[ It's an answer in and of itself. Perhaps Alayne knew this all along. ]
They say it's selfish, to want someone you love to be here with you, of all places. But not all of us can go home.
[ Isaac shouldn't go home, not to give himself over to madness and isolation all over again. Just the thought makes Alayne's hands want to ball up into fists at her sides, makes her want to cry or sob or shout at the sky for the world being unfair. Not that those things would win her anything.
So she does nothing at all. ]
Some of us have nothing to go home to.
[ She knows, she knows. ]
The walls of your heart must be very strong or very tall, for hope to live there still.
Maybe. I don't plan on stopping until I can't go on any longer.
[ and it's as close to an admission as it would ever get— and he's not sure why he would give it to this girl instead of anyone else. maybe because his rangers couldn't know; because to them he's a leader, the marshall, the new fixed point. maybe because they have to face the reality that while Mako and Raleigh survived, they had each other, and Herc came from an era where you didn't retire. because to his son it'll look like weakness. because he's a soldier to everyone else.
Alayne, she isn't precisely safe, but she's excused from the shape everyone else would fill around Herc. he knows he's said too much, even in that. he won't visit it again. he's not sure if he feels any better, seeing it written down, instead of just in his head. ]
[ That doesn't sound like hope, she wants to tell him but Alayne suspects that Hercules already knows that. Once again she feels that ache beneath her breastbone, the same ache that she feels whenever Isaac can't sleep or when the ghosts hang thick and heavy around him. When she was a child, Alayne had thought knights to be glimmering, romantic things but every man of honor she's ever met has been broken and sad and alone. Waiting for death or welcoming it; dying too young or too old for their story to be a song.
Alayne knows this confession is a secret. She wants to sink her little bird talons into it and make it a nest all its own, made of feather down and straw. ]
I'm very fond of you, Hercules, did you know that? If I asked if we could be friends, would you say yes?
[ it's half in jest, though that's hard to tell over a text message. he rubs the back of his neck for it, either way. friends are a hard commodity to come by, and in many ways, Herc is sure that her concept of friends and his own are wildly skewed.
(because he'd sent his boy off with his good friend, knowing full well he'd probably never see him again). ]
[ While Herc's definition of friendship skews in one direction, Alayne's skews in another. For the longest time she'd forgotten what friendship meant and instead simply surrounded herself with the helpful and the useful — those that could protect her and those she could benefit from. (Move or be move, Petyr had said and Alayne had been done playing at being a pawn.) ]
Isaac is old enough to be my father, yet I've never had a friend dearer or more true.
[ He's seen the parts of her she tries so hard to hide and he's never judged her for them. If anything, it's made him love her more. Could anyone else make such a claim?
But talk of Isaac subdues her, makes her a little silent and sullen. ]
Soon, I think.
[ Another pause. ]
Perhaps, if you are not too busy, I could see you as well.
[ it isn't that he doesn't want to see her (or maybe, some part of him doesn't, after that little admission; not sure if he can face the doe eyes of her expression and the gentle of her hands), it's just that they've got their work cut out for them. whether or not this is really about finding Isaac, Herc isn't going to do things half way.
[ It isn't no, so Alayne considers that a victory since men of the marshal's disposition were often quite fond of the word. It isn't a shut door or a turned back; by not refusing her outright, Alayne sees the sliver of opportunity left to her (a seam, a crack, a gate left ajar). If she were cruel, she would try to press such an advantage but as it stands the marshal has given her something already. It should and will suffice for now. Alayne doesn't press. ]
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heracleidae) wrote2013-09-06 11:57 pm
( x i i : d 1 ) wow leave
They say it's selfish, to want someone you love to be here with you, of all places.
But not all of us can go home.
[ Isaac shouldn't go home, not to give himself over to madness and isolation all over again. Just the thought makes Alayne's hands want to ball up into fists at her sides, makes her want to cry or sob or shout at the sky for the world being unfair. Not that those things would win her anything.
So she does nothing at all. ]
Some of us have nothing to go home to.
[ She knows, she knows. ]
The walls of your heart must be very strong or very tall, for hope to live there still.
( x i i : d 1 )
I don't plan on stopping until I can't go on any longer.
[ and it's as close to an admission as it would ever get— and he's not sure why he would give it to this girl instead of anyone else. maybe because his rangers couldn't know; because to them he's a leader, the marshall, the new fixed point. maybe because they have to face the reality that while Mako and Raleigh survived, they had each other, and Herc came from an era where you didn't retire. because to his son it'll look like weakness. because he's a soldier to everyone else.
Alayne, she isn't precisely safe, but she's excused from the shape everyone else would fill around Herc. he knows he's said too much, even in that. he won't visit it again. he's not sure if he feels any better, seeing it written down, instead of just in his head. ]
( x i i : d 1 )
Alayne knows this confession is a secret. She wants to sink her little bird talons into it and make it a nest all its own, made of feather down and straw. ]
I'm very fond of you, Hercules, did you know that?
If I asked if we could be friends, would you say yes?
( x i i : d 1 )
[ it's half in jest, though that's hard to tell over a text message. he rubs the back of his neck for it, either way. friends are a hard commodity to come by, and in many ways, Herc is sure that her concept of friends and his own are wildly skewed.
(because he'd sent his boy off with his good friend, knowing full well he'd probably never see him again). ]
But who could say no to that face?
My boys with you yet?
( x i i : d 1 )
Isaac is old enough to be my father, yet I've never had a friend dearer or more true.
[ He's seen the parts of her she tries so hard to hide and he's never judged her for them. If anything, it's made him love her more. Could anyone else make such a claim?
But talk of Isaac subdues her, makes her a little silent and sullen. ]
Soon, I think.
[ Another pause. ]
Perhaps, if you are not too busy, I could see you as well.
( x i i : d 1 )
[ it isn't that he doesn't want to see her (or maybe, some part of him doesn't, after that little admission; not sure if he can face the doe eyes of her expression and the gentle of her hands), it's just that they've got their work cut out for them. whether or not this is really about finding Isaac, Herc isn't going to do things half way.
he never has. ]
( x i i : d 1 )
Very well.