[Oh, he's a student? Maketh brightens a little - she can relate to students, most of the time, even if civilians remain confusing.]
The line between civilian and military was blurred in my position. I served the will of the Empire. Sometimes that involved commanding troops. The majority of it was administrative work, though.
[Well. For a while. Maketh decides not to think about that, and does another shot. Why not, she's here to drink.] You are a student? What do you study?
[He nods, interested; he's not really familiar with any of that, but the idea makes sense.]
What part of it did you like best? Like, the commanding part or the administrative stuff?
[Because he doubts those two things could be any more different, so he's curious about if she has a preference and, if so, which it is.
He nods at the question, pushing his glass around idly between his fingers.]
Yeah, I was in my second year. My major was computer science, so like, programming and how computers work and all that.
[He explains just because what 'computer science' entails seems to vary wildly between worlds, from what conversation he's had on the subject while here.]
[Maketh smiles a little, turning the glass over in her hands. People don't usually ask if she likes her work - either she was competent or she wasn't, and the latter would get her replaced. The Empire has no room for weakness or failure. Personal preference has no bearing on it.]
The logistics, I suppose. Patterns always came easily to me.
[And they didn't have personalities or moral qualms. Patterns just were. Pure logic, easy to swallow.]
Very useful, I imagine. My world has great need for such skills. Is it the same in yours?
[Makes sense, from what he knows of her personality so far. He also understands that a lot, because he's the same way; seeing the steps to a solution or putting together facts to solve a puzzle come naturally to him, which has been really helpful recently.
A lot more than his field in school, anyway, and he shakes his head a little.]
Yeah, it's really in demand at home, but here it's been totally unhelpful.
[Hope's weird phones aren't even an operating system he knows, though Rhys did say he'd teach him and hopefully he'll be able to pick it up pretty quickly. But otherwise his talent with technology hasn't helped much here, and he's felt kind of useless overall especially next to all these people who can use swords or do magic or whatever.]
That was the idea, yes. I made sure people were fed, that they had access to medical supplies and housing. We were working on getting some of the younger people educated. It was a difficult time.
[Whether she actually solved any problems or just made them irreversibly worse is something that Maketh has been trying not to think about. She served the Empire for most of her life. Her change of heart probably came too late. Not that she sees the need to tell Chris any of that.
She pushes her glass around a little, before lining it back up with the others.] The technology here is...frustrating. I suppose I'm lucky that I attended a military academy. That part of my training is proving useful here.
That's pretty cool. It sounds like something that'd be really useful here, if you wanted to deal with trying to coordinate it.
[The people here have definitely been more inclined to working independently, including his own group of friends, but some sort of more communal organization might be a good idea. Especially when things like the last few events happen.
He nods again, looking a little more serious.]
The whole 'being able to fight' thing seems to be the most useful skill in this place so far.
[He assumes that's what she means about her military academy training being useful, anyway.]
[She's wary of taking a civilian leadership position. Maketh is confident of her grasp of tactics, but she's stumbled before when it comes to people. She can admit this now. There were a thousand things she never saw, or chose to ignore. This cannot happen again.
Maketh eyes her shot. Chris isn't matching her pace. She probably shouldn't pass out in front of him. Bad form and what not.]
That's part of it, yes. But knowing how to fight and knowing tactics are two different things. I think we'll need more of the latter moving forward.
Yeah? Awesome. If there's anything I can do to help, just uh... Let me know.
[He doesn't like making serious decisions--though he definitely can if he has to--but he'd be interested in helping out in some sort of organizing that's in everyone's best interests. If that's even possible.
He considers that last comment seriously, tapping his fingers idly against his empty glass as he thinks.]
Yeah. Maybe like... There's so many people here with like, totally different skills; some of the people that messaged us during... You know...
[The last event.]
They could make fire, or heal people, or had weapons or whatever else, and offered to help with whatever. So maybe they and others here would be willing to just sort of make what they can do public knowledge? So everyone knows what each person here's capable of, so we all know who to go to for different situations?
[He's not sure how well it would work in practice, but it's really hard to organize a strategic response to a threat if no one knows who or what they're working with.]
