The night the lights went out

Anju

Don't come over, don't get too close to me
And dear god don't be too good to me

Anju's lip trembles, and it's as damning as averted eyes or a bowed head on the stoic woman. "I don't," she whispers, but it's a vain excuse when Anju and Dragoon are synonyms, and saying even this much threatens to force a schism that will break the woman long before it breaks the role. Here and now on unofficial business she can tell herself it doesn't count as treason to distinguish the two, but when she faces him again in the daylight? There will be no such allowances.

But he gets it, of course he does. "Clever cub," she murmurs, and tries to pretend her heart doesn't break to see valor painted on his young face. Anju lifts a hand to cup his face and this time she doesn't retreat like a coward. She lingers there for moments unknown, looking for something his eyes that she can't find anymore. A pouty-faced boy, perhaps. An uncertain teen with blunt training sword in hand. She might have swayed and dissuaded those versions of him. Might have saved them. His determination is beautiful, but damning - and damn her, too, for believing in him enough to hope.

"Stay that way, Koa. Remember what we taught you." A childhood of hide-and-seek with watered down Dragoon tactics of ambushing and stalking that - far earlier than she'd hoped - had evolved into weapons training and patrol schedules. She can't know anything he plans to do, so he'll have to outfox her. If he can achieve that, Anju knows she will be able to face Mahina in Mort's halls without regret. She'll be able to tell her that she left Koa with all the skill and knowledge she could possibly impart, a protection more long-lived than Anju can hope to provide as a guardian. "And if the time comes," her voice goes somber and serious, "do not hesitate." They had both been robbed of goodbyes once, and Anju won't have them taken again, even if this all ends up with this moment becoming morbid presumption and nothing more. "Know I love you, and that there is nothing you can do to me - as Anju, not as Captain - that I would not forgive." Even a dagger to the heart.

I'm not proud of it, please
But I want it to sting