“Just ask!”
“No!” Dennis knew winning an argument with a literal embodiment of his stubbornness was an uphill battle, but he wasn’t one to back down from a fight. Especially if the fight was over something as important as whether he would need to endure the embarrassment of a rejection for years.
“You and I can rescue someone from an inferno, but you can’t bear to ask a girl’s parents if you might be able to spend some more time with her?”
“You know as well as I do that you’re not Courage!” Dennis glared up at the brown-scaled ox that was his Trait. “And it’s not the same. She’s not in dire need of a husband, especially of a peasant like myself. Her grandparents are clan founders. You know that.”
“And you’re in her clan,” Persistence insisted. “They don’t just take everyone, you know. Has the courage they’ve been teaching you not gotten through your skull yet, or does it only apply when nobody is watching?”
“This is not the same. If I mess up in an emergency, I might have to live with that, but people will encourage me. I’ve seen that happen. But if I ask and they reject me…”
“Then you’re just going to give up and look for another girl in your class?” Goodness, this was painful. Persistence knew that getting Dennis to give up on something was hard, but getting him to start was even harder, sometimes.
Dennis glared at him. “Fine!” he huffed.
Short post, I know, but the restriction for the competition was 250 words. I think I’ll end up doing more off-center posts for this setting before I start the real thing; I don’t have a full plot in mind just yet! (Expect that some things will change before I really start. I’m not often very consistent with setting particulars until I’ve done several revisions of a larger work.)