Tempest Company

Reflection Four

I sang to her. In that moment when I didn't know how to help a woman I'd emotionally started to think of as a sister I did something I'd never done before. I sang. A lullaby in French, a language I'd not spoken in nearly two years and a rhyme I'd not heard in a long time. One taught me on the maternity ward when I was studying by an old nurse who had, in many ways, been past her best. That night thought it helped a young woman who had just recounted a trauma so brutal that it still makes my skin crawl when I think about it. Once she was asleep I slipped out of her cabin and went to my own, my body, mind and heart all aching with pain and exhaustion. The sight of the woman bleeding to death wouldn't leave me and I couldn't help but think about whether she'd experienced something as horrific. Scott visited me a few minutes after I'd showered. It caught me off guard and I'm still embarrassed that I doubted his intentions initially. He knew Yue's story of course. Anil had told him but he'd never spoken to Yue about it to her. I learned a lot about him that night when he told me that his then wife had been behind the mission which had led to him leaving Albion and I started to see some of what drove him.

And then I broke down. Completely and utterly broke down.

Not the tears of grief I'd shed after I'd learned my family was dead. This was different. All the fears and anxieties about my choices in running away from the Empire, living on the ship and my choice to be complicit in the cover up of the woman's death hit me like a hammer. Yue's revelations had just been the catalyst for my own collapse and collapse I did. I suspect most of what I said was total babble but he just listened and talked to me. I don't remember the words only that he kissed top of my head like a parent that night and then slapped a sedative patch on my neck before sitting with me until it took effect.

A lot changed with that mission. Something had shifted with Xinga, I was closer than ever to Yue and I'd started on a path which would lead me to where I am now.