[ which Herc isn't sure if that would be true or not, but it isn't about hard truths. Isaac is missing and it worries Alayne, so they'll look for him. Herc knows what that's like— even the whisper of someone not being where they should. ]
[ Alayne doesn't want hard truths and she does; she wants to know and she doesn't. The truth, so often, was a painful thing to hold. That's why she put it aside so often for lies more easily swallowed. Still, despite all of her dancing around the subject, she's tempted to ask: ]
Do you think he's gone?
[ He wouldn't lie to her. Maybe blunt down a few of his rough edges for her benefit, but the marshal was always honest. (Why was she doing this to herself?) ]
[ he's not too good with lies and he's not too good with truths, but Herc wouldn't agree that he was strong with the gray scale in between either. he couldn't comfort his boy when his mother was gone, couldn't lie to him that she was coming back; all he did was what he was used to doing. fighting.
he's still not sure he made the right choice. he's not sure he's telling Alayne the right thing, either. ]
[ He's like John in many ways, though not entirely. While the Master Chief gave Alayne the impression of someone who simply failed to understand things like human emotion, Hercules seemed battened down and shorn up tight. Not incapable of these things, but perhaps tired of them; perhaps simply poor at them.
She isn't sure if she's grateful for his answer, but every message that comes fills a space that would otherwise be occupied by the lack of Isaac. ]
Half hope is better than no hope at all, isn't it?
[ that's what the Jaegers had been, that's what Herc had always stood for. any shot was better than no shot, and if you've got any shot, you go for it. ]
You're gonna hear a lot of people rag on that kind of thing. Can't listen to them.
[ There's that word again, hope. Such a dangerous, powerful, upsetting thing; it has been Alayne's only friend and her greatest enemy in the past. With Isaac missing, she finds herself at odds with it once more, unsure whether or not she should chase after it or simply give herself over to bitterness. ]
[ and he's seen those soldiers, but those aren't the soldiers that agreed to jump into thousand pound behemoths to fight off an alien invasion. they aren't the soldiers that backed the program, that agreed that humanity, that trust in more than a gun was how to win a war. the entire Jaeger program was founded on hope. and that's how civilians like Raleigh and Yancy work just fine with people like Herc. ]
[ He's different than Master Chief in that way; Raleigh as well. Too often Alayne finds John's realities to be too stark and too harsh to embrace fully. But Hercules and his rangers, as rough as they were, were capable of something warm in comparison.
It should make Alayne wary, nervous of how easily it could lull her, but flowers turn their faces to the sun for a reason. All living things wish to thrive, in the end; not wither and die, cold and alone. ]
[ that isn't even the half of it. this war, it was unlike anything the earth had seen, and it had called the human race to achieve greater heights than perhaps they had been ready to reach for. going to the moon was easy— learning how to really be together, as nations, as individuals— it'd been harder than they thought. ]
[ After Arya had left, Raleigh had spoken to Alayne about war and loss and how love was a knife. Caring about other people made a person bold, but it could also slip between one's ribs like a blade, leaving you to bleed out once it's gone. He had told her about Mako, then; about a great love and an even greater loss.
It had brought them closer in the end. Grief often does. ]
I know that very many people died — rangers and commonfolk alike.
[ I know your son died. He told me without ever saying the words and I'd confessed to him much the same when we were aboard the cursed ship of the stars. ]
[ Kaiju, that is what their monsters are called. Alayne tries to imagine what they are like — whether they breathe fire like dragons or if they walk on two legs like giants. But she does not dare speak the word aloud. True monsters come when they are called. ]
I cannot imagine a world where mankind does not war with itself. Nor can I imagine a world where love does not end in tragedy.
[ There is a pause, followed eventually by another message. ]
Despite his armor of hope, I think Raleigh is sad underneath. Are you, marshal?
[ because it is; the nights that are late and Herc is honest with himself, he knows the whole damn thing is a tragedy. he sees what he's given up for the good of the world, and he hopes it's enough. he hopes that losing his brother, his wife's death, that going into the service and losing his boy, his best friend, will have made a difference in the world. that now that the war against the kaiju is over, the Earth won't turn back on itself.
he hopes because he has nothing left— just himself and a dog that he'll outlive (if he makes it that far). ]
[ 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 )
Marshal Hansen, have you seen Engineer Clarke?
