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TL;CR MEME
1. Comment with your character.
2. Receive comments from others.
3. Reply to their comments with long ballads and explanations of your characters' relationship throughout the game.
4. Suffer as we have suffered over your CR.
1. Comment with your character.
2. Receive comments from others.
3. Reply to their comments with long ballads and explanations of your characters' relationship throughout the game.
4. Suffer as we have suffered over your CR.
no subject
anyway... cracks knuckles
Fiora's the type to talk with anyone and check in on everyone, so it was no big deal that she talked to Rufus, although I also thought it wasn't going to go anywhere because they clearly had very different personalities - I figured they'd just be acquaintances at best. Which is probably what would have happened if he hadn't happened to sleep in the station and get scratched, and Fiora didn't happen to also be on an investigation team with him that first week! Thanks to that, though, she had a reason to be more concerned with him than she would be otherwise, and thus, a beautiful friendship(?) was born...
Really, though, she could tell right off the bat that he was the loner type who'd try to just endure everything on his own. Fiora did not blame him at all for not trusting her, considering a murder had just happened, but she also had a feeling that if nobody reached out to him, he'd be isolated here soon enough. (The irony is so bad...) Of course, she was also concerned with his face then as evidence for the trial, too, so her initial meeting with him was twofold in purpose: to make sure he was okay, and to see if he knew anything. The answers were yes and no, respectively, but more importantly, she decided that she'd throw her lot in with him for the time being. It was obvious he'd be a suspect at the trial, but Fiora's gut told her that he wouldn't do something like that, and she trusted it. The fact that he doubted her so much and wouldn't trust her only made her more determined.
Luckily, she was right about him being innocent! She decided then and there that Rufus was trustworthy, and that she was going to look out for him, since he did nothing to protect himself in trial (being the tough guy lone wolf, just like she thought.) And, despite being stubborn and cold, she believed that he didn't mind having her around, himself, even if he couched it in business terms and partnership. This place was dangerous, and it was only going to get worse; everyone needed to stick together and cooperate. It was good to have someone in her corner from the start - and she was glad that she could help someone isolated, too.
He was a difficult personality, for sure, but Fiora found that he had his own charming qualities buried in there, and she was especially convinced that he wasn't actually bad, even if he could be mean. His extreme bluntness was irritating at times, but it also made him reliably honest. His insistence on seeing everything as a transaction was weird but funny, and it became clear as time went on that he didn't have ulterior motives - he was as straightforward as they come. So checking in on him and working with him wasn't a chore - even early on, she did genuinely enjoy his company, if only because she's a rascal and liked seeing how far she could push him and if she could get him to act more like a person. Is that bullying?? Is it bullying even if she wasn't trying to be malicious??? OH NO
The relationship was forced to get a little more personal when Rufus had her share an important memory, which happened way earlier than I remembered, wow. Fiora's friendly, but she doesn't like to burden others with her problems, so telling Rufus about her death and her current circumstances forcibly moved him into a closer social circle with her. Obviously, that was a very traumatic memory for her, and even if she was loath to share it with anyone, she did have the hope that letting him into her life a little would make him open up to her more... which it didn't. Instead, she had someone who didn't really care about her as a person learning intimate details of her life, which didn't feel great. However, Fiora isn't the type to get angry about that; instead, she just became even more resolved to make friends with him so that he would deserve to know that information, and so that she'd be more comfortable with him knowing. This in addition to wanting to make sure he wasn't alone and was taking care of himself. And, again, learning about his family life and his mother made her much more amenable to being his friend. Once more, he proved that he wasn't an unfeeling bounty-hunting machine - he had just gone through a lot of shit, and was still going through it. He did care about people.
Just not about her! Probably! Which is a recurring problem she ran into.
But he was someone she trusted, and someone she could speak freely to about her feelings, thanks to his honesty, even if he never offered much in return, and there was something to be said to that. It's sort of like showing up and talking to a feral cat every day, hoping they'll come out one day and be your friend. That was Fiora's relationship with Rufus!! Her expectations were very low; every time he'd come forward of his own will and share something with her about himself, it felt like a little victory. I think that helped make her more attached to him, too - it's hard not to keep trying and trying with someone and actually get small results, and then not feel invested in them.
Fiora was very honest about not being comfortable with the way the game worked, despite her familiarity with bloodshed, from the very beginning. On the other hand, Rufus was very honest about how willing he was to do anything required of him to achieve his goal - a goal that was killing someone. On the surface, it's probably surprising that she was as all right with that as she was, but it's important to know that Fiora isn't so naive that she thinks all problems can be solved peacefully. She didn't like the rules in place or the game here, and she thought the killings were unnecessary and cruel; that's why she was so against it all. But Rufus was a bounty hunter from the start, someone who lived within a similar set of rules, and who was simply navigating the situation in his own way. (His situation with Tristan was also way too personal for her to try and make a moral judgement on.) His being forthright - and his agreeing to help her and keep working with her, even if he believed he had to obey the rules - went a long way in making Fiora really rely on him.
