They? she thinks to ask, but bites the inside of her cheek instead. She recalls bits and pieces of Kira's conversation with her - the shifting nature of his gaze as it darted around the room, as though he expected there to be ears and eyes within the grain of the wood, waiting for him to speak too much, reveal too much - before descending upon him like a wild animal.
"I don't think we arrive through the fountain," he'd said. "The bottom is solid, and the water doesn't heal injuries. I think they do something to us--drug us maybe, to keep us asleep, while they put us in clothes and heal us. Then they put us in the fountain when no one is around, and we wake up." She'd asked him who 'they' was then, too, the way her tongued itched to ask now. He'd said they'd never found anyone. Used the term "overseer." She'd felt the bile rise up in her throat like a volcano when he'd first shared the information with her, but now it only produces a faint gurgling underneath the surface. She isn't particularly pleased with the idea of being someone's prisoner, someone's pet in a cage, but -
At the same time -
It's allowed her this - it's allowed her Cassian.
She's been afraid to question it too much, been afraid to demand too many answers out of fear that it'll lead to retribution in the form of his absence. A permanent kind.
At the weight of his forehead against her shoulder, she gently places both of their multi-tools down by her feet, shifts herself so she's behind him - chest pressed to his back, legs straddling his hips - and wraps her arms around him with strength and steadiness. She rests her chin on his shoulder and kisses his temple.
She runs the tip of her tongue along the ridges of the roof of her mouth, biting back a comment about how it feels like he already is fighting her, in his own way. An empty bed, a vacant gaze, a falsified smile - they all felt like their own blaster bolts, aimed squarely at her chest.
But she knows what he means.
Of course she knows.
"Our prisons are the ones we carry within us," she says softly into his ear. "We've spent lifetimes building them; we can't expect to be able to escape them so quickly." Her eyes drift over to the multi-tools. "We're children of war. Everything we've ever done has been to fight, and to survive, and to kill. But we don't have to live like that anymore." She turns, shifts her gaze to the side of his face, presses her lips to the back of his shoulder. "These don't have to be weapons, if we don't want them to be."
no subject
"I don't think we arrive through the fountain," he'd said. "The bottom is solid, and the water doesn't heal injuries. I think they do something to us--drug us maybe, to keep us asleep, while they put us in clothes and heal us. Then they put us in the fountain when no one is around, and we wake up." She'd asked him who 'they' was then, too, the way her tongued itched to ask now. He'd said they'd never found anyone. Used the term "overseer." She'd felt the bile rise up in her throat like a volcano when he'd first shared the information with her, but now it only produces a faint gurgling underneath the surface. She isn't particularly pleased with the idea of being someone's prisoner, someone's pet in a cage, but -
At the same time -
It's allowed her this - it's allowed her Cassian.
She's been afraid to question it too much, been afraid to demand too many answers out of fear that it'll lead to retribution in the form of his absence. A permanent kind.
At the weight of his forehead against her shoulder, she gently places both of their multi-tools down by her feet, shifts herself so she's behind him - chest pressed to his back, legs straddling his hips - and wraps her arms around him with strength and steadiness. She rests her chin on his shoulder and kisses his temple.
She runs the tip of her tongue along the ridges of the roof of her mouth, biting back a comment about how it feels like he already is fighting her, in his own way. An empty bed, a vacant gaze, a falsified smile - they all felt like their own blaster bolts, aimed squarely at her chest.
But she knows what he means.
Of course she knows.
"Our prisons are the ones we carry within us," she says softly into his ear. "We've spent lifetimes building them; we can't expect to be able to escape them so quickly." Her eyes drift over to the multi-tools. "We're children of war. Everything we've ever done has been to fight, and to survive, and to kill. But we don't have to live like that anymore." She turns, shifts her gaze to the side of his face, presses her lips to the back of his shoulder. "These don't have to be weapons, if we don't want them to be."