#[ UGH I’M STOKED FOR THIS THOOOUGH ]

[empathicstars]

@wasscared​, “I can’t talk about it.”, continued from here​:

She couldn’t talk about it. The way he held her eye, for a moment - and the way he looked away (down, to his hands, loose on the table) - was accepting. It was not his place to insist that she relate a part of her history she did not want to share; there were things about this young woman which did not… add up, so her reluctance to share anything further made sense. Besides: it had been a … probing question. Connor still wanted answers. The curiosity was not sated, but for now the respect for her position won out. “You must have travelled a long way. Can I buy you lunch?” the offer did not come without the catch of company, but Connor would feel out how many - and which - questions he’d try to ask.

   If Aella were able to shamelessly lose herself in her own emotion, perhaps she’d be proud of how calm she was, at that moment.

   But that was the problem — she could not praise her lack of feeling when she could not feel satisfied by it. There was a word for things like that... irony? Perhaps she had been seeking another, but it escaped her, now. 

   The panic that’d accompanied her realization that she had ended up in a different universe had quite suddenly tapered to an apathy. Perhaps it was shock, she realized, belatedly. Perhaps she was so overwhelmed that she felt calm.

   The correct answer to the proposition offered from the person across from her was no. She was altering, influencing a pre-warp civilization if she accepted his offer. But she had this strange feeling that he would be rather more committed to the ‘mystery’ of her were she to deny him his request. That aside, it may be the easiest way to glean further information about where she was, and find a route back... 

   “Thank you, sir.”