Scene #1725: Delusions or Stoicism

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Ainsley	The first time Ainsley spoke to Nathan face-to-face, she was conducting some manner of interview, but she hadn't been in the Multiverse for very long and had all of the expectations of an overexcited fangirl when she tried to talk to people. Now she has been continually crushed and compressed by near-endless trials that tell her that she hasn't the physical or mental fortitude to last through all of this forever, and that has made it harder to just accept that the General of the Union has a personality type she hates. This is something she thinks about she she organizes her files on her desk, waiting for Nathan to show up. The office is on the ground floor, and there's a door for people to enter the house from if they've been invited to speak to her. She thought to have it installed if she's going to make a big deal of being a scholar. With all the books in her office, it feels like stepping into the office of a university headmaster. There are comfortable chairs, and she's brewed tea and left an unopened bottle of water on the desk, as well as some assorted snacks. The snacks are pretty generic little sandwiches and other easily-prepared varieties. Gentle music plays from a device behind her that seems to accept glowing crystals instead of CDs or memory cards, complete with a strange steampunk aesthetic and bronze colors.
Nathan Hall	Nathan seems on edge recently, but that's because he's been around someone who keeps using emotional magic on his vulnerable brain-meats. As such, his expression today is particularly stoic, even more so than usual, and the man himself moves as a robot might. He knocks politely on his way in though, even with an invitation, and will similarly take a seat when invited to do so. "Salutations." He says rather quickly. "And apologies for our limited time available for discussion. I have another meeting in need of attendance soon. You wished to speak to me?" He's inviting Ainsley to take the lead on questions or prompts here, however much information she might have given him about her purpose in interviewing him.
Ainsley	Ainsley watches Nathan with a similar neutrality, though she's notably not stoic, simply dull or mellow. She gestures to one of the chairs available on the other side of her desk, smiling at him softly. "I did." She opens a folder in front of her, with all the ominous effect of, say, a detective opening a bundle of dirty secrets, casually picking up papers and examining them while she waits for him to get comfortable. "How much faith do you place in this emotional shield you put up?" she asks him, looking up from her papers. Then she gestures to the tea arrangement, snacks and water. She did grab those to make this feel less awkward and awful for him. She didn't ask him here to make him sweat.
Nathan Hall	Nathan has left the assorted beverages and food alone. Actually he's looking a little bad, like maybe he's not been eating much. HMmm. "I believe that depends entirely on the details. Faith in its use for what particular purpose?" He says, not particularly moving anything but his mouth the whole time. "I generally keep a high degree of faith in it for a variety of purposes, but it varies on a per-purpose basis." Wouldn't be any more deflective if Nathan had just handed her a mirror instead of answering. The harder emotionlessness is a little uncanny though.
Ainsley	Ainsley was looking back down at her papers while she was waiting for his answer. He would note that her smile had wilted into a frown when he answered her, but she doesn't seem anymore pronounced about her emotions than a dull bureaucrat would be. She carefully jots down some notes after his words, and breathes a sigh through her nose, a soft hissing noise. She looks up at him, staring at him as if trying to see through his guise into his soul. Her stare really is that piercing. "You look like hell," she points out, her frown deepening. She has a very expressive face for a lizard person, in a strange contrast with his constant stoicism. "I will be frank. I hate the way you answered that question. You didn't give me any answer whatsoever. You purposefully avoided anything approaching emotion, individuality or hazarding a guess at what I meant. You place a great deal of faith in it, then." She reaches to prepare some tea. "Do you think that you will be able to maintain this behavior forever? There are consequences for trying that are very self-destructive, in the cases I have seen over the years. Are you aware of what these consequences tend to be?"
Nathan Hall	"This is just how I look." Nathan says, dryly, without missing a beat, to Ainsley. "I apologize if the method of my response was personally offensive. It is accurate, however. I place faith in its benefit to me in a wide variety of situations." He moves just enough to get some tea for himself and take a quick sip of it. "I have maintained the behavior for well over ten years. Consistently, perhaps not, but it has been maintained. If failures occur, I will not abandon it. What do you believe the consequences of this will be?" "I assume you are referring to negative consequences, to which I would say that any negative consequence of this behavior would be unlikely to be worse than simply allowing my emotions to run amok in my judgement and decisionmaking. As we have both seen, allowing even a tiny amount to become involved has caused considerable trouble among my friends."
Ainsley	"I know it is a mask and that you cannot manage perfect stoicism. I know that you have encountered just as many problems as someone who accepts emotion does, but to a differing nature. By managing your emotions, you lose an understanding of them and come to ignore them when they scream in your head. I have been there, Nathan." Ainsley picks up a picture and holds it up. It's of Kana, Ainsley's mother, from the imprisonment records. "This woman went through two decades of her life doing what you do. And when things didn't go the way she expected, and she was forced to feel things she didn't want to feel, things she tried to suppress, she lashed out. She dropped immediately to insanity and delusion because she had no cushion, trying to do extreme things to suppress her emotion when normal methods failed." She sets the picture down. She picks up a picture of a Borg drone, and holds it up. She doesn't even explain this one. She sets it down. She seems to have more of these. "I am not saying you should stop. You are effective, your diplomacy has easily earned you your rank and your reputation, and you still have friends and allies despite your neutrality. You have made it work." "But I am worried you're eventually going to snap. And when someone like you falls, they fall hard. Do you have anyone to catch you when that happens?"
