The Sound of Silence. (Open)

"Miss Vitus," Professor Smaragdine called out, lending some urgency to Aegle's already rapid foot steps, "Get back here this instant!"
"She sounds mad~" The small girl said of the professor's obvious exasperation, unable to keep a lilt of mischievous pleasure out of her voice. Looking back, she glimpsed the rake thin professor bustling down the starkly lit corridor, her gait obviously torn between catching up to Aegle and maintaining some sort of dignity. Aegle was not similarly constrained however and, seeing that the Dragon was prepared to give chase, she broke into a full on sprint, to an uprising chorus of laughter from the other students on the field trip.
"Miss Vitus!" She heard the Smaragdine squawk, right before ducking around a corner, a laugh of her own rising up to join those of her classmates. It was a pity that the dragon had noticed her, Aegle guessed, having little doubt that she would be spending the rest of the weak cleaning practice busts after class, but it would be worth it just for the rush of making her escape.
She was had taken two more turns down the Museum's winding corridors, the mechanical complaints of her movements rattling off the walls as she ran, before Smaragdine's own rapid pursuit had dwindled to silence. Wondering excitedly if she had manage to get an actual sprint out of the Dragon, Aegle took another random turn to find herself surrounded on all sides by a wash of color. Her wide eyes grew wider still at the bewildering array of abstract shapes and the fearless use of bright hues which line the walls on either side, and her already broad smile burst into a too-toothy grin.

Without slowing, she dashed down the corridor with its dazzling depictions of surreal landscapes, pleased to find the art on display growing ever more unconventional with every step she took.
Her ears, already pricked for any hint of pursuit, captured another voice not belonging to Smaragdine.
"Do you hear that?" It was a man's voice, with an accent which would be familiar to anyone who'd spent any time on Solitus. Distracted as she was, heart a flutter in her heaving chest, eyes darting between the myriad depictions of color and creativity on either wall, Aegle did not realize she'd taken a turn towards the Atlesian voice until two men sprang suddenly into her path.

Actually, it was more like she sprang out of them, whipping around the corner as she did; It all happened a bit too fast for Aegle. One was staring closely at a blank canvas, one of many similarly bleak pieces along this particular wing. The other, not so captivated by artwork, was staring at Aegle, his puzzled expression rapidly rushing towards wide eyed shock. Already running about as fast as she was able, she meant to swerve around the pair, but her attention was so thoroughly captured that she could not help but make straight for them instead.
Aegle had just a moment to try barreling through the one who was distracted, in the hope that she could overrun him and then outrun any consequences, when the the proud looking Atlesian beside him took a half step back and snatched at his left hip with both hands. It was such a lightning quick movement that Aegle did not even notice the scabbard before being almost right atop him. In one smooth movement, one that Aegle might have even applauded were it not for its immediate consequences, the Atlesian swordsman interposed himself between her at the distracted man, who was only then looking up from the canvas he'd been studying. It happened so fast, leaving barely enough time for Aegle to get her shield up. There was a whisper of metal, a painful tug at Aegle's extended arm as something long and hard coiled about it, and then the floor swung up, as if on a hinge, to crash into her face. Arms flung out wide, Aegle tumbled twice again her body length to sprawl across the hard tiles like a broken doll. Ears ringing, cheek dully throbbing, and all sense of her situation scattered, Aegle rolled onto her side and then flopped listlessly onto her back. That had really hurt.

She was just wondering what the Atlesian man had done to her when something bright colored and keenly gleaming flashed down to within a hand's span of her nose.
"Valanese wretch." The well dressed man said flatly, not even angrily, with but a single strand of his immaculately combed hair out of place, the only sign he'd done anything more difficult than draw his sword. A sword, incidentally, which was presently poised before Aegle's face with the comfortable ease of a very well trained fighter.
Feeling that things had suddenly gotten a bit more serious than she had been expecting, Aegle immediately ceased her efforts to get up and instead reach one placating hand up.
Then it struck her; Something about his expression, the scornful way he looked down his nose at her, with that one strand of hair sprouted from an otherwise pristine military coif, and the unexpected and very real thread of a drawn blade... All of it combined with the recent exhilaration of her daring escape from the field trip, in a way that was anything but helpful.

