"Lark and I talked about transformations," among other things. "How
changing hurts. It's supposed to."
"There's less technology. Some science. Sildroher don't have much use for
technology, and I only spent a single summer on land in human form, so I
can't tell you much of the lives of mortals." It was a summer that altered
the course of lives, and the climate around the northern seas, true. But
still only a summer. "Many of them fear magic, even some of the ones who
want to possess or use it. They would have been frightened of us, if they
knew what we were."
"I'd agree with him," because he does. Both in the practical sense and the much less practical sense. And the second one is the one he thinks matters.
He nods along with what she has to say until she's finished and then he offers his own information.
"My world's the opposite: plenty of tech and no magic, at least not that I've found." He leans back and stares at the water. "I'll admit, I don't have a lot of tolerance for that kind of fear. That kind of cowardice. I've seen it hurt too many people. After all, there are people who feel that way about technology too. Too many."
"That particular sort of cowardice seems rarer here," Ulla remarks. She
imagines that comes as a relief to some people. It's mostly a jarring
change to her. "There are cowards in any race, sildroher included. People
who are afraid of anything or anyone different."
She grew up among a sea of whispered rumors, ostracized by most of her own
people.
"Of course, I suppose I'm not quite sildroher anymore. There's only one of
whatever I am."
"I'd have to agree," he says with a dip of his head, a nod towards her. "Which makes it all the more jarring when you see it come up. Thankfully, the cowards have a lot less power here."
He's had his anger front and center the last few days, which is why he doesn't, can't hide it. The idea of people treating her as less than. As something to be afraid of. And because it's not so close, not so deep, he can pick it up and put it aside and give her a wry smile.
She takes in that anger without comment, assuming it has to do with the
other person from his world. With the mess she's stayed out of. She doesn't
really think anyone would be angry on her behalf.
And she shrugs. "We use a tool in our transformations. Mine was corrupted,
so I came back different. I couldn't go home anyway, so it doesn't much
matter what shape I took. This one serves me well enough." She's gotten
used to it.
Kepler has spent his life finding people who were behind roadblocks put in front of them by cowards and assholes and helping them shine. Sometimes, that involved some terrible shit? But that was never the part he relished, the part he wanted.
"May I ask what the difference is? If it's awkward. you can just say. I don't mind hearing 'no'."
"I was born with a fish tail, not an eel's." Functionally, not a
significant difference. She could never have convinced the other sildroher
to accept her back this way, but that door had closed before she tried her
knife despite knowing it had been used to spill mortal blood. She still
survived, and she made it back to the sea even if her tail was different.
"Glad I didn't bring eel, then," he says with a faint smile and it's obvious that he's considering what she's said, what she's shared. He glances down at her tail.
"Does it bother you? What tail you have?" A pause before. "That rule applies for anything I ask. And feel free to turn a question or two on me."
He nods, frowns, plucks another piece of fruit and considers.
"Are you interested in the whole graduation thing? Just... at all. I chose to come here. As an inmate, but I still chose. Is that... well. I guess what I'm asking is: do you have a goal? Something you want?"
Ulla studies him for a moment, debating whether to answer.
"And if graduating might require stripping away the only thing left that I
want?" She isn't sure she believes it's possible without giving up her
revenge. "Lark thinks it's possible to graduate without losing that. I'm
not certain I believe him."
"I was always ambitious." Ulla knows how to want, but only out of anger
these days. "Everything else I've wanted went badly wrong. What was left
in the end was vengeance."
That's what she doesn't know whether she'll be allowed to hang onto
if she wants to graduate.
“Yeah,” he says as he reaches over for another piece of fruit, “That’s how I died too.”
He waves it lightly towards her.
“The vengeance. The… nothing else.” He considers it for a moment. “And yeah, I guess the crash and burn of my dreams. That happened… a little before then. I didn’t think of it. There was a month or so between.”
"It was a matter of moments, for me." The two are intrinsically linked
because they were bound up in the same awful night. She lost her goals,
her people, and the single person who mattered most to her in one fell
swoop. "Between losing everything else and choosing vengeance."
The choice was quick. She was still waiting to achieve it.
He tosses the bite into his mouth, chews and swallows and considers it for a moment. Thinks about it. Shakes his head.
"I think a part of me still hoped. That I could salvage something. Get my vengeance and make something out of it."
He reaches over for another piece of fruit.
"But there was definitely a point where I decided the revenge? More important than that chance. That after everything that happened, it was just a delusion I was using to stay alive."
