you could break my heart in two, but when it heals, it beats for you
She listens intently, with the way of someone who truly cares to hear what she is being told, observing and inspecting every inflection but never in a calculating manner. She knows about the healers hoarded by Loess, prisoners kept so that kingdom could perhaps control or dispense relief or cures from the plague at its will. She did not realize they still held some of these, rumors of a freed healer in the Cove had reached her and so she, like many others, had assumed they were all released following the cure. It bothers her, not to be wrong, but that she so readily accepted that. Hyaline will need to pursue intelligence of its own on such matters in the future.
Kensa takes time with her answer, thoughtful. It may not be what the other woman is expecting from her. “Someone close to me once tried to route the machinations of Loess, Leliana. As reward for his boldness he was stripped of his title and place in the East. Something had rotted the monarchy I used to serve, left it cloudy-eyed and immovable under the weight of all its own ideals.” She pauses. “What I mean to say is sometimes the right answer is not the one we like best and more often there is no right answer at all. We can never declare that we would never do this or permit that without prophesying our own failure. I am not a woman who expects or appreciates dealing in absolutes. Absolutes painted my husband a traitor and left him a prisoner in Loess, just as they turned a blind eye on the healers trapped there.”
She wonders briefly if this makes her seem unreliable, or just realistic and then supposes it doesn’t matter. Is she not just the lowly Primarch of an insignificant territory in the mountains? Her opinion is worth no more than the breath it takes to provide it. Having framed her reasoning with the prior words she smiles with the kindness that has persisted within her all her life and gives her final answer gently and directly. “Vengeance and justice make eager bedfellows, and could I satisfy them and remove some pain from the world I would do so.” Her voice is soft as she says, “You do not have a choice, do you?” Rhetorical, empathetic.
Kensa
@[leliana]