Aware that she should probably offer some paltry excuse or apology, Aegle instead found her smile returning.
"S-Sor..." She tried, but the titter growing in the pit of her stomach chose that ill-fated moment to burst from her mouth. Aegle slapped her upraised hand across her mouth, barely stifling the tail of what threatened to be an outright guffaw, and held her breath. It was no use. The Atlesian's eyes first widened, spoiling his expression of calm contempt, before something unguarded and dangerous started to broil beneath the surface.
Aegle couldn't help it; She giggled. That only made his eyes grow wider. Looking like two eggs plugging the holes in his skull, Aegle wondered if they might fall out. She slapped her other hand over her mouth as a loud snigger snorted its way out of her nose.
"You... What are you..." The Atlesian seethed, but Aegle cut him off with a stifled squeak as she struggled to contain her laughter.
"Why you little..."
Giggle...
"... How dare..."
Snort!
"I should..."
It was no use. Aegle squeezed her eyes closed and practically writhed where she lay, face growing redder and redder as she held mouth and nose both plugged closed. She couldn't bare it, and started drumming her heels on the floor instead. Tears were welling up in her eyes as she opened them again, to find the Atlesian had lowered his sword, however, given the look of intense, red faced fury writhing across his face, she did not expect he planned on resheathing it any time soon. Furthermore, whatever self-restraint had held him in check thus far, Aegle did not foresee it surviving much longer.
Gods, but she couldn't stop laughing...

Holding her face so hard it had begun to throb anew, Aegle could only watch in helpless and utterly unreasoning mirth as the pair had their brief quarrel, all while doing her best to settle the treacherous laughter that was still searching for escape. She couldn't help it though. The fact that her she found the whole situation so funny was just making him angrier, and the fact that he was so angry at her was what made the whole situation so funny. She knew she really shouldn't be laughing, that having a sword drawn on her really was no laughing matter, but knowing that just made things worse. Furthermore, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the Atlesian hadn't the faintest clue what to do about matters as they presently stood. He'd been so quick and sure a moment ago, but Aegle's reaction to him had him so overwhelmed that he was barely able to contain himself.

She wondered if he might hit her, and wondered what that dust edged sword might do to her shield, and felt a sudden flutter of excitement so grossly innappropriate that it set her to almost gagging upon her laughter. Then the other man, speaking with the sort of authority any Atlesian immediately recognized as that of a commander, called the swordsman off.
"Captain, put that weapon away before you embarrass yourself further."
The look of frozen surprise which passed over his face then had Aegle's sides practically splitting.
Gods, but she needed to get a hold of herself.

"My Lord, she was coming right for you." The captain protested. His eyes met hers for a moment, peering up from the floor with tears of abject amusement running down her cheeks, and the look her gave her could have turned ice rotten. Aegle wheezed, pleading for mercy. Her sides couldn't take much more.
"Yes, good work," The commander agreed with irony so thick even Aegle noticed it, "You've protected me from a little girl..."
She lost control utterly, and was left gagging on her laughter as the chastened captain walked stepped away.

She was still laughing when, after a few whispered rejoinders, the commander suddenly slammed his captain into the wall. That was slightly less funny, all things considered. In fact, there was little at all funny about the dangerous speed of the act, nor the look of sudden and unguarded fear that showed on the captain's face when it happened. There was none of the impotent rage and indecision the Captain had shown, but something altogether more threatening. It was shocking, and not in the funny way, like a dog had snapped at the Captain's face, but might just as easily gone for his throat.