( x i i : d 1 )
He not with you?
( x i i : d 1 )
I thought perhaps he might have been called away by work, but all of his things remain in order.
( x i i : d 1 )
I'll let my rangers know.
( x i i : d 1 )
[ More like he told her to pull on her shoes, but there is no spitting hairs with Chuck. ]
But any word you could spread would be appreciated.
I know he's probably busy somewhere.
He'll probably laugh to know I worried so much, sending out search parties and the like.
( x i i : d 1 )
[ which Herc isn't sure if that would be true or not, but it isn't about hard truths. Isaac is missing and it worries Alayne, so they'll look for him. Herc knows what that's like— even the whisper of someone not being where they should. ]
( x i i : d 1 )
Do you think he's gone?
[ He wouldn't lie to her. Maybe blunt down a few of his rough edges for her benefit, but the marshal was always honest. (Why was she doing this to herself?) ]
( x i i : d 1 )
[ he's not too good with lies and he's not too good with truths, but Herc wouldn't agree that he was strong with the gray scale in between either. he couldn't comfort his boy when his mother was gone, couldn't lie to him that she was coming back; all he did was what he was used to doing. fighting.
he's still not sure he made the right choice. he's not sure he's telling Alayne the right thing, either. ]
( x i i : d 1 )
She isn't sure if she's grateful for his answer, but every message that comes fills a space that would otherwise be occupied by the lack of Isaac. ]
Half hope is better than no hope at all, isn't it?
( x i i : d 1 )
[ that's what the Jaegers had been, that's what Herc had always stood for. any shot was better than no shot, and if you've got any shot, you go for it. ]
You're gonna hear a lot of people rag on that kind of thing. Can't listen to them.
( x i i : d 1 )
Such things make you sound like Raleigh.
[ He had said something much the same. ]
I've never known soldiers to be very hopeful.
( x i i : d 1 )
[ and he's seen those soldiers, but those aren't the soldiers that agreed to jump into thousand pound behemoths to fight off an alien invasion. they aren't the soldiers that backed the program, that agreed that humanity, that trust in more than a gun was how to win a war. the entire Jaeger program was founded on hope. and that's how civilians like Raleigh and Yancy work just fine with people like Herc. ]
( x i i : d 1 )
[ He's different than Master Chief in that way; Raleigh as well. Too often Alayne finds John's realities to be too stark and too harsh to embrace fully. But Hercules and his rangers, as rough as they were, were capable of something warm in comparison.
It should make Alayne wary, nervous of how easily it could lull her, but flowers turn their faces to the sun for a reason. All living things wish to thrive, in the end; not wither and die, cold and alone. ]
I imagine you've fought a very strange war.
( x i i : d 1 )
What do you know about that?
( x i i : d 1 )
It had brought them closer in the end. Grief often does. ]
I know that very many people died — rangers and commonfolk alike.
[ I know your son died. He told me without ever saying the words and I'd confessed to him much the same when we were aboard the cursed ship of the stars. ]
Monsters came out of the sea.
But love saved you.
( x i i : d 1 )
It was different before the kaiju. [i was different.] It's strange because we weren't nations against each other. We were fighting for humanity.
I don't think you're going to find many soldiers like us.
( x i i : d 1 )
I cannot imagine a world where mankind does not war with itself.
Nor can I imagine a world where love does not end in tragedy.
[ There is a pause, followed eventually by another message. ]
Despite his armor of hope, I think Raleigh is sad underneath.
Are you, marshal?
( x i i : d 1 ) wow i'm sorry
[ because it is; the nights that are late and Herc is honest with himself, he knows the whole damn thing is a tragedy. he sees what he's given up for the good of the world, and he hopes it's enough. he hopes that losing his brother, his wife's death, that going into the service and losing his boy, his best friend, will have made a difference in the world. that now that the war against the kaiju is over, the Earth won't turn back on itself.
he hopes because he has nothing left— just himself and a dog that he'll outlive (if he makes it that far). ]
( 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.