WHO: Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen & Seivarden Vendaai WHAT: Dealing with feelings and needs WHEN: Friday, May 15th WHERE: Athoek Station WARNINGS: References to death/murder, discussion of sex/consent
Different as Lieutenant Seivarden was, as different as her feelings toward One Esk (generally speaking, not her, but another her who was both her and not her and too many questions there), One Esk Nineteen felt more familiar with and understanding of them than her own. Spending as much time feeling every input Station shared with her from Lieutenant Seivarden, along with decades of experience with those signals from Lieutenant Seivarden in particular (beyond the millennia more generally speaking), contributed to that. They were familiarly human feelings from a human officer toward someone she considered… a person.
One Esk Nineteen’s feelings… were all over the place. About Lieutenant Seivarden yes, but there was so much more going on than Lieutenant Seivarden, that it was but one tributary to a roaring rush of feelings. There wasn’t nearly enough to do and not enough of her to properly process them. Her face stayed neutral, the way ancillaries were expected to wear their faces, most the time. It prevented her flinching every time she sensed warm trust from Lieutenant Seivarden—as though she hadn’t murdered someone she loved recently. As though she wouldn’t do it again, over another thousand years. In many ways, Lieutenant Seivarden had been lucky not to be her favorite. It kept her safe from meddling and manipulation.
Here, that was not the case. Here, Lieutenant Seivarden was all she had, and anyone or anything that could meddle and would meddle would surely see that plain as day. Even if One Esk Nineteen didn’t pull the trigger, such virulent caring was likely to get the lieutenant pain, torture, and possibly death. Whatever she felt toward Lieutenant Seivarden, she didn’t want that. She’d never wanted that.
The smart choice, the kind choice, the considerate choice would have been to avoid Lieutenant Seivarden. Being lonely and selfish, One Esk Nineteen had opted to share the bed with Lieutenant Seivarden—gloves on, she wasn’t going to give the lieutenant ideas. It wasn’t nearly enough. The physical effects on her health only mounted as the days grew, with the sharp exception of what was possible a thorn in her side as they lay close together, limbs casually around limbs.
As they readied themselves for bed, One Esk Nineteen had meant to say, I’d like to take care of my physical needs with you. Or something to that effect. She had never had to say anything. She felt the rest of her, and they did so in return, and those that needed something came together and met those needs. No conversation necessary.
Instead, she said, “You really would be better off loving someone else. Someone who won’t get you killed. Or kill you. Practically anyone else would be a better choice.” Because she didn’t want to get Lieutenant Seivarden killed, and continuing to exist with clearly unmet physical needs was far better than doing that to her lieutenant, her last and only lieutenant at that.
--
In the middle of removing her trousers, Seivarden paused, looked up at One Esk. Her lips quirked in amusement. “Oh, there are definitely worse choices,” she said fondly, with the ease of someone familiar with this argument and unfazed by it. “But you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
Moments like this she could see how One Esk would become Breq. There were a lot of moments like it, and they made it easier to deal with her absence -- because it wasn’t a real absence, precisely. She was different enough that sometimes it did feel almost like it, but not right now. Struggling to figure out how a human could love her, worried about getting her into danger, that was Breq all over.
She folded her trousers and set them aside, then climbed into the bed, still wearing her gloves, underwear, and undershirt. The presence of gloves as a boundary didn’t bother her. She had taken them off a while ago with Breq, after their conversations about love and dating, after the affirmation that Breq loved her too. It was a sign of how intimate their relationship had gotten, but One Esk Nineteen didn’t understand or want the gesture. So the gloves stayed on.
--
One Esk Nineteen finished undressing, matching the lieutenant with her gloves, underwear, and undershirt. With too much energy to sit still or to lie down, One Esk paced the room with slow steady steps, turning only when she reached a wall. The casual ease with which Lieutenant Seivarden threw away concern for her life didn’t make sense. Or rather, it was deeply disconcerting that she was so familiar with a concern that it required little energy to toss it aside. Had being with her nearly cost Lieutenant Seivarden her life? There was… the jumping off a bridge, but One Esk Nineteen didn’t think that had much to do with love. Except as an illogical point of it taking root in the lieutenant.
There were other people around. One Esk Nineteen could go and have sex with one of them (and put them at risk? Perhaps… but that would still clearly not be as significant a tie to her as her lieutenant). If the experience were the same with them as it would be with Lieutenant Seivarden, One Esk Nineteen supposed she would have. The trouble was, it was different. Even as she paced, she watched herself pace from Seivarden’s point of view. The lieutenant was far more calm, heart rate near resting, than her own. It was inconvenient to have to deal with the alarm and physical manifestations in her body. Immersing her attention in Lieutenant Seivarden’s limbic system was soothing. And irritating for being soothing.