[She will. It's important to have good, solid people behind you. And from what she's seen, Chris seems sincere with his desire to help people. There ought to be more people like that.]
That would be the ideal outcome, yes. But in my experience, people with power - real power - rarely share it without some kind of incentive. I've found little to offer anyone. Money has no value here, and our supplies are too limited to offer anyone better rations.
[That's one of the reasons she's been so diligent about exploring. Trying to find things to bribe people with, because Maketh knows - knows - that a time will come when an organized resistance will be needed, and she'll need leverage to convince everyone.]
Like alcohol, you see.
[She smiles a little, and pours herself another drink.]
[He still hasn't poured another shot, still deciding if he's going to or not; he has a pretty high alcohol tolerance, but he doesn't want to push it. Better to stop before he feels any effects, rather than drink enough to have reason to keep doing so.]
Yeah. A lot of people here seem big on the alcohol thing, so it's a good bargaining chip.
'Course it's good for more than just drinking, too.
[It's a disinfectant and, perhaps more importantly, a source a fire. Sure, the wendigo problem might have been taken care of by Rage, but for how long? They thought they'd escaped that nightmare on the mountain only for wendigo to just appear here too, so who knows when they might need a way to make fire. Especially a potentially long-range and explosive way.]
But who knows, I mean, no one who offered to help with the wendigos asked for anything in return. There might just be like, a lot of nice people here, or at least people who know working together's best for everyone.
[Perhaps it would be. There was always an underground trade in contraband booze in the junior Academy, and Maketh hasn't yet encountered an Imperial officer who didn't drink at the end of their shift. She doesn't remember if her parents drank or not, if they could even afford things like that. Probably not, towards the end.]
True. Thankfully we haven't hard to start rationing yet.
[Not really. Maketh hopes they won't. People get unpredictable when they're hungry. And who knows what the gods might put in the food next?]
They may do so now, but it won't last.
[Maketh leans back in her chair.] People learn to protect themselves first, in war. It helps to think of this as a war.
[How to put this in a way that won't be insulting?]
Like, I totally understand wanting to drink to forget that we're all in this shithole of a cave, especially if it's only occasionally or whatever. But it seems like it should be kind of... Low priority?
[And being drunk makes you totally useless in an emergency, but he doesn't say that. Instead he frowns a little at her other comments, understanding but not agreeing.]
So you think that when it comes down to it people'll just be looking out for themselves?
[Maketh shrugs. She agrees, of course. Productivity must come first, always. But people need to unwind as well. Anything coiled too tight for too long eventually breaks.] Of course. Still. It helps, in its own way.
[There's a pause. Maketh just watches him, a little sadly. He's a civilian and she shouldn't be telling him these things. The situation remains what it is, however, and they must survive. They will survive.]
If it comes to that, yes.
[She hopes it won't. Sometimes she has nightmares about the aftermath of the Clone Wars, how her parents had tried so hard to make that damn farm work. She knows what Lothal looks like when it's on fire, what riots sound like, the sorts of things people do when they're starving. And how easy, how very easy it was for the Empire to come in through the chaos and establish a stranglehold.]
Without a strong infrastructure, people turn on each other in desperation. And if we fight each other, we cannot mount a coordinated resistance. Anything less than that will fail.
[Maketh takes a slow drink, trying to see if Chris understands.] Once the gods realize this, they will implement it. It's in their best interest to have us turn on each other.
[He's quiet, gazing off to the side towards the floor, going over her words and, more, his memory of the night on the mountain. There had been a few instances of what Maketh describes--or more specifically, one instance--but the rest of the time they'd been surprisingly united, even in the most dire circumstances. They'd worked together, protected each other, risked their lives to give all of them the best chance to get out alive.
But they'd also known each other for years, and despite fights and clashes of opinion there's a level of loyalty--especially now, among the survivors--that definitely can't be expected from a bunch of people who barely know each other. So while he doesn't believe that everyone would turn on each other, the idea of weaker bonds breaking down in the face of a threat is unfortunately likely.
Chris blinks a few times, pulling himself from his thoughts, and then looks back at Maketh again.]
Implement it how? Do something specifically to make fighting each other have to happen?
