Normally Sal would make the effort to whine a bit, often in a way that she secretly enjoys whenever her girlfriend starts to fuss over her like this, but for now she rests her hands on her knees and tries her best to sit still. Behave, for once. For all that Anathema's attention is stern, bordering harsh, she still feels a frantic heartbeat in her throat at that touch.
She closes her eyes and tries to focus on the question, instead of the brush of the damp cloth against her cheek, reminding her again of the scar which marrs it. Not everything can be washed away, least of all what she’s done in her life or what’s been done to her in kind.
"It was work," Sal admits. "You remember that freemaker I told you about, Two Lonely Old Men? He said he wanted to stop the wars and the fighting, and maybe finally give people a chance at something better. All he needed to do it was a single, powerful Relic, so my crew was sent to get it. Of course, for all the good a power like that can offer, nobody ever hires me to do anything the nice way."
There's a twitch in her shoulders that she clamps down on, the desire to reach out again, to pull Anathema back into an embrace and stay like that. She tilts her face to lean into the other woman’s palm.
"So we, uh, fought a bunch of people on some big and fancy airships and tried stealing the Relic from the army while they were en route to Weiless. And then the damn Imperium came on their war birds to also steal it, and the cultists and their fucking spooky god-thing —"
This sounds so much worse now that she's having to explain it out loud. Like she broke an important promise, and even worse, forgot it altogether. A hero in some opera would sing about the battles they fought, the wrongs they put to right. This seems more like she spent her whole time away stumbling through an endless stream of escalating battles, somehow pulling through by the skin of her teeth — which is pretty fucking accurate.
“It doesn’t matter. All he wanted in the end was revenge. And whatever it was that I found on the airship — it’s like your angels and your demons and all the fucking weird people here who claim to be some kind of higher-being. It cares as much for peace as a boot on the ant that crushes down on it.”
Sal sighs and hesitantly opens her eyes again. The disappointment in knowing, that for all she and her crew suffered to try and make a difference in the world, that they would walk away empty-handed ought to mean more in the moment. But it’s obvious in those clear blue eyes of hers, a gaze that searches Anathema’s hard expression, almost pleading, that Sal cares far more about what she thinks.
no subject
She closes her eyes and tries to focus on the question, instead of the brush of the damp cloth against her cheek, reminding her again of the scar which marrs it. Not everything can be washed away, least of all what she’s done in her life or what’s been done to her in kind.
"It was work," Sal admits. "You remember that freemaker I told you about, Two Lonely Old Men? He said he wanted to stop the wars and the fighting, and maybe finally give people a chance at something better. All he needed to do it was a single, powerful Relic, so my crew was sent to get it. Of course, for all the good a power like that can offer, nobody ever hires me to do anything the nice way."
There's a twitch in her shoulders that she clamps down on, the desire to reach out again, to pull Anathema back into an embrace and stay like that. She tilts her face to lean into the other woman’s palm.
"So we, uh, fought a bunch of people on some big and fancy airships and tried stealing the Relic from the army while they were en route to Weiless. And then the damn Imperium came on their war birds to also steal it, and the cultists and their fucking spooky god-thing —"
This sounds so much worse now that she's having to explain it out loud. Like she broke an important promise, and even worse, forgot it altogether. A hero in some opera would sing about the battles they fought, the wrongs they put to right. This seems more like she spent her whole time away stumbling through an endless stream of escalating battles, somehow pulling through by the skin of her teeth — which is pretty fucking accurate.
“It doesn’t matter. All he wanted in the end was revenge. And whatever it was that I found on the airship — it’s like your angels and your demons and all the fucking weird people here who claim to be some kind of higher-being. It cares as much for peace as a boot on the ant that crushes down on it.”
Sal sighs and hesitantly opens her eyes again. The disappointment in knowing, that for all she and her crew suffered to try and make a difference in the world, that they would walk away empty-handed ought to mean more in the moment. But it’s obvious in those clear blue eyes of hers, a gaze that searches Anathema’s hard expression, almost pleading, that Sal cares far more about what she thinks.