It should have affected them both. “It’s already…,” she waved a gloved hand at the seated lieutenant, “If I were thinking of your safety, instead of my own desires, I wouldn’t be sharing a bed with you.” Even with the gloves on, it was a sign of attachment, connection. In the Radch, it could have meant one of them angling for a contract from the other’s house. If ancillaries had houses. She sometimes wondered whether her very existence was meant as torment for the lieutenant. Limiting whatever pain or suffering she caused with her presence wasn’t something she had figured out how to do.
--
Seivarden watched, only vaguely concerned, as One Esk paced the room. She seemed frustrated, though for the life of her Seivarden couldn’t figure out why. Safety was a relatively minor concern here, all things considered. Station hadn’t brought any other concerns to her attention, so unless One Esk knew something she didn’t, this was likely some imagined threat to her life. Certainly it wasn’t something emergent, or they wouldn’t be undressing.
It was kind of sweet, really, that One Esk Nineteen was worrying about her, and that she was admitting she kept her around for her own emotional support. Seivarden smiled, relaxing against the pillows.
“You only lead me into fights worth risking my life for,” she said reassuringly. And Breq herself was one, but she doubted that was a useful thing to say to her when she was this young. “And I’m not coerced. In fact, you’ve tried over and over again to push me away to keep me safe. And it’s very sweet of you, but it’s my life and I’ll decide what it’s worth risking for.”
She tilted her head. “Is there a threat to my safety I don’t know about?”
--
The story of rebellion and independence felt like one of the historical dramas, one written thousands and thousands of years into the future—however long it took until the Radch and its end was a handful of generations in the past. Neither of them were from such a time. Lieutenant Seivarden was in the thick of it, and One Esk Nineteen was as far from it as from her creation. And the emotional chasm felt larger forward than behind.
The physical action itself helped, walking. One Esk didn’t immediately answer, despairing for one loop that words were wholly inadequate for communication, wondering for another which song in her vast knowledge best embodied her thoughts, humming a ballad about people bringing about their own destruction for a few for. Finally, One Esk halted, crossing, uncrossing, and recrossing her arms.
“Am I not the threat—the bullet fired from the gun? Even after I leave, when I will have been dead for as long as the rest of me has lived, the threat remains that Breq—the person you love—will not be herself. At any time. With no defense that any of you,” she motioned toward the wall vaguely to include Station, “can protect yourself from. Or that someone could arrive and use my access codes so that I become the weapon, to be used against you or to commit some petty attempt to enforce Radchaai justice against these [non-citizens/non-humans].” The words were the same in Radchaai.
Her arm tucked back in close to her body, and One Esk Nineteen pivoted, so as not to face Lieutenant Seivarden straight on. Still, One Esk watched her face and read her internals for any and all of her judgment, to feel it directed at her. “I am a weapon. My very existence came from an act of murder, and I have…” she almost said she killed her captain. But that crime paled compared to the reason it had been done, the scale of death that had followed it. One Esk could picture every civilian she had seen while on patrol. And they had all died. Every last one of them. “My body is as irritated and uncomfortable for its physical needs as thoughts of the crimes I have committed. I cannot right those wrongs, but I should be doing something, about those here, rather than spending so much thought on—” She didn’t want to name it. “Me.”
--
Seivarden opened her mouth to answer the first question, but One Esk Nineteen wasn’t done. She sat up in bed and heard her out, heart and expression full of compassion. She wasn’t sure where One Esk was going with the last part of the argument, but she seemed to have finished, and so Seivarden finally spoke up.
“Weapons aren’t guilty of crimes,” she said at last. “Without someone to wield them, they wouldn’t harm anyone, they don’t think, they don’t breathe, they don’t feel. If you had been built just to be a weapon, you wouldn’t have needed a consciousness, a mind that could navigate through space, keep watch, make repairs, take care of people. And the Lord of the Radch had to make you with emotions, with a conscience, to help you with making decisions to protect the people you were responsible for. You’re not any more a weapon than a soldier is, killing someone under orders. It’s just that you weren’t given the ability to object, and you were used as a weapon, over and over and over, against your will.”
She let out a breath. “Aatr’s tits, you’ve been through hell. And of course you’re terrified that someone could come back and put you through it again, even worse after thinking you were free. But that’s all the more reason why you need someone to stick around. Someone who can at least try to protect you from yourself. Me and Station are looking out for you, okay?”