[They basically already did that with the wendigos, but it's a more subtle case.]
[The Empire does it all the time. Maketh downs her shot wordlessly. It's not kicking in as fast as she'd like, the blurry softness only just starting to creep up on her.] Favor one group over another, for instance. Only give fresh supplies to some, let the others fend for themselves. Poison the water, make us work for the antidote. Things like that.
I think they'd have to work harder than that though. I mean, a month before the whole wendigo thing started they like... Buried half the people here alive.
[His voice is a little quieter as he says it, the memory not a good one, but he continues anyway.]
Pretty much everyone worked to try to find the people who were buried, even though they didn't have to. Some of them didn't even know anyone who was, they just wanted to help.
[And half the people in the city being trapped underground would've been perfect opportunity for hoarding--or stealing--supplies, or something like that, but as far as he knows no one took advantage of that at all.]
Long term desperation is different. [Maketh sets her glass down, a little ashamed that she knows this.] So far the threats have been singular. Isolated. The wendigo incident was--traumatic.
[Maketh leans back in her chair.]
It would have been different if everyone was starving.
[He wishes he could argue, but he can't; the wendigo event was definitely the longest of the sustained threats here, with the burial event only--although 'only' is somewhat relative here--lasting three days. Back home, their first encounter with the wendigos had actually only been a few hours for him, as he and some of the others had been facing a completely different threat for the first portion of the night.
So he can't argue from experience, though he still isn't sure he agrees. Yes, something like starvation would be enormously stressful, but exhaustion and injuries and the terror of hours or nonstop fighting to survive are as well and he's not sure if there would be a lot of difference. Hopefully he won't have to find out.
The mention of the trauma of the wendigo event catches his attention though, and that he definitely agrees with it. It had been horrific, for many reasons, and it being the second go around for him hadn't made it any less so. Just different.
But her mentioning it is an opening, although he's not entirely sure how much of one.]
Yeah, maybe.
[He pauses a few more seconds, suddenly tempted for another drink, but shifts his gaze from the glass back to Maketh again.]
But um... About the wendigo thing...
[He trails off, not intentionally but because he's trying to decide how much to say.]
I'm gonna guess talking isn't like, your thing, but if you ever want to... I mean, I know how hard it is to...
[It's hard to even say it, and his gaze keeps flickering back to the table as he struggles to keep his voice steady.]
How hard it is to make the choice that you did. So like... No judgement, or whatever.
[He hasn't talked at all about the similar circumstance he'd gone through--hasn't even told anyone other than the people that were there for it--but it's more important that she knows there's someone she can talk to that truly understands, than for him to keep quiet just because it's difficult to think about.]
[Maketh freezes. In another situation, it might have been comical - here she is, surrounded by shot glasses and halfway to drunk with a civilian she barely knows, holding herself completely still. As if she's been struck. As if any of this is important enough to really hurt her.
This is--irrelevant. Meaningless.
Maketh lifts her chin and makes herself sit up straight. Proper posture. Professional.]
It was...logical. That's all.
[She hasn't missed the last part, where he said--
Well. Maketh can guess. She pours herself another drink before the impulse to ask can take hold.]
[He isn't watching her reaction as much as he would normally, since he's still struggling to make sure to keep his composure; he's trying to help, not accidentally worry her or upset her any further. But he does notice how she freezes, and her shift in posture.
He's quiet a few more seconds after her words, then gives a small shrug.]
The part that sucks about being logical is that you can know it's the best choice you had, but it's still... It doesn't make it better.
[Just because it was the smart choice--both in her case and in his--doesn't somehow make it less traumatizing. He really wishes it did.]
[Maketh wavers, trying to hold herself perfectly still, eyes focused on the wall behind Chris. Hands trembling under the table. No eye contact, no, keep your back straight and hold still. She's better than this, she does not want to cry.
It was the best choice. She's very sure of that. She won't be the thing that hurts these people, no, she has a duty to them. Her failures at Lothal will not be repeated.
The people on Lothal, her allies, would shoot her dead if they saw her now.
And yet here is this man - child, really - sitting across from her and attempting to...what?
