"I use it all the kriffing time," Jyn bites back, gritting her teeth. "Discerning who might be a threat? Knowing how to trap and hunt and fish? Knowing how to approach an animal without frightening it away only to kill it? Ignoring the pleading looks and struggling breath and gaping mouths of a dying creature? Digging that grave beyond the point of exhaustion in order to try and get it done? Promising to keep you from drowning in the spring? All of that is being a soldier. All of that comes from being a soldier."
She thinks she might shatter the mug in her hands. She wants to turn them into fists, wants to resort to them being weapons instead of the fumbling, clumsy things they are. Thinks of smashing the porcelain down onto the concrete of the fountain beneath her, letting the shards pierce the flesh and bone, letting her blood mix in with the water that had brought her here. That had brought them all here.
Cassian wanted them to have the lives they'd never had back home. Dancing lessons, snowball fights, planting seeds and sowing life. But maybe, she thinks, she simply isn't made for it. Maybe her hands, her soul, her existence aren't meant for nurturing or creation. Maybe she'd used up whatever reservoirs she might've had those last moments in the cargo hold going to Scarif, rousing and inspiring troops who were never going to go home ever again, troops who were going to take their last breaths on the sands of a foreign planet. Maybe all she can do is kill. Maybe all she can do is destroy.
She stands, pressing her fingertips against the side of the mug until she can no longer feel the pulsating pain spreading up her hand and into her wrist. Finally flicks her eyes over to his, the flame in hers reduced to pathetic, doused embers.
no subject
She thinks she might shatter the mug in her hands. She wants to turn them into fists, wants to resort to them being weapons instead of the fumbling, clumsy things they are. Thinks of smashing the porcelain down onto the concrete of the fountain beneath her, letting the shards pierce the flesh and bone, letting her blood mix in with the water that had brought her here. That had brought them all here.
Cassian wanted them to have the lives they'd never had back home. Dancing lessons, snowball fights, planting seeds and sowing life. But maybe, she thinks, she simply isn't made for it. Maybe her hands, her soul, her existence aren't meant for nurturing or creation. Maybe she'd used up whatever reservoirs she might've had those last moments in the cargo hold going to Scarif, rousing and inspiring troops who were never going to go home ever again, troops who were going to take their last breaths on the sands of a foreign planet. Maybe all she can do is kill. Maybe all she can do is destroy.
She stands, pressing her fingertips against the side of the mug until she can no longer feel the pulsating pain spreading up her hand and into her wrist. Finally flicks her eyes over to his, the flame in hers reduced to pathetic, doused embers.
"I'm sorry."