Aegle sat up slightly as the Commander drew closer, feeling an unwelcome wariness as he got within arms reach of her.
"I told you to watch your language." He rumbled, a animal asserting its dominance, "Does she look like Franky to you?"
The last of her laughter died as he turned his attention to her, locking her gaze with his molten gold. He only had the one, she noticed for the first time. Then he offered out his hand, and her impression of a wild animal melted away. Growing up in Atlas, she was immediately familiar with his proud, almost chivalrous manner. It was spoiled somewhat by his anger, which remained apparent, though Aegle did not think it was directed at her.

Reaching out, she took the offered hand in her own, thin fingers bare above the bandage wraps that covered her knuckles and palm, and felt the warmth and strength of his grip through his glove.
"Are you hurt?" He asked as she took hold. Her eyes flicked to his, then flicked just as quickly to the captain standing some few strides back. The sullen look he gave her didn't seem quite so funny as it would have moments prior. There was something more in his stare however, something like anticipation. Maybe even dread. A fateful waiting to hear how Aegle might answer his commander.

Realizing the power she wielded in her outstretched hand, Aegle suddenly felt ashamed. She looked back to the Commander and grinned as convincingly as she was able, feeling her cheek throb as she did so.
"Fine." She chirped, "Fall over all the time; M'pretty used to it."
She didn't look at the Captain, not wanting to see the relief as it spilled across his face.
Pulling herself up with the Commander's help, Aegle gave him a better examination than had been possible before. He wasn't as old as she'd initially guessed, probably no more than a decade her elder. His face was cold and hard, as most faces became in the Atlesian military, though she also noticed now that he wasn't actually wearing an Atlesian uniform, nor that of a specialist. His accent was Atlas though, and there was no massing the formal cut of his attire, each stitch of which screamed parade dress.
"Who's Franky?" She asked him, standing now, and looking up into his pale countenance. She didn't really care, having asked on reflex more than anything, and because it felt good to hear her own voice as she stared into that haunted, molten-gold eye. She tugged her hand out of his grasp with a faint whisper of whirring motors, a tail of unwound bandage trailing after as she tucked it into her hoodie's pocked, along side its mate. She found herself trying to stand a little straighter, for all the good it did her crooked back, and maintaining eye contact despite a fascination with his dress and affiliation.

Aegle wasn't sure what it was about her question, meant more as a tactless diversion for all it was meant as anything, but she sensed immediately that it was the sort of question she might be better off not asking. She asked those sorts of questions often enough to spot the signs, and they had written themselves broad across the Commander's face.
"Franky is an old friend. We've been playing a game of hide and seek for the last few years, and sometimes he likes to surprise us." He told her, leaving the small girl dubious. Excepting the fact that a few years was an awful long time to be playing a game, wasn't the Commander a bit old for hide and seek? Besides which, the Captain's reaction to her hardly seemed like the way you would treat a friend. Just what sort of friendship was it, where the right greeting was throwing one another to the ground? Her mouth opened with the thought of asking that very question but, in a rare instance of recognizing a bad question before she asked it, Aegle held her tongue. She did not think she would like or believe any answer he gave her, and did not like how his face had iced over at her initial mention of this 'Franky'. It seemed apparent, the more she actually considered it, that 'Franky' was a topic best avoided where the Commander was concerned.

