I found my foundation changed by your patience
There’s no way they could have known the solution, but Evie is grateful for the tentative conclusion, no matter how late in the game. An end before any grievous losses is an end she’ll take any day - all the more now because of the contrasting end of the war. Evie is a hopeful woman at heart, but there are some things that run too deep, and her first instinct to feel it is buried by storied losses. When she feels it now, she doesn’t say it aloud.
“Only so much, though - we couldn’t have prepared for enemies from space. I don’t want us to beat ourselves up for not knowing how to prepare or outmaneuver an enemy like them.” Hindsight provides clarity that can too easily be used to diminish the efforts they’d all put forth. The Evergreen would rather rejoice in their tentative victory than pore over past choices - at least for now. It’s the first day she’s felt like she’ll have energy to spare now that it won’t be spent fretting and preparing and she doesn’t want to spare a single moment on scrutiny if she can help it. Hopefully her husband won’t want to either today.
Huffing a laugh when he blows at her fringe, the weight of his head in the crook of her neck pleasantly grounding, Evie closes her eyes and tilts her cheek closer both to linger in the feeling and to remove some of his access to her hair. Not that it would impede him if he chose to use his magic of course. “Very different. For all they tried, the Family weren’t very sympathetic enemies like the Voice could be. And we were capable of bringing back anyone infected.” The same couldn’t be said of the Ascended - no matter how some of them had tried. It makes an old, scarred pain ache in her chest to remember, but it’s the sort of grief that doesn’t linger long these days.
“Only so much, though - we couldn’t have prepared for enemies from space. I don’t want us to beat ourselves up for not knowing how to prepare or outmaneuver an enemy like them.” Hindsight provides clarity that can too easily be used to diminish the efforts they’d all put forth. The Evergreen would rather rejoice in their tentative victory than pore over past choices - at least for now. It’s the first day she’s felt like she’ll have energy to spare now that it won’t be spent fretting and preparing and she doesn’t want to spare a single moment on scrutiny if she can help it. Hopefully her husband won’t want to either today.
Huffing a laugh when he blows at her fringe, the weight of his head in the crook of her neck pleasantly grounding, Evie closes her eyes and tilts her cheek closer both to linger in the feeling and to remove some of his access to her hair. Not that it would impede him if he chose to use his magic of course. “Very different. For all they tried, the Family weren’t very sympathetic enemies like the Voice could be. And we were capable of bringing back anyone infected.” The same couldn’t be said of the Ascended - no matter how some of them had tried. It makes an old, scarred pain ache in her chest to remember, but it’s the sort of grief that doesn’t linger long these days.
No one has ever made me feel this safe, this free, this me
Evie
