There was no lie there, Adette would have lost a fight with him quicker than it could get started right now. Her body felt sapped, the adrenaline pounding through her veins had subsided hours ago, and was replace with a deep tried, and an increasingly pressing sense of paranoia.
"Yes, everyone who lives in Domepoli 1 have all the money. This one is number 7. You don't want to see what 9 looks like this time of night." She pitied them, more than anything, no one should have to live like this. She had treasured it when it was all she knew, but she thought of how so many people in to the outside world had more food than they could eat, warmth and clothes in abundance... and how these people had lived so long on so little.
"I'm no leader, and I really... don't want to be. Give me a squad of ugly old men and let me blow something up, or break something apart. I don't think I would make a very good Baroness, especially since I heard the pay rate just dropped dramatically." Adette pulled off her over sized gloves and held her bare hands out towards the fires warmth.
She sat quietly for a long moment, listening to the sounds of the city all around her, rejoicing, and grieving all at once. "Something big is going to happen tomorrow, I don't know what it is but I can feel it in the air. I'm scared, but I'm ready for it." She swallowed the lump in her throat and blurted out words that she had been holding in her mouth since his epic rescue in the hanger. "It's very hard to be around you. It's not you fault, you're just to well put together. When the fighting here is over, and things have been settled... I think I want to go back to the Chalice. But there are moment where I wonder what it would be like to share that shitty little house with you. I wonder if a 'normal' life is even an option for me anymore, and if so... what that would even mean anyways? I know things could never, would never work out for 'us', if 'us' was a thing that ever existed at all." She paused, her eyes held a soft focus on the flickering red embers, Adette dared not look at him. " After what I've done to Yasuba, to Micheal it divine justice that it should be you I've become snagged on. But... you're not good for me. And I've accepted that. When this is over, there won't be anything between us anymore." Adette paused, she felt better now that it was off her chest and out in the late night air.
Nine, then, would be the one Able and Bravo star had been assigned to take. He hoped they were staying in their mechs and battle armor tonight, grateful populace or no.
When she started to speak it seemed to all spill out of her mouth at once, until he couldn't hold on, all objections swept downstream. The things she said hammered at his chest each time.
"Whatever it is I will be...I do not know what my feelings are for you because I have no experience of this. You were raised with it, I was not. But Ranna helped me articulate it somewhat and I have been learning. If my duty keeps me here after this campaign is done I will do it, but it will be bitter and cold without you." He moved as if to go over to her, shifting on his log, but couldn't go, knew she'd retreat away from him as he'd been. Irony of ironies, after he'd pushed her initial advances away. "I am not good for you? I have not been this close to anyone since what I did to my sibkin, and you will throw that away?" He could feel his pride ready to catch him. He was getting the words out before it pounced, brought him under its control again and forced him to make a stiff-faced exit.
"I've throw away a lot of things over the years, and this isn't one of them. Perhaps, 'putting it away' is more like it. Away on a high shelf where I can remember it with out feeling it." Adette was tried, she rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I can't go on like we where. It's so much. To intoxicating, to easy. To perfect. And to know that no matter how much explaining is done, you and I will never feel things the same way, never understand the other completely no matter how we tried." Adette got to her feet, putting her gloves back on. "I watched Yasuba get down on his knees and sob like a child, begging me to come back to him. What I did to him was a crime, that I should hold such power over so fine a man. I don't deserve to be allowed to love anyone else, and then to inevitably hurt them so deeply." She brushed off her bottom.
"I don't know how I can explain it any better than that." In all her weeks alone, she had only decide this this because no matter how she tried she could seem to choose Resnick over Micheal in her mind, while all the while part of her still longed for Yasuba. If her heart was so fickle, than wouldn't it better to give it to no one at all? And if she did give in, and give herself over to his beastly charms, what then? Would she had to be assimilated into his ways? And how would he act when she did to him exactly what she had done to every man before him? No. This train has to stop, Adette wanted off.
"It will be dawn soon, we had better get some rest. There some stale bread and tea in the house. There won't be time for breakfast so it would be better to eat up now. Plus there is a fire in the hearth already, it's warmer than the ground." When the fighting was over, she would quit him, but right now, the fighting was a long way from over.
Truthfully, he wanted to see the house, to pick up the chipped cups and scavenged toys that had been with her from child to woman.