Be kind, Maketh supposes. He's trying to be kind to her. Even though she damaged him. Has continued to damage him with her talk of tactics and war. And yet here he sits, trying to speak with her. To share an experience that most wouldn't dare consider, let alone speak of. As if she's done something to earn this when Makeh knows she hasn't. She's tried to protect this community in the ways she knows how, but it hasn't worked, hasn't worked at all, people have died.
She ordered Henry to set her on fire. How does someone get over that? How does someone forgive the person who gave the order in the first place?
This sort of thing isn't supposed to be complicated. It's tactics. Psychology. Maketh is supposed to be good at that. The Empire gave her the best education in the galaxy, she should know better. She never has, though, not with people - the details always slip, she never understands when it matters. She doesn't understand Chris right now, wants suddenly - desperately - to ask him about whatever sharp choice he made that's bouncing around his skull right now. Surely he's thinking about it right now - Maketh thinks about the fire a lot, even when she doesn't want to. The look on Henry's face when he...
It's not supposed to matter. She's dead on Lothal, a traitor in all ways, so why does it matter if she dies here too?
Maketh tightens her jaw]
I'm not crying.
[She's not. Officers don't do that. She's just drunk, which is fine - expected, even - and in a few hours she'll be sick and then she'll pass out into a dead sleep. Then she'll wake up, put on her uniform, and dismiss the lingering thoughts with the remnants of her hangover. So it goes. Drink, get lost, wake up sick and then just let it out. Let it go. Pull yourself together and do your job. It's supposed to be easy.]
[If there's one good thing that came out of any of this--any of what happened on the mountain, any of what's happened here--it's that he can understand more. He's always been good with people, genuinely empathetic and good with reading or guessing how someone else might feel. Good at gauging their reactions in a conversation, at figuring out what to say and when in order to make someone feel better. But he'd had a generally sheltered, gentle upbringing as an only child with kind, loving parents; there was a limit on what he could truly empathize with. Many hardships that people he met had gone through he could never imagine dealing with.
And then the night on the mountain had happened and that alone was enough to change everything, but it hadn't stopped there; he'd found himself here, barely a few hours after surviving that awful nightmare. And now he understands more than he ever wants to.
But the same experiences that haunt him now give him the chance to help others, even if it's just the tiniest amount, and might possibly make everything worth it.
He averts his gaze so as not to watch her while she tries to keep her composure, remembering how Emily had done exactly the same thing for him just a few hours earlier, and Maketh's comment earns a quiet response.]
I don't see anything.
[Not just because he's staring at a wall just like she is, but as a small, humorous promise. He 'won't see' as much as necessary, if it turns out she can't hold herself together after all.]
[For a moment, Maketh almost laughs. He doesn't see. No, of course not. She tips her head back, making herself smile, until she's sure - very sure - that her face could pass for normal.]
You are...a strange person, Chris.
[She says it fondly, though. She hasn't met many people like him.]
Tell me about your studies. Computer science, you said?
[It's a distraction, a less dire conversation. Maketh runs a hand through her hair, trying to smile. This could be all right. She's stating to get drunk, but she hasn't scared Chris off yet or - hopefully - said anything to ruin her credibility. There's hope. And she is curious about his world, the things that a student would explore. Computers were never her specialty, but she probably knows enough to follow along.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-03 11:13 pm (UTC)The line between civilian and military was blurred in my position. I served the will of the Empire. Sometimes that involved commanding troops. The majority of it was administrative work, though.
[Well. For a while. Maketh decides not to think about that, and does another shot. Why not, she's here to drink.] You are a student? What do you study?
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-03 11:20 pm (UTC)What part of it did you like best? Like, the commanding part or the administrative stuff?
[Because he doubts those two things could be any more different, so he's curious about if she has a preference and, if so, which it is.
He nods at the question, pushing his glass around idly between his fingers.]
Yeah, I was in my second year. My major was computer science, so like, programming and how computers work and all that.
[He explains just because what 'computer science' entails seems to vary wildly between worlds, from what conversation he's had on the subject while here.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-03 11:26 pm (UTC)The logistics, I suppose. Patterns always came easily to me.
[And they didn't have personalities or moral qualms. Patterns just were. Pure logic, easy to swallow.]