"You were in an awful hurry weren't you?" He said, cutting through her indecision with that cool tone that she wasn't quite sure how to take. He no longer seemed so angry, and some of the palpable tension felt to have diffused, but it had not vanished entirely. How much would it take to make him angry again? Not much, Aegle reckoned.
"I'm willing to bet someone is looking for you as well."
Feeling reticent, a most unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling for her, Aegle let her grin grow wider still.
"S'a bet you'd win, I reckon." she told him, utterly open. Besides the fact that she didn't think lying to this man was a particularly good idea, she just wasn't interested in the effort it would have required. She was already being a lot more tactful than she might usually have been, and that was strain enough. Leaning her head back slightly, causing a small twinge across the sore muscles at the base of her skill and a faint whir of protest from the servos along her shoulders, she made a show of listening. She couldn't hear Professor Smaragdine, and wondered if the Dragon might have given up the chase. What little experience she had with the educator told Aegle that wasn't terribly likely. Probably she had taken a wrong turn during her pursuit, and was wending her way down some distant corridor on the other side of the building.
Her grin grew genuine at that thought. Coughing a quite laugh into her fist, she swung her emerald eyes back to the Commander's glacial countenance and let a bit of mischievousness into her expression.
"Might be I'm s'posed t'be with the rest of my class. Reckon my professor'd prefer I were, y'know?" She closed her eyes, cheeks growing warm, and showed off even more of her teeth in a guilty, but not terribly apologetic, smile.
"S'borin' though," Aegle said, with a difficult shrug, by way of explanation, "Hearin' her go on and on about strokes and junk... Who cares 'bout some paintin's from before the Great War?"
More and more of the defensive slipped into her tone, while her emerald eyes wandered to the canvases lining the walls.
"Like, s'pretty neat, I guess. I couldn't paint anythin' like this." She said, before her eyes settled on the blank canvas which the Commander had been examining, "'Cept that."
Gaze swinging back to the Commander, she heaved another lopsided shrug and let her grin burst forth once more, "So I went for a walk, yeah? Figured I'd find somethin' better to look at."

The Commander smiled at her and, while there seemed something not quite right about the way his face formed the expression, Aegle mimicked it. This wasn't like the interactions she usually had with adults, which typically devolved into exasperation or pity depending on exactly how familiar they were with her.
No, talking to the Commander was actually quite interesting. Off-putting and more than a little confusing, but interesting all the same.
"You and Captain Carmine have a lot in common." He told her. Aegle seriously doubted that, attention gliding over to the Captain where he remained, nursing his shoulder with one hand. He caught her looking and frowned, dropping his hand from the abused joint like it suddenly weight twice as much as he did. Didn't seem like he had like the comparison much either.
"This art," The Commander went on, in a calmly expansive way, "Boring, is it?"
Turning his blind side towards her, Aegle had little choice but to stare up into the blank half of his face, at the long scar the slipped out from beneath his eye patch to trickle down his cheek, like a track scoured by tears. It was a mask of numb flesh, dead and inflexible as porcelain. She realized she didn't much like this side of the Commander, with its deep scars and concealing patch.
His voice was cool as he spoke, like ice upon a steel sheet, "The greatest conflict in the history of our civilizations was fought in large part to maintain the right to produce such works as these."
Gooseflesh prickled across her arms and shoulders, and Aegle briefly tore her rapt gaze from the Commander's face to peer at the white canvas he was addressing.
"Doesn't it make you curious?" He asked, "To think of all those people fighting, battles that left scars on the world that can still be seen today."
She took a step closer to the white canvas, trying to find what he was looking at. It was different from her new angle. No less barren and devoid of color, but now, with the help of her altered perspective, she could see the contours.
"The bravery, the savagery, men standing shoulder to shoulder and charging through artillery fire as the world seemed to end around them, the earth shaking, the air itself screaming like the unnamed voices of hell, the world smelling of dust and burning, and blood."
The many strokes had made places for shadows to pool and flow upon the canvas, and it was in their darkness that its contents were revealed. She saw it, a field of white with shapes scattered all about. A buried sword here, a broken shield there, all made ghostly, insubstantial, beneath a blanket of snow.
"Fighting, killing, dying, in numbers that utterly baffle the imagination. Entire nations set aflame, entire generations lost to injury, death and madness." The Commander continued, his voice as cold as the falling, a light touch upon her tingling skin. With each word, she saw new lines, defined the darkness that played upon the painting's face. A hand holding a snapped blade, an arm outflung in some final defense. Eyes, featureless for the snow that lay upon them, too cold to melt the fine white dusting.
"Think you that to be boring?" There was a rye note to the Commander's tone, as well as some humor. Aegle blinked, and the features of the painting seemed to flow apart, spreading thin and undefined once more. "If so, I tremble at the idea of what you might find exciting."

