location: the hms promethean time: several hours after rescue with: @dawndusted !!
jules stared at the woman for a long while, silence finding its way between them, thick and familiar. ( was this a dream? surely, that would make more sense. faces from long ago often filled in for strangers; shadows haunting, hunting. ) it was nearly too much to process, stories growing on stories, and through it all, there remained the thread of the past. jules took a breath --- how to account for the duality of being unsteady and relieved, all at once? as if she had reached the peak of a berg after a long climb, only to find it melting instead.
“you ought to be asleep,” she finally said to the woman who was not fully a stranger, to the woman who had kept a crew alive. jules was not good at this --- at being the kind and comforting one. her role was blood and survival, and how could one learn to be gentle amidst all that red? and then, more firmly: “you’ll be alright here.”
