For So Many Years

[Fromikeable]

Charlie’s Deli wasn’t quite up to the same standards as the Fork. With no government on the moon and therefore no health standards, Nar Shadda’s eateries were mostly dictated by demand; restaurants that left their customers sick only stayed in business by managing to draw in entirely new consumers. The Fork and restaurants like it employed the opposite strategy, trying to keep themselves up to self-imposed standards in the name of making sure people would come back.

In Vance’s opinion, Charlie’s was walking the middle ground. His eggs were fairly undercooked, but the tables were clean and the only lingering smells were that of food. Even still, he hoped the Fork would be repaired sooner rather than later.

For that matter, this morning wasn’t proving to be much different than the last one. He’d gotten up late today after a long day of work, said hello to Lidah and Tyrvast, eaten an apple, and gone out to check on numerous places and problems. He’d only stopped to have a more significant lunch here at Charlie’s, and even now, all he could consider was what else needed to be done. A busy day, surely, but in light of everything, still a lazy one. The Unseen were a looming threat, but with a certain off-worlder currently on the case…

Well, lunch was proving relaxing. Minus the fact that his eggs were bleeding down into the hardroll of his sandwich.

Sighing lightly in relief, Vance simply enjoyed the day. Seated by the window, his presence stretched out, limber and relaxed as it watched people go by, playing the game it always did when idle; watching the world go by. A woman rushed across the other side of the street in a panic, upset and angry. A duo of men loitered in an ally, both terse and stressed. A man fly by in a nearby speeder, bristling with excitement as his presence seemed to fluctuate with whatever music he was listening to. A woman walking down the side of the street oozed quiet contentment, clearly fulfilled by whatever she activity she was returning from.

Even on the maddest of worlds in the maddest of times, life went on, it seemed.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

Talau had forgone her typical jedi robe for the more typical cloak her people wore. The dusky, dusty, vaguely camouflage-like coloring of the cloak made her difficult to spot terribly easily amid the grimy walls and dust of the city-moon...especially with her hood up. Not only was it good cover from the sun's rays, but it hid the multitude of bright feathers she was loathe to remove from her, now more wild, mane of hair. She had been back and forth across the smuggler's moon several times over the past few days, searching and listening and feeling out the ebb and flow of the force here in search of someone she had lost long ago. Too long ago.

In fact, she had been lurking around this particular section of the moon for the majority of her time here...but now she had finally honed in on the places she was most likely to find that missing piece of her life. Honestly, she didn't know what to expect when she found him....or why the force, the Winds, kept tugging her back toward him. She had failed him so many times now...and he was part of some sort of criminal underground here...there was little doubt of that. Each step was like a weight on her spirit: Fear, anxiety, sadness, loss, pain, anger, frustration....but with each one there was also her seemingly undying hope and faith that no matter where her road had taken her, no matter where it would take her, things would work out somehow.

So now here she was again, moving steadily back toward one of the diners he was said to haunt regularly. He hadn't been there earlier, but things felt...different....now. The endless span of glistening, spider-silk-like, threads twisted and tangled in many directions around her, but the flow of the winds were pushing her along in this one. As always her presence was folded down, little more than a slight ripple in the greater movement of life. She couldn't help some things, however....not after her time among the struggle of life on her home world. The woman who rushed across the street toward her, sobbing and angry, would rush right into a wave of calm that had her slowing enough not to trip and fall into traffic, but instead skip around the large crack in the duracrete. The two stressed men would find themselves feeling much less like their only way out of their desperate situations was to rob the pawn shop down the block....and then it was Talau who slowed.

With a deep breath she would cross the street and nudge her way into the diner, already knowing just who she was searching for....though he looked different, felt different, there were still things she recognized...things she would always recognize. For a moment, just a fraction of a moment, she allowed herself to open to him and let him feel her as she moved toward the counter and found herself a seat, closing herself off once more (almost completely) as she pressed back her hood. From where he sat he would no doubt mostly see feathers and hair...but he would know, and the invitation was open.

[Fromikeable]

For a little while, Vance simply sat in peace. People fluttered in and out of existence around him, their comings and goings bringing them here and there. It was the closest he got to meditation these days; not quite sitting in a quiet room ruminating the silence, but rather sitting in a peaceful deli after the lunch rush died down, musing about the lives around him. The Jedi might have told him that his thoughts were too outwardly focused. The Sith might have told him that the peace of his thinking was too weak to bear fruit.