As the Commander turned away, Aegle stepped closer still and reach a hand out towards the white canvas. With slender fingers, she brushed its surprisingly smooth surface and searched for those figment shapes she'd seen so clearly only a moment before.
"Captain," Called the Commander, but Aegle barely heard him, "Could you go see if there is anyone in search of someone matching the description of our new friend here."
It was hard to feel the lines defined by the brush strokes, but not impossible. Light, emerald bright, glinted in Aegle's eyes, as she mapped the featureless white.
"My Lord, I was to escort you." Like the Commander's arboreal voice, Carmine's placid protests barely breached the small girl's fixated attention. Eyes narrowing, even as the gentle glow grew brighter, she traced with ever greater self-assurance.
"My new companion can be my bodyguard," The Commander said, but Aegle did not hear him. The texture beneath her fingers had changed. Before, the strokes had been so gentle as to almost be smooth, where now they were thin and coarser. The patch she'd found was not rough, but only rougher than the field of which white which surrounded it. She tried to see the whole painting, but it was too big, and nothing was clear when standing so close. All she had was her fingers to describe the small inconsistency amidst it all.
A shape small and round, with two long but gently tapering stalks.

"How does that sound?" The change in tone alerted Aegle to the fact that she was being addressed, though the accompanying gesture had gone unnoticed until that moment. Turning her eyes away from the canvas, she found the Commander's one golden eye, set like a jewel in the living half of his face. Her fingers continued to trace the small shape on the canvas, making the spot feel warm beside the surrounding smoothness, as a smile spread across her lips.
Swinging her hand away from the canvas, she clutched the air before her in a juvenile gesture, pulling a fist.
"Y'can count on me." She said, giving him a thumbs up. Carmine did not look impressed. He scoured her with a withering look before he turned away from Commander and Aegle both, to make his way silently out of sight.
The Commander, evidently satisfied, also turned away from her, though he went only as far as the next canvas. Aegle, feeling that she should probably keep close, moved to follow. Something nagged at the corner of her vision however, and she paused a moment to look back at the white canvas.
She no longer thought she could have made something like it, just as much as she could no longer tell if she'd really seen the field of bodies and broken weapons described in its artful contours. What she could see, standing at this new angle, was the shape she'd been tracing a moment before, whose true nature she was not surprised by. It would have been invisible from just about any other angle and gone wholly unnoticed despite being in the very middle of the canvas. If there were really a battlefield surrounding it, hidden but barely by a thin layer of snow, then it stood atop that wintery blanket, soft and warm despite the violence buried in the past, oblivious to it as it went about its life unseen by those passing by.
Aegle grinned and blinked, the shaping faded back into the whiteness, and then turned away to chase after the Commander.

"What was your name, Girl?" He asked her as she came up beside him with a faint buzz of gears.
"M'name's Aegle, Sir." She said, grinning, the Sir tacked on by habitual addresses when she'd still been an Atlesian student. While such honorifics were a matter of course in Atlas, their addition was less welcome in Valanese academies. Something about the familiar, military authority the Commander exuded had brought back the old reflex however.
"Aegle Vitus." Then adding, despite his not asking, "I'm learnin' to become a huntress."
Part of her hoped the claim might impress him. It was a matter of course on Solitas that any able bodied Atlesian would join the military or the specialists and she sensed the Commander would appreciate her decision to fight the Grimm.
Furthermore, it was a detail she was, herself, quite personally proud of, one of very few things she felt she could be proud of, in fact.

