Part 22 - Home again
Shard watches 'her student' spread the problem out on a metaphorical table for You-Why to examine. Turmoil twists his features; she hasn't done him a favour by asking him to explain, but none other in the room truly knew the specifics. The older woman wishes she could have spared him this sharp edge, but that's her protective nature. This is his work, and he does it well, despite his wrenching discomfiture.
But void, she wishes she could save him from this travail.
Her vision turns to a twisting fishbowl as You-Why replies, and Shard runs a shaking hand over her eyes. "You're welcome," she croaks out, all she can manage for a moment. Rijans gives fair reply to the droid's request, and moves away, as overcome with feeling himself as Shard has ever seen. Others might find that description amusing, given his stolid bearing; Shard sees the stiffness like a knife's blade in the bounty-hunter's movements, normally smooth as oiled smoke.
"You need to speak to anyone, You-Why, about trying other options, tell us," she agrees. "And not just here. We have a ship, after all." And the older woman offers him a small bow, hands clasped together: legacy of her world's culture, nigh-forgotten in the whirlwind of her life, but blown up to the surface by grief's wind.
She moves quietly across the floor to place a hand -- carefully -- on the bounty-hunter's shoulder. A first, perhaps; then Shard releases her light grip to stand almost beside him, fixing her gaze on the wall herself. It's a blur in her eyes, no more. "Please don't walk away, Rhijans." It could be reproach, this breathed request, but her next words prove it not so. "We need you, too."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:08, Mon 25 Nov 2019.