He heard those names, heard the something like twisted affection that lay beneath them. To the unobservant, to the outsider, they might almost have sounded affectionate. Yet he was not so far gone, not so unobservant, as to understand the truth. It was the sort of affection one might give a pet, which was to say it was undercut with scorn. He was indulged, regarded with rather more fondness than the soldier, because he was better at pretending to be a person.
He saw and understood all of this. Yet he remembered it only in so far as it might come up again for predicting the patterns of behavior in the people around him, for missions or similar. He remembered the name "Commander" only to respond when he was addressed as such, and only as some simple way of distinguishing himself from the Soldier. They meant nothing beyond that. Sometimes he thought he understood that better than the other soldiers.
He heard the odds being made, the bets and wagers, the catcalls and calls of something that might, for lack of a better word, be called encouragement. He almost pitied them, that their lives were apparently so empty that they had to find satisfaction in the performance of another, in petty distractions. The man standing across from him on the field...he seemed to understand, at least a little more.
The half-mask did disorient him for a moment - for a moment, there was a sense that there wasn't enough of this man, and that wasn't right. It was enough that he didn't anticipate the neat little sidestep. His opponent was there and gone in an instant. Yet he did recover quickly, pivoting on his heel to face the man again, bringing his shield around in a wipe swipe as he did so to ward off any knives that might have been coming for him in that moment of distraction. After that, he would go for the legs with a low kick, trying to scythe them out from under the other weapon.
The mask wouldn't catch him off-guard twice, especially not with any scrap of body language that might play into this fight. But it had put his opponent off to an advantageous start.
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He saw and understood all of this. Yet he remembered it only in so far as it might come up again for predicting the patterns of behavior in the people around him, for missions or similar. He remembered the name "Commander" only to respond when he was addressed as such, and only as some simple way of distinguishing himself from the Soldier. They meant nothing beyond that. Sometimes he thought he understood that better than the other soldiers.
He heard the odds being made, the bets and wagers, the catcalls and calls of something that might, for lack of a better word, be called encouragement. He almost pitied them, that their lives were apparently so empty that they had to find satisfaction in the performance of another, in petty distractions. The man standing across from him on the field...he seemed to understand, at least a little more.
The half-mask did disorient him for a moment - for a moment, there was a sense that there wasn't enough of this man, and that wasn't right. It was enough that he didn't anticipate the neat little sidestep. His opponent was there and gone in an instant. Yet he did recover quickly, pivoting on his heel to face the man again, bringing his shield around in a wipe swipe as he did so to ward off any knives that might have been coming for him in that moment of distraction. After that, he would go for the legs with a low kick, trying to scythe them out from under the other weapon.
The mask wouldn't catch him off-guard twice, especially not with any scrap of body language that might play into this fight. But it had put his opponent off to an advantageous start.