You Have to Believe In Yourself

-==New Scene: The Yddrasil Community Ruins==-
The commune has ended. Everyone is getting ready to reinforce the community. The sun is setting and Alexa looks over to see Syn helping the reinforcements. The conversation Alexa had with Paulo plays in her head, this battle is going to be tough on all fronts, and this may be the last time she sees her alive. She walks over to Syn and takes a deep breath, "Syn, I just want you to know that I trust you. I know that I have been judgemental in the past, but this is your battle. I'll follow what you choose to do."
The small framed tiefling drops a large log down on the ground, it hits the earth with a heavy thud as Syn turns to look at Alexa. “Well…” She dusts her hands off. “They are going to need you on this front.” She replies quickly. “Ford is coming along with me to handle Nova. I think I’ll be alright, well the best I could be considering whats coming.” She looks around at the start of the community’s fortifications. “I am worried for a lot of things with this battle, I would like you to stay here at the frontlines so I can focus on Nova without worry of her going after you again.” A frustrated sigh leaves her voice. “I’m not sure if we can handle all this at one time, and that is terrifying.”
Alexa listens as Syn tells her the plan, a twinge in her heart hits when she realizes what fighting on different fronts will mean. "I need you to do me a favor, please." Her eyes start to water up and she looks to Syn, grabbing her hands. "I need you to know that your strong enough to do this. More than just me telling you that, I need you to believe it." She looks away for a second, trying to slow the emotions. "Please. If you don't believe it, then I worry that this will be the last time we see each other, and I don't want to accept that." A tear starts to run down her cheek, Nuru uses his beak to try to stop the tear from falling too far.
With wide eyes she stands, watching her friends eyes begin to water. “Alexa?” her hands are grabbed, and she just stares speechless towards her friend, watching a tear roll down her face. “You think I am going to die?” She tilts her head to the side. A smile begins to form at the corners of her mouth, pulling her hand away from hers and bopping Alexa on the head lightly. “Nah, not gonna happen. Neither are you. Just don’t play hero, if things get bad you get out of there.”
Alexa's expression doesn't change. "You know I can't do that. If that tree falls to the plants, the world will end in plague. I have to do my job. I know it may seem silly, but just knowing that you believe in yourself enough to be who you were born to be will let me focus on the plants and not so worried about you and Nova. I've felt her pain Syn, it's not a fate I would wish on anyone."
Her hand falls to her side. “Believe in myself?” She questions Alexa’s words. “Believe in myself to break my friend twice? You’re asking a lot.” She runs a hand through her black hair. “I don’t really know what to expect and honestly I am just going off what you summarized to me from Paulo. I’ll try my best because it’s the only option that I have. If it will lessen your worry, Ford will be there and we talked, he knows. Best case, I break them we put the pieces together and everything is as it should. Worst case… well.. I somehow lose myself at the end of it all. Not like we haven’t dealt with that in Avernus.” A grin in Alexa’s direction, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation in form of jokes.
Alexa grins a little, seeing Syn's desire to bring in levity. Her heart doesn't lift as easily though. "You just always talk about how you're not strong enough, and that you can't protect me. I just wish you saw you the way I saw you. Strong, powerful, and able to do whatever you set your mind to. A big heart in a brimstone shell."
Syn looks off, watching some of the community struggle to pull a log a bit away. “If we come back from this battle with our goals completed, maybe then I’ll admit to that Alexa. Till then, I can’t see myself as anything other than what I do now. A monster and that shell you speak of is something I can’t escape from.” Pausing to look back to her friend, “Or rather, I don’t know if I want to.” She looks to wraeth laying close to her. “That rage you don’t like? Might just be the very thing that’s going to keep me alive and If I can get back to you guys and help….even better.”
Alexa nods her head. "I know you'll need the rage, it's a part of you. But Syn." She pauses, looking out and thinking, her face becoming stoic like that of Paulo's, "You won't make it back to us while the battle is raging." It comes out almost as if it's something she knows for a fact. "You can't worry about us."
“Well then I can’t have you worrying either.” She takes a seat on the log she hauled over from earlier, arms propped over her knees and folding her fingers together. “We have to make do with what we know, what we have prepared and fight our hardest. There is no other option. If we do not, we die, we fail.” She looks up to Alexa. “Someone needed to say it out loud….”
Alexa looks to Syn, wanting to break down every option of what she thinks would be best against Nova, wanting to guide Syn once more, but she stops herself. "Thanks for that. I have no doubt you'll fight your hardest, and I promise I will. Plus, you've got Ford as your wingman" she smirks and plops next to Syn on the log, kicking her feet a little against the log.
“Yeah, see? We’ll be fine.” She glances over to Alexa as she takes a seat next to her. Syn jumbles around her bag to pull out the dumplings she wrapped up in a clean cloth. Taking one and handing it over to her. “Might as well.” She chuckles. “Assuming we survive this, seems like we have even more bullshit to take on afterwards.” She says taking a bite out of a dumpling. “Which reminds me, I thought you weren’t able to see Paulo either? Did he tell you why that is?”
"To be known goes both ways." She looks hurt while saying it. "All this time I was so excited that I had shown I was worthy to see him, and that I would get to talk to him one more time." She pauses, using her right thumb to put pressure on her left thumb. "Turns out I've just messed with the balance of things or something, and he was as surprised as I was."
Syn stops eating for a moment. “Are you wanting his approval of you or something? Does it matter that much?” She asks genuinely. “I mean, hes kinda a dick.” She points to her wrists. “Remember? Just because he foresaw some outcome or whatever, pfft.” An angry bite of a dumpling. “If you ask me, if he didn’t make you see him, and it just kind of happened well… that would definitely get my attention anyway.” She laughs “Imagine that, the great Paulo Mysidi not able to see that one outcome.”