Day 07 - Nervous

As BLADEs, those who'd been lucky enough to witness the first contact and meeting with the Wrothians were well-trained in putting aside their personal feelings, both excitations and fears, to focus on the mission and broader objective at hand. There was no room for pussyfootery, period. Especially not around the eminently foreboding...well, you know.

Isaac couldn't help it, though. That just wasn't the way he worked. Xenos irrevocably amplified his already Noctilucent-Sphere-massive sense of propriety to humility, leaving his confidence in tatters. Masking cocky was hardly a solid solution for appearing a respectable human ambassador.

Knowing who you were and who you wanted to become was definitely half the battle. Isaac, lacking a plethora of reinforcing memories to draw from, sometimes just...floundered.

Prince Jiarg seemed to have a wellspring within his armored, but doubtless furry, abdomen. Obviously it didn't help matters that the person who made Isaac so nervous wasn't goofy and sheepish himself, but rather staunch and brusque, while sensitive; the picture of an honorable warrior and leader of peoples.

It took an awful lot of courage to trust that the people you opened up to would be willing to appreciate you as you were - and not only as a stereotype, either. Isaac certainly didn't want to be Jiarg's goofy-sheepish human lapdog!

He'd work his way up, little by little. He wouldn't use tricks: convenient sidelong reveals of his notebook, helpful meddling from his team members, faux-awkward (except, not faux at all) questions for Jiarg's retainers...none of that.

He'd get to know himself as he got to know Jiarg.

Isaac knew that was the only way he'd truly conquer his inhibitions, so that he could stand proudly at Jiarg's side (with Crow, too - a thought that simultaneously summoned and quashed an entire additional wave of nerves).