InsaneJournal

Seivarden was relieved to wake up next to Breq instead of One Esk. She was.

But she was also sad, the grief sharp and totally unexpected, because that meant One Esk had gone back to die. She didn’t know exactly what would happen to that particular body. It wasn’t when the ship had blown up, because Breq had been in her current body at that point. Something else had happened, and even though she lived on in Breq, Seivarden had gotten attached to her as if she were someone different. In a way, she was.

Breq’s return also meant it was time to face whatever consequences there were going to be for the relationship she’d formed with One Esk, especially the physical aspect of it. She was less concerned, ultimately, for Breq’s opinion of her (she was never going to think Seivarden was perfect) and whether Breq was comfortable around her still. She worried that this was a violation of the boundaries Breq had put up, even though technically Breq herself had talked Seivarden into it.

Breq had asked for time, and Seivarden didn’t argue. But she couldn’t do their guard shift together, not if they couldn’t talk before and couldn’t talk during. Just imagining it was excruciating. So she had come alone, and Breq was doing… whatever she needed to be doing.

It was a long, quiet shift, which at first felt like torture, nothing to distract her from her thoughts and feelings except her tablet and Station in her ear. And then it became a quiet space to grieve. She realized at some point that she was also grieving the rest of Justice of Toren, perhaps a side effect of feeling One Esk’s loneliness and grief for herself so intimately, or maybe just because she suddenly understood how many different people Breq had been simultaneously, and she had never really gotten to know them. She had to be on guard, so she couldn’t just let herself fall apart, but she rested against the wall with her armor up -- just in case she was taken by surprise, and to partially obscure her face -- and let herself feel sad. It started to fade as the hours passed, just leaving her feeling tired and resigned.

That was, at least, a damn sight better than falling into a shame spiral, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet. There would still be time for that later.

Time crawled, but eventually her shift ended. She pushed away from the wall, lowered her armor, and stretched to loosen muscles stiffened from hours of disuse. She waved goodbye to everyone at the Bureau, clocked out, waved goodbye, and then hesitated when she got outside to where she’d parked the motorbike. If Breq wasn’t ready, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be back at Station with her. Or maybe Breq was out somewhere.

With a few quick blinks, she sent a message. Should I come back, or do you need more time?

--

The message arrived where Breq was weeding. Some sun-loving variants had taken root around the edge of the botanical garden, feasting on the abundant sunlight. She dug deep toward the roots of one plant, dirt pressing into the shallow trenches of her skin, as she considered the answer. Time passed for both her and Seivarden. Pausing it, to have however long she needed, without causing any anguish or doubts wasn’t possible. Some discomfort was simply what it was, and Breq couldn’t wipe it away with solo contemplation. Seivarden’s company did more good than harm, and Breq wanted her home. Their lives had been disrupted enough without further unintentional harm.

Come back Breq replied. She gathered her pile of weeds, for the compost, and left the job undone. The border was long, and it wasn’t a task she had meant to complete, only to make progress. She showered with military efficiency—the sort ancillaries were used to—and dressed in clean clothes. Water was put in the kettle, and with direct awareness of Seivarden’s return home, Breq brewed the tea to be ready when she walked in the door. It was a little thing, but tea was a comfort for Seivarden.

She sat with her own bowl of tea, sipping the expensive tea that even most Radchaai had no chance to drink. It pleased her One Esk Nineteen had drunk it, and the choice was in her honor. “There’s… a lot for me to process and figure out,” Breq cut directly to the point. Her tone was even, neither aggressive nor couched in etiquette. It came from respecting Seivarden and her concerns about what had happened over the last week. “Plenty of it has nothing to do with you. One Esk Nineteen trawled up many emotions and issues I hadn’t thought or felt so raw about in some time. I haven’t nearly dealt with it all. Today, I focused on us and what we did. Taking that time today wasn’t about punishing you. It’s just this all isn’t something I ever expected to deal with.”

