JUNIPER
you think i'm happy because i'm smiling,
but it's the easiest thing to do
Juniper nodded: the understanding in Sunjata's face spoke briefly of similar pasts, parallel ancestral burdens -- as did his statement about leading a revolution against his father. Clearly their trajectories were quite different, but she suspected that both of them knew what it was like to be born into a world that had already decided what it thought of you.but it's the easiest thing to do
"It must have been maddening," Juniper agreed with Sunjata's account. If she wondered whether perhaps there had been more to the Torcher's complaints than just Shaju stirring them up, she said nothing of it now. He'd admitted to mistakes, and she didn't plan to make him enumerate them -- if she wanted the opinion of the people on the ground, she'd ask another Torcher. "I hope it's smoother sailing from here on out, if you'll excuse the nautical reference." Not quite a joke, but she smiled anyway.
"Nephele asked me to take up this role," she answered, but she knew that didn't cover what Sunjata really wanted to know. "I took it to help my people, and ... to prove my grandfather right, I suppose. He used to say that we should reach out to outsiders -- the rest of our people never forgave him, or me, for that. Looking back, I feel like ... if everyone was going to tar me with my grandfather's brush anyway, I might as well do something worth judging."
She laughed, making it into a joke, though it was actually a good bit more personal than she'd intended. Oops. To cover it, she added, "Once I started talking to outsiders -- not even the Ascended themselves, just people who knew an Ascended or two -- it became clear that the situation was too complicated for blanket animosity."
if you looked a little closer,
you'd find my eyes aren't smiling too.
you'd find my eyes aren't smiling too.
