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4/7/2025, 12:26:48 PM
>SELECTED: “…” You share a glance with Crane, and then with Hail. You say nothing. You and your jungle-fighter protégé have worked on your boundaries in the past month. You don’t overstep your bounds in how things are run, and he won’t overstep his. [Xenophobe]
Part of you feels the need to say something, to give the alien kid a better chance or some more agency in the choice that’s now being thrust upon him. But you picked the wrong gig for taking strays in under your wing, let alone alien ones. Not your fight, not your problem. So you don’t say anything when Hail presses the gun into the kids hands, or when his mother continues to wail as her baby ‘Frohl’ is taken away for a crash course in rebel warfare. Anything for the cause, even if his cause is a lot more bloody and a lot less idealistic than many of those he fights alongside.
“It is what it is.” Hail nods at you, making no apology for the hard steps he’s taking as leader of the veteran rebels. “Better a day as a lion…”
“Than a standard gestation-maturation-childhood phase as a sheep?” This time you don’t hide the roll of the eyes.
You and Hail both know the real reason he’s pressing guns into hands too small to hold them has nothing to do with Libertan-style philosophies.
“Fine. Leave the high-brow slogans to the freedom-thumpers.” Hail frowns, but you get the impression the frown is directed at the world in general rather than just you. “You and I have been out there every day. We know how bad it is, how bad it’s getting. Our success comes with a price. You know it, and I know it. The Savis intend on making an example of us. All of us.”
“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Crane opines absently from the side.
“Ain’t that the fucking truth.” You grunt, though that resonates with you more personally in speaking out-of-turn in front of superior officers and getting slapped down with it.
Hail stares out past the mass tents, towards the thunder of distant guns. “It won’t be long now.”
“Long until what?” You think you know.
Hail’s frown remains steady. “Until the end.”
[1/4]
Part of you feels the need to say something, to give the alien kid a better chance or some more agency in the choice that’s now being thrust upon him. But you picked the wrong gig for taking strays in under your wing, let alone alien ones. Not your fight, not your problem. So you don’t say anything when Hail presses the gun into the kids hands, or when his mother continues to wail as her baby ‘Frohl’ is taken away for a crash course in rebel warfare. Anything for the cause, even if his cause is a lot more bloody and a lot less idealistic than many of those he fights alongside.
“It is what it is.” Hail nods at you, making no apology for the hard steps he’s taking as leader of the veteran rebels. “Better a day as a lion…”
“Than a standard gestation-maturation-childhood phase as a sheep?” This time you don’t hide the roll of the eyes.
You and Hail both know the real reason he’s pressing guns into hands too small to hold them has nothing to do with Libertan-style philosophies.
“Fine. Leave the high-brow slogans to the freedom-thumpers.” Hail frowns, but you get the impression the frown is directed at the world in general rather than just you. “You and I have been out there every day. We know how bad it is, how bad it’s getting. Our success comes with a price. You know it, and I know it. The Savis intend on making an example of us. All of us.”
“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Crane opines absently from the side.
“Ain’t that the fucking truth.” You grunt, though that resonates with you more personally in speaking out-of-turn in front of superior officers and getting slapped down with it.
Hail stares out past the mass tents, towards the thunder of distant guns. “It won’t be long now.”
“Long until what?” You think you know.
Hail’s frown remains steady. “Until the end.”
[1/4]
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