Disco's Dominion [Aurora]

Compared to the last dragon, the aftermath of this one was quiet. The damage was localized downtown, with only some scattering of dust getting to the other parts of the city from the spores that were highest in the sky. The dust wasn't worth worrying about, and with all the damage being downtown, especially since a few notable buildings took the brunt of the damage, there was no doubt it would get cleaned up and rebuilt. That would happen even if Aurora herself didn't lift a finger. It felt weird to be taking a backseat to the restoration of the city, but in the end she had more important things to work on. Even if downtown was in worse shape overall, she wasn't done with the docks. There was always more work to be done if she wanted the docks to be as nice as the rest of the city.

Thus, she continued to work, often alone. The big stuff was already done: most of the buildings had been rebuilt with better materials, there wasn't much trash on the streets anymore, the plumbing worked now, the electricity wouldn't cut out constantly, the vermin were mostly taken care of, the water was much cleaner even if it still needed some work, the roads were nicely paved and widened, the internet was still a little shaky but that was a luxury and not something many people complained about. To the people that lived here this was already such a vast improvement that continuing to improve it didn't seem that important. But this was her territory, she wasn't feeling inclined to stop until it was up to her own standards. Thus, she was starting to work on some of the visual elements of the area. Right now, she was looking over one area in the center of the housing area that was just too unstable to build on anymore. It was stable enough to walk on, but putting heavy building materials on it might cause problems in the future. She was intending to convert it into a small park, and was taking measurements and writing down ideas for how to handle that when Blue Jay made his presence known.

In contrast to his attitude, Aurora's expression flattened. She didn't bother to turn towards him, viewing him more as a nuisance here to stop her work than anything. He couldn't possibly have anything about shrubs and flowers could he? He couldn't possibly have something against her drawing some bad pictures in a notebook could he? He couldn't even cite 'disturbing the peace' this time. The people living in the docks were used to her presence already, to the point that they were generally more worried about being recruited for manual labor than they were being attacked. There was literally no reason for him to bother her right now.

"What the hell do you want?"

The response made her pause and look up from her notes, looking at him like he just grew a second head. There was no way he was being serious was there? Given everything that happened since they met? Given the things he said? Was he making fun of her? Given her performance at the dragon and what she had to do in order to in order to get her current position, she wouldn't put it past the person that coined 'Disco.' Did he have ulterior motives? There wasn't much to be gained by being a spy, Pandaemonium wasn't exactly secretive. To sow discord? Turn people against each other? It was unlikely to work given his own position. They'd be more likely to beat the shit out of him than each other. I didn't make any sense.

"What?" she finally said. "I'm not sure if you've been living under a rock for the past month, but Pandaemonium is mine. What happened to me being being a selfish, short-sighted bully?"

Aurora's eyes remained narrowed, the suspicion still clear in her face. The fact that he went through a token effort to repeat what she said and then jumped right into compliments made her more suspicious. There was one thing that was making her think he might actually be serious, and that was that ultimately she would have his back no matter what and that there weren't a lot of people like that. She remembered him complaining about the Bulwark on multiple occasions. While it was possible that it was a con it seemed unlikely. It would have to be a very long con and she wasn't sure if he had something like that in him. Plus, the first time he mentioned it she had no intention of taking over Pandaemonium and even outright said that she disliked the faction as a whole. He'd have to be borderline psychic to have guessed the outcome until recently.

She rubbed her forehead and sighed. Aurora hadn't slept since the battle with the dragon, and while she hadn't been sleeping often for months now, this time she got the feeling she wouldn't even be able to sleep if she wanted to. Her habits from the past few months were starting to catch up with her. Now she had to deal with a constant headache on top of all the other metaphorical headaches she had to deal with, making it difficult to think sometimes. Even so she continued to push herself. She was unsatisfied with the progress she'd made since making Pandaemonium hers. It was still a huge mess, still couldn't be considered a united organization, and that didn't even include progress with making the docks nice, rebuilding its prosperity or even having a reliable source of income that didn't come from taking it from someone else. She returned to looking at her notes and the empty patch of land. With the irritation gone, there was only a hint of suspiciousness and a lot of tiredness in her voice.

"I'm not going to turn anyone that wants to be here away as long as they don't cause problems. A warning though. Pandaemonium hasn't changed much yet. Given your history, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to want to pick a fight with you. Or worse."

With that bit of oddness taken care of, Aurora looked back to her notes and continued her planning. She figured that'd be the end of it because there wasn't anything else to talk about, but she really should know better than to underestimate some of these peoples' ability to want to talk about the most inane things. Once it became clear to her that Blue Jay's footsteps were coming towards her rather than away, she looked up again, and stuck her arm out to prevent him from getting any closer than arm's distance to her. She didn't think he was going to attack her, but she still didn't want him in her personal space.