Very useful, I imagine. My world has great need for such skills. Is it the same in yours?
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-03 11:35 pm (UTC)[Makes sense, from what he knows of her personality so far. He also understands that a lot, because he's the same way; seeing the steps to a solution or putting together facts to solve a puzzle come naturally to him, which has been really helpful recently.
A lot more than his field in school, anyway, and he shakes his head a little.]
Yeah, it's really in demand at home, but here it's been totally unhelpful.
[Hope's weird phones aren't even an operating system he knows, though Rhys did say he'd teach him and hopefully he'll be able to pick it up pretty quickly. But otherwise his talent with technology hasn't helped much here, and he's felt kind of useless overall especially next to all these people who can use swords or do magic or whatever.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-03 11:47 pm (UTC)[Whether she actually solved any problems or just made them irreversibly worse is something that Maketh has been trying not to think about. She served the Empire for most of her life. Her change of heart probably came too late. Not that she sees the need to tell Chris any of that.
She pushes her glass around a little, before lining it back up with the others.] The technology here is...frustrating. I suppose I'm lucky that I attended a military academy. That part of my training is proving useful here.
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-03 11:59 pm (UTC)[The people here have definitely been more inclined to working independently, including his own group of friends, but some sort of more communal organization might be a good idea. Especially when things like the last few events happen.
He nods again, looking a little more serious.]
The whole 'being able to fight' thing seems to be the most useful skill in this place so far.
[He assumes that's what she means about her military academy training being useful, anyway.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 12:14 am (UTC)[She's wary of taking a civilian leadership position. Maketh is confident of her grasp of tactics, but she's stumbled before when it comes to people. She can admit this now. There were a thousand things she never saw, or chose to ignore. This cannot happen again.
Maketh eyes her shot. Chris isn't matching her pace. She probably shouldn't pass out in front of him. Bad form and what not.]
That's part of it, yes. But knowing how to fight and knowing tactics are two different things. I think we'll need more of the latter moving forward.
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 12:31 am (UTC)[He doesn't like making serious decisions--though he definitely can if he has to--but he'd be interested in helping out in some sort of organizing that's in everyone's best interests. If that's even possible.
He considers that last comment seriously, tapping his fingers idly against his empty glass as he thinks.]
Yeah. Maybe like... There's so many people here with like, totally different skills; some of the people that messaged us during... You know...
[The last event.]
They could make fire, or heal people, or had weapons or whatever else, and offered to help with whatever. So maybe they and others here would be willing to just sort of make what they can do public knowledge? So everyone knows what each person here's capable of, so we all know who to go to for different situations?
[He's not sure how well it would work in practice, but it's really hard to organize a strategic response to a threat if no one knows who or what they're working with.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 01:09 am (UTC)[She will. It's important to have good, solid people behind you. And from what she's seen, Chris seems sincere with his desire to help people. There ought to be more people like that.]
That would be the ideal outcome, yes. But in my experience, people with power - real power - rarely share it without some kind of incentive. I've found little to offer anyone. Money has no value here, and our supplies are too limited to offer anyone better rations.
[That's one of the reasons she's been so diligent about exploring. Trying to find things to bribe people with, because Maketh knows - knows - that a time will come when an organized resistance will be needed, and she'll need leverage to convince everyone.]
Like alcohol, you see.
[She smiles a little, and pours herself another drink.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 02:02 am (UTC)Yeah. A lot of people here seem big on the alcohol thing, so it's a good bargaining chip.
'Course it's good for more than just drinking, too.
[It's a disinfectant and, perhaps more importantly, a source a fire. Sure, the wendigo problem might have been taken care of by Rage, but for how long? They thought they'd escaped that nightmare on the mountain only for wendigo to just appear here too, so who knows when they might need a way to make fire. Especially a potentially long-range and explosive way.]
But who knows, I mean, no one who offered to help with the wendigos asked for anything in return. There might just be like, a lot of nice people here, or at least people who know working together's best for everyone.
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 02:10 am (UTC)[Perhaps it would be. There was always an underground trade in contraband booze in the junior Academy, and Maketh hasn't yet encountered an Imperial officer who didn't drink at the end of their shift. She doesn't remember if her parents drank or not, if they could even afford things like that. Probably not, towards the end.]
