10-22-2015, 03:33 PM
Her eyes burned. The grit of sand from dry winter winds. The sleeplessness of the nights that followed.
Ekene's dreams were plagued with demons reignited by the deaths at the refinery. What comfort was there to offer this further loss? The empty promise of sacrifice for the greater good? That someday the tragedy might mean something? Natalie sat silent vigil while he twitched and cowered in sleep. The deep rhythm of steady breathing surrounded them; colleagues and other refugees, a den of strangers. She wasn't sure what welcome sleep would offer, so waited for exhaustion instead.
By day she longed to be beyond the embassy walls, but leaving required an escort she was loathe to organise for its dependence on the Legion's cooperation. She marked herself distinct from them by refusing to engage beyond formalities, shielding the unfair accusation from her gaze and unwilling to risk meeting the possibility of indoctrinated acceptance in return. Anger warred with the grief and guilt of what she had been party to. Azu's face. The kids she had been teaching for months.
The power that had filled her, ripped away when it might have made a difference, by her own inadequacies.
If someone had offered her an escape, she imagined taking it. A bottle of something strong might have done just as well. Oblivion or solace, either one respite enough to tear herself down and rebuild hard as ice. In the meantime she refortified by shutting everything and everyone out. Burying herself in the rote but necessary work of camp. The light that had always been a comfort taunted her from beyond reach. In moments when her exhausted mind wandered, she recalled the bomb in the hospital. Then even older memories, of Alvis' warnings and blood in an alley.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Blinked around the burn in her eyes.
The legionnaires had been called to the courtyard. Danjou had nothing to say she wished to hear, so she made herself pointedly scarce. She sensed a reckoning outside; he'd not addressed his men at all since the refinery, nor offered any counter to the rumours that rode in its bloody wake. He'd bind his legionnaires to him now, and she didn't want to witness his justification. She knew the charm of his tongue. She'd fallen for it.
The chore that had occupied her suddenly seemed obscene in its redundancy, and she stood with an abruptness that drew brief glances from those around her as she retreated in search of solitude.
Edited by Natalie Grey, Nov 1 2015, 01:57 PM.
Ekene's dreams were plagued with demons reignited by the deaths at the refinery. What comfort was there to offer this further loss? The empty promise of sacrifice for the greater good? That someday the tragedy might mean something? Natalie sat silent vigil while he twitched and cowered in sleep. The deep rhythm of steady breathing surrounded them; colleagues and other refugees, a den of strangers. She wasn't sure what welcome sleep would offer, so waited for exhaustion instead.
By day she longed to be beyond the embassy walls, but leaving required an escort she was loathe to organise for its dependence on the Legion's cooperation. She marked herself distinct from them by refusing to engage beyond formalities, shielding the unfair accusation from her gaze and unwilling to risk meeting the possibility of indoctrinated acceptance in return. Anger warred with the grief and guilt of what she had been party to. Azu's face. The kids she had been teaching for months.
The power that had filled her, ripped away when it might have made a difference, by her own inadequacies.
If someone had offered her an escape, she imagined taking it. A bottle of something strong might have done just as well. Oblivion or solace, either one respite enough to tear herself down and rebuild hard as ice. In the meantime she refortified by shutting everything and everyone out. Burying herself in the rote but necessary work of camp. The light that had always been a comfort taunted her from beyond reach. In moments when her exhausted mind wandered, she recalled the bomb in the hospital. Then even older memories, of Alvis' warnings and blood in an alley.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Blinked around the burn in her eyes.
The legionnaires had been called to the courtyard. Danjou had nothing to say she wished to hear, so she made herself pointedly scarce. She sensed a reckoning outside; he'd not addressed his men at all since the refinery, nor offered any counter to the rumours that rode in its bloody wake. He'd bind his legionnaires to him now, and she didn't want to witness his justification. She knew the charm of his tongue. She'd fallen for it.
The chore that had occupied her suddenly seemed obscene in its redundancy, and she stood with an abruptness that drew brief glances from those around her as she retreated in search of solitude.
Edited by Natalie Grey, Nov 1 2015, 01:57 PM.