That was her own fault. People had aged down repeatedly in the time they had been here. Breq was no more immune to it than anyone else. There simply were more possibilities for what that meant due to her long life. “I’m glad you were here for her, for me…” Breq sighed. “It’s not entirely easy even to think about how to refer to who I was this last week. I was her. She was me. But I’m not her anymore, and not just the body, but all of it, all the experiences.”

She took another sip of tea. “Compared to the first time I had to deal with my death, I’d say I handled it well. Far more functional. I didn’t manage conversation for six months afterward, when it happened. And I think that you were a large part of that, being here, rather than just strangers on a world I didn’t know,” Breq set her ungloved hand on the table, palm up, offering it to Seivarden. “So thank you. Truly.”

There was more. Breq didn’t expect that to be enough. It didn’t touch, at all, on the issue that had made Seivarden most nervous. It was a start, something that had to be said first.

--

Seivarden didn’t quite feel relieved when she was summoned home, but it was something close. It would be better, for her at least, to get this conversation over with and know where she now stood.

It was more of a relief to find tea waiting for her when she got home, and Breq didn’t look angry. Seivarden sat down and took the bowl gratefully, sipping at the tea. Breq started to speak, so she didn’t have to figure out what to say, only sat and listened, nodding in acknowledgement at various points. She had been relatively sure she wasn’t being punished. She had also been very aware of One Esk’s emotional state, and felt an ache of sympathy at the mention of all the emotions that Breq must be feeling. She imagined Breq, this Breq, all alone after the loss of herself, and her heart ached again.

Her heart lifted a little, though, at the knowledge that she’d genuinely helped, that Breq was grateful for it. She looked at the outstretched hand for a moment, only very briefly considering whether or not to remove her gloves, before deciding against it. Not yet. But she did reach out and take Breq’s ungloved fingers in her gloved ones, giving her hand a squeeze.

“That’s all I was trying to do,” she said, responding to exactly what Breq was saying while simultaneously addressing what they were not quite talking about directly. “To be there for her. For you.”

--

Breq squeezed Seivarden’s hand in return. Having a week’s worth of recent memories shoved in her skull where she had used gloves as protection from intimacy, which had pushed Seivarden to do the same, she didn’t feel insulted. It was a small thing, for however much comfort it gave her. “I know,” she said softly.

“It was something that body needed,” Breq said. “Further, the way the brain is stimulated to a point it cannot think about anything else, especially with the shared internals and the fact Station facilitating that—thank you, Station—meant she… I didn’t have as much capacity to process all of it, well, it was not that far off from how you experienced it. Overwhelming to the point everything else could be forgotten or at least had to sit back further into the mind made it a break from the constant grief, loneliness, guilt, and confusion.”

She smiled, almost smirking. “One Esk Nineteen was right that I never would have let her go so long in such an emotionally fragile state. Not when there was an option to help her. Help me. And you were an option in a way I… as I am, would not have been.” Not that Breq had been around twofold. There had usually been at least nineteen others, and among them someone who at the very least didn’t mind helping. Breq was glad it hadn’t been this body and that one stuck together with no one else around for help. It simply couldn’t help the way Seivarden had done.

“I’m not upset. You were there for her, for me, the way we needed,” Breq said. “It’s jarring to remember it so soon afterward in this body. Returning, in general, feels like she, like I, abruptly died.” Without experiencing the horrible process of an ancillary being made. The disconcerting feelings were another flavor of the same disorientation. But no one, besides herself, had been murdered. It helped.

The bowl warmed her hand still wrapped around it. Breq squeezed Seivarden’s hand again then released it to drink more of her tea. “It’s not like I was ignorant of how you are in bed,” Breq pointed out.

--

Breq was taking this about as well as she could possibly be, and Seivarden let herself sink into the relief of it. She had made the right choice, the one that was best for all three of them. If there hadn’t been a bowl of tea in front of her, she might have put her head down on the table and cried, just to release everything she felt. As it was, she let out a long breath that accomplished at least a fraction of that, and managed a smile.

“So,” she said, “We’re okay?”

