Cafe du Harpe Stellar

[onemorebounty]

*On the fringe of the forum district of the Nexus, a small sidewalk cafe abuts the green space, its sign a cup of coffee whose steam twines through the strings of a harp that also seems to have caught several stars. The service is brisk, but it's almost always possible to find a table. There are even times, like now, when it's fairly quiet. Samus claims a chair and invites Verity to do the same.*

Comments

[brave_heart_verity]

"Right. I can run away and save some books." Sigh.

[onemorebounty]

Verity, running away is one of the most important skills a Warrior has to master.

*It's not a lie.*

Running is how you fight something like this.

[brave_heart_verity]

She tries to make sense of that, but she comes from a world where the great and the good run head-first at this kind of thing.

"I don't understand."

[onemorebounty]

You're looking at that planet in the sky, coming down like a fist, and some part of your brain is wondering how to block it. Battle is my life, and I'll tell you: the best way to block a shot is to not be where it lands. Let it miss. A step to the side costs so much less than standing there and taking it--for no good reason.

*She pauses for a sip of something, to break her rhythm--she doesn't want to work up to a full-blown lecture on Verity, the woman doesn't deserve that.*

What you're doing is good, and it's right.

[brave_heart_verity]

"Maybe, but nothing in 'it's good and it's right' means it doesn't suck." Still, she appreciates hearing it, especially since it's all true.

[onemorebounty]

Planets colliding, that's not a fight you win by punching back, or punching first. That's a fight you win by living at all. If you're alive tomorrow, and that planet is cosmic dust? You win. Carry humanity with you, and humanity wins. But what is humanity, Verity? It's not biology, it's not the shape of the continents or the naked ape: humanity is a set of ideas. The ideas are the seed, and you have a chance to carry it out of the fire. That's your fight.

*That said, she offers a sympathetic shrug.*

Does "good and right" ever not suck?

[brave_heart_verity]

She nods, and pulls herself out of the mope she'd been spiraling toward.

"You're right. But they say it's supposed to have a happy ending. I think that's the whole point of the Bible."

[onemorebounty]

Is it? I must've missed that part, but I really only skimmed it. I'll have to ask Jesus next time I see him.

[brave_heart_verity]

Wait. Wait wait wait. "Seriously?"

[onemorebounty]

*She nods.*

He's very friendly.

[brave_heart_verity]

Please excuse Verity while she has an existential crisis.