She turned her eyes upon the hectic assortment of geometries and colors on the canvas before them, its nature made all the more inexplicable by its proximity to the oblivious rabbit in its field of snow. There was something almost uncomfortable, aggressive even, about the way the shapes had been flung upon the canvas, like the artist had been angry as he painted them. The choice of colors, all bright and glossy, seemed intended to clash upon one another.
"All that stuff y'said, bout the fightin' and all that. I think the Drago- I mean the Professor said somethin' like that. 'Cept she was more worried about why Vale fought, instead of the actual fightin'..." She looked down to the paintings plaque, fittingly named "Chaos", then back up to the assortment of shapes and colors.
There was something strange about the painting though. While the harsh lines and conflicting colors were hard to look at, it also seemed lifeless. Inert.
"I don't really get it, I guess... The Great War, I mean." She looked up at him. He was an adult, and seemed to know quite a bit about the subject, so it seemed only natural to look to him for answers.
"Like, I get why it happened. Mantle was tryin' to protect itself from the Grimm, and Vale didn't like the way we were doin' it..." Trailing off, she heaved a shrug that made her brace click beneath her hoodie, "But the war..."
Everyone knew how bad the War had been for mankind... How the Grimm had waxed wickedly through the conflict... How whole settlements had been over run and lost, despite being nowhere near the fighting, some never to be reclaimed.
"It just seems so stupid, y'know? Fightin' one another when we should have been fightin' the Grimm."
Looking back to the painting, she frowned and resumed her examination. Then, abruptly, she pointed at the painting, or rather its plaque.
"It's a lie, isn't it?" she asked, changing the subject without waiting for the answer she'd evidently been driving towards, "It's not really Chaos Chaos but, just like "Chaos" Chaos, right?" She looked back to the Commander hopefully, like she expected him to know the answer.
"I mean, it's not like anythin's movin', or even like any've it's s'posed to be movin, y'know? It's all just colors, hangin' on a wall, like it's frozen, yeah?"

The Commander turned his molten gaze upon the painting. Whatever he saw in play of colors, he did not seem to like it. He looked at it and, more and more, it seemed he was looking at something he did not like but had come, over time, to accept as necessary. Sort of the way Aegle had once looked at needles. So palpable was his resignation that, after a few moments, Aegle started to feel guilty for the second time that day, like she had made the Commander look at something he'd rather not see.
"Just because they seem still," He said finally, his haunted consideration fleeing whatever he'd seen on the canvas, "doesn't mean they aren't moving. They aren't frozen, they're trapped."
That assertion made Aegle give the canvas a double take. Far be it for her to question someone's judgement, let alone that of an adult, and one who was clearly in high standing, but she had not see that at all. Reaching out, she did what she had done with the first painting and lightly touched the gloss canvas.
The Commander continued to expound. "To me it looks like the colors are trying to get out." He told her, "Every single one wants to be on top, so they are climbing over each other while the others hold them back. They are fighting desperately to escape."
Aegle could see it not, the way they were layered. One atop the other, tiered all the way down into the void like a stair case made from rainbows, but it didn't look to her like they were fighting. She leaned her head back, tipped it to the side, and walked her fingers slowly down the flight of multicolored tiers.
"I don't see it." she admitted. She wouldn't accuse him of being wrong just because she couldn't see what he saw, but she couldn't leave such a bold interpretation unchallenged either.
"Looks to me more like they've been made that way, y'know?" Her eyes wandered down the canvas, chasing after her fingers, "Stacked up, one upon t'other, all the way down. So far that y'cant even see the bottom. S'not like chaos, but like some sorta..." she took a step back, brace whirring beneath her hoodie, "Like a ladder."

Tipping her head the other way, she grinned and thought she could see some suggestion in the way the shapes were piled up. Ladder had been the wrong word, but it had been as close to right as she could get.
"Like... they've been made this way, and whoever made 'em did it so she had somethin' to stand on. Like... Like she wanted to be tall!" Aegle threw up both hands, and her voice rattled down the corridor, getting softer and softer as it bounded away.
With a sudden whir, she turned to the Commander, arms dropping back to her sides.
"But I dunno." She confessed, "Maybe what I see says more 'bout me than what's in the paintin'..."

