Captain greetings!(Rei/Rose)

The Captain of the Eighth was not the type to hide away in his office and let the day pass by without anything of interest happening. He was a lively presence within the barracks, the voice of wisdom and guiding hand that steered this fledgling ship through new waters. The recruits were his pride and joy, truth be told, and that was why he had taken to his duties with a sense of vigour that sometimes surprised even himself.

Rose spotted one of those recruits sitting by themselves, focused upon their weapon, and decided for a moment to observe. Quiet contemplation was often the best way to reflect upon one's own progress, but just sitting in the barracks was a peculiar place to find that tranquillity. Surely they did not expect to make a breakthrough in such circumstances? Or perhaps that was quite the point. A cry for help, was it? Then he would answer!

"You seem to be sweating quite profusely. Are you... Well?"

“There always has to be a balance to these things, don’t you know? If you try and try until you pass out from exhaustion then you might not be doing it quite right.”

Rose was hardly a formal man at the best of times, he had titles and they were used but that hardly mattered to him. People were what mattered. His fingers drummed upon the hilt of Kinshara, the blade resting easy at his hip as they conversed.

“I found that my own responded better when I gave it a melody, because that came from my heart. But that didn’t just happen overnight. You might have to play a hundred bit-parts before you get your breakthrough, but you will know it when it comes.”

His wisdom offered, the Captain thought for a moment that he might leave her to it. But there was an intensity to the woman that piqued his interest, he had gathered many interesting individuals under his banner already.

“Talk me through your process, what you do and what you feel. Perhaps there will be some clarity in speaking it aloud?”

Listening bemusedly, the Captain hummed a tune under his breath as Rei provided him a little more context on what was going on with her. Rose had received reports of such an encounter, or rather his Vice Captain had and probably filed them away with the other important documents that she earmarked for his attention, but nothing about the Hollow had suggested anything out of the ordinary. That was a good sign, at least.

"As your Captain, I must echo this 'Hannah' and advise you that your spirit will not wish for you to be placed in further hardship than you can handle. Being forced into such a situation is one thing, and an opportunity to glimpse this mutual connection, but only the truly deranged would go craving such a dire circumstance for the chance at forcing intervention. It wants to be wielded just as much as you want to wield it, of that I am sure."

He took a moment to lean over and inspect the blade, wistful lilac eyes running along the length of it before returning to the woman who held it and offering his best reassuring smile.

"In my experience, though, meditation should make you calm. It should come as easy as playing the simplest string of chords, and soothe you rather than cause you ail. Rather than looking for something, perhaps you ought to try opening yourself up and see what comes to you. If nothing else, it will put my mind at ease."

It was clear that his words had no small amount of impact upon her, and for that he was glad. It was to help others that had inspired him to return, to learn from the mistakes of their past that motivated him to share these little wisdoms with his juniors. They were the future and he the embodiment of the past, who had learned every lesson slowly and painfully over the course or more setbacks than he dared to truly count. History had a way of making all those arduous years blend together of late, like something was trying to squash centuries of his life down into the span of a few decades, but he could still pick out the details when it mattered.

“Spirits can also be fickle things. An innate desire to be wielded does not make the process easy, in fact many of your peers will never truly hear the voice that inhabits their own blades, so perhaps remember that even making it this far makes you exceptional.”

With a tender chuckle, he leant back from his inspection of the weapon and ran a hand through that blonde mop of hair upon his head.

“But you don’t need to truly clear your head, if you have to focus on sweeping away every last detail then you’ll always be left chasing cobwebs. Just settle into something comfortable and let yourself be adrift. Adrift in a sea of innocent thoughts is no different to a sea of nothing if you are in the correct headspace. Lose yourself in the right way, Miss Hara.”

“I imagine it is little comfort to know that you are not alone in that line of thinking, to have those thoughts that always wish to drag your focus away from what is to come and back into what has happened.”

A humble honesty punctuated Rose’s words, for he spoke of his own demons too though only in passing. For none of them were without flaw, that was another lesson he was eager to impart, from the smallest of souls to the greatest of Captains. He had watched them consume the hearts and minds of men and women far more powerful than himself, turn them into hollow shells unfit to even stand at his side anymore. That was not a fate he wished to repeat itself under his watch.

“Sometimes there are blocks that no amount of inner peace can overcome. I will not say with certainty that this is one, and would encourage you to continue to practice proper meditation as I advised, but sometimes there is also a need for closure. Talk to people, talk to me, talk to yourself. Be honest about what you are dealing with but do not let it define you.”

He did quite hope that she was not so gravely burdened, but it was also equally true that adversity bore the strongest soldiers. No story was worth reading if it was just a straight road upwards, there had to be pitfalls and boulders aplenty for a hero or heroine to overcome before they reached that curtain call.