That was mostly what she wanted to know now: obviously there wasn’t real harm done, but that didn’t mean nothing had changed. She hadn’t kept the glove on to hold Breq’s hand for her own sake. She didn’t know if Breq needed that layer of protection still, even though really, the glove on her hand represented her relationship to One Esk more than anything. Once she had put them back on for One Esk, they hadn’t come back off, even in bed. Her ungloved hands were a different kind of intimacy, one that had been normal between them, but she had to consent to it, claim it, give some sign that it was okay again.

“If we’re okay, we don’t have to talk about this anymore. We can talk about… everything else.” She paused, then added, not to change the subject entirely but to offer the possibility of it, “I’ve been grieving her -- the rest of you -- today, too.”

--

It was an awkward feeling, to remember wanting Seivarden in that way when she couldn’t. That had been something new, something which only happened here. Justice of Toren had never felt sexual desire for any of her officers, not even any favorites. That hadn’t been what any of it was about. But here, away from the rest of herself, it had to include someone else. Her appreciation of how attractive Seivarden was and knowledge of how skilled she was with a partner… had gained far more firsthand knowledge. In return, Seivarden had gotten to experience something resembling what it was like for ancillaries with each other. And the whole wasn’t really like either of their previous experiences.

“We are okay,” Breq declared. It hadn’t changed what their relationship was like, not for the long term. She was extremely aware of the way Seivarden’s feelings for her had shaped those memories. But she had known that or One Esk Nineteen had, and it wasn’t a reason to make Breq wish One Esk Nineteen had acted any differently.

A small nod acknowledged it. “I have too,” Breq said. “Particularly that One Esk Nineteen and the captain she’d had. And all the officers that died with me, even the ones I didn’t like.” She still remembered the confusion. Shut off from the AI core, disconnected from their internal data, Breq had still been able to see their confusion. There hadn’t been enough time for them to understand or do much of anything about it. Justice of Toren’s reactions and actions were all they’d had. And no matter what One Toren had managed to tell the captain, it hadn’t saved anyone. They hadn’t deserved to die on her account. But her actions had sealed their deaths, collateral damage to her murder.

--

“What happened to her?” Seivarden asked softly. “And her captain?”

She knew that was a separate grief from the death of Justice of Toren as a whole, and all her officers on board. One Esk had already been carrying the pain of a weapon turned against someone she loved, and Seivarden had already guessed it was her captain -- after all, ships usually loved their captains most. Or at least people who could be their captains.

As for the other losses -- she hadn’t thought much, before, about the deaths of all the officers on board her ship when it was been destroyed, but now she was thinking about it. It reminded her of Sword of Nathtas in a different light, too, who had been entirely lost, because she had chosen to shove her captain into a suspension pod instead of one of her ancillaries. Her, instead of the other lives on board. Seivarden had been saved, multiple times over, by ships who loved her.

She pulled her hand back, only to remove her gloves, and then offered the hand back.

--

“We’ve not discussed Garsedd much,” Breq began. On her part, that had been deliberate. Nothing that she had done to rebel against the tyrant made up for her participation in the slaughter. It had taken shooting Anaander Mianaai, when that was certainly against her orders, to realize that the fact she had no choice was not entirely true. The conflicting orders from Anaander Mianaais at war with herself had contributed. The moment Justice of Toren had shot Lieutenant Awn, One Esk had taken control of One Var and shot the tyrant. Just like that. Too emotional and hurt to follow any order. She had made a choice—an unthinking choice but a choice—and dealt with the consequences.

What if Justice of Toren had refused at Garsedd? What if all who objected had refused, what could Mianaai have done? They had their captains, and they outnumbered their crew. They may have had a battle like those the dramas liked to create on screen. Either way it went, the galaxy would have been different.

“When Sword of Nathtas was destroyed, nearly four hours later it reached us at Garsedd. Word was sent to the lord of the Radch, and her order was complete annihilation. Genocide,” Breq summarized. So much more had happened, to enable all that. It wasn’t the point. “Four officers refused. They were killed. I shot my captain, and her replacement obeyed Mianaai’s orders,” Breq explained. Far more objected to the order than those who refused. They had fired their weapons, the whole fleet, until the entire Garseddai system and society, all its planets and moons and stations, were destroyed.