"You cannot know if you do not try. You cannot feed your guilt every opportunity that comes your way. I went down that road. It leads precisely nowhere." He stood too. The light was warm and flattered his features, making him look less gruff, less bitten by experience. But his eyes narrowed. "Jin Yasuba will beg you. I beg noone." His pride had finally caught up with him, and besideswhich he had not understood her offer. Later he might crawl in with her or allow her to crawl in with him. But tonight he'd sleep on an inflatable mattress with someone's elbow in his eye, or in his mech's cockpit.
He only then realized that they'd been having this little spat in the middle of a party. He glared at anyone who dared to look as if this was any way unusual. The apocalyptic mood had been infectious anyway, and their was hardly the only breakup (or reunion) happening.
He turned to storm off, wishing desperately for his dress uniform, with its long cape, that would sweep around as he did so.
He walked away rather mechanically, maniacally focused on not looking back, climbed the wall and was gone into the night. Noone seemed inclined to want to pursue him.
That night, he watched the inhabitants of the hangar from inside his mech's cockpit, willing himself back to the state of cold, ambitious indifference he'd been in six months ago. If she does not deserve it, then neither do you, sibkin-slayer. Perhaps your genechildren will erase the stain on your honor, but not you, and not her.
He slept there, a position guaranteed to cause cramps to the back, knees and neck. As he did, he saw her framed by the firelight again, and even more beautiful for it, burning a piece of paper in her hand. Then with horror he realized her hand was a mech's fist, bloody and covered in glasstic shards...
Adette watched him go, her eyes chasing after him into the darkness. She had half a mind to run after him, but the other half kept her firmly rooted in place.
She was frozen there until a strong hand clapped her on the shoulder. Adette turned and looking into the worn eyes of her eldest brother. He hadn't wanted to accept the stories at first, that Adette had told him of the outside world, but now no one could deny.
"You made your bed, little sister, now you have to lay in it." Adette nodded, she knew he was right. "You have powerful tastes. This Micheal must be a hell of a man for you to turn this fellow away. I know that look in your eyes." All at once, her other brother came out of no where, did they share some kind of weird telepathy or what? "You'd have to be blind to not see it. Your swoon, your sigh. It's so obvious." He poked his sister in the cheek with a calloused finger. "Don't deny it." The only people in the the world who thought of her as a 'lil sis' instead of a big one. "Screw you guys. I'm going to bed." Adette swept away from them and off towards their little house.
Adette laid awake in her hammock for a long time, but sleep was calling more powerful than her racing thoughts. Before she fell asleep before she could get to deep into an argument with herself, she closed out, leaving the sounds of the world far away.
There was no lie there, Adette would have lost a fight with him quicker than it could get started right now. Her body felt sapped, the adrenaline pounding through her veins had subsided hours ago, and was replace with a deep tried, and an increasingly pressing sense of paranoia.
"Yes, everyone who lives in Domepoli 1 have all the money. This one is number 7. You don't want to see what 9 looks like this time of night." She pitied them, more than anything, no one should have to live like this. She had treasured it when it was all she knew, but she thought of how so many people in to the outside world had more food than they could eat, warmth and clothes in abundance... and how these people had lived so long on so little.
"I'm no leader, and I really... don't want to be. Give me a squad of ugly old men and let me blow something up, or break something apart. I don't think I would make a very good Baroness, especially since I heard the pay rate just dropped dramatically." Adette pulled off her over sized gloves and held her bare hands out towards the fires warmth.
She sat quietly for a long moment, listening to the sounds of the city all around her, rejoicing, and grieving all at once.
"Something big is going to happen tomorrow, I don't know what it is but I can feel it in the air. I'm scared, but I'm ready for it." She swallowed the lump in her throat and blurted out words that she had been holding in her mouth since his epic rescue in the hanger.
"It's very hard to be around you. It's not you fault, you're just to well put together. When the fighting here is over, and things have been settled... I think I want to go back to the Chalice. But there are moment where I wonder what it would be like to share that shitty little house with you. I wonder if a 'normal' life is even an option for me anymore, and if so... what that would even mean anyways? I know things could never, would never work out for 'us', if 'us' was a thing that ever existed at all." She paused, her eyes held a soft focus on the flickering red embers, Adette dared not look at him. " After what I've done to Yasuba, to Micheal it divine justice that it should be you I've become snagged on. But... you're not good for me. And I've accepted that. When this is over, there won't be anything between us anymore." Adette paused, she felt better now that it was off her chest and out in the late night air.
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When she started to speak it seemed to all spill out of her mouth at once, until he couldn't hold on, all objections swept downstream. The things she said hammered at his chest each time.
