silversnowfall | 74. [voice/written]

[Some say too much deep thought begets deeper problems.]

I've been thinking.

[Nephry has a piece of paper in front of her, as well as a book open to a marked page.]

Mm, I should say that reading has been making me think. Indulge me for a moment, if you will: there is a relatively small portion of our population living in this village that arrived more than three Luceti years ago. It's an easy number for me to choose, because I fall into that category as well. I don't know many of those sharing a 'cycle year' with me as personally as I might, but-

[Here she stops, taps the page of the other book, and tries a new direction. Included in her explanation is a description of the formula she mentions.]

Something I read about and didn't understand prompted a bit more research on my part. I'm interested in testing whether this...theory, I suppose, of mine happens to prove true. In another world, there is a kind of formula for determining how ready one is to accept the inevitable. I believe that, with some exceptions of course, one 'step' in this formula enacts itself in the space of one Luceti cycle year. [Then she illustrates what the heck she means by that, expanding upon a chart she found in her research.]

[A half-laugh. Actually it's quite a sad sound.] Doesn't that sound strange? And yet I remember being in complete disbelief that such things were possible, and then worrying about my friends and hating the Malnosso for what they do to us, and then wanting nothing more than to use our limited knowledge as some kind of wager for the chance to change-

And now...to a degree, I still feel all of these other things, and yet- [No. Perhaps it's best not to go into that so publicly. It's unbecoming of a governor for certain.] Well, now I'm asking the rest of you. No matter how long you have been here. Does this hold true for you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As far as I can tell, you can only plan so much. You can know the arithmetic involved when so many troops face so many others. The number of men by the number of bullets by the rate of fire. The spread of the line; the arc of the shot. But you can win battles and lose wars all in the same stroke. What any of you lot do when the war's done isn't a thing you can decide now.

[ you lot. either he doesn't plan to be here, or he's preemptively excusing himself from the politics of an ended dispute. he'll fight until his last breath but he won't get involved in the grander structure. that, as ever, was for diplomats and politicians. ]

You know what you will do? [Not a challenge - she's just curious. "You lot" means he has some ideas for himself.]

Rest, like as not. Catch my breath while the politicians bicker.

Oh, we're not all bicker and bother, you know.

Bah. You never know when you're going to endanger an entire cause by using the wrong spoon. Everyone's better off when I leave myself out of politics.