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She looks down at her hands.
"But if anyone else hurts me like Pink- like Rose did, I'll shatter."
Elijah sits down on the opposite side of the door, cross-legged in the hallway.
"...I have to admit my own limitations, when it comes to empathising with your position. I was not born or raised 'for' any reason. I didn't particularly...bond, with anyone responsible for raising me. My purpose, my 'something bigger', was only ever mine to dictate. And without any sense of...limitation, I went too far."
A slow breath.
"I think your problem is the inverse to mine. Where I felt untethered, by expectation or even by basic ethics, you seem to feel...paralyzed, now, in their absence."
"My other self was right about being weak. But not that it was physical." She needs other people more than they ever needed her. Even as strong as she was, she was only ever a number to the Diamonds. She'd been willing to sacrifice everything to bring down Rose and become something more, but that was before she knew.
Elijah sits with that for a few moments.
"I think you're much stronger than you realize. Mentally, emotionally. Perhaps more than you're ready to accept right now."
But she didn't want to leave Rose like that. She hates that she still cares, after everything.
"You're the only one who can prove anything about yourself," Elijah points out.
"But let me offer my perspective. You were created to be a part of a rigidly prescriptive caste society with little, if any, built-in tolerance for change. In that context, you lost a creator whom you likely saw as invulnerable. You were able to change your allegiances as necessary, and make yourself a valued individual in ranks of thousands of creations like you. You continued to deserve that distinction when you were ordered - forced - to return to the site of your early trauma. Most recently, you learned that your lost creator was, in fact, capable of deception and disloyalty of a kind that your entire culture had seemingly no concept of. That, too, could have broken you. Shattered you, as you say. But time after time, you have proven your adaptability and resilience."
She's just tired of it all.
"Then tell me what would," Elijah suggests. "Tell me what success looks like to you."
"Yeah." Rose nods. "I - of course."
It feels like more that, but she won't push it.
"Now there's just nothing."
"But that's interesting. You said you don't know," he points out. "That's distinct from 'I do know, and it's the rest of eternity on a spacefaring prison ship'."
He smiles. It's audible.
"I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be for you to continue this process of defining for yourself what your life is going to be. But you're not going to do it alone."
"I can take a hint. But you should give it some thought."
He starts getting to his feet.
"And if you're getting snagged on your future contentment being predicated on something that...seems impossible, remember you'll have the power to fix that."
His deal is very much still on the table.
"Indeed. Take care, Jasper."
And he really will leave her alone - for today, at least.
[Questions. Questions are mostly safe.]
You know it's only what the Barge and Admiral wants you to think is a lie, right?
[...those sure are unusually aggressive bumblebees she's now swatting away.]
Do you believe that, Jasper? Or does it just serve you to say that, because it protects you?
[More bees now. She smacks her own face as one gets past her, but there's already a welt forming.]
[look, no bugs!]
[Her voice is a little muffled and she's half out of frame as she tries to deal with her pest problem, but no new bug appear that he can see.]
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