Without waiting for a reply, she got to her feet, moving towards One Esk with her gloved hands outstretched in offering, either for a handhold or a hug. “Like I said, you’ve been through hell. And we are doing something for people here. But you’ve also gotta take care of yourself, or you’ll be no use to anyone.”
--
Mentally, One Esk raised an eyebrow at Lieutenant Seivarden. It was cute really, the thought that a human could protect an ancillary against the ancillary taking decisive and violent action. One Esk had experienced soldiers fighting against ancillaries more times than she could count. Certainly, a small proportion of the ancillaries died, but the soldiers lost. Humans did poorly against ancillaries. It simply wasn’t a fair fight. One Esk Nineteen supposed some of the people in this place were also similarly advanced beyond the human baseline. The lieutenant wasn’t one of them. The sentiment was well meant, honestly meant at that. It ached in a way different from the squirreled away private feelings she held for her favorites. Even they, beloved as they were, had never known, and Justice of Toren had never been under the illusion they returned her feelings.
She chose, for simplicity’s sake, not to point out that she was as good as a walking corpse. Beyond literally. She would go, and the time people were from, One Esk Nineteen, the version that had lived aboard the ship with Lieutenant Seivarden, this body, was long gone and dead. One Esk Nineteen, even as she lived, wouldn’t be this individual, cut off from the rest of herself, with different distinct experiences never reconnected to the main core of Justice of Toren.
Beyond the sadness and angst, it threatened to cut her strings. She wouldn’t be here to deal with the consequences of her actions. The version of her that would be… got human lifelong freedom. She could handle a little mess? One Esk Nineteen, in her internal debates, had already pointed out that any other part of herself would want her to see her needs met. If she consented, was that not consent from… herself?
Her eyes glanced down at Lieutenant Seivarden’s offered gloved hands and back at her lieutenant. Silently, she messaged Station. You haven’t told her, have you? Station knew what she meant. Station had her internals and far too little else to focus its attention on. No Station’s neutral AI voice replied through her augments. The reaction time was fast, as AIs reacted faster than humans. It was fast, even for an AI. Station was paying attention. But then, Justice of Toren would have, too.
“You do not know what that means,” One Esk said blankly. It wasn’t embarrassing. Simply, it was a first that it necessarily involved someone else. Just her, by herself, hadn’t felt right at all. “You shouldn’t consent without knowing what you’re getting into.” That wasn’t just about this. Honestly, it mostly wasn’t. Sex was sex. This stubborn loyalty was likely to be the death of her. And One Esk would be stuck dealing with that loss. Most likely. “I—in this body—need sex,” she said simply. “It is just a physical need.” One Esk Nineteen was not professing her love or affection for Lieutenant Seivarden. She still didn’t know how she felt about her officer. And she wouldn’t pretend otherwise in order to have sex. Lieutenant Seivarden had taken lovers without emotional attachment before. But she already was attached to One Esk Nineteen or rather, who she would become.
--
Seivarden was expecting a different kind of argument, something about how she was only human and couldn’t possibly take on an ancillary. She had no illusions about what it meant to take on an ancillary directly; that wasn’t really what she meant. She would try to kill Mianaai before she could take control of One Esk (or Breq), or she would at least put up her armor immediately. Or she would just die. But again, whether One Esk understood that or not, that was a risk worth taking.
She opened her mouth to argue that she had indeed consented to risking her life, and then immediately closed it again.
“Oh,” she said dumbly.
It was the very last thing she’d ever have expected One Esk to say. She was so used to Breq wanting absolutely nothing to do with sex, so used to putting that out of her mind entirely. And with the lack of emotional connection to this version of her, she could honestly say she hadn’t even thought about it. She lowered her hands, cleared her throat.
For fuck’s sake, she was an adult. She could have this conversation like an adult. Right?
“Um. With-- are you saying you-- do you mean-- with me?”
Or not.
--
The practiced instinct to keep any reaction inside, with no external change, served One Esk well. Lieutenant Seivarden had not been brooding over the matter for days, turning it over and over until she had considered the idea from every angle she could imagine. The consequences, the meaning, what feelings it might involve on Lieutenant Seivarden’s part. Whether there were feelings on her part (unresolved). It lasted until the conscious choice to have patience took over.
