*
Shiekh* - a name worth remembering. It sat ingrained in his head with the rest, burned there. If the rest of the conversation stuck or faded. That would certainly stay; right along with the worrisome image of what Jet’d done.
What he’d been driven to do.
Prehnite snorted ugly, a mean wet sound, sighed and strung his fingers through his hair as if contemplating — everything. He barely wanted to look at her. Let alone hear.. Apatite … he could’ve spat. Whatever she’d been to them, the way she’d gone out? He missed her little; less than that.
She’d been proof of an old and wretched staple that he prayed was well and oft destroyed. They didn’t need any more like her. They didn’t need the imagery projected that they worked that way. Replaceable fodder. They had to at least be the valuable sort — else they’d destroy themselves, like a snake swallowing it’s own tail.
“Oh, Ganymede…I believe if that was truly his nature? You wouldn’t still be here. Lingering like some blighted ghost. You should be dead….or should he? You had the chance to do something, and yet? Here we all are. Alive, well, and you looking a margin better off than him - his change in rank aside.”
He had to sneer at her for that, even if it lacked in sharpness when cast over puffy rimmed eyes. He was glad Jet had survived, that the goal of their mission had been completed successfully, and yet? In the aftermath of it all - he wished almost that Jet hadn’t. That he’d saved himself the pain of it; especially with every second that passed - every little ticking of emotion that ramped ever upwards and bled into a skitter of panic — what the hell were they doing repeating their enemies mistakes? Keeping her alive.
She should’ve lain dead. Right there in the cell, or with the Senshi who’s life she’d cost - she shouldn’t have continued to exist at all in such a way as to lure them to their ends. She was not a flame to a moth, he realized this belatedly; not some goodly beacon that promised safe harbor off of rocky shores.
No, Ganymede was a siren. In her offer of salvation lay only demise. Inevitable rebirth for some. Complete destruction for others.
Knowing that didn’t ease his upset though.
“Where Jet was trained, likely mercilessly…you were, what? Given birthright into this. To pick and choose at whim those you feel most compelled to aid — even if it’s at the worst possible time to do so. There is something to be said for tempting fate and it’s consequences.” sighed loosely as he rolled his eyes for the mention of Metallia; her eyes and her ears.
How much was one to stomach before they said stop? There were ways to get things done — human limits — and if the goddess of all that had granted them powers with her shades of gray and roiling black chasms of endless armies; who ruled them as a whole. If it was her purview to cast him into the Rift for having thoughts and feelings?
He could think of worse fates - worse ends, even, than simply dying.
“Besides, just because I have been terrible does not mean I wish to stomach such things anymore. No more than it means I’ll make excuses for my past actions - nor the ones that lay in my future. We can make it better for those who come after us, though, can’t we? Isn’t that the point — yours, *ours*. The crux of this ridiculously imbalanced and endless fight against an ever-turning wheel. We’re all like Sisyphus. Which is why I want you *dead*, you see, so they can live. At least until we can learn to make it less miserably so - do you understand that?” Especially if ‘death sentences’ was how Jet was going to go on handling things, if he promoted the PR nightmare of beheading their members mid-battle; for whatever ******** reason he could not divine in that moment.
He thought of himself and the other thirteen, both old and new. How none of them seemed to be fans of corruption and fodder style fighting. At least — he didn’t think any of them were, not those who’d grown up with it, not Jet or Sylvite or - they certainly weren’t letting them be killed like threshed wheat either, though maybe that was the befit of being armed with actual sharp steel instead of cosmic, magical swords?