“One Esk Nineteen came from the next day,” Breq informed Seivarden. The specifics hadn’t been so neatly detailed. “She lived a long life, for an ancillary, in many more campaigns. Some of them were brief, people too frightened of what might happen. Others were brutal and bloody for the same reason. She died in battle, protecting a lieutenant. Armor gives out under enough bullets.” It was more merciful, in a way, than had she merely sustained a major injury. Then one of her own medics would have killed her. No one had given time or patience for an injured ancillary, nor had they considered wasting their supplies on them, not when another one could be made from the vast supply of bodies held in suspension.

Her hand squeezed Seivarden’s tight. Breq hadn’t expected to live through the fight at Omaugh palace. No one had ever regrown a set of lungs for an ancillary before then. It was only one of many times she would have been dead, had the rest of her been alive.

--

“That explains a lot,” Seivarden said softly. And it also added to the impressiveness of how well One Esk Nineteen had kept it together while she was here, all things considered. Seivarden was glad she’d been available to offer her a little respite from all that emotional turmoil.

After all, she could have just as easily been affected as well, aged down to a point (and it didn’t even have to be very long ago) when she wouldn’t have been nearly so comforting. At best. She could have also made it all much, much worse.

She also hadn’t thought about Garsedd directly from Breq’s point of view like this. She’d known the bigger picture of it, the fact that it had been the turning point for the end of the annexations. But there was a lot more to unpack here for Breq, that much was clear. She didn’t know Breq’s thoughts on how more merciful that death was than an alternative, but she thought perhaps dying to protect someone was not the worst end for One Esk Nineteen, who worried that she was a weapon. In the end, she’d been a protector, a shield.

Belatedly, she added, “Especially explains that whole… speech about how you might be a threat to my safety.”

--

It was the most Breq had said on the matter. Even now, she sheltered in her memories as her iteration of One Esk Nineteen, a thousand years removed from the raw emotions of the day. They had fueled much of her rage, at both herself and Anaander Mianaai. At the time, she hadn’t been able to see, but Anaander Mianaai wasn’t the only one so profoundly changed. Breq had been designed to be able to kill her captain without going mad. That favorite, that prized officer, had been a lesson Mianaai had learned before Breq was built. The ships of stories, ships like Sphene, who lost their captains had been a warning. Mianaai had simply not considered the way ships were like her—a fractured multitude within the same whole—when it came to favorites. Oh, she picked up on the smaller favorites, when it served her purpose. But compared to the AI core, the overarching sense of identity a ship had, she hadn’t realized the effect shooting a favorite could have, even by another decade.

Mianaai had taken control of her in the audience chamber on Omaugh Palace. Whether it had been intelligence or neglect, she had not ordered Breq to kill Seivarden. At the time… Breq did not feel as strongly for her as she did now, but Seivarden had still been her last remaining lieutenant. It might not have gone as that Mianaai had wished. Even if she came here, Breq was unwilling to succumb to orders and had long steeled herself to fight them however she could, whatever that meant. It would give Seivarden a chance, if it came to that.

“Yes,” Breq agreed. She took another sip of tea, appreciating the personhood it symbolized. “Everyone knew their ship would obey Mianaai’s orders above anyone else’s, even the captain’s. But they hadn’t had to face the reality of the ancillaries they took for granted possibly killing them until that day. The crew was more distant… cautious around me. I don’t blame them. They couldn’t hide how they felt from their ship. Had Mianaai cared more about thoughts than obedience, many of them would have been on the chopping block,” she added. They had been treated not as familiar comforts, the way a ship could be, but a possible threat. It only added to the alienation and guilt she had felt. Many had been polite about it, not acting differently. But she had felt their reactions regardless.

“The most memorable and least discussed part of Radchaai history in the last thousand years,” Breq raised her bowl and declared. “Our rebellion might be more memorable. It is also far more discussed. Mianaai doesn’t have a tight enough grip on the Radch to prevent that.” Her smile was determined, less of happiness than schadenfreude.

