levichill:
Levi couldn’t help but raise a brow at her scolding, doing his best to cross his arms as he looked over at her. “So how would you have solved a situation like that?” It wasn’t real, of course. Levi hadn’t thrown a single fist throughout everything, but he couldn’t help but find himself curious. “I mean… call the police, but you know how slow they are. Ridiculously slow,” he said, pulling his eyebrows together. “… scarily slow. She could have been hurt far more than she already was if I’d left it alone, right?” He shrugged, shaking his head back and forth. “Defending yourself is another story, in my opinion. I’d have a lot more cases to deal with if people didn’t fight back.” He paused. “Though, not to shame the ones who don’t. It’s an overwhelming thing… sometimes all you can do is just let it happen. Hope you just black out.” Levi’s expression had become far more solemn, much to his own distaste. “It’s hard to argue either way with what the right thing is to do when you’re thrown in that sort of position… I have, uh-” He cleared his throat, trying to focus on her again. “I have dozens of stories. I can make up a new one. Ran into a couple of horses that were not fans of me at all.” Well, that was somewhat the truth. “Better?”
“You scream, You call the police. You get people’s attention. Violence doesn’t solve violence, it just makes everyone more angry,” she said, surprisingly committed to this point of view. Maybe it was a little naive of her in some ways but she couldn’t help it. “And sometimes they don’t listen at all, I know. I still don’t think violence is the answer. Some questions don’t have answers.” She shook her head. “Defending yourself is one thing but it’s still not... I still wouldn’t say that it’s praiseworthy. If someone is mad and hits you, it makes you angry so you hit them back making them angrier. The circle of violence gets bigger until it brings in people who never wanted to be involved anyway.” She shot him a very pointed look at his words, not sure how to feel about how light of a topic he was making it. “There’s a very large list of things between punches and nothing that you can do. But you’re not wrong. When you’re in a situation like that it’s not easy to think reasonably at the time.” Sighing, she really should have expected that answer from him, just rolling her eyes at him. “If a horse had kicked you in the face you wouldn’t just have a bruise. You likely wouldn’t have a face. Try again.”