Prompt #4: Shifting Blame
About FFXIV Write | Personal Entries | by @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast
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Shifting (the) Blame
The act of exchanging accusations and blame, as between two or more parties, during a dispute or some undesirable event.
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Back and forth.
Back and forth.
From one to the other in an ever-constant battle of words and reasons and excuses, the two of them bickered and hawed and argued to no end. It was almost cute at first, if you were being honest--until it seemed to be the only. Damn. Thing. You. Heard.
And what was topic of the argument? The singular point of contention that neither Urianger nor Thancred could seem to come to terms with one another about? The soul reason that your sanity was but a frazzled bit of twine that threatened to come apart?
Vegetables.
More precisely, they argued over who was to blame for the fact that Ryne absolutely hated eating them. Popotos were fine, as was the occasional carrot and the rare but well-cooked zucchini, but there was little else that she seemed to eat with much zest or exuberance, and apparently this was an issue that Urianger thought to bring up to Thancred, since he was well-accepted as the young woman's guardian.
When it came to traditional parenting however, Urianger seemed to fill in where Thancred lacked. So indeed their initial bickering was rather cute, something to gently tease about like a married couple they so acted like.
But gods above.
"Thy did not account for her nutritional needs while upon on the road," Urianger might say. "Thus her pallette craves only meat and sweets--did thy not consider a growing girl to need more than that?"
"We were on the run!" Thancred would argue back. "Half the time anything organic was trying to kill us anyway. It's not as if I could document it all to keep track."
"Did thee not ever stop at a settlement which grew such as things?"
"Not all of us could live in Il Mheg where we're literally surrounded by fancy gardens and pixies hell-bent on imprisoning us."
This would often be when Urianger would either walk away or press harder on the subject, though Thancred often had a reasonable argument.
"Maybe it's because she ate too much that she's just sick of the taste or something?" The look in the man's eyes would always be a little pointed, if only because Urianger ever played the more worrisome hen between the two of them, sometimes to an almost smothering degree.
Most times Thancred would just shrug his shoulders and sigh.
"Aren't kid's supposed to be picky eaters anyway? I didn't eat a lot of vegetables when I was young and look how I turned out."
"I find myself confused if that's supposed to be an assurance or a terrifuing a word of caution for young Ryne's situation."
"Oh fuck off Uri."
If it wasn't for the fact that the two of them always seemed to be smiling genuinely by the end of their bickering, you would have murdered them by now.
Goddamn idiots.