Vance would have shrugged at them both. There was a middle ground to be found, somewhere.

Still, the woman that walked into the deli made him turn his head a little. Hadn't he seen her around somewhere? Maybe she'd walked by earlier during his meal and he had only barely noticed. As she sat, he returned to his musings, his presence lazily licking over those of others, his curiosity only gleaming what could be seen from the outside. Basic emotions. Basic ideas. Basic behaviors. Basic shapes. All of it simpl-

One of the presences expanded, reaching out to his in a move that made him go still in his seat. His hand was immediately glued to his belt, fingers curling around his saber as the presence stopped and turned around, drawing back in on itself. Turning around, he glared back at the table it came from, that same woman seated there. Without her hood, she revealed an ornate set of accessories in her hair. Feathers? He'd never seen any with those sorts of colors.

Yes I have. In fact, he had seen exactly one with those sorts of colors.

For a minute, he didn't move, the look of thought etched on his face somewhere between confused, suspicious, and outraged. Slowly, however, he peeled himself up from his seat, making his way over to her table. Staring at her, the tension in him was apparent, his presence shored back up upon itself as if trying to build a fortress. His lips twitched, wanting to say something, but every sentence that formed immediately turned to dust in his mind, falling apart.

No, instead, he stared at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to magically combust.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

She felt him moving, perhaps not everything about him moving, nor everything that he felt, but she caught flickers of it as he withdrew into himself again, building up those walls. He was met with a slow lowering of her own. Certainly the woman still kept her guard up, but little by little she was making a show of good faith. She could feel him staring at her even as one hand slid out and motioned to the seat across from her.

"I'm not going to vanish by staring at me, but if you have a seat maybe we can talk."

[Fromikeable]

Her response prompted him to sit, still staring at her with an intensity. It wasn't punitive, nor was it welcoming; it was demanding. He needed to know exactly who she was, exactly why and how she was alive, exactly everything. Vance had made his peace with her disappearance years ago; he'd had to remain alive, much less sane. She had been another casualty of the war, or of the discord of the galaxy, or of sheer dumb luck. Those hadn't been the nicest of answers, but life had taught him that any answer was better than none.

"I've just never seen a ghost before."

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

"I've never seen a ghost before."

Talau nodded slightly and sighed just a little. She would look different, just as he did, though probably not as...good....as he did. Not to say she was bad looking, or that she'd aged poorly, but she was obviously tired and had seen better days. "I have, but they're rare...fortunately, I'm not one quite yet," she replied with a mild shrug. For a long moment she simply studied him with cloudy grey eyes. "You have questions for me....I'll answer whatever I can to the best of my ability. I owe you that much, Vance."

[Fromikeable]

She stared at him. He stared back, his eyes seeming to forget how to blink. Settling into his seat, Vance clutched his hands together just below his mouth, resting his chin on them as he practically leered. She owed him questions? She wasn't going to explain herself without him asking, was that it?

"Questions? Oh, I have a million questions." Tapping one of his fingers against his chin, he breathed a little heavier. "I want to know where you went, why you didn't come back, where you've been for almost eight years, why you aren't dead, how you found me, why you've found me, and what exactly you think gives you the right to roll into one of my deli's on an average morning and just stare at me. But y'know what?" Cracking a tiny smile, Vance shook his head.

"You taught me something important when you left. Life doesn't always give you answers. Sometimes you're just forced to make up what you can with what you've got and move on."

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

Talau tried not to sigh at his attitude. Honestly she didn't blame him for it...everything he was dishing out she was deserving of. Still, it was never easy, dealing with someone disappointed and hurt by her actions, or even who and what she was...or wasn't...in comparison to what they thought she should be. She remained quiet as he added both salt and lemon to her own personal emotional wounds as she tried to decide how to help him understand. Or even if he would never understand, at least how to explain herself so he was given the choice. Finally she decided to start by answering things....backward.

"I don't pretend to have a right to be anywhere other than the fact that I'm alive and I can move around....as for staring at you, I gave you the option to come to me or ignore me. If you chose to ignore me I would have accepted that as your answer and left.

Why have I found you...? As trite as it will sound, the Winds still call me to you, Vance. I...don't know how else to answer. I still care about you, of course, but I don't want to cause you pain and I considered, for a long time, if I should ignore the pull of it toward you and simply let you go about your life, whatever it might be. But here I am.

