Word Count → 380
The scarred woman smiled as the other agreed to come outside, although the smile faded faintly once she was turned around and leading the Praetorian away from the old schoolhouse. The grass was soft underpaw, and blossoms appeared on the trees, as if unaware of the danger on the wind. A few pale petals floated from their branch and landed on the Optio as she looked back at Myrika again.
Twitching a flower away from her ear, Vesper frowned faintly. The shrugs more or less indicated what she thought of Ithiel’s advice, and the words that followed sounded more truthful. That, she could work with.
“Ithiel’s a soldier,” the coywolf growled, her pale hands finding her nearly nonexistent hips. “So I guess it makes sense he’d think like that. It all probably stopped meaning anything to him anyway.” There was little derision in her tone; sometimes she wished she was capable of not caring, too, although she feared what that would mean for her as a person.
“But you’re right. Halo is here, and she has you to thank.” She waved her hand dismissively in case the other would protest this point. “And…” Her voice trailed off; she realized she didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t used to coddling others, even if this was more than coddling: important, genuine, reassuring.
“I’ve only killed one,” Vesper said out of the blue; she knew with her lust for fighting, it might seem a higher number. One large ear tilted back into her messily cropped mane while its mangled twin twitched. Her eyes fell to her claws. “Just one. And I was—I was a mess. And I’d still probably be a mess even if it was a stranger out to kill me. Because I keep remembering the first one, the fool boy.”
She’d said too much, all irrelevant to the auburn-haired woman’s feelings. If anything, she’d probably made the situation worse. The cocky scout who enjoyed scrapping with others shrank away into an uncertain young woman who hated killing, hating how unnecessary it all was. “There isn’t really any ‘getting over it,’” she murmured. “It’s a life. It had probably gotten to the point where it needed to be taken, or you’d lose someone precious, but it was still a life.”
Vesper Optime by Sie; table code from the Mentors!
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