He almost reaches for a fruit, changes his mind, and let his hands settle in his lap. It takes him a minute or so, and there's a lot that goes through his mind. When he speaks, it starts slow. And slowly gets back to a normal speed for him.
"I think... the person I was? It was the truth for him. I think... he was doomed. Because what happened, the problems? They started before I knew they were problems. And I couldn't see them before they exploded."
Ulla is quiet for a moment too, considering that. Eventually, she says, "I
knew I was swimming into problems. But I did it anyway. I just didn't
realize how big the problems would be. I was in the way of someone else's
ambition, and I underestimated the lengths to which he would go."
None of this touches the real reason she chose vengeance. It was never
Roffe's betrayal that was the tipping point. It was Signy's.
He nods to that and he looks out, away. He can bare himself this way, share these things, but he needs a little distance. His practical side knows it isn’t as effective, that there’s something to looking at someone when you say things like this. But his heart is too full and heavy and hot even thinking about it now to venture it.
“There aren’t many things that are just… true. There’s always exceptions. Always factors. Always… possibilities. And most of the time? That’s? A great thing. But. There was someone who. It was. An impossibility that he would turn on me. That he’d ever be disloyal. And in the moment where he did, I almost felt.
“Broken. Like the world was moving forward but I? I was stuck in place. Unwilling to move on. Being torn apart by the force. Because what I was seeing? Couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be reality. I didn’t want it to be reality. Because no matter how rough things got, no matter how dire. Dangerous. No matter what we were asked to do? We’d always done it together. And I didn’t even know how to… be different from that.”
His shoulders buck just the once before he swallows and reaches for a piece of fruit again.
“Surprises like that are a sonofabitch. I’m sorry.”
Oh. If she were in human form right now, Ulla thinks she might
cry. It's too familiar. It tears at a wound that never healed over in the
first place. She's grateful he isn't looking at her, so she has a chance
to compose herself a little.
Her voice is raw when she answers, full of old pain and quiet anger. "I
had someone like that too. Her ambition was intertwined with mine.
Sildroher magic works through music, and we were a perfect match for
duets. For years, it was the two of us. Then our performance caught the
attention of the prince, and it was the three of us. When he turned
on me and left me for dead, she chose him."
She isn't looking at Kepler any more than he looked at her, Ulla's gaze
firmly on the sand in front of her. "She came first for me, always. I
realized too late that what I was to her was a refuge. She left me
when she found another safe rock to cling to."
Ulla would have done anything for Signy. She did do anything for
Signy; that boy's death would weigh more on her conscience if she hadn't
discarded most of her scruples when she swore revenge.
He hasn’t found many people who get that. Who let themselves go that deep, so far, that the way you see the world is through a filter of ‘us’ instead of ‘me’.
He listens to the story and his heart aches for her. It aches for him, again. It makes him want to wrap around Jacobi and shake him. It makes him think of a moment on a space ship so different from this one and saying goodbye and knowing-
Knowing he has one thing he wants and nothing else mattered.
“Do you think she understood? How you loved her?”
And so she doesn’t feel alone-
“That’s the part that killed me, really. In… the figurative sense, here. Maybe in the literal sense. Hearts are funny like that.”
"I don't think she did." Ulla wonders sometimes if Signy was capable of
understanding how much Ulla loved her. Then she wonders how she could
possibly not know, when they were so closely entwined, sharing
secrets and wrapped around each other.
"Roffe, the prince. He saw that she'd fallen in love with him. He
threatened to lead her on, promise to marry her, and then break her heart.
That's how he convinced me to do what he wanted. And yet he still stole my
knife to use as leverage, in case I didn't love Signy enough"
Neither of them realized just how much Ulla loved Signy, not even when
Roffe was using it against Ulla.
In the first betrayal, the one that preceded the night Ulla lost
everything, "Signy helped him steal it."
He's keeping his eyes elsewhere. He thinks? It's probably best for both of them this way. They're connecting on one level, the important one. More of it than that might actually start to hurt. Something beyond the ache that this discussion was.
There's a dozen things he wants to say to that. But none of the words come. He's angry. And he feels this welling up of sympathy. And he's heartbroken. And he wants to rip both of them to pieces. And he wants to do something for her.
"Which one do you want revenge on?"
Obviously, the answer could be both. But for him, there'd be one.
Ulla could have moved past any number of things that Signy did to her. But
one instant that served as the tipping point. They've come far enough now
that she teeters on the edge of telling him. After an excruciating moment
of indecision, she does.
