[open] twenty ways to start a fight ,

Joshua was completely unaware that he was being followed as he ventured further into the dungeons, too irritated and self-absorbed to notice the footsteps that echoed very faintly behind him in the shadowy corridors. He was not used to how cold the dungeons could get--the most commercial part of the place was nearest the dormitories of the Fire elementals, the part which sweltered with heat and seemed to warn outsiders off. But he could tell that he was getting farther and farther from the dorms as the temperature steadily started to drop, even making him shiver slightly as a draft breezed along the corridor. "Damn idiots," he muttered, tucking his books under his arm and steeling himself against the anger that threatened to make him burst. If he could just stay down here alone for a bit, then maybe he could be alright. He'd be fine. It took ages for the rage to wear off, it always did. It would be hours before he was back to his normal self again. Until those hours had passed, he'd be very angry and volatile and so snippy with almost everyone that it would be nearly unbearable. Little things frustrated him when he was this upset.

The lack of light in the dungeons didn't irritate him so much, for it was calming to let the shadows press in on all sides. It was comforting rather than frightening. His parents had not raised him to be afraid of the dark, they'd never told him spooky stories or allowed him to watch movies about the monsters under the bed. His books had taught him logic and reasoning, his parents had taught him that the darkness could be just as safe or as dangerous as the light. The only thing different was the change in vision, and Joshua figured that he would hear someone if they were approaching. Of course, this proved to be wrong when Arielle continued to go unnoticed. Whilst Joshua didn't bother lighting any of the torches, he did sweep the dungeons with a momentary and searing heat. It was meant to keep himself warm, but it could also be quite uncomfortable to an Earth (or Thunder) elemental within range. He was not aiming for her as he did not know that she was there, but the area of effect was quite large. He relaxed a little as the warmth soothed his muscles and stopped the goosebumps from crawling on his skin.

A sudden and unexpected scream pierced the air just then, making Joshua freeze where he stood and then spin around rapidly. It made him a little dizzy, but that didn't stop him from immediately lighting every torch within range of his fire and then creating a large tongue of flame in preparation for an attack. As a college student with impressive stamina, it didn't take much out of him to prepare himself for a fight. He was assuming that perhaps it was the girls and their stupid male bodyguard that wished to pursue him, to teach him some sort of twisted lesson about running off. "Stop fucking following me," he snarled, not realising that it was an Earth graduate that had been pursuing him. Not until, that is, he noticed someone cowering in front of what appeared to be a skeleton. It wasn't really alarming to Joshua, seeing as these dungeons had once actually been used to hold the wrongdoers of elemental society. What was more, he didn't recognise this girl as being one of the Fire elementals at all, let alone one of the ones that had been antagonising him on the grounds. His brow furrowed, trying to decide whether he recognised her from class or anything.

Nope.

Breathing hard from the sudden panic, Joshua managed to disperse the frightening tongue of fire and strode over to the girl. "What are you doing down here?" he asked somewhat abrasively, rolling his eyes. He wasn't trying to come across as prickly or mean, he'd just been startled by her sudden shriek. Realising that it was probably a bit rude to just stand and tower over her as she clutched her ankle and covered her mouth, he sighed a bit and offered her a hand. "If you don't like skeletons," he said rationally. "then why did you come this way? Don't you know this part of the dungeon is disused? And you don't seem like a Fire elemental to me." His tone was matter-of-fact, precise. He still hadn't realised that she'd been tagging after him the entire time, and if he'd known she was stalking him he might not have offered to help her to her feet. He frowned slightly when the light from the torches gave him a better look at her, confused by some sense of familiarity. He felt as if he'd seen her somewhere but didn't really know who she was. "What element are you in?" he questioned bluntly, deciding to get it over with.

Well, at least the girl allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Joshua was a little irked that she'd disrupted him, but he wasn't angry with her in the sense that it was the Fire elementals that had ticked him off. The anger he was feeling right now was purely residual and directed toward no one in particular, turning him into a bitter jerk for a couple of hours until he could calm down. The irritation was displayed in every feature of his expression, but at least he didn't insult Arielle or anything like that. He was hardly going to stoop to that sort of pettiness. Besides, he didn't even know this girl--didn't know anything about her except that she was quite stupid to be wandering around in these dark dungeons all alone.

Joshua folded his arms and arched an eyebrow as if to say, "Really?" It wasn't that he didn't believe her, just that he thought it was strange that she hadn't taken the rumours at face value. It was a dungeon, after all. Not everyone is a history nut like you, he reminded himself sharply. "They're definitely true," he concluded, glancing down and toward the skeleton that had given her such a fright. Looked sufficiently dead to Joshua, and thus he didn't feel threatened in the least. The dead did not scare Joshua. He didn't believe in the supernatural, he didn't believe in an afterlife, or in zombies, or other horror incarnations of the dead. This was perhaps why he also had no fear of the dark. "It's a real skeleton," Joshua mused, turning his attention back to Arielle, "but it won't do us any harm. He--or she--is dead now, after all." The Fire elemental shrugged. It didn't frighten him at all.