True. Thankfully we haven't hard to start rationing yet.
[Not really. Maketh hopes they won't. People get unpredictable when they're hungry. And who knows what the gods might put in the food next?]
They may do so now, but it won't last.
[Maketh leans back in her chair.] People learn to protect themselves first, in war. It helps to think of this as a war.
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 02:22 am (UTC)[How to put this in a way that won't be insulting?]
Like, I totally understand wanting to drink to forget that we're all in this shithole of a cave, especially if it's only occasionally or whatever. But it seems like it should be kind of... Low priority?
[And being drunk makes you totally useless in an emergency, but he doesn't say that. Instead he frowns a little at her other comments, understanding but not agreeing.]
So you think that when it comes down to it people'll just be looking out for themselves?
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 02:38 am (UTC)[There's a pause. Maketh just watches him, a little sadly. He's a civilian and she shouldn't be telling him these things. The situation remains what it is, however, and they must survive. They will survive.]
If it comes to that, yes.
[She hopes it won't. Sometimes she has nightmares about the aftermath of the Clone Wars, how her parents had tried so hard to make that damn farm work. She knows what Lothal looks like when it's on fire, what riots sound like, the sorts of things people do when they're starving. And how easy, how very easy it was for the Empire to come in through the chaos and establish a stranglehold.]
Without a strong infrastructure, people turn on each other in desperation. And if we fight each other, we cannot mount a coordinated resistance. Anything less than that will fail.
[Maketh takes a slow drink, trying to see if Chris understands.] Once the gods realize this, they will implement it. It's in their best interest to have us turn on each other.
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 02:57 am (UTC)But they'd also known each other for years, and despite fights and clashes of opinion there's a level of loyalty--especially now, among the survivors--that definitely can't be expected from a bunch of people who barely know each other. So while he doesn't believe that everyone would turn on each other, the idea of weaker bonds breaking down in the face of a threat is unfortunately likely.
Chris blinks a few times, pulling himself from his thoughts, and then looks back at Maketh again.]
Implement it how? Do something specifically to make fighting each other have to happen?
[They basically already did that with the wendigos, but it's a more subtle case.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 03:03 am (UTC)[The Empire does it all the time. Maketh downs her shot wordlessly. It's not kicking in as fast as she'd like, the blurry softness only just starting to creep up on her.] Favor one group over another, for instance. Only give fresh supplies to some, let the others fend for themselves. Poison the water, make us work for the antidote. Things like that.
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 03:15 am (UTC)[Though that said--]
I think they'd have to work harder than that though. I mean, a month before the whole wendigo thing started they like... Buried half the people here alive.
[His voice is a little quieter as he says it, the memory not a good one, but he continues anyway.]
Pretty much everyone worked to try to find the people who were buried, even though they didn't have to. Some of them didn't even know anyone who was, they just wanted to help.
[And half the people in the city being trapped underground would've been perfect opportunity for hoarding--or stealing--supplies, or something like that, but as far as he knows no one took advantage of that at all.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 03:19 am (UTC)[Maketh leans back in her chair.]
It would have been different if everyone was starving.
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 03:39 am (UTC)So he can't argue from experience, though he still isn't sure he agrees. Yes, something like starvation would be enormously stressful, but exhaustion and injuries and the terror of hours or nonstop fighting to survive are as well and he's not sure if there would be a lot of difference. Hopefully he won't have to find out.
The mention of the trauma of the wendigo event catches his attention though, and that he definitely agrees with it. It had been horrific, for many reasons, and it being the second go around for him hadn't made it any less so. Just different.
But her mentioning it is an opening, although he's not entirely sure how much of one.]
Yeah, maybe.
[He pauses a few more seconds, suddenly tempted for another drink, but shifts his gaze from the glass back to Maketh again.]
But um... About the wendigo thing...
[He trails off, not intentionally but because he's trying to decide how much to say.]
I'm gonna guess talking isn't like, your thing, but if you ever want to... I mean, I know how hard it is to...
[It's hard to even say it, and his gaze keeps flickering back to the table as he struggles to keep his voice steady.]