How did I find you? Vance....do you really have to ask me that? Once a shadow, always a shadow...it was my job for years to track people and things all over the galaxy.

Why am I not dead? I ask myself that a lot....but...I suppose skill and the force are the only reasons I can answer. No....that's not true....people have died for me to remain alive. Not something I'm proud to admit..."

One hand lifted to slowly and gingerly feel along one of the longer feathers in her hair near to her ear, her expression darkening with regret and perhaps...showing a bit more of the stress she kept hidden deep within. Pulling in a deep breath she lifted her eyes to his once more, that odd...shift...of her features seeming to vanish as she returned from her thoughts and held out a hand, palm up.

"For the rest....if you will allow, I would like to show you....it's the simplest way to explain since....words in basic would take....a very long time."

[Fromikeable]

The Winds still called to him? Vance could only lift a brow at that. He was far from a skeptic about the Force; as someone who used it in every day life, it was apparent that it was a more complex, deep facet of the world than anyone could understand. The Jedi and the Sith interpreted it just about as differently as they could, and yet both of them still got things right; that wasn't thanks to chance.

But the idea that the Force had led her to him like a string through the universe? That would imply that the Force had led him through everything for the last decade, and if that was the case...

Then it truly was an apathetic, uncaring thing.

Looking at her hand, Vance contemplated his options. On the one hand, he didn't want to have her experiences instantly zapped into his head like a computer. He wanted her to explain, to use her words, to take the entire damn day if that was what it took. There was more to this than simply what they had been up; this needed to include who they were today, and what had changed.

Vance sighed. On the other hand, it would undeniably be faster, and what was left could be said aloud.

Almost reluctantly, he reached a hand out to touch hers, pressing only his digits to her palm.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

At first, when he touched her, nothing would happen...perhaps a feeling of....dread? Grief....pain....anger....a slowly building crescendo of emotion as she peeled away the layers of her mind for him while keeping herself barred from the rest of the world and those on it. The memories would start slowly, after her revelation to him on that icy world where she had told him about her time...that dark, rage-filled, time....with Chronos. From it expanded lights, like the streaks of hyperspace. Jump after jump. A silvery-blond haired man with hawkish features and a battle she only barely escaped from. The fear, the anger, the uncertainty, and more hyperspace.

It was like watching a holovid speed up and slow back to normal before slowing to half time and back up again. A planet, hot, in pain, the suffering and depression of it...though it was beautiful to look upon from the space above it. Darkness...not evil, just cold...damp? Caves. Hidden camps full of warriors, healers...their families. Jedi...but not jedi? Grim faces all around...loss, pain, death and a growing feeling of despair....but beneath it all a sense of obligation and steadfast will to struggle on. Flickers of battle, blood, death, and it all whirled around the central mind that was Talau's consciousness. Sensations of renewed hope, and faith and disappointment and rejection, and a deep feeling of the weight of duty and fatality (not the death sort, but helplessness in the face of fate) with every dismal or hopeful face that flickered through her mind into his. Flitting words would pass from her memories to his, statistics for victory, food rations, strategies...death tolls.

It was graphic, disturbing....it was battle after battle, struggle after struggle, fight after fight....it was a guerilla war on a long term basis.

Slowly she pulled her hand away as her thoughts started drifting back to her current worries and thoughts of lost friends....he didn't need to see that. That wasn't important right now. Instead she wiped away the clinging residue of tears from her lashes with slightly trembling fingers and pulled in a breath as she re-centered herself once more and closed herself off again.

"I am a general, for one of the Feanturi camps on Rilia...I have been there since I left you, except for one month for recovery after a fight with a particularly....murerous....Morequai."

[Fromikeable]

True to his silent word, Vance watched it all. The first few memories served as reminders of her time with that woman, that Chronos. That had been the last time they'd seen each other, hadn't it? The day she'd showed up on Rhen Var to talk to him, to tell him of her own kidnapping, of her escape. He hadn't asked what she would do after that, and so he watched with knit brows.

Then there was the planet. Arid, to be sure, but the people there appeared to be Rilan. Feathers were everywhere, sabers visible in so many images. Were these the Feanturi she'd mentioned to him ages ago? They seemed to be; they fought with less control than the Jedi, acting more on their passions than the Code would ever have agreed with. Yet he failed to see the raw snarls and howling wails of Sith-like behavior. They had their own mantras, then.

