Rey listens quietly, a frown on her lips and a crease on her unwrinkled brow, she curls her fingers in the fabric of the coat, remembering what Ben told her. I didn't even know you had died he had told her, and the casual way in which he had said it had rubbed everything the wrong way, unsettling her. Then he had died in that pit and left her alone again. The one person she knew who was anything like her.
"I died. Not down there in the darkness. Before it." Her words have a soft edge of confusion. She still doesn't understand. If the people who had kidnapped her and dragged her down into the pit had resurrected her, why would they have thrown her down there to die? She's sure someone else must have been responsible, but she has so many questions and no answers.
"People whisper about the dragon's shadow, like it is impossible or they can't bear to talk about it. Like they forget the world used to be full of them." Not in her lifetime, but she had devoured the stories and books about the wild world before the great dragons, she had run after Thymoeides shadow in the mountains countless times as a girl, imagining what it would be like to freely soar through the air. Even when the war began, and anger was everywhere, she still loved the dragons. They were guardians of the cities. Great, powerful creatures that protected them. She couldn't imagine the world without them even as she had stared off the sunset gate at the sunken skeleton of logistykon.
"I don't think it'd be such a bad thing if dragons were still around." She exhales and draws her knees up, resting her arms and chin on them. She thinks about the hidden egg she rescued and the look Ben had given her. Thorn drops down from her shoulder to bury himself in the sand by her side. Maybe she couldn't understand what happened. Maybe she shouldn't.
"I don't know about that one, but if there's one people didn't know about, there could still be others, couldn't there?" All those dead hatchlings in the pit, all the lives lost. It's too horrible to think something good can't be pulled from all that awful. If only she had any idea of what to do if the egg she saved hatched. Should she set it free? Could she even keep it safe from people like the ones in the city behind them?
"People can't really blame an entire species for what happened, can they?" And yet all the things she had learned after being sent to that temple for being discovered as a dhampir argue otherwise, and that doubt colors her words.
no subject
"I died. Not down there in the darkness. Before it." Her words have a soft edge of confusion. She still doesn't understand. If the people who had kidnapped her and dragged her down into the pit had resurrected her, why would they have thrown her down there to die? She's sure someone else must have been responsible, but she has so many questions and no answers.
"People whisper about the dragon's shadow, like it is impossible or they can't bear to talk about it. Like they forget the world used to be full of them." Not in her lifetime, but she had devoured the stories and books about the wild world before the great dragons, she had run after Thymoeides shadow in the mountains countless times as a girl, imagining what it would be like to freely soar through the air. Even when the war began, and anger was everywhere, she still loved the dragons. They were guardians of the cities. Great, powerful creatures that protected them. She couldn't imagine the world without them even as she had stared off the sunset gate at the sunken skeleton of logistykon.
"I don't think it'd be such a bad thing if dragons were still around." She exhales and draws her knees up, resting her arms and chin on them. She thinks about the hidden egg she rescued and the look Ben had given her. Thorn drops down from her shoulder to bury himself in the sand by her side. Maybe she couldn't understand what happened. Maybe she shouldn't.
"I don't know about that one, but if there's one people didn't know about, there could still be others, couldn't there?" All those dead hatchlings in the pit, all the lives lost. It's too horrible to think something good can't be pulled from all that awful. If only she had any idea of what to do if the egg she saved hatched. Should she set it free? Could she even keep it safe from people like the ones in the city behind them?
"People can't really blame an entire species for what happened, can they?" And yet all the things she had learned after being sent to that temple for being discovered as a dhampir argue otherwise, and that doubt colors her words.