Aegle could tell right away that her interpretation wrong. The Commander, scrutinizing the painting, showed no hint that he'd been convinced. If anything, he looked even more certain of his initial impression, her own opinion having had the exact opposite effect of swaying his opinion.
"Would you do all that, just to be a bit taller?" He asked her, unexpectedly. Caught off guard, Aegle felt a grin tug itself taut upon her lips. She glanced back at the painting, fingers itching, and considered the question. She wondered how long it had taken to pain all of that, and how much higher she really could have stood if she were perched upon the top. Her initial impression, that it wasn't really chaos, but something planned and deliberately constructed, persisted, as did the idea that it was supposed to be reaching for something.
"S'pose it depends on what I was reachin' for." She admitted, looking up the wall, searching for some meaning up above and seeing only lights and the ceiling.
"I think that might be the point of art." Said the Commander, calling her attention back down. She did not think he had heard her answer. "It means something different depending on who looks at it. The fact that we can both stand before the same painting and see things so differently proves that. Might I find that the shapes and the colors are different if I crouch to your level? I hardly think so, they are the same, yet they are not."
Looking back to the painting in question, scratching the stubble on the side of her head, Aegle frowned openly. Did he mean they were both right, or that they were both wrong?

The Commander crouched down then, and Aegle turned to watch him. Even stooped down, almost down to his haunches, he was still almost taller than she was. She guessed he'd never needed a ladder to feel big, he'd only needed to stand up straight.
"No, it still looks the same from down here." He sighed, almost sounding disappointed, a fact that Aegle found very confusion, "Perhaps that's why the Valanese were so fond of these. It's a very personal thing."
Aegle looked back, frown deepening. Her head hurt from all the questions bouncing around inside of it.
"But," She said finally, after several moments of silence, "If that's true, then doesn't that make the paintin' meanin'less?"
Eyes on the Commander, she tried to puzzle her thoughts out, speaking them allowed as quickly as she could form them.
"It's just us fillin' in the blanks. It never meant anythin' or, if it did, the painter aint here to ask. We're just givin' it our own meanin'..."
Falling silent, Aegle considered what she'd just said. None of it had sounded quite 'right' to here, but she didn't know a better way to say it.
Then, abruptly, a grin blossomed across her face.
"Hey, that means we can give it meanin'. We can give it whatever meanin' we wanna~"

He stared at her for several moments, smile taut across one half of his face, and, for just a moment, Aegle wondered if he had heard her at all. Usually, when people were actually listening to the words coming out of her mouth, they didn't look at her quite so fondly.
"Remarkable, isn't it?" He said, and Aegle couldn't help but show her teeth in triumph. She'd never been good at this sort of thing, and figuring out what the point of everything was, so it felt really good to actually be praised for once. And what was the Commander's question, if not praise of a certain kind.
Suddenly, his voice dropped and his one eye fixed her in it's molten glow
"Can I tell you a secret?"
Aegle, still riding high on her recent and unexpected intellectual triumph, could not help but nod her head, inviting him to continue.

He drew near to her then. Which was not to say he came closer, but rather that he brought her in, and that their conversation seemed to grow more intimate. More conspiratorial.
"Part of me is glad that Vale won the war. Mantle would have had all of these paintings burned. They didn't want anyone else to be able to decide what they meant." Aegle felt expression freeze, but, before she could ask him what he meant, or how he could say such a thing, he surprised the her even more, simply by asking her a question..
"Do you think Mantle did the right thing? If they had won, if it had worked..."
Her smile faltered somewhat, confusion showing through its sunny surface, as she parsed the question the Commander had asked. Her eyes strayed to the paintings once more, Chaos and the white canvas both, and she felt something strange in the very pit of her stomach. Not dread, not pain, it was ill-defined within the spectrum of emotions she knew best. Despite how stimulating the conversation had been, she had never been one for art. It had always seemed like something other people did, a thing which other people understood and other people might pursue. Especially since she'd gotten sick, it had seemed more like a waste of time than anything else.