The images of the war, though, failed to impress him. He watched every horror with understanding, every crime against life with a familiar knowledge. This wasn't alien or unacceptable; it was what he had seen on Korirban, and Taris, and the planets after them, and even here on Nar Shadda. This was reality, raw and ugly as it was. By the time Tal was done, he wasn't wiping away tears so much as sighing with a newfound understanding.

So that was the deal, was it?

"You left the galaxy to go fight your own civil war." Processing his own words for a moment, Vance finally crossed his arms.

"Why would you break away from that to come to Nar Shadda?" Those flashbacks had looked brutal. What purpose could she have for leaving in the middle of a full-blown conflict?

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

"I did..." she replied softly, seeming to have regained her composure, though her eyes still held a hint of distance to them. "I'm not....fully gone from there. I still have contact with my other generals. It's too dangerous to contact them through normal means, but...we, the Rilan, we have other ways of communicating with each other. I can still remotely assist in planning, coordinating, bolstering hope..." Trailing off for a moment she sat with closed eyes, and it might have seemed she were dozing off had it not been for the furrow on her brow and the deep sigh. Finally she shook her head.

"I didn't leave simply to come to Nar Shadda, but this was my first stop....I plan to find as many of those who I used to have connections with as possible. I won't lie to you, Vance, we're in a hard way back home...the feanturi techniques are good techniques, but they're also ones that the morequai have seen over and over again. I guide them how I can, teach what I can, when I can, but it isn't often and never enough. When we manage a victory, and by victory I use the term lightly, it's typically by the skin of our noses.

The Jedi order and the Feanturi share a page in history, though the doctrines...at least the doctrines these days...do not mingle as well as they used to. There's quiet, even temporary quiet, in the galaxy at the moment and I'm running out of options...we all are...I understand if you don't wish to come with me to help me...maybe that road is long behind us...but I'm asking for your help in whatever way you're willing to give it. Ways to contact people, new names, places I may find those who would possibly be sympathetic to our cause..."

There was a long pause as she sighed again and finally took the water that she hadn't realized had been brought over, turning the glass slowly as she peered at the clear liquid. She couldn't help but think how rare such a liquid could be back home, the thought straying from her semi-lax defenses. "Truth be told...that isn't a reason I came, to this planet. I don't expect to find much help here, though I'll look everywhere if necessary...The reason I came here was because this is where I felt your presence when I was meditating on the decision to even try to find you at all."

[Fromikeable]

Vance was quiet as she spoke, watching her intently, hinged on every word. He had the face of a man that was waiting to hear something, that wanted to make sure that he didn’t miss it, that expected some particular phrase.

"I understand if you don't wish to come with me to help me..."

When it didn’t come, he simply wiped his mouth with a napkin, shifting his gaze to the paper for a moment instead.

”Oh. You understand.” Carefully folding the napkin back into its original triangle shape, Vance kept his eyes on it as he worked. ”I can’t tell you how glad I am that you understand everything, even after seven years. For a second there, I thought you wouldn't.” Restoring the paper’s shape, he finally looked up at her again.

”So you get it all then, right? You get what it feels like to fall thirty stories into the Tarisian undercity and wake up in a Sith Lady’s kolto tank. You get what it feels like to be halfway between horrified and relieved when she tells you that you can’t just leave, that even if the Sith don’t kill you for abandoning them, the Jedi will throw you in prison for the rest of your life if you’re lucky.” Pressing his hands flat to the table, Vance could feel his heartbeat quickening, his skin growing a little redder.

”You get gathering poisons and plants without wanting to ask why, fixing Rakghoul transmitters without wanting to know why, and dropping into a literal warzone without wanting to see why, only for one of the Jedi Council members, the supposed paragons of the galaxy, to hit you so hard in the face that your skull still still has the hairline fractures to prove it. Of course you do.” A finger rose, pointing at her. ”You get waking up in a pile of cold bodies spitting up blood and having to run from the rising seas of rakghouls, watching them eat or maim every living soul on the planet, and end the day by almost being electrocuted to death by a Sith Lord. You get waking up in a cell on Korriban broken, exhausted, and borderline suicidal while that same piece of shit sits in front of the bars and asks you why you aren’t trying to fuck the woman that saved your life with the worst shit-eating grin you’ve seen in your entire life. You just get that, right?”

