et tu, Samuel?

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? When The Voice appeared distant and high, staring down at him, Sam knew she was displeased. Fear bloomed in his chest but something like indignation along with it, because he realised that he knew he had done nothing wrong. It was this knowledge that allowed him to keep a steady stare into the Voice's eyes throughout her speech, this knowledge that let him listen to all of it with an increasingly baffled rather than terrified expression. "..I can explain it, actually, yes." Sam said, voice beginning quiet then raising in volume with a frown. "The way you gave us to protect the Grounders put a lot of our weakest at risk. It would have been...horribly mistimed and I can't see how it could have ended in anything but massacre." He'd never spoken so plainly to the Voice before: a rush of adrenaline went through him and there was a part of his brain begging him to stop, but Sam found he couldn't. "I suspected you were against me in that vote. I still hold onto that position, though." He held up his gloved hand. "This was different. This was something I could do, a sacrifice that only I had to make, to help people. ..Isn't...that...good? Honourable, even? It's not a case of Old Gods against us here. This was going to save lives, mother, in a way that our plan wasn't. I was able to make this choice without putting anyone else at risk." While Sam still referred to the Voice as 'mother', there was definitely something more of a biting tone to the way he said the word.