So she was an Earth elemental. This made Joshua feel somewhat better, actually. "Ah. One of the flower children, eh?" He smirked, but unlike if most of his kind had said it, Joshua did not mean this to be taken as an insult. He was alright with the Earth students now. They had sheltered him when his own element had booted him out on his ass and they had also taken care of Nell when everyone had been trying to kill her, which was a good enough reason in Joshua's book to like someone. If they protected his friend, they were alright with him. "I think my element is pretty obvious," he remarked, glancing around at the torches which had thrown the dungeons into a brilliant firelight. He extinguished some of them so as not to feel too ridiculous, but kept the ones directly around he and Arielle perfectly lit. Joshua also sent out another pulse of heat to warm the dungeons, not liking the fact that it was cooling off again. He was a Fire kid, he needed his warmth and fire to feel truly comfortable down here. It was ironic to consider that the area around the Fire dorms was always sweltering without the influence of the Fire students needed.

"Oh."

There was a sudden awkwardness, perhaps even a tinge of hostility as Joshua realised what Arielle had been doing. "So you were following me." Gray eyes narrowed accusingly toward the Earth elemental, hating the idea that someone had stalked him all the way from the grounds and into the depths of the creepy, dark dungeons. Didn't she know it wasn't the safest thing to stalk an irritated Fire graduate? "Did you have any intention of alerting me of your presence, or were you just going to commit yourself to being my personal shadow for a few hours?" His tone was slightly scathing as he frowned, arms still folded across his chest. He wasn't so much infuriated as he was irked and a little suspicious. Why would she care what his element did to him? The war was over now, the alliances were back in place. He was supposed to be their enemy again.

Only he didn't feel like an enemy. Not any more. It was strange for Joshua to consider this, but he felt a lot more like he was one of them. He had never really fit in with the Fire elementals before, and even though he didn't fit with the personality and stereotypes of the Earth elementals, they'd still given him a better welcome than his own kind ever had. Huffing out a breath in irritation, he said, "... did you hurt yourself when you fell?" It was spoken with a hesitating concern, like he was testing the waters of their situation.

The girl seemed a little defensive and offended when he called her out for following her, something which made Joshua arch an eyebrow in response. She's the stalker, not me. He really did see it as stalking, but in a lighter sense than when Angel had stalked him. Angel was a real frightening piece of work, whereas this Earth girl seemed a lot more docile and had good intentions, even if they were carried out in a not-so-great manner. "You wouldn't be too pleased if I followed you around," he pointed out. "It's unsettling." He meant that the idea of having someone follow you in general could be a little creepy, not so much that her following him had been as such. He was more irked than angry with her, for if he was truly upset he would have displayed that with biting words and a display of his strength.

Josh just nodded when she said that her injury wasn't that bad, not sure what else to say to that. Unlike Arielle, Joshua Dale was not an empathetic person. It took a deep level of trust and empathy between another human being before he could consider himself close enough to them for true caring. If Nell was hurt, it would affect him deeply. If Jake was hurt, he would be irked with whatever or whomever had done the deed. But when this stranger appeared injured, Joshua was only going through the motions when it came to inquiring after her health. Not that he was a complete jerk, he just wasn't quite as kind as some might have liked. "Arielle," he mused. "I recognise the name. You were with Nell when Cynthia allegedly passed." In short, she was the 'alibi girl'. That was how she would identify with him, because it meant a lot to know that there was someone who stuck with her.

"I take it you already know my name," he said smoothly, "so I won't bother introducing myself." After all, why would she have followed him all the way down into the dungeons if she wasn't aware of who he was? It wasn't like the Earth elementals to go stalking their counterparts in Fire, after all. Joshua really wasn't trying to be antagonistic, really, it was just a part of his personality that made him sound so suave yet underhanded, almost like it was an unintentional insult. But he was not insulting her, because if he really had a problem with her the Fire graduate wouldn't have expressed concern. "Unless of course this is a case of curiosity killing the cat. But I doubted as much." He shrugged, as if to say that it didn't matter to him either way.

The subject change was unexpected in more ways than one. Not only was he not expecting her to turn the conversation on such a dime, Joshua really hadn't ever thought that an Earth student had an interest. "A bit of pyromania in you, eh?" The thought amused him, and a light sort of smirk blossomed across his features. Holding out his hand, palm up, he winked as a flower made from fire blossomed in his palm, then vanished into smoke. "Why the interest, Arielle?" He was a little intrigued, now. Plus, the fact that she'd helped out his best friend in one of her times of greatest need meant that the girl was automatically cool with him. He wouldn't hurt her even if there was an animosity between them.