Vance wasn’t sure when he started standing, but now that he was, his finger pointed a little sharper, jabbing through the air at her. ”You get being a Sith for almost three Forcedamned years! You get watching your Sith master, the only woman in the galaxy that would notice if you were alive or dead, get executed out in public by a batshit crazy empress! You get that the only way you could ever feel any freedom in your life, the only way you could ever even hope to make your own decisions, would be the flee to Hutt space and start working for kingpins!”

By the time he was done, Vance was panting slightly, his heart pounding in his ears as he leaned forward on the table with both arms, staring at her.

”And you especially get- No, I know that you get how fucking traumatic it is for your last Jedi master to roll up on one of the few restaurants you enjoy on this goddamn moon without any warning or prompt, not even give you a ‘how’re you Vance?’, and then start crying at you about how tough her life has been since she dropped fucking everything to go skipping off to a planet you’ve only heard about a half a dozen times and how she wants you to do the exact same fucking thing!”

”You understand all of that, right?”

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

Talau sat there silently through the whole tirade, letting his anger, his pain, his fear, his disgust and everything else he was throwing at her wash over her. He would also be able to tell (perhaps not right away, but soon enough no doubt) that they all rolled through those barriers of hers instead of over them or around them or breaking against them. She let everything he said, every emotion he put into his words through the force (wittingly or unwittingly), reach her....refusing to hide from it or turn it away to protect herself. When it seemed he was done, at least for the moment, she pulled in a slow, deep, breath and shook her head a little as she removed her mind from the equation of this conversation...at least for now.

When she spoke again her tone was even and quiet, her eyes remaining that same dull grey they had been upon his first setting eyes on her face. She seemed placid on the outside, but inside he would be able to tell it was something else...inside she seemed to be processing it all, but there was an odd sort of disconnect that hadn't ever been there before. The dull roiling of emotion could be felt in her, but it would seem distant, like thunder over a great open plain or like the distant rumbling growl of a sleeping beast. "Yes....I do understand. Perhaps not your exact experiences, those are yours and not mine, Vance, but I understand very well the feelings of loss, pain, wrath, disappointment, helplessness, hopelessness and fear. I understand what it is to be tortured. What it is to lose the people who care about you and who you care about. I've lived them too, only differently and in different places. I...."

Trailing off she shook her head a little and frowned at herself as everything he felt settled into its place in her soul, filling gaps in it that had been emptied when she had been taken, and then further when she had left. "I can never tell you enough how sorry I am that you had to endure those things, and I won't pretend that saying it now will help....I....honestly don't believe it will, though it's the truth. I should have been there and I wasn't. Chronos I could not plan for, nor stop....that time was spent trying to return to the jedi, and to you, but you're right that I chose to seek out Rilia after being forced to flee from my first encounters with the morequai assassin. If they were seeking me out here...away from Rilia...what was the point in giving them the possibility of killing me without trying to make a difference there? I would rather go there and face them in person and maybe....maybe....help to bring even a sliver of extra hope to a planet that needed something and someone to rally behind...." Again she sighed and shook her head, thinking quietly for a moment and cutting herself off from someone attempting to speak to her. She didn't know who it was, nor did she care at the moment. They could wait.

"I could have handled it differently, should have handled it differently, when it came to you and your needs, and in that I failed you. I understand this also, and all I can do is accept it as such.

However, I also understand that generations before I was even born I've had things expected of me....duties to a planet I didn't grow up on, one I had to learn about through one person and ancient books. I understand that even as we've been sitting here I've had to delegate food rationing tasks, water rationing tasks and send people to their deaths against encroaching enemies...not to mention whoever it is trying to prod at me right now. I understand what it's like to see people die around me because even the best laid out plans fail against superior numbers, and what it's like to have to return to families to tell them their mother, father, sister, brother, daughter or son have died because my plan failed, that their loved one's blood is spilled because of me. I understand that because of my name alone, something I tried to hide from the moment I got there, makes me the person most look to when things are going wrong for some words of wisdom that I don't always have. I understand that I have to do whatever I can to get the feanturi help, because the people...regular people...of Rilia are suffering and no matter how much I may hurt, or bleed, or have to do the unthinkable....or leave behind a life I would rather not leave behind....I can't allow that planet to fall while I still breathe.