Nathan Hall	Nathan seems to pause. "I would believe so." He says, after a lengthy silence. There's something wrong here, but it's not entirely clear what. "The people around me are ones that I have, traditionally held a measure of faith in, to ensure that if things get out of hand, I will have some degree of..." He makes a bit of a vague gesture there. "Counteractive force, so to speak. Should my capacity to act against my emotions become compromised, I am certain that there will be a force present to ensure that it does not do substantial damage to the people around me." "I would say that I understand my emotions very clearly. I have seen the damage they cause when left unchecked very plainly, in a way most typically refuse to see. As such, I am quite conscious of how ignoring the 'screaming' is a necessity." There's something vaguely wrong with what's been said here, but what, and how exactly, isn't especially apparent. He's very casual about that, though, sipping at the tea again.
Ainsley	Ainsley watches him with a certain wariness as he explains. He is very diplomatic about it, and there's something like severe unhappiness in her face as he seems to casually address the matter. "This is how you have made it work, I suppose," she relents, deciding to enjoy her tea and lean back in her seat, the slender snake creature regarding him as if trying to see some sort of detail that is eluding her gaze. Something just feels off about him that she can't place a finger on. Her head gently tilts. "Let's move on, then," she says, in a softer voice, "Have you ever dropped this mask for anyone? Friends? Family?"
Nathan Hall	"I do not drop it." Nathan says, with a very direct sort of tone. "It is forced. I would liken it to having it torn off, by circumstance or individuals. Those around me typically seem extremely eager to do so, out of what I believe is a misguided faith in the true good nature of my emotions. This is false, and I will typically tell those who do this as much, but they will traditionally insist." "There were times I did not have it in the first place, for either family or friends. It was these times that taught me how shameful that is in the first place." He makes a plaintive, open-palmed gesture, a sort of "as you can see" type of motion. "I do not anymore, if I can help it. There are times I cannot, and it is once again shameful and embarrassing."
Ainsley	There's a certain weight behind Nathan's answer that Ainsley picks up on. The sheer emphasis he has on how it once wasn't like this, and how it feels like it is forced if people try to remove it. There's a while where she seems to process this. She looks at him carefully while she weighs hypotheticals. She has heard the after-effects of him lashing out, and she has heard his words themselves. She imagines a Nathan Hall who is only a good person through the effort of suppressing bad thoughts, in an effort to understand the meaning behind his words. More silence, only as awkward as the two of them feel. Scrutiny is heavy from her the whole time, but it can hardly be called judgment. "There is something I'm curious about, then. You say there was a point where this wasn't the case. What made you decide that your stoicism was the best solution?" She then gestures softly with her hand, "You don't have to answer this one, if you don't want to."
Nathan Hall	Nathan doesn't even pause on this one. "It is an embarrassment and a shameful event. To know it would provide no benefit." He says, almost automatically. "All that knowing the information would do is increase the shame. As such, you can imagine why I may wish to leave that matter unspoken." "I can explain enough that it will ideally satisfy your curiosity. There is no dramatic burned village, murdered family, awful assault, or grand cosmic mistake. I failed to keep command over my emotions and the result is that someone who did not deserve to be hurt was. That is essentially the core of the matter." How incredibly unsatisfying.
Ainsley	Ainsley doesn't frown at this, because it has put into perspective the entire root of where his stoicism comes from. At the very least, it tells her of what motivates him to do this, and when she knows that, she nods at him gently, her eyes lowered to her own tea cup. Unsatisfying would be, perhaps, for someone who didn't come to realize stories and people are different in profound ways. The lizard girl smiles just from what little he gave her. And then she looks up at him, weary from all of this. She can only take his personality type for so long, it seems, and her active effort to do so is starting to show. "Please, eat something before you leave," she offers, gesturing to the sandwiches, trying to show some compassion for him. "I don't have anything more to say. I expected that you would anger me a lot more, but it seems my fire has been dying down these days." She said she was worrying he would crack, but the smile she shows at him shows she's not doing great either.
Nathan Hall	"Mmm." How articulate, Nathan. "Thank you." He seems like he doesn't have much of an appetite, but at Ainsley's urging, he does take a few bites from the sandwiches. "I am happy to have not angered you, and apologize for the offensive nature of my personal stances." Well, at least it's not 'I'm sorry you're offended', so there's the little things. "I hope this was informative in the manner you wished for it to be, and I wish you best of luck in your own endeavors." He says, between occasional bites and sips of tea. "With luck, the things that have both of us distressed will be resolved quickly and cleanly in the near future." Unless Ainsley has more that needs him here, he'll stand after finishing off a paltry portion of the snacks -- not for lack of politeness, but for lack of appetite, it seems -- and politely nod before leaving to some marriage-related meeting.