at least the cup will hide some of her face.
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"Do you want to talk about it?"
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"We can talk about it," she says. "I mean, if you want to."
Please, she's dying to dish about it, but she doesn't want to be the weirdo who makes someone else listen to her talk about her relationship. Still, this is already a better reaction than she's ever gotten from her roommate, so it's a good sign.
"Ellie told me it came up with you guys once before. Ellie told me recently, I mean. But your conversation must have happened a while ago, because apparently you told her we should have rules, but she ignored you and now we're dating." Haha! Wild!
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And she has a feeling Clarisse does too, judging by the way she just sat up a little straighter in her chair and edged closer to the table. Gela leans in too, now that they're doing proper gossip, elbows up on the table.
She laughs instantly when Clarisse mentions Ellie telling her about that, interrupting delightedly to tell her, "Oh! I knew it! That's so nice. How long have you been dating for?"
Ellie hadn't said a word! Gela is making a mental note to bully her about it later...
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In her defense, it doesn't feel like it's been five months already. It's felt like it's gone by in a flash, and also like she's known Ellie forever. Then again, Clarisse is coming up on one year since she ended up in Thedas. It's at the end of this month, in fact. And she met Ellie pretty soon after she got here, and they were fooling around soon after that, so it makes sense, but—
damn.
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