heavensreader | [IC Inbox -- Snowblind]

Kesara, I don't think there's any way to stop people from fighting. Not people this different from each other, not forever. If this were home and everybody involved was a member of my gang, I'd handle things differently. But it's not, and they're not. Yeah?

But if they were -

[Is she being logical, or only stubborn? It's confused in her own head. There's a fretting fear that keeps her pushing, angry that he isn't giving her the answers she wants...]

That's what I keep thinking. That is how you make people who are different stop fighting. By making them all part of one thing - a regiment, or gang, or expedition.

And how are you gonna do that?

[He at least doesn't want to dismiss her ideas without hearing them first.]

I've been thinking about it... but I think I need to think some more.

[She'd been hoping he'd have an idea or two. But if this is the challenge, then she is not giving up on it quite yet.]

You've got three options, yeah? You try to bring everyone under your banner voluntarily, but then you have to deal with the people who won't come, and figure out how to enforce your control the people who do. You could also try to do it by force, and deal with rebellion, with lack of loyalty, with fights against you.

[Those are two of the three options. The third is not trying at all.]

[Actually, the third option is...]

Or you try to get them to think it was all their idea to come under someone's banner. Not me, maybe, but - someone who's better for it than me. Someone older. A man.

[She's not making any proposals. Just saying.]

And then if there isn't loyalty, it's other people's problem too.

Someone like Captain Rogers?

[He sounds a little dry.]

[Kesara makes a less than satisfied noise.] A lot of people used to trust him, but they don't know the new one. I wouldn't just trust the new one. Besides... the old one was a good man, but, the sort of people who'd be loyal to him are not the sort of people who cause trouble anyway, aren't they?

I didn't trust the old one, either. I believe he had good intentions, right, but I would not put my life on the line for him, and I would not follow his orders. What would you have done about people like me, or about people who would cause trouble?

[This is one of those things that Kesara needs to think about. It's a long minute before she answers.]

I've heard that criminals only follow brute strength. But that's ridiculous. The smugglers I travel with, Roksann and Lao Dian... Roksann is much stronger than Lao Dian. She can shoot and fence better than a British officer, and he's a cripple. But when he says to do something, she listens to him because she knows he'll get her what she wants. It's not because he's a good man, either. It's because she knows, when you listen to him, good things happen... and when you don't, bad things do.

But I don't feel that way about Steve, yeah? I don't feel that way about anybody here.

Do you feel that way about anybody back home, Mr. Solomons? Or, when you were younger?

When I was very young, I felt that way about my dad.

I've told you I was in a war, yeah?

[Oh, this sounds like a story. Kesara's attention, already focused, immediately strains to go up yet another notch.]

You did, but, you didn't say anything about your father in it.

Nah, I wasn't putting those two together. My father wasn't in that war.

But I was, as a soldier. Not a commander. I did follow a commander; a sergeant. But things were very different there then they are here.

[So that would be two stories, quite possibly. What a lucky Kesara she is today!]

Why were they so different? I mean - I know we are not at war, but I think, it's a little similar when conditions are so hard and everyone might die at any moment. Isn't it?

A bit. But it's not similar enough to treat the same way.

Kesara, tell me - why do you want to do this?

I'll - I'll explain if you tell me the story about your sergeant. In the war.

[You can't leave her hanging like this, Mr. Solomons, honestly.]

It's not much of a story. He's an example of someone I followed, yeah? But we were from the same country, fighting for the same goal. We agreed on who our enemies were. There was none of the uncertainty that there is here.

That's the problem, that's exactly it. That uncertainty.

[She echoes his tone exactly, though with a shade more vehemence.]

I'm frightened. I'm not meant to be, since in the Great Game, many times I won't know who is with me or against me. That's how the Game is played! But I don't know and I'm scared. In Serindia I understood men. I knew what to do. Here I don't understand anything. I feel like such a fool sometimes!

People are people everywhere.

[He's been able to use that to his own advantage, up to a point.]

But it is different, when those people are from places we can't even imagine. It means there's angles that we can't always predict. I do not judge you for being frightened, Kesara. I've seen you keep your head when you need to, and that's the important thing. Yeah? That's when it counts.

That's what I said, too... but I still made all those mistakes.

[She isn't speaking entirely to him now. It's a moment of musing, a little morose, and under that, angry. A lot angry.]

I always need to keep my head, Mr. Solomons. It's very tiring. I'm - I'm not so old yet. Not so strong.

What other mistakes did you make?

I thought I could get Duster to - to do what I wanted, and I was wrong. And before, when I lied to Zach and hurt him so... and now with Ecks. People are the same, but the way they look at me is different. It makes such a big difference!

How do they look at you now, and how do you want them to look at you?

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