"When I was lying there in agony, I asked for my knife back to end my
suffering. And she looked to him for permission." If Roffe had
asked it, would Signy really have left her to die slowly and painfully,
without even the mercy of a swift death? Ulla supposes she'll never know
for certain. Signy turned to Roffe, and Ulla turned to rage rather than
oblivion.
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no subject
"Lark and I talked about transformations," among other things. "How changing hurts. It's supposed to."
"There's less technology. Some science. Sildroher don't have much use for technology, and I only spent a single summer on land in human form, so I can't tell you much of the lives of mortals." It was a summer that altered the course of lives, and the climate around the northern seas, true. But still only a summer. "Many of them fear magic, even some of the ones who want to possess or use it. They would have been frightened of us, if they knew what we were."
no subject
He nods along with what she has to say until she's finished and then he offers his own information.
"My world's the opposite: plenty of tech and no magic, at least not that I've found." He leans back and stares at the water. "I'll admit, I don't have a lot of tolerance for that kind of fear. That kind of cowardice. I've seen it hurt too many people. After all, there are people who feel that way about technology too. Too many."
no subject
"That particular sort of cowardice seems rarer here," Ulla remarks. She imagines that comes as a relief to some people. It's mostly a jarring change to her. "There are cowards in any race, sildroher included. People who are afraid of anything or anyone different."
She grew up among a sea of whispered rumors, ostracized by most of her own people.
"Of course, I suppose I'm not quite sildroher anymore. There's only one of whatever I am."
no subject
He's had his anger front and center the last few days, which is why he doesn't, can't hide it. The idea of people treating her as less than. As something to be afraid of. And because it's not so close, not so deep, he can pick it up and put it aside and give her a wry smile.
"That's hard. Even if it's special."
no subject
She takes in that anger without comment, assuming it has to do with the other person from his world. With the mess she's stayed out of. She doesn't really think anyone would be angry on her behalf.
And she shrugs. "We use a tool in our transformations. Mine was corrupted, so I came back different. I couldn't go home anyway, so it doesn't much matter what shape I took. This one serves me well enough." She's gotten used to it.
no subject
"May I ask what the difference is? If it's awkward. you can just say. I don't mind hearing 'no'."
no subject
"I was born with a fish tail, not an eel's." Functionally, not a significant difference. She could never have convinced the other sildroher to accept her back this way, but that door had closed before she tried her knife despite knowing it had been used to spill mortal blood. She still survived, and she made it back to the sea even if her tail was different.
no subject
"Glad I didn't bring eel, then," he says with a faint smile and it's obvious that he's considering what she's said, what she's shared. He glances down at her tail.
"Does it bother you? What tail you have?" A pause before. "That rule applies for anything I ask. And feel free to turn a question or two on me."
no subject
Ulla doesn't laugh at his joke, but she does smile. She would have eaten eel regardless.
"Navigating the Barge would be even harder if I couldn't slither," she remarks dryly. "It's fine. I've grown used to it."
no subject
"Are you interested in the whole graduation thing? Just... at all. I chose to come here. As an inmate, but I still chose. Is that... well. I guess what I'm asking is: do you have a goal? Something you want?"
no subject
Ulla studies him for a moment, debating whether to answer.
"And if graduating might require stripping away the only thing left that I want?" She isn't sure she believes it's possible without giving up her revenge. "Lark thinks it's possible to graduate without losing that. I'm not certain I believe him."
no subject
“If what you want is that important, I’d have to agree. But I think… graduation? For you? Might be about finding something else you want too.”
no subject
"I was always ambitious." Ulla knows how to want, but only out of anger these days. "Everything else I've wanted went badly wrong. What was left in the end was vengeance."
That's what she doesn't know whether she'll be allowed to hang onto if she wants to graduate.
no subject
He waves it lightly towards her.
“The vengeance. The… nothing else.” He considers it for a moment. “And yeah, I guess the crash and burn of my dreams. That happened… a little before then. I didn’t think of it. There was a month or so between.”
no subject
It's more understanding than she was expecting..
"It was a matter of moments, for me." The two are intrinsically linked because they were bound up in the same awful night. She lost her goals, her people, and the single person who mattered most to her in one fell swoop. "Between losing everything else and choosing vengeance."
The choice was quick. She was still waiting to achieve it.
no subject
"I think a part of me still hoped. That I could salvage something. Get my vengeance and make something out of it."
He reaches over for another piece of fruit.
