This suddenly became a lot more personal than a pre-Jump Earth literature class. Well. It already was rather personal, but - a bathtub being compared to an ocean. Both are wet. One's a lot deeper than the other.
She is tempted to say, 'That is not what I meant, that point was very clear, you did not have to belabor it' - but no. That - would not help at all right now. That would just be petty. What does one do when someone shows one their soul? She doesn't know the answer.
First step: breathe. Collect your thoughts. Okay? All settled? Good, now to work.
...
She has no idea what the fuck to do. Not a damned clue. She can think of a few points of comparison, and even more things that are - in something of the same vein of pain she can't fix, but doesn't have the eloquence in her to say them without potentially hurting him.
'I am a woman from a society that treats them as chattel,' 'I understand that because my parents had only girls my branch of the Vorlaine name will die out,' 'I am desperately trying to not drown in the ocean of propaganda surrounding my home planet and Beta Colony, I am confused and lost and barely know who I am,' 'I am so very small and everything I want to do is so much larger than I am, I don't know how I'll even begin' 'Sometimes I feel as if I've already failed, that I'm doomed to it, that there is nothing I can do and no one cares what I have to say,' 'Sometimes I just think I'm not good enough, and never will be.'
And none of these are exactly the same sorts of problems as he has, she doesn't know what it's like to be him. She probably never will. Her problems are - smaller, less grave, in comparison to his, at least as far as she can tell. But - damn it, they're both being assailed by shitty things about life and their society, why the fuck should they look at one another and say, 'Your experiences of pain and confusion differ from mine, get out, do not try to reach out to understand and be understood.'
She doesn't have a speech written by Shakespeare in front of her to cram her feelings into. Maybe there is one, but she hasn't read it yet. She makes a note to read more Shakespeare, to maybe have a reply to situations like these. Because she still doesn't. And she can't even figure out a way to cram her own feelings into something that isn't horribly out of place and sounding like she doesn't care about his problems. She feels hopelessly out of her depth with a rock tied to her foot and the inability to swim.
But she does kind of dearly want to hug him.
"Miles," she asks, voice soft. "Would you like a hug?"
no subject
This suddenly became a lot more personal than a pre-Jump Earth literature class. Well. It already was rather personal, but - a bathtub being compared to an ocean. Both are wet. One's a lot deeper than the other.
She is tempted to say, 'That is not what I meant, that point was very clear, you did not have to belabor it' - but no. That - would not help at all right now. That would just be petty. What does one do when someone shows one their soul? She doesn't know the answer.
First step: breathe. Collect your thoughts. Okay? All settled? Good, now to work.
...
She has no idea what the fuck to do. Not a damned clue. She can think of a few points of comparison, and even more things that are - in something of the same vein of pain she can't fix, but doesn't have the eloquence in her to say them without potentially hurting him.
'I am a woman from a society that treats them as chattel,' 'I understand that because my parents had only girls my branch of the Vorlaine name will die out,' 'I am desperately trying to not drown in the ocean of propaganda surrounding my home planet and Beta Colony, I am confused and lost and barely know who I am,' 'I am so very small and everything I want to do is so much larger than I am, I don't know how I'll even begin' 'Sometimes I feel as if I've already failed, that I'm doomed to it, that there is nothing I can do and no one cares what I have to say,' 'Sometimes I just think I'm not good enough, and never will be.'
And none of these are exactly the same sorts of problems as he has, she doesn't know what it's like to be him. She probably never will. Her problems are - smaller, less grave, in comparison to his, at least as far as she can tell. But - damn it, they're both being assailed by shitty things about life and their society, why the fuck should they look at one another and say, 'Your experiences of pain and confusion differ from mine, get out, do not try to reach out to understand and be understood.'
She doesn't have a speech written by Shakespeare in front of her to cram her feelings into. Maybe there is one, but she hasn't read it yet. She makes a note to read more Shakespeare, to maybe have a reply to situations like these. Because she still doesn't. And she can't even figure out a way to cram her own feelings into something that isn't horribly out of place and sounding like she doesn't care about his problems. She feels hopelessly out of her depth with a rock tied to her foot and the inability to swim.
But she does kind of dearly want to hug him.
"Miles," she asks, voice soft. "Would you like a hug?"