Joshua nodded when she tried to explain herself to him, shrugging a little. "I didn't assume that you did." Most people that actually planned to stalk someone were psychopathic, and even though he didn't know Arielle personally he'd never heard any sort of strange rumours about her. Besides, they wouldn't have taken her alibi story seriously if she was some crackpot or nutcase. Not that it really mattered to Joshua either way, as usual. The point was that they had bought her story and Nell's and that they had stopped going after her. That was, after all, the only thing that he had cared about. His friend and her safety were the only things that mattered to him, at least when concerning the war. He'd abandoned his own element to protect her, after all.

He merely waved a hand when she added 'no offence' to the end of her words. "None taken," Josh replied. "I was really close to going for their throats myself." It wasn't fair to do what they had done to Nell, he wasn't alright with that. It made him tense up just thinking about it and so he tried to push the thoughts from his mind. "I was on your side, after all." Or, more specifically, Nell's side. If Earth had abandoned her, he would have been against them as well. Honestly, she had been the one to connect him with the Earth kids. Now he was alright with their kind because of the hospitality and genuine natures they'd displayed around him.

"Oh?" he replied. "What exactly have you heard and seen?" The rumours about him were not kind. Joshua was neither deaf nor dumb to the way that the students of the Academy spread their lies and their gossip, and he'd heard a lot of things about himself. Sometimes there were elements of truth that were exaggerated to some extreme degree, other times he was just sure that they decided to get together and come up with something wild.

Fire representing strength? Joshua frowned thoughtfully, considering that. "I suppose I can see where you're coming from," he admitted. "Our element is almost purely offensive, after all." Earth could be used to make pretty gardens and to change the colours of naturally growing things, whereas Fire was just purely deadly and destructive. You could be like Joshua and learn to manipulate it in small ways as he had with learning how to make shapes, but there wasn't much you could do in terms of non-damaging things. "But there's always stone manipulation. Can't get much stronger than a brick wall, after all." You could, but he was only being metaphorical.

"I think I understand," he said, nodding. He remembered how his mother talked about how she would always have picked Fire first, but how she sometimes envied the Earth elementals because of the beautiful things they could do for their gardens. Maybe it was something like that for Arielle. Joshua, meanwhile, was happy where he was. He wouldn't change it for the world.

Joshua only chuckled when Arielle spoke. It amused him that she was so protective over her friends, mostly because this was one thing on which they could actually relate. "It seems we've got that in common." Nell was his best friend, one of his only friends. He'd not even given siding with his own alliance a thought the moment they had announced that they were going to attack her. Remembering that day in the mess hall and the amount of rage he had felt toward each and every soul in that room that was supportive toward the idea of murdering Nell, he couldn't imagine that any of her friends had been very pleased. Even the Earth students who'd barely known her at the time had rose up to defend her. "I may have a reputation as a loner, but my friends mean the world to me." He blinked slowly, his gray eyes serious. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for someone he trusted. Even though he might not trust someone like Jake, Asha or Philomena quite as much as he trusted Nell, Josh would still give his life to protect them. Friendship was something that meant everything to him.

The slightest hint of a smirk touched Joshua's lips. "Those rumours are probably true." His temper was practically a legend amongst those that knew him and even amongst some that didn't provided they listened to the rumours and gossip of the Academy. Joshua was pretty well-known in the Academy because of the fact that he'd been the leader of the Fire elementals once. If not, his reputation might not have been half as grand. Many were scared of him because of his anger issues and his reputation for violence. "There are others, however, that you'd do best to disregard." Like the ones about he and Nell, for example. She was just a friend--a best friend, perhaps, but a friend all the same. He'd heard ridiculous things about the two of them ever since he'd stood up for her. Not that Joshua cared. Let them talk. Let them all talk. I don't give a damn about any of them. "That sounds about right," he agreed with her. He did indeed like to be left alone more often than not. The irony that she knew this and that she'd still followed him was not lost on Josh.

Decorating? This made him snort in contempt. "Tell that to the professor that nearly strangled me with a vine the other day when he caught me arguing with one of his students." He was being serious in a joking sort of way, though it was definitely hard to tell. Joshua was a very stoic and serious person by nature until he let his guard down around you. His guard around Arielle, whilst it may not be as severe as it was with others, was still very much in place. It had taken years for him to trust most of the friends he had. True, he'd fallen into trusting Nell rather quickly, but that was because she saved his life. That was something that couldn't easily be waved away. "I guess it could be useful for decorating too, though." He shrugged again. He didn't know because he was not an Earth elemental. Fire definitely was not good for that sort of thing.

The question caught Joshua off guard and made him stiffen. He didn't like being questioned--it made him far too uncomfortable. This wasn't so personal, however, and seeing as Arielle answered it herself Joshua decided he would consider replying. "I dried paint with it once," he said in a very blasé tone. "It was taking too long to dry on its own." They'd been redecorating his study and Joshua had been impatient to hang the pictures back on the wall and transform his study back into a usable room. So with a sweep of his hand he'd heated the room and sped up the process. "Doesn't matter," he shrugged when she apologised. He didn't really care.