Meeting The Mechanic (Diana/Elara)

"I suppose you could say that deep down inside they saw me as more than just a project." Diana calmly agreed with Elara's assessment of the intent behind her parents' last action. The blonde could not help but to feel that she had been their project instead of their daughter and that even staying behind to fight a hopeless battle so that she could escape the inevitable slaughter had an ulterior motive. Her parents had likely done so in order to galvanize her into realizing her "destiny" as a Hollow hunter and work to avenge them.

If that was the case it was certainly working. Diana had a deep hatred of Hollows for what they had taken from her and she would never voluntarily pass up a chance to eliminate one. Only facing the kind of battle her mother and father had faced during their last minutes on Earth would make her back down... while she hated Hollows with every fiber of her being, she was not going to fight against overwhelming odds unless she had no other choice.

"I wish that they had shown that kind of concern towards me much sooner." Diana calmly commented in what might have sounded like a jab at her late parents. It might sound like she was speaking ill of the dead, but her "sentiment" was sincere. If her mother and father had treated her more like a person before their untimely ends she might have seen them as more than just overbearing authority figures who treated her with harshness for every little mistake she had made during her training in the Quincy arts.

"That might be the case, Elara." Diana replied calmly. Maybe Elara was right and Alvin and Anna Remington were unable to give affection to their daughter due to pride... if that was true she did not understand why they behaved like that. The caustic remarks they had freely and frequently doled out during her training in the Quincy arts did not make it sound like they had any pride in her. Instead it had sounded like they were frustrated by her ineptitude.

Deciding to move on from that subject for the time being, Diana focused on the topic of siblings... or lack thereof, in her case.

"I did not have any siblings. I was an only child." Diana reported. Saying that reminded her of the mystery person named "June" her parents had brought up from time to time during her training as a "motivational" tool. They were held up as a better student than Diana, especially in the art of Gebet. The blonde Quincy briefly wondered if there was something special about "June" due to how that name was used and how familiar her mother and father sounded with them, but she had no evidence of a connection between the three, so she did not spend any more time thinking about "June" because right now Elara was the focus of her attention.

"Life as an only child was one of solitude. When I was not at school or practicing the Quincy arts I was alone." Diana informed Elara with no change in her tone of voice. She might have been stating the obvious, but she would have to do that in order to explain her viewpoint. Hopefully the dark-haired Quincy would forgive her for stating something so readily apparent.

"I could not imagine having five siblings, especially five who were all the other gender." Diana remarked on Elara's family life, which sounded a lot more vibrant and interesting than life in the Remington household. To Diana her "home" was more like four walls and a roof plus a small space to call her own. Such a living arrangement certainly beat being homeless, but there was little to no spirit in the Remington household, nothing to make it feel like more than just a place to live. That stood in stark contrast to the family life Elara had described. It sounded like the dark-haired Quincy had been part of a living, breathing family that allowed her to make mistakes without harshly berating her for them and treated her like her own person with her own wants and needs.

"Being on my own is liberating." Diana replied after taking a moment to choose her words carefully lest she sound like she was taking another jab at her deceased parents. She had never experienced any meaningful amount of freedom until that fateful day and on some level she was still trying to get used to life without her mother and father. It was slow going because she had never been prepared for life outside the Remington household, but after her relocation to Central Georgia Diana had to quickly learn vital skills such as how to create and manage a bank account, pay bills, and do basic DIY home repair. Thankfully she had been able to learn the basics of those skills from helpful individuals at her bank and a since-deceased elderly neighbor who had worked in the construction trade for thirty-three years when he was a younger man.

"While I lost the security my family's household provided and had to start over in an unfamiliar place, I gained the freedom to live on my terms instead of constantly taking orders from someone else." Diana summed up how the move away from home had changed her. While there were times she missed the comfort and predictability of her old home, in the end she appreciated her freedom more. She only wished that it had not come at so high a price.

"Time has a way of mending wounds." Diana gave her take on a frequently used proverb. While the classic proverb "time heals all wounds" was so well-worn that it might be considered a cliche, there was still truth to it. The passing of the years had allowed Diana to find it within herself to forgive her parents even if she did not forget their heavyhanded training methods, their "motivational" remarks on her shortcomings, or their overall attitude of "my way or the highway." She supposed that Alvin and Anna Remington did all they could to prepare their daughter for the future even if they stomped Diana's feelings into the dirt and disregarded what she wanted in the process.

"I am at peace with it now, Elara. While I did not agree with a good deal of what my parents did and still do not agree with their methods over four years later, I suppose that it had a purpose even if I could not see it at the time. I have a decent foundation in the Quincy arts and some skills necessary to support myself in everyday life." Diana remarked on the topic of her fortitude and will to keep going despite her rough childhood. While what she said might have sounded like another cliche, that did not change the fact that everything she said was true. She was physically and mentally prepared for the rigors and uncertainties of life on her own and proof of that was the fact that she was alive and standing in front of Elara.