Also, as much as she hated it, the fact that Rufus trusted her enough to let her help with his hand meant that he relied on her, too, and she started to believe that their partnership actually did mean something other than simple convenience. Did he care about her? Not sure. But he at least would trust her with his injuries, and respected her enough to try and pay back the favor. He continued to not be receptive to her kindness, or her attempts to reach out, but he accepted her presence easily. The two of them ended up sharing even more memories soon after, and for the first time, he actually insinuated that he did care about her - but, once again, it was couched in business language, and she continued to not be convinced that she meant anything to him as a friend, as much as the opposite was true for her.
After Week 4, that all got much worse. Up until the point of Claude's announcement and her subsequent commentary, Fiora had largely believed that the people here felt the same way she did - that they all opposed the killings, and that there was some external force goading people into it; that they were only playing along until they found the weak spot in the rules and cracked the entire thing open. It immediately became extremely apparent that was not the case, and that her ideas about breaking the system or rebelling against the rules were radical to the group at large. The idea that so many people - kind people, people she respected, and people she considered friends - would accept that the murders were necessary and that rejecting the rules was idealistic shocked her. This only got worse when she and the other Swans met up the next day and Sora revealed that he'd done one of the murders - only for Hua Cheng to reveal that Sora was lying on his behalf, and he'd actually done it, without any of the others knowing. This felt like a betrayal, too, and hot on the heels of the post-trial discussion, she felt at once very alone. It's worth noting that, at this point, she no longer remembered that she was ever human, and she'd forgotten her best friends' existences entirely, too. Her world was getting smaller and smaller each week. She was a Mechon, fighting alone against her own people at home; here, too, she's an outsider, struggling against the tide. Ironically, in the end, Fiora was the one who was isolated.
This made it all the more meaningful that Rufus actually came to see her and confirmed that he would keep working with her. Rufus was actually the only person who came to talk to Fiora after that debate, and he was certainly the only person to verbally offer support. He promised he'd be at her side. He might have balked at her declaration of friendship, but that didn't matter.
After that weekend, Rufus was officially elevated to The Only Person Fiora Trusts In Redacted. She still liked the others, but felt like she was playing on the wrong team - and it was hard to continue trusting and smiling with everyone when she knew that some of them had killed, without a doubt, and would do it again, lying to everyone all the while. In the meantime, she continued to bond with Rufus, now appreciating him much more as a friend than before - she's learning to read his moods and the way he talks, and beginning to suspect that he's dishonest in an entirely different way: she starts to believe that he does care, and just doesn't want to acknowledge it, for fear of being hurt again.
That said, her feelings were really hurt when he said he'd sell her soul right after saying he could shepherd it after her death - a very personal fear of Fiora's that she'd normally not share with anyone! It was like a slap in the face - she'd confided in him and he just turned it into using her to make money. The fact that he apologized helped, but I'm gonna be real, if she hadn't died that very night it might have been bad news -- she felt like a complete idiot for being so open with him when he obviously didn't care about her feelings. And yes, she suspected he lied to protect himself, and that he was very money-oriented and not good with people - but Fiora is sensitive, and, despite everything, her instinct is to believe what people tell her.
However. She died. And she felt badly enough about doing that and leaving him alone that she was willing to sort of gloss over what he'd said when they met next - especially after being confronted with his death on her way back to the world of the living. (And, once again, while she was shocked and hurt that he'd killed someone without telling her, it wasn't actually that big a surprise when he'd been very honest about the actions he'd take in this game - and it hurt less when Hikaru told her how he'd treated her, and when Rufus said he was bound by a vow of silence. This is a big difference from the other people she knew and trusted that killed people - she never had a clue.) It was actually a huge relief to see that he was okay, and that he wasn't upset or skittish around her after she'd died and abandoned him. She was kind of mad at herself for being so relieved after the stuff he said, but, as it turns out, Fiora is terrible at not caring for someone. Even if she was still angry at him for what he said, and not completely certain he even liked her, she couldn't stop herself from liking him, and she still spent the rest of her time in Redacted largely at his side.
Ultimately, she's gonna get the truth from him about that soul-selling thing, though. WHEN I TAG YOU BACK.
i feel like i've rambled on enough... basically, Rufus is the most important person here to Fiora, SOMEHOW. By random chance and by virtue of his own honesty, he was the person she came to trust more than anyone else. He's awkward, mean, and stubborn enough that she sometimes wants to rip her hair out. But he's also considerate, reliable, and, deep down, a kind, sensitive soul who's been dealt an awful hand in life. She's only sad he's not willing to open up to her and let her help him carry those burdens. But she hopes that if she keeps being persistent (and lives long enough), he just might.