Originally Posted by
grampagen
Zaofan leaned forward with a stare so earnest it seemed as if he was looking right through her. Just who am I talking to right now?
"I'm not talking about some six-faced, flap-top, collapsible unit of storage. If it was available to me, it wouldn't have petered out when customer service called back to put my request on layaway."
Boy, this analogy sure fell apart quickly.
"Why didn't you answer my questions, Dash? You stepped up for her, now take a look at yourself. Why are you dependent on her, when you could help Praxat? Why do you have so little faith in your own ability to help our friend find her way?"
And just what kind of 'training' did this Reimi instill into her that made her feel so...inadequate?
The momentary pity and itch of curiosity, however, faded once her accusations became particularly pointed at his absence.
"...you listen closely, Dash. And I mean it. Listen well.."
Zaofan's tone flattened, and the weariness fell over his face, before his face reddened, and his long fingers trembled with subdued anger.
"I've been doing my best, ever since before Jagam arrived, but when Sir Luop came down from the sky I realized I had to push myself harder than ever before. No matter what new discoveries we'd happened upon with Master Balon, no matter what new avenues became open to us from Evangeline's purview, remembering the gulf between Auroc's weakest knights and us that day kept me wondering, 'would it ever be enough?'"
"No. Never. Not while Auroc was still out there, watching the Earth, waiting for his moment to strike. Everything back home I loved could be in an instant turned into...this," he said, gesturing to the crumbled castle around them. "If he had a mind to do it, or worse."
"Don't put our neglected friend on me. You didn't see me try to help?" A hollow laugh of disbelief escaped him, "Oh, I wonder why that is?"
"One, I'm not a mindreader. Two, she didn't ask. If all you or Praxat want to do was go a few rounds, you could ask anybody in this group of fighters to...fight. I know you probably won't, but trust me, the offer still stands."
"And three, I have just spent the last six months pushing through into unmapped stellar territory with Held and Ochazuke. From Nevada-Prime, to the reaches just outside the Threshling empire, before even getting near their colony, I have seen what happens to Auroc's enemies, Dash. I've seen things you wouldn't believe."
The flush in his face rapidly paled as he recalled the memories, and traced the steps through his mind through the abandoned planets, left lingering in their death throes as a warning.
"Not a day went by when I didn't miss Etrina. Erosa, she'd had a lot of close encounters and only just barely came back to us. I wanted to go back, but the only thing pushing me forward through the homesickness was the knowledge that at any moment, this could have happened to Earth. That Totoma, Shochu, and yes, even you were still back home put my mind to ease, it gave us a fighting chance at doing what we needed to do; find this monster, to take the fight to him, and end this nightmare hanging over our heads once and for all."
A shudder passed over him before he continued.
"My point being, we wouldn't be here right now having this conversation, if not for what we and the Nevadians did. None of us would know, nor would the greater universe, until we banded together our resources," he said, "But your Reimi apparently had knowledge of the threat Auroc presented, this planet's location and she said...nothing? Just like she knows what Praxat's, apparently, missing, and didn't say anything until now. It seems to me, apparently, she'd prefer to watch the universe squabble and people like us waste our time until it's somehow useful to her. How nice for her. Me, I'm never going to get any of those lost moments back, and I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life knowing it could have been different."
With a snap, the table they were eating at disappeared into a capsule.
"Do I know her as you do? Maybe I don't. But while I may not have opened the box, heh, I can see the bottom's all warped and soggy."