>>5381568"So what exactly..." You begin again, trying to find the words that would best frame your line of questioning. "When did you start losing faith in humanity? What did you see in the past that I didn't? I don't have much reference to go by in terms of humanity's darker deeds writ large in the pre-Crucible era, given my origins as Sam's Crucible-era twin."
“Nothing in the Crucible has been terribly surprising…most everyone’s actions here have been informed by their Pre-Crucible selves. The violence and casual cruelty here is a natural evolution of how brutish we were, before.” Iris blithely answers, eyes still transfixed on the Cord. “Except that here, there’s a chance we may be able to undo what’s been done, to say nothing of making sure it won’t happen again.”
"The Crucible seems to have already brought out much of humanity's darker side. What else is there?" You prompt, but Iris’ response offers little in the way of clarity.
“Suffice to say the human race’s capacity for abominable acts is as endless as their imagination.”
Letting that sit for a moment, you turn to mirror the other girl’s posture before asking; "So—how did you and the Captain meet up? If you don’t mind my asking?"
“…It was shortly after I woke up. My Core, it…it wasn’t like it is, now. I couldn’t see. I was stumbling blindly, trying desperately to defend myself. I almost died, before she saved me.” Iris recalls, a wistful air to her words. “She told me how things were, and…I laughed. She asked me what was so funny, and I…it all just seemed like a farce. Like humanity, dialed up to eleven. It was just so perfect, so impossibly karmic that I couldn’t help but laugh. I laughed…and she did, too.”
Iris’s lips twitch into a smile at the memory, and what follows is retold through a soft smirk. “She let me eat, and when she had to sleep after protecting me, I was strong enough to watch over her. She was—is—unlike anyone I’ve ever met. Kind to all she meets, even though they don’t deserve it. Lending an ear, when their words are like dust. They don’t deserve to even…”
Iris trails off, her smile clamping down into her typically stern, joyless line.
“Well, now I really want to meet her. She must be an impressive woman, to command such loyalty that a hardcore misanthrope would try to save the world for her sake." You say with a grin, and Iris barks out a peal of laughter, apparently taking ‘misanthrope’ as more of a compliment than anything. “Your relationship with your captain sounds a bit like what Isabelle and I had, initially. You seem to have a better track record than we did, at least…by the time we started listening to each other, there were certain things we couldn’t take back.”
You glance her way, finding the specter of a half-remembered past sitting with Gina and Rath, the trio engaged in an amicable, if subdued conversation.
(Continued)
