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Mid is by no means a quiet person.
Anyone she’s ever teamed with, ever, will tell you that in a heartbeat. Some will say it with fondness, some with annoyance, some with a downright grudge, but their point will still stand. Mid talks loudly, laughs even louder, and screams at the top of her voice when she so feels the need.
Sometimes she’ll see her friends wince as she talks, and only then does she realize that she’s both far too loud and far too close to them. They laugh it off, though—after all, it’s Mid . They know her for being loud, and dramatic, and abrasive, and even reckless, at times. That’s what makes her, her.
Lifesteal is also by no means a quiet server.
Mid has lost count of all the battles she’s fought, at this point. Of all the fights that people have picked, of all the petty disputes that morphed into something more, something dangerous. Of all the times she’s had to swallow her humanity and go in for the kill. Of all the times she’s had to fight, and fight, and fight.
Fighting is grim. Fighting is dirty, and fighting is bloody. Mid knows this. When she fights, she stays focused on her enemy, on the clashing of metal-on-metal and the smell of something like iron. She stays focused on her enemy, if only to ignore the way that her own hands are being stained red. She stays focused on her enemy, until she’s either standing over a body, or they’re standing over hers.
When Mid fights, she stays focused. It wasn’t until someone else said something that she realized how eerie it is.
It was Cube that told her, because of course it was. They were alone together, discarding their armor after a particularly shitty loss, when he spoke up.
His voice broke Mid out of her thoughts. He commented on their earlier fight, tone light and cautious. Eventually, he mentioned her performance.
You were really quiet, Cube said, looking back at her. We were all shouting to each other, and you, like, weren’t even responding. You seemed kinda out of it.
He looked to his hands in his lap, then back at her. Are you good?
Mid blinked at him.
“Hey, I was fighting!” she laughed, leaning towards where he was sitting with a smile. The bench they sat on creaked under the shift in weight. “Just hitting too many sword-crits to talk, I guess!” She laughed again, just for good measure, and hoped that her smile reached her eyes.
After a second, Cube smiled back, even laughing a bit. If he noticed that her usual personality was forced, he didn’t say anything.
Mid still thought about this interaction later that night. Her back pressed against the cold wall, a light blanket draped over her legs. She didn’t intend on sleeping any time soon.
The wind blew wildly outside. She looked down at her hands in the dark, and swore that she could still see blood on them.
She gulped.
Mid is by no means quiet. But neither is Lifesteal. And maybe, she thought, as she stared into her calloused hands, you have to be quiet and deadly to concur it.