With that in mind, she really wasn't sure how she felt about Mantle winning the war, or the sort of world that victory would have made. What would such a world even have looked like? Fortunately for Aegle, the Commander was there to proffer one possible answer.
"If they had been able to do what they wanted to do, and no one had stopped them, and the people had been united against the Grimm as was intended. If all these paintings had been burned, and every artist given a sword instead of a paintbrush." His tone had grown distant, distracted, like he was staring off at some place far, far away. Aegle looked up at him, detecting something not altogether pleasant in the tone, something almost sad or regretful. It was strange, hearing him talk about such a thing as though it weren't something he would have wanted. If he was Atlesian, then surely he understood the price of safety, and the debt all citizens owed their Kingdom. If that wasn't a price he'd been willing to pay, why was he wearing a uniform?
He didn't seem to notice Aegle's misgivings, or at the very least he did not seem to care. He merely kept on staring at that far off place which Aegle, from her small perspective, could not see.

After a pause, during which Aegle continued to stare at him, the Commander looked down at her and asked, "Would it have been worth it?"
Skin prickling, cold dancing across it, the younger girl looked between the Commander and the paintings he loved so much. She sensed her view before, on the worth of art, might have been a narrow one. Why else would the Commander love these paintings so much, if they weren't important? She wasn't sure her own opinion of art hadn't shifted since she'd started talking with him about it.
"I dunno." She answered finally, heaving a small and awkward shrug. It was an honest answer at least, though even Aegle found it to be a mite disappointing. What else could she say though? It wasn't like she had some great insight to offer, like she understood the nuances of the Great War, nor the motivations of its myriad participants, any better than the Commander. In fact, she openly recognized, she probably understood those things much less than he did. Why he should even bother asking her such a thing, Aegle could not even begin to guess, with how obvious a waste of time it must be.

She looked back to Chaos, frowning mildly. Then a thought occurred.
"We were just trying t'protect ourselves. We just wanted t'be safe. So many people died, and all those homes and towns were destroyed..." She said, mostly to herself. Then, looking up at the Commander, she proffered the question, "What if it's like the paintin's? What if there isn't just one answer? What if it was worth it and its wasn't, and we gotta decide it for ourselves?"
Then she frowned, and looked away, "Nah... That's stupid. I'm stupid. How could it be both?" She muttered, taking for granted the fact that the Commander had expected an objectively correct answer from her.
She thought about it for a few more seconds, hand raking at the stubble on the side of her head, before smoothing its way through her crest of orange hair.
"I never really thought much 'bout art before today. S'like... Life's too short to worry 'bout it, y'know? But I guess now that I am thinkin' 'bout it, and thinkin' 'bout a world without it, I guess it just feels sorta hollow, yeah? Like, I feel hollow. Sorta empty like..."
She raked the side of her head again, puffed out her cheeks, and tried to better define how she felt, but there were no words that would suffice.
"But I guess I'm only feelin' like that cause I've been talkin' to you, and maybe 'cause I know what art is. If we'd won, if we'd taken all the artists and made 'em soldiers, and I'd never seen a paintin', or even heard 'bout one, would I even notice it was missin'? Like, if I could have not thought to hard 'bout it for my whole life before now, what's t'say I would ever have thought 'bout it if we had..."
A frown stitched its way, bit by bit, across Aegle's face, sewn and threaded with each word she said.
"That's stupid, isn't it? I dunno what I'm talkin' 'bout."
Suddenly, smiling, she looked up at the Commander and said, "I reckon this sorta hard thinkin' is better left to people who ain't me, yeah?"