"Whatever it is I will be...I do not know what my feelings are for you because I have no experience of this. You were raised with it, I was not. But Ranna helped me articulate it somewhat and I have been learning. If my duty keeps me here after this campaign is done I will do it, but it will be bitter and cold without you." He moved as if to go over to her, shifting on his log, but couldn't go, knew she'd retreat away from him as he'd been. Irony of ironies, after he'd pushed her initial advances away. "I am not good for you? I have not been this close to anyone since what I did to my sibkin, and you will throw that away?" He could feel his pride ready to catch him. He was getting the words out before it pounced, brought him under its control again and forced him to make a stiff-faced exit.
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"I've throw away a lot of things over the years, and this isn't one of them. Perhaps, 'putting it away' is more like it. Away on a high shelf where I can remember it with out feeling it." Adette was tried, she rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I can't go on like we where. It's so much. To intoxicating, to easy. To perfect. And to know that no matter how much explaining is done, you and I will never feel things the same way, never understand the other completely no matter how we tried." Adette got to her feet, putting her gloves back on.
"I watched Yasuba get down on his knees and sob like a child, begging me to come back to him. What I did to him was a crime, that I should hold such power over so fine a man. I don't deserve to be allowed to love anyone else, and then to inevitably hurt them so deeply." She brushed off her bottom.
"I don't know how I can explain it any better than that." In all her weeks alone, she had only decide this this because no matter how she tried she could seem to choose Resnick over Micheal in her mind, while all the while part of her still longed for Yasuba. If her heart was so fickle, than wouldn't it better to give it to no one at all?
And if she did give in, and give herself over to his beastly charms, what then? Would she had to be assimilated into his ways? And how would he act when she did to him exactly what she had done to every man before him?
No. This train has to stop, Adette wanted off.
"It will be dawn soon, we had better get some rest. There some stale bread and tea in the house. There won't be time for breakfast so it would be better to eat up now. Plus there is a fire in the hearth already, it's warmer than the ground."
When the fighting was over, she would quit him, but right now, the fighting was a long way from over.
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"You cannot know if you do not try. You cannot feed your guilt every opportunity that comes your way. I went down that road. It leads precisely nowhere." He stood too. The light was warm and flattered his features, making him look less gruff, less bitten by experience. But his eyes narrowed. "Jin Yasuba will beg you. I beg noone." His pride had finally caught up with him, and besideswhich he had not understood her offer. Later he might crawl in with her or allow her to crawl in with him. But tonight he'd sleep on an inflatable mattress with someone's elbow in his eye, or in his mech's cockpit.
He only then realized that they'd been having this little spat in the middle of a party. He glared at anyone who dared to look as if this was any way unusual. The apocalyptic mood had been infectious anyway, and their was hardly the only breakup (or reunion) happening.
He turned to storm off, wishing desperately for his dress uniform, with its long cape, that would sweep around as he did so.
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"That's what I'm afraid of." Though her answer was short, her voice filled with an uncontrollable softness, and longing.
Adette reached out to stop him, but found her feet very much frozen in place.
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That night, he watched the inhabitants of the hangar from inside his mech's cockpit, willing himself back to the state of cold, ambitious indifference he'd been in six months ago. If she does not deserve it, then neither do you, sibkin-slayer. Perhaps your genechildren will erase the stain on your honor, but not you, and not her.
He slept there, a position guaranteed to cause cramps to the back, knees and neck. As he did, he saw her framed by the firelight again, and even more beautiful for it, burning a piece of paper in her hand. Then with horror he realized her hand was a mech's fist, bloody and covered in glasstic shards...
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Adette watched him go, her eyes chasing after him into the darkness. She had half a mind to run after him, but the other half kept her firmly rooted in place.
She was frozen there until a strong hand clapped her on the shoulder. Adette turned and looking into the worn eyes of her eldest brother. He hadn't wanted to accept the stories at first, that Adette had told him of the outside world, but now no one could deny.
"You made your bed, little sister, now you have to lay in it."
Adette nodded, she knew he was right.
"You have powerful tastes. This Micheal must be a hell of a man for you to turn this fellow away. I know that look in your eyes." All at once, her other brother came out of no where, did they share some kind of weird telepathy or what?
"You'd have to be blind to not see it. Your swoon, your sigh. It's so obvious." He poked his sister in the cheek with a calloused finger. "Don't deny it."
The only people in the the world who thought of her as a 'lil sis' instead of a big one.
"Screw you guys. I'm going to bed." Adette swept away from them and off towards their little house.
Adette laid awake in her hammock for a long time, but sleep was calling more powerful than her racing thoughts. Before she fell asleep before she could get to deep into an argument with herself, she closed out, leaving the sounds of the world far away.
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