They walk in and close the door behind them, then wrap their arms around him, leaning against his chest. They stay there for a moment, their body still. “This is nice.”
“Good.” They sit down on the couch and pull out their orb, little streaks of salmon and light indigo curling over the surface. “This Flood is strange, but at least it affects our bodies rather than our minds.”
"Oh, yeah, it could be way worse," he says, sitting, "I know some people don't like it, but touching someone every once in a while is mild. Comparatively."
They lean over, lightly resting their head on his shoulder. Warmth spreads through them and settles in their chest. The indigo streaks on their orb bloom, not eclipsing the black, but taking up more surface area.
“I talked to Tendi about it,” Avalon says. “She suggested thinking about the good parts of what happened, or the parts that went better than they could have.”
“The fortress that we saw in the dream Flood — you thought of that as a failure because lives were lost despite winning the battle, right? What else did you accomplish by winning?”
"That would have been... Jago, I think. We denied them use of one little fortress, out at the end of the fortifications. Nothing much, in my mind, considering how many casualties we had."
“Nothing much, but it was still something. You could have cut them off from supplies, or something similar. Like when we were paired the first time and you removed my powers. I still tried to kill Hakkai, but I was less successful than I would have been.”
“That could be a place to start, letting yourself feel like it had meaning.” This is going to take a while, and require more people than just them. Expressing his emotions could help, but if they have no idea how to express theirs, they also have no way of helping him express his.
"It could be," he allows, "it's certainly a better way of looking at the whole thing." This is what he likes about Avalon, they often offer a point of view he wouldn't have considered.
"To some extent. Van Voytz likes Gaunt, he wouldn't send us to die for no reason. There was some strategy there, I'm sure." And Van Voytz wasn't, in his experience, the type of officer to throw lives away for no reason.
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They walk in and close the door behind them, then wrap their arms around him, leaning against his chest. They stay there for a moment, their body still. “This is nice.”
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“How are you doing otherwise?”
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“Good.” They sit down on the couch and pull out their orb, little streaks of salmon and light indigo curling over the surface. “This Flood is strange, but at least it affects our bodies rather than our minds.”
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They lean over, lightly resting their head on his shoulder. Warmth spreads through them and settles in their chest. The indigo streaks on their orb bloom, not eclipsing the black, but taking up more surface area.
“What kinds of things would be worse for you?”
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He settles an arm around their shoulders.
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Or the reality-warping Flood that Hanna had caused.
“When something like that happens again, I might be able to help.” They have no idea what they will do if he expresses his emotions more strongly.
“Have you talked to Will or Malcolm about it?”
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“I talked to Tendi about it,” Avalon says. “She suggested thinking about the good parts of what happened, or the parts that went better than they could have.”
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“The fortress that we saw in the dream Flood — you thought of that as a failure because lives were lost despite winning the battle, right? What else did you accomplish by winning?”
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“Nothing much, but it was still something. You could have cut them off from supplies, or something similar. Like when we were paired the first time and you removed my powers. I still tried to kill Hakkai, but I was less successful than I would have been.”
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Different people need different things. And sometimes people just...need to feel bad for a while.
“If that were true, would it change how you feel?”
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“That could be a place to start, letting yourself feel like it had meaning.” This is going to take a while, and require more people than just them. Expressing his emotions could help, but if they have no idea how to express theirs, they also have no way of helping him express his.
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“Is it a realistic way of looking at it?” They might have seen it in the dream Flood, but seeing it and experiencing it are two different things.
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“Everyone in that situation made mistakes.” As far as they can tell. “Maybe you or your commanders learned something from it.”
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"I fucking hope so. Otherwise they're idiots."