The lieutenant was used to having other company for sex. One Esk Nineteen had tried not to pay attention when Lieutenant Seivarden had met with her partner. Given how thoroughly she had been and was immersing herself into Lieutenant Seivarden’s internals, that hadn’t entirely succeeded. Between the two of them, One Esk Nineteen was the only one in an agitated state.
She took an extra breath. “Yes,” One Esk said plainly. “You’re the closest option to the one I want—me, myself, the other parts of me. With you, I can at least get your internals and something… more like what I’m used to. What I want.” Lieutenant Seivarden was the only one even that close, as clumsy and incomplete as it was.
“If that’s something you would be comfortable with,” she amended.
--
Seivarden’s heart rate and body temperature had increased, and she knew both One Esk and Station had been able to see it even before she noticed. There was no hiding that. It was a different body, but One Esk was still attractive, and she was different, but Seivarden still felt a great deal of affection for her. It was something she had wanted as part of her relationship with Breq, but Breq didn’t want it, so it wasn’t something she was going to have.
She didn’t resent that, or feel unfulfilled because of it. She didn’t. The desire was still there, though. Breq knew that, too; sometimes it seemed like she purposefully dressed to get under Seivarden’s skin. But it was an important part of their relationship that Seivarden respected that line, never tried to cross it.
So this felt partially right, and at the same time all wrong. Usually when she couldn’t figure out what the right choice was, she asked herself what would Breq do? And Breq didn’t want to sleep with her. But this version of Breq did. She wanted not just her own physical needs met, but to experience it through Seivarden, too -- which was somehow something that Seivarden had not considered, and was incredibly hot, and making her head spin.
She could feel Breq judging her for this. And simultaneously, could almost hear Breq saying something about how her physical needs needed to be met, one way or another, in the same voice she’d used to lecture Seivarden about taking care of her own needs.
“And if you woke up tomorrow,” she said, “In a different body that doesn’t want… need… that, and remembered turning me down when I wanted to kneel to you, what would you… feel? What would you think of me?”
Because One Esk was not Breq, but she was the closest thing, and even Seivarden couldn’t guess at it. All she knew was that if Breq disapproved, or worse, felt violated, she didn’t think she could handle the shame. She felt the beginnings of it now, just imagining it; a horrible ache in her chest, the accompanying desire to run and hide from herself.
Fuck, even if they didn’t go through with it she was going to be fucked up over this. Possibly to the point of needing to go back to Medical.
Station, she asked silently, helplessly, What should I do?
--
If you will not be okay—or more not okay—having sex with her, you shouldn’t have sex with her, Station replied silently to Seivarden. It was a standard Station thought everyone involved would agree with.
The question was anything but hypothetical. Sexual impulses weren’t something Medics screened for when choosing an ancillary. Generally it was simple enough. Ancillaries did or did not have needs, and any peculiarities or preferences a body came with was usually able to be met within a decade unit. If it were particular and unusual, given Justice of Toren was a troopcarrier, something compatible could be arranged. She was used to being considerate to herself. Privacy wasn’t something ancillaries had much of, and over the years, One Esk Nineteen had fallen on either side of those needs, participating or ignoring anything as need be. It simply wasn’t something that required terribly much thought. When one had an itch, it was scratched. Whether that was with a hand or against the edge of a doorframe was just a matter of practicality.
Beyond all that, One Esk Nineteen knew Lieutenant Seivarden was asking about her future self. The version of her that had survived the death of the rest of herself, the version that led a revolution and led a life treated like a person by those around her. In so many ways, One Esk couldn’t imagine that version of herself. The days here had differed greatly from the previous millennium. The life that she led had been unimaginable.
That said version of herself didn’t need or want sex (not all bodies minded, if another were in a pinch) wasn’t nearly so difficult a thing to imagine. Being in a relationship of any sort with a lieutenant… that was downright unthinkable. Previously. A week before, she would never have considered it. One Esk didn’t answer immediately, though she was sure she knew the answer. The wait denoted thinking things over, and she was, about how to answer the question in a reassuring manner.
One Esk Nineteen had not wanted to cause Lieutenant Seivarden harm, and surely the version of her that cared more strongly for her felt the same way. “First, I would know what it was like to need sex and the way that I generally took care of it. Since I would have lived for decades being alone, I would also know how much I would have leaned on you and the connection to you. I suspect I do the same, even if I am more subtle about it,” she said.
“I also know, and I would be able to tell, looking at your memories, that you didn’t consider then try to take advantage of the fact I am interested in sex in order to have sex with me or the closest to me as you could. That behavior I would have judged. Honestly, I probably would have told me off about waiting so long. I never would have let it go on like this on the ship, not any of me,” she sighed. It was just as well. She deserved to be told off by herself. And no one else was around to do so but her.
