"Look we know you didn't do anything wrong. Please forgive how we treated you, you did everything you could.
@internutter/challenge-04197-k179-caveat-emptor-abundant -- Anon Guest
They found me in my best hiding nook after Jax went to safer territories. The eldest, and quietest of the Nae'hyn engineer-priests found me being very still in the ship's equivalent of the wainscotting. Somewhere between overhead and bulkhead and something associated with crawlspace for very small crawlers.
I learned a lot later that it was a storage locker for low-to-no-gravity events.
Engineer-priest Huan had soft and gentle eyes. "Ah, there you are," she cooed. "It's safe now. Nobody's yelling any more."
"...are they mad at me?"
"Nobody was mad at you," Huan soothed. "We were mad at the situation. We're very sorry it spilled in your direction. Novice Jax explained to us that you have... issues... We didn't know you were a Deregger survivor." She offered her hand. "We have your tea keeping warm... and your timer says you're overdue for your meds."
That winkled me out more than anything. I could imagine my Medik being cross with me very easily, for all that it never happened that way. I was glad of a hand to hold, but I baulked when I saw the other engineer-priests.
They were kneeling, and bent low as I appeared. "We formally apologise for our outbursts. We were very much in the wrong."
Engineer-priest Long raised his head. "We are better at Gravity Drives than people, and we know we've made mistakes with your treatment. It was wrong. Let us begin amends by helping you."
"We will stand in a corner if it helps," offered Huan.
That was what my former... tormentors... did to me. "No. I won't be them." But I used one of their sentences anyway. Well. A moderation of it. "I will talk about what I suffered. So you understand. Then." I will talk and you will listen, he had said, once upon a time. "We can talk together... about how to make things better."
[Photo by Alex Plesovskich on Unsplash]
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