"But there was definitely a point where I decided the revenge? More important than that chance. That after everything that happened, it was just a delusion I was using to stay alive."
no subject
"What do you think now?" Ulla wonders. Now that he's been on the Barge all this time. Now that he's graduated.
no subject
"I think... the person I was? It was the truth for him. I think... he was doomed. Because what happened, the problems? They started before I knew they were problems. And I couldn't see them before they exploded."
no subject
Ulla is quiet for a moment too, considering that. Eventually, she says, "I knew I was swimming into problems. But I did it anyway. I just didn't realize how big the problems would be. I was in the way of someone else's ambition, and I underestimated the lengths to which he would go."
None of this touches the real reason she chose vengeance. It was never Roffe's betrayal that was the tipping point. It was Signy's.
no subject
“There aren’t many things that are just… true. There’s always exceptions. Always factors. Always… possibilities. And most of the time? That’s? A great thing. But. There was someone who. It was. An impossibility that he would turn on me. That he’d ever be disloyal. And in the moment where he did, I almost felt.
“Broken. Like the world was moving forward but I? I was stuck in place. Unwilling to move on. Being torn apart by the force. Because what I was seeing? Couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be reality. I didn’t want it to be reality. Because no matter how rough things got, no matter how dire. Dangerous. No matter what we were asked to do? We’d always done it together. And I didn’t even know how to… be different from that.”
His shoulders buck just the once before he swallows and reaches for a piece of fruit again.
“Surprises like that are a sonofabitch. I’m sorry.”
no subject
Oh. If she were in human form right now, Ulla thinks she might cry. It's too familiar. It tears at a wound that never healed over in the first place. She's grateful he isn't looking at her, so she has a chance to compose herself a little.
Her voice is raw when she answers, full of old pain and quiet anger. "I had someone like that too. Her ambition was intertwined with mine. Sildroher magic works through music, and we were a perfect match for duets. For years, it was the two of us. Then our performance caught the attention of the prince, and it was the three of us. When he turned on me and left me for dead, she chose him."
She isn't looking at Kepler any more than he looked at her, Ulla's gaze firmly on the sand in front of her. "She came first for me, always. I realized too late that what I was to her was a refuge. She left me when she found another safe rock to cling to."
Ulla would have done anything for Signy. She did do anything for Signy; that boy's death would weigh more on her conscience if she hadn't discarded most of her scruples when she swore revenge.
no subject
He listens to the story and his heart aches for her. It aches for him, again. It makes him want to wrap around Jacobi and shake him. It makes him think of a moment on a space ship so different from this one and saying goodbye and knowing-
Knowing he has one thing he wants and nothing else mattered.
“Do you think she understood? How you loved her?”
And so she doesn’t feel alone-
“That’s the part that killed me, really. In… the figurative sense, here. Maybe in the literal sense. Hearts are funny like that.”
no subject
"I don't think she did." Ulla wonders sometimes if Signy was capable of understanding how much Ulla loved her. Then she wonders how she could possibly not know, when they were so closely entwined, sharing secrets and wrapped around each other.
"Roffe, the prince. He saw that she'd fallen in love with him. He threatened to lead her on, promise to marry her, and then break her heart. That's how he convinced me to do what he wanted. And yet he still stole my knife to use as leverage, in case I didn't love Signy enough" Neither of them realized just how much Ulla loved Signy, not even when Roffe was using it against Ulla.
In the first betrayal, the one that preceded the night Ulla lost everything, "Signy helped him steal it."
no subject
He's keeping his eyes elsewhere. He thinks? It's probably best for both of them this way. They're connecting on one level, the important one. More of it than that might actually start to hurt. Something beyond the ache that this discussion was.
There's a dozen things he wants to say to that. But none of the words come. He's angry. And he feels this welling up of sympathy. And he's heartbroken. And he wants to rip both of them to pieces. And he wants to do something for her.
"Which one do you want revenge on?"
Obviously, the answer could be both. But for him, there'd be one.
no subject
"Both," although as always, "Roffe matters less."
Ulla could have moved past any number of things that Signy did to her. But one instant that served as the tipping point. They've come far enough now that she teeters on the edge of telling him. After an excruciating moment of indecision, she does.
"When I was lying there in agony, I asked for my knife back to end my suffering. And she looked to him for permission." If Roffe had asked it, would Signy really have left her to die slowly and painfully, without even the mercy of a swift death? Ulla supposes she'll never know for certain. Signy turned to Roffe, and Ulla turned to rage rather than oblivion.
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