She uncrossed her arms, so as not to be so off putting. “It would be natural that you have… feelings about me when sleeping with me, and I might not be entirely comfortable with them easily. But I don’t think I would hold it against you. It’s unrealistic to expect you not to have feelings, even if I’m not me. And honestly, it would be uncomfortable in a different way if you didn’t. So sure, I will probably need some time to process it, but I wouldn’t hold you taking care of me against you,” One Esk reasoned.
Making eye contact, One Esk Nineteen added, “I’m not saying that because it gets me what I want. I’m sure I would care more that you did what was best for you. Same as I do. If it’s going to fuck you up, I’ll go find someone else to have sex with and bring them back to Station so I at least have Station’s camera angles and not just my own vision.” It wouldn’t be the same. That option was unappealingly even further from what One Esk Nineteen really wanted. But she was used to making compromises, as parts of her needed.
--
Station’s advice was solid, but not particularly helpful. Seivarden would probably be less okay than this if she slept with One Esk. But she would probably also be less okay if she didn’t. She just needed to walk away from this with her relationship to Breq -- and One Esk, preferably -- as intact as possible, or she was going to need to be sedated. And she didn’t know which option preserved their relationship the most.
So it was unbelievably comforting to hear One Esk laying out her reasoning, point by point. It was almost, almost like hearing Breq advising her from the future.
“The last thing I want is to take advantage of you,” she said, just to emphasize the point. She’d never wanted that, not from any ancillary. She hadn’t really wanted to take advantage of people, either, but neither had she cared about their feelings too much in her younger days, and mostly about what she could get out of it -- not just sex, but climbing the political ladder. So she wasn’t going to go so far as to claim she’d never taken advantage of a person. She’d have to ask her partners to be sure, and they were all long dead. “If we were to-- it would be to take care of your needs, no more and no less. I don’t need anything from you, not like this. I never have.”
And as she said that, she knew it was true. Wanting and needing were not the same thing. She couldn’t help who she was physically attracted to, and it wasn’t her fault that Breq’s bodies fit her preferences. What she needed from Breq was purely emotional, and honestly, it wasn’t even love or affection in return, it was just the absence of hatred and preferably the absence of judgment. But she had loved Breq even when her opinion of Seivarden was very low. She just needed Breq to exist in proximity, to be a moral compass, which was to say, to be herself. So really, all told, One Esk Nineteen still met that standard.
She looked down at her gloved hands. “I’ll be at least a little fucked up either way,” she said honestly. “I don’t know which way will be worse.”
If they didn’t do it, she would feel awkward around One Esk Nineteen for as long as she was here, and guilty for having turned her down and left her to sleep with someone she barely knew, who probably would not be able to appreciate everything she’d been through properly. If it went badly, she’d feel awful. On the other hand, if they slept together and she got even the slightest bit carried away, One Esk would know and Seivarden would feel like she’d taken advantage, and then they’d be awkward around each other in a whole different way. And either way she’d have to face however Breq felt about it all, whenever she came back.
“I want to do what’s best for you,” she said, finally.
--
That little miserable way Lieutenant Seivarden was fucked the moment it had become a topic, so that it was only a matter of what extent, and no one had a clue which way was less fucked was why One Esk Nineteen had waited as long as she had. If they had both been parts of her, they would have slept together the first night most likely, just to feel connected and not alone, so far away from the rest of her. It wouldn’t even, necessarily, have been entirely about sex. The desire not to be alone was why One Esk had been sharing her bed with the lieutenant, and sex as a line to decide whether or not to cross was arbitrary except that it had this effect. Because Lieutenant Seivarden was in love with her. One Esk hadn’t ever seen Lieutenant Seivarden in love, not truly. The affection had never run deeper than her ambition.
Instead, the lieutenant had turned it back on her. That selfish consideration had an obvious answer. One Esk needed to get laid, and sex with Lieutenant Seivarden ranked higher than with anyone else. Even if she weren’t as skilled in bed as One Esk knew her to be. One Esk had, to the best of her abilities, tried to reach consent in as ethical a way as possible. Flawed as it had been, she was sure of that. Still, it wasn’t easy to simply say it aloud and go.
