There was no way he could have known about that part of her father's message. His not having seen it had been a point of contention, all those years ago, one of those if onlys she'd rattled off in her head earlier. It was the part that most stuck with her, though, now twofold painful: first, because when she'd initially heard it, she had never once been happy, then, here, because she had found happiness for a little while and then lost it. The former, as it turned out, was infinitely preferable to the latter. At least then, she hadn't known what she was missing. At least she hadn't yet been foolish enough to let herself believe that was something a person like her could ever have.
It cut just as deeply now, not least because it was a statement that expected an answer rather than a recorded hologram. "You aim higher than I do," she settled on in response. She didn't know how to say if she had been happy or not. This, being true, seemed like the best way of handling it. "I'm here. I'm alive. And it's not a bad life. I never really thought I'd see what a world without war was like."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2025-05-10 08:17 pm (UTC)There was no way he could have known about that part of her father's message. His not having seen it had been a point of contention, all those years ago, one of those if onlys she'd rattled off in her head earlier. It was the part that most stuck with her, though, now twofold painful: first, because when she'd initially heard it, she had never once been happy, then, here, because she had found happiness for a little while and then lost it. The former, as it turned out, was infinitely preferable to the latter. At least then, she hadn't known what she was missing. At least she hadn't yet been foolish enough to let herself believe that was something a person like her could ever have.
It cut just as deeply now, not least because it was a statement that expected an answer rather than a recorded hologram. "You aim higher than I do," she settled on in response. She didn't know how to say if she had been happy or not. This, being true, seemed like the best way of handling it. "I'm here. I'm alive. And it's not a bad life. I never really thought I'd see what a world without war was like."