“Their deaths accomplished something,” she toasted. Her captain’s. Garsedd’s. Her final officers’. They had no way of knowing, but they had changed humanity.

--

With her free hand, Seivarden lifted her tea bowl in acknowledgment of the toast, and drank deeply. She still felt sad, thinking about all those deaths, but her heart was too tired to feel them keenly. And that was okay. It was a long time ago, and she hadn’t known them, but she still felt for them, and especially felt for Breq in her grieving of them.

“I think they would be glad of that, if they knew,” she said. “That standing up for what they believed in meant something, even if they didn’t live to see it. I know that’s what I’m hoping for. But I don’t want you to be forced to kill me, even if it helps the rebellion somehow. I don’t want to be another load of grief for you to carry around.”

She looked at their entwined hands, and gently rubbed the pad of her thumb over Breq’s knuckles. “I’ll try not to let that happen to you, okay?”

--

Hope. Breq had never based much of her decisions on hope. It was simply one step then the next. Revenge had carried her for decades, and it had been so much more than she had dreamed. What followed… Breq was not pinning her hopes on the Presger. They were still the most alien aliens she knew of, so much farther from understanding than the various peoples who came through the portal. The portal came in second, perhaps. They did what they could, and that was that.

She squeezed Seivarden’s hand. “I would like that,” Breq said simply. Understated. She didn’t want to imagine the possibility, though she’d spent much of Seivarden’s mission on Station fearing just that. “I’ll try to do the same,” she said. Between them, Breq took far more risks. There were no spare bodies, no clones. “I don’t want to leave you with that either.” They weren’t promising anything about taking the dumb risks together.

--

Seivarden had not considered the possibility that she might be forced to kill Breq. There were no access codes to take control of her body, and definitely no threat or bribe that could make her do it. But she had seen what the portal could do, and what people around here could do, and it was possible someone or something could take control of her body and put Breq in danger that way.

Or maybe Breq just meant she was going to try not to die on Seivarden, in general. Which was definitely a sentiment Seivarden could appreciate. Either way, really, she appreciated the gesture.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “I’d rather keep you around. Especially this version of you,” she added, though she felt guilty and sad as she said it. She had loved, still loved, One Esk Nineteen. But she had mostly loved her because she was -- would eventually be -- Breq.

--

Seivarden’s feelings played out before Breq. Her internals gave familiar signs of guilt and grief and love, which triggered some more guilt. It both had been and had not been Breq. It depended how one thought about it. That was an issue Breq had pondered from time to time over the years—when had One Esk become distinct from Justice of Toren?—but not in this context. One Esk Nineteen had been her, one body replacing the other over the years. The individual ancillaries within One Esk had only barely begun differentiated experiences before the rest of them were destroyed. And Breq — when she had become One Esk Nineteen — had never been down to the surface, not been present, in this body, for all the events that led up to what happened. But she had known because she was Justice of Toren. Because she was One Esk. It was… a lot, even for her. Naturally, it was for Seivarden too.

“I miss her,” Breq said, “Not being her. Her.” Who she was, who she had been. It was strange to have a reminder, a thousand years out of time. That had happened with Seivarden. It was far more extreme with herself. And yet… it hadn’t happened, not quite. Breq hadn’t been here with One Esk Nineteen. It was like reaching for what she missed, a tiny sliver of it, and it being just out of reach. That wore on her the most—the renewed sense of loneliness. Aloneness.

Like One Esk Nineteen, Breq was receiving as much of Seivarden’s information as she could manage to cope. Just another similarity, another bit of the sense of herself, the rest of herself. “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” she said. “I know if I do, you’ll come with me too.” Whether she wanted it or not. Mostly, she wanted it. Nothing here promised certain death as it had in Athoek System.

--

Seivarden considered that. “Shame both of you couldn’t have been here at once,” she said, after a moment.

That certainly would have made the whole ordeal easier on her, to have Breq’s blessing from the beginning, and One Esk Nineteen would likely have been more comfortable with her if Breq was around to explain it. In addition, they both would have had another set of eyes and hands to work with, and another body to cuddle.

She smiled at Breq. “You know I’d follow you anywhere.”