The question made her expression flatten again. She slowly lowered her arm, ready to bring it back up if he tried to move in closer again before rolling her eyes. The fact that this only came up right after she took over Pandaemonium made her suspicious. There were a number of people, both in the past and present, that very suddenly gained an interest in her the second it looked like she might be able to do something for them. Those same people tended to think that getting close to her was the easiest way to manipulate her into doing what they wanted. It wouldn't work anymore. Blue Jay's case was odd though. Aurora might have believed that this was what was going on if it weren't for that over the top stunt they pulled a little while ago. Blue Jay had nothing to lose by revealing his identity to her again, but Geata did. It left her at a loss as to what was going on exactly.

"Are you still hung up on that? What makes you think I would have any interest in befriending someone that's attacked me on multiple occasions? I let you into Pandaemonium, take that and shut up."

Aurora took her now free hand (since it didn't need to be used to push Blue Jay anymore) and rubbed her forehead. It wasn't strange that she wasn't interested in being friends with him, though she supposed it would be from his perspective. If he thought for more than two seconds, she was sure he would realize he wasn't friends with every person on the planet and thus her actions would start to make more sense. If he was going down that line of questioning it needed to be stopped immediately. As stupid as it was, he would probably only shut up with a clear answer.

"No," she said slowly and clearly. "It has nothing to do with that. It's because I don't like you."

Aurora sighed as she started compiling the words to explain to Blue Jay why he was so terrible to be around, only for him to decide he didn't really want to hear it. Good, she didn't really want to explain it. There was no point and it was way too much work for absolutely no reward. There might have been a few nuggets he could have used for self-improvement, but mostly she just disliked people that thought they were really funny when they weren't. It figured that he'd get defensive right after. Aurora's eyes rolled back into her head and she took a deep breath. This was another reason she didn't like him. Without looking up from her notes she shooed him with her free hand.

"Good! Then you can get the hell away from me and let me get back to what I was doing and avoid my unlikablness!"

Yet he didn't go away. Somehow she wasn't the least bit surprised given his terrible personality. Instead, he wanted to continue to interrogate her on basic things with obvious answers like she was some kind of exotic species that was difficult to understand as opposed to just human. It was something she was used to, and was something she was even more prepared to have to deal with given both the almost legend status her persona had.

"I have to like the person? This isn't hard, there just aren't very many people like that."

"How is it vague?" Aurora raised an eyebrow. "It answers the question completely, and there's nothing else to it. Not all things are complicated and require a lot of explanation."

Aurora sighed as he continued to interrogate her about friendship. At this point it was looking like her palm would be permanently stuck to her forehead by the time this conversation was over. She didn't understand why he was so fixated on this. There were plenty of other people that actually wanted to be around him from what she understood (granted, given how he talked about the Bulwark she might have been overestimating that number), so why did he insist on harassing her rather than being around the people that actually enjoyed his company? No amount of explanation about how she felt about friendship would change the fact that he was irritating, and nothing he said would make her more likely to want to be around him. He was wasting both of their time at this point, and she was getting close to not being willing to humor him anymore.

"Don't change your personality. It'd be transparent and creepy," Aurora side-eyed him before returning to her notes. "It varies heavily on the combination of traits in someone. I'm sure everyone has some traits that I like, but when combined with others it results in someone I don't like. In general, I like people that are confident, independent, and secure in themselves. I like people that can recognize actions, the intent and feelings behind them, and therefore don't need constant reassurance and compliments and don't feel the need to do the same to me. I prefer people that work hard, put a lot of effort into what they care about, and take those things seriously. Exactly what it is matters less to me, though I find people with similar interests to me to be easier to get along with. Honesty is important, and so is patience. People are complicated enough that it would take hours to go through every single detail, but that's the high level version of what I like in people. At this point I'd sooner punch your lights out to get you to shut up than I would explain the rest because you're feeling insecure about yourself."

At this point Aurora was content to completely tune out his mutterings. They'd gone from annoying to outright pathetic. If she got this wounded every time someone said they didn't like her she'd never leave her room; it really should not have been that shocking of a revelation given their past interactions. Part of her wondered if he'd just leave with his ego bruised and his curiosity satisfied, but it didn't sound like that was happening.

Instead, he changed the subject again, and once again she felt the need to look at him like he grew a second head. This was going to be one of those days wasn't it? The explanation made everything make a little more sense. Aurora certainly did a lot of experimentation with her powers when she was trying to figure out how they worked, but this seemed silly and potentially dangerous. Normally she'd refuse, but after that conversation letting off a little steam and taking some of her frustration out on him sounded appealing. If he considered it helpful she wasn't going to argue this time.

"How hard?" she looked back down at her notes. "Are you looking for breaking bones, missing teeth, or just a bruise?" She paused for a moment. "Because of the extra durability granted by your sword I can't guarantee how accurate I'll be."