Seren
Hard truths and solid advice. Difficult to hear to someone who wanted quick solutions, but Seren listened all the same, without interjecting or flaring up again. Every question poised called for introspection, and she did him the honor of doing just that. Like she wanted others to do for her. Pause, and think, and breathe until the answers came floating up from the heart.
"It's not... so much what I want to hear, but what I want to see," she responded, and inhaled deeply of the acrid air, until her lungs were full of the Climb. Sulfur and ash, fire and brimstone and undying passion. The embers of starfire, dying and nearly gone - but she could taste it on her tongue. "You know that moment when a person's troubles suddenly stop being heavy, and the darkness gives way in a their eyes? The light that shines through when they suddenly find the way back to hope and a path forward... that's what I want. To see, and give them, and... " She made a vague gesture, losing track of what she meant.
Reaching into her pocket space, the girl withdrew a basket. It had contained an assortment of paint jars, but would serve just as well for pumpkin carcasses, and she handed it to Deimos without a comment.
"After the Slagveld, when I was upset over Atlas, I asked mother what I was here to do, if it wasn't to save the innocent. She told me that I can't save anyone. But that I'm here to help, by inspiring hope, and awe, and bright light in times of darkness. But I... I don't know how to do that. If I can't bring my friends peace by lightening their burdens, then... what can I possibly do for strangers?" The notion of just asking them was... admittedly the kind of self-explanatory thing she had never even considered, and Deimos' point sounded like a miraculous thing, utterly genius.
Even so. It was such a huge thing that Safrin seemed to expect of her, and Seren didn't feel anything at all like someone who might bring beauty, culture or knowledge to others. Not her, with her windtossed hair and bare feet, and hands calloused from swordplay, drenched to the elbows in gore. What did a wild child raised on beaches and in boxing rings know of music and dance and bringing light into the darkness of wounded hearts?
"Maybe she picked the wrong person," she mused as she ducked the seeds that came flying back, thinking of Maeve who checked so many of those boxes. "I want to be all that, you know? So she will be proud. But I don't even know where to begin, or how to stay happy myself when so many around me are troubled and sad." And if they didn't let her try to help... then Seren was lost on how to proceed.
"It's not... so much what I want to hear, but what I want to see," she responded, and inhaled deeply of the acrid air, until her lungs were full of the Climb. Sulfur and ash, fire and brimstone and undying passion. The embers of starfire, dying and nearly gone - but she could taste it on her tongue. "You know that moment when a person's troubles suddenly stop being heavy, and the darkness gives way in a their eyes? The light that shines through when they suddenly find the way back to hope and a path forward... that's what I want. To see, and give them, and... " She made a vague gesture, losing track of what she meant.
Reaching into her pocket space, the girl withdrew a basket. It had contained an assortment of paint jars, but would serve just as well for pumpkin carcasses, and she handed it to Deimos without a comment.
"After the Slagveld, when I was upset over Atlas, I asked mother what I was here to do, if it wasn't to save the innocent. She told me that I can't save anyone. But that I'm here to help, by inspiring hope, and awe, and bright light in times of darkness. But I... I don't know how to do that. If I can't bring my friends peace by lightening their burdens, then... what can I possibly do for strangers?" The notion of just asking them was... admittedly the kind of self-explanatory thing she had never even considered, and Deimos' point sounded like a miraculous thing, utterly genius.
Even so. It was such a huge thing that Safrin seemed to expect of her, and Seren didn't feel anything at all like someone who might bring beauty, culture or knowledge to others. Not her, with her windtossed hair and bare feet, and hands calloused from swordplay, drenched to the elbows in gore. What did a wild child raised on beaches and in boxing rings know of music and dance and bringing light into the darkness of wounded hearts?
"Maybe she picked the wrong person," she mused as she ducked the seeds that came flying back, thinking of Maeve who checked so many of those boxes. "I want to be all that, you know? So she will be proud. But I don't even know where to begin, or how to stay happy myself when so many around me are troubled and sad." And if they didn't let her try to help... then Seren was lost on how to proceed.
Battle born they send us
Covered in our noble blood
Covered in our noble blood