I also understand that I have no right to ask you for anything, and so I expect nothing from you...but this....this is necessary. Not only for myself but for you, so that hopefully you can at least understand some of my actions, even if you choose to strike my name from your memories because of it. So long as it helps you. If not...if all I've caused in the end is more pain...again, I'm sorry. That was not my intent either and as I said, I will leave now and you won't have to see me again if that's what you desire, at least not by any design of my own...though I admit that isn't something I hope for."

Those roiling emotions beneath the surface of her calm exterior were more insistent now, as she finished speaking, but she still somehow managed to remain....detached from them. It seemed those barriers of hers were one way....allowing his emotions in, but not allowing her own out. Talau didn't move to rise as he had, instead leaving herself vulnerable to attack should that be his final action...nor did her voice raise or her even intonation change. It was a mask of calm over whatever she felt deep within...something she used often enough when in the camps and things were going very wrong....which they tended to do from time to time. After all, it would help no one for her to lose her cool in a crisis.

....and this was certainly a crisis for her.

[Fromikeable]

As she started speaking, Vance was already trying to calm himself down. This wasn’t worth all of this. This wasn’t worth the sanity he had worked day in and day out to retain for years, the sanity he had salvaged from the sands of Korriban and the smoldering undercity of Taris. It wasn’t worth reliving every moment of trauma, every second of raw panic and pain.

Not after all this time. Not for her.

As she explained about Rilia, about her duties there, and about her experiences, he honestly tried to listen. Even as he breathed heavily, his shoulders sagging, his knees bending. He was trying to care; he could imagine an entire world ruled by depostic, vile people, the average citizen just trying to meet their basic needs of survival. He could imagine awful governments sanctioning horrid acts of war for petty political reasons without a single care for who they might affect.

But he had seen it all, and he hadn’t had to go to a long-lost desert planet to do it.

”I'm sorry.” Those particular words rang in his ear, satisfying some strange desire buried beneath his swell of emotions that he hadn’t realized was there. And yet, he couldn’t help but knit his brow in response. She’d said so much, thrown so much information at him, that he almost felt like he couldn’t process the apology. There was already too much to consider, too much for the phrase to contend with.

When she was done, he was quiet, looking at her with an almost surprised expression. Looking down at his hands pressed to the table, he slowly drew them up, removing himself from the booth. For a second, he simply flexed his fingers, simply trying to remember how to move as his mind stuttered like an overworked machine.

And then he spoke, his voice much quieter than before, his head shaking lightly.

”That was all you should have said.” Moving on autopilot, he stepped over to the counter, the concerned-looking fry cook manning the register taking his credits with a glance at Tal. Making change, Vance pocketed his wallet.

”... I can’t help you. Go talk to the Republic. They’ve got some warhawk general manning the border.” Rubbing his hand over his stubble, he tried to think of anything else to say. When he came up with nothing, he sighed. ”May the Force be with Rilia.” Putting his hands in his pockets, Vance made for the door, opening it with a jingle. With one foot out into the street, he stopped short, revelation overtaking his expression. He twisted around to look at her one last time.

”Never talk to me again.” And with that, he was gone into the morning.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

His silence persisted through more than the physical. In the force it was like a wall had cracked and was attempting to repair itself, the machine behind it all stuttering with the unexpected workload. Even before he knew it himself she could feel it coming....Truth be told, she had felt this eventuality before this particular moment in time, but Talau was nothing but dutiful in allowing the force to work.

Certainly she had seen glimpses of a brighter future, one with a rebuilding Rilia, a happy and contented Vance, a hope for peace however delicate at first. It was a shining hope against the persistent vision of her own demise at the hands of the Morequai...but that was an old vision indeed. Like two sides of the same coin she saw them, but the images of this moment were too similar to differentiate and attach to one side of the coin or the other.

Still, only one showed him leaving.

...sometimes hope was a fragile thing, that's why she couldn't afford to be.

As he stood so did she, more out of respect than anything else, and dipped her head to him. "Thank you, Vance. Winds guide you on your path," she replied. Dipping her head to his request she would settle herself back at the table to wait.

Perhaps he would feel her stoic resolve galvanize her barriers once more as she withdrew in the force...

...Perhaps he wouldn't...

One side of the coin or the other she couldn't stop in her own quest.