How hard it is to make the choice that you did. So like... No judgement, or whatever.
[He hasn't talked at all about the similar circumstance he'd gone through--hasn't even told anyone other than the people that were there for it--but it's more important that she knows there's someone she can talk to that truly understands, than for him to keep quiet just because it's difficult to think about.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 03:48 am (UTC)This is--irrelevant. Meaningless.
Maketh lifts her chin and makes herself sit up straight. Proper posture. Professional.]
It was...logical. That's all.
[She hasn't missed the last part, where he said--
Well. Maketh can guess. She pours herself another drink before the impulse to ask can take hold.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 03:57 am (UTC)He's quiet a few more seconds after her words, then gives a small shrug.]
The part that sucks about being logical is that you can know it's the best choice you had, but it's still... It doesn't make it better.
[Just because it was the smart choice--both in her case and in his--doesn't somehow make it less traumatizing. He really wishes it did.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 04:15 am (UTC)It was the best choice. She's very sure of that. She won't be the thing that hurts these people, no, she has a duty to them. Her failures at Lothal will not be repeated.
The people on Lothal, her allies, would shoot her dead if they saw her now.
And yet here is this man - child, really - sitting across from her and attempting to...what?
Be kind, Maketh supposes. He's trying to be kind to her. Even though she damaged him. Has continued to damage him with her talk of tactics and war. And yet here he sits, trying to speak with her. To share an experience that most wouldn't dare consider, let alone speak of. As if she's done something to earn this when Makeh knows she hasn't. She's tried to protect this community in the ways she knows how, but it hasn't worked, hasn't worked at all, people have died.
She ordered Henry to set her on fire. How does someone get over that? How does someone forgive the person who gave the order in the first place?
This sort of thing isn't supposed to be complicated. It's tactics. Psychology. Maketh is supposed to be good at that. The Empire gave her the best education in the galaxy, she should know better. She never has, though, not with people - the details always slip, she never understands when it matters. She doesn't understand Chris right now, wants suddenly - desperately - to ask him about whatever sharp choice he made that's bouncing around his skull right now. Surely he's thinking about it right now - Maketh thinks about the fire a lot, even when she doesn't want to. The look on Henry's face when he...
It's not supposed to matter. She's dead on Lothal, a traitor in all ways, so why does it matter if she dies here too?
Maketh tightens her jaw]
I'm not crying.
[She's not. Officers don't do that. She's just drunk, which is fine - expected, even - and in a few hours she'll be sick and then she'll pass out into a dead sleep. Then she'll wake up, put on her uniform, and dismiss the lingering thoughts with the remnants of her hangover. So it goes. Drink, get lost, wake up sick and then just let it out. Let it go. Pull yourself together and do your job. It's supposed to be easy.]
[Action]
Date: 2016-03-04 04:34 am (UTC)And then the night on the mountain had happened and that alone was enough to change everything, but it hadn't stopped there; he'd found himself here, barely a few hours after surviving that awful nightmare. And now he understands more than he ever wants to.
But the same experiences that haunt him now give him the chance to help others, even if it's just the tiniest amount, and might possibly make everything worth it.
He averts his gaze so as not to watch her while she tries to keep her composure, remembering how Emily had done exactly the same thing for him just a few hours earlier, and Maketh's comment earns a quiet response.]
I don't see anything.
[Not just because he's staring at a wall just like she is, but as a small, humorous promise. He 'won't see' as much as necessary, if it turns out she can't hold herself together after all.]
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Date: 2016-03-04 03:01 pm (UTC)You are...a strange person, Chris.
[She says it fondly, though. She hasn't met many people like him.]
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Date: 2016-03-04 04:32 pm (UTC)[He offers a small grin with the comment though; it's pretty obvious by her tone that she means it in a good way.]
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Date: 2016-03-04 04:42 pm (UTC)[It's a distraction, a less dire conversation. Maketh runs a hand through her hair, trying to smile. This could be all right. She's stating to get drunk, but she hasn't scared Chris off yet or - hopefully - said anything to ruin her credibility. There's hope. And she is curious about his world, the things that a student would explore. Computers were never her specialty, but she probably knows enough to follow along.]
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