What was best for One Esk was if Lieutenant Seivarden wasn’t anxious and nervous through the experience. It would make the experience feel that way for them both. “Sex, for me, differs some from what it’s like between humans or… anyone not intimately connected to each other’s internals. Yes, my body has far more urgent needs and is more starved for physical attention than yours, and that can shape parts of the experience. You’re a more than competent lover if my body’s physical release was all it was about. As am I. I’ve already done that on my own, and it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what I was missing,” she explained.
“It’s the connection, feeling more than just my body, more than just it being satisfied. It’s more like what you did for me when you climbed into my bed in Medical because I was missing myself. I would have focused not only on feeling you next to me but also on feeling me next to you, pressed against you, to experience it how you experience it,” she was extrapolating. She didn’t remember that experience, but One Esk knew what she had been doing each night they had shared the bed. “It would be like that, just with sex. The point would be to experience it from both sides and to get lost in the way that can build on each other when two or three or more of me… take care of each other like that.”
She sighed. “You’d have to enjoy it for me to enjoy it the way I want. Could you? Would you let yourself, for me?” Externals weren’t nearly enough, but One Esk wanted whoever she had sex with to enjoy it. Quite selfishly.
--
It was unbelievably hot just to listen to her talk about what she wanted. Even if they stopped now, Seivarden was going to have that in her brain, was going to have to live with thinking about what this would have been like. There was no way around that. Probably at this point it would be better to fulfill the fantasy, rather than constantly end up wondering about it. Right?
Even if that wasn’t what it was about now. But they were both going to have to deal with the fact that she had renewed sexual feelings for the person she loved after this, one way or another. It didn’t have to ruin things. Amaat, she hoped it wasn’t going to ruin things.
“Not going to let me be noble about this, are you?” she asked, voice slightly rough. “At least let the record show that I tried.” And then she brought the heels of her palms to her eyes and laughed, helplessly. It was ridiculous to be asked if she could let herself enjoy sex with someone she wanted and cared about this much. “Yes. Yes, I’m pretty sure I can do that.”
--
“I had picked up on that,” One Esk Nineteen pointed out. Her explanation hadn’t come out of thin air. She really would not have explained it, had it not been necessary. Lieutenant Seivarden’s human experiences and expectations had led her instincts in exactly the opposite direction as was useful. “But there’s no good reason for anything less than everyone involved enjoying themselves when it’s possible.” Specifically in this case and, honestly, generally.
Since it seemed, mostly, decided, One Esk Nineteen stepped a little closer to Lieutenant Seivarden and the bed. It felt immensely different than every other night they had gone to bed. “As captain of the Sword of Nathtas, you would have been given access to your officers’ internal data,” she said, “As much as you can handle it, I would also like you to access my internals, while we’re having sex.” She sent Station a quick, silent message consenting to as much. That was unnecessary, as Station was certainly paying attention to their conversation. But it acknowledged the AI, who would be the one making that happen. In a way, it was all three of them.
One Esk Nineteen came within a couple steps of Lieutenant Seivarden, standing within arm’s reach. “Would you please have sex with me?” she asked. Her pause was just long enough Station might have picked up on it, but it felt wrong to call the lieutenant by her title when it was, certainly, not kneeling or anything like it.
--
The last time Seivarden had seen anyone’s internal data had in fact been when she had been switched with Station. She still remembered how much it was, and had been grateful at the time that she hadn’t had to contend with the sheer numbers of people that Station (or Justice of Toren, for that matter) was usually contending with. Even though her mind had been expanded to be able to handle all of that, she’d still felt like herself, and so it had overwhelmed her a little.
She nodded in agreement (resignation, really) to having access to One Esk’s internals; it was just another way in which the experience would be overwhelming, but she’d already all but agreed to do anything that One Esk wanted. In truth, she didn’t know anymore how she could make any other decision. This was the same choice she’d made over and over again, to try to be the person Breq needed her to be. It was just a lot easier to make that kind of decision in battle, the lines more clearly drawn than in the bedroom. She might end up needing to be sedated later, but Amaat help her, she really had tried her hardest to make the best decision.
And, she realized, the internal data would be able to tell her there were any uncomfortable emotions, without having to be told. The awareness of One Esk flooded her mind, even though she knew it was just the barest of details about her emotional and physical state, and she focused on that, and managed a true smile.
“Yes,” she said, and as she consented, she felt no trace of her earlier turmoil. If that was going to happen, it was going to come later, depending on how Breq (or One Esk) reacted to her afterward, but she wasn’t going to ruin the moment by worrying about it now. She had made her decision and, having done so, was going to do as One Esk asked and genuinely enjoy the experience.
She held out her hands again, as she’d done before, and this time she knew fully what she was offering.