[ It's nice to hear her laugh. Kind of -- but it's better than nothing.
Wash has tried not to dwell on what he's heard, tried to forget, but Wash doesn't forget has it long drilled into his head that he has to remember, that he always has to remember, and unlearning that is -- essentially impossible. Even now when he looks at her it's hard not to see the room they were in, clean and strangely beautiful like everything else, Zahal's voice, calm and guiding and firm, the syringe on the table, the calm promise she'd made him ( I will put a blade in your heart ) and then her eyes falling shut, opening again with all that conviction replaced with an eerie kind of bliss.
But no. No, if he has to think of it, he won't think of her there. He'll think of her as she described herself, a warrior, a leader, a queen. Jhansi ki Rani.
If he knew how to act in front of a queen, he might say something fitting, but that's -- something that's wholly unfamiliar to him, about as foreign as her Jhansi is to him, as foreign as his own world would be to her. What he does know, though, is how to talk with a soldier that he's fought beside, and maybe they haven't quite fought alongside each other yet, but she's more than earned that respect. ]
I would, if I could. [ A slight upward quirk to his lips, a wry kind of smile. Self-deprecation is another one of those things that Wash does well at, and if mocking him for a bit might amuse her slightly, he's all for it. ] Maybe not the sword.
[ He figures she could've very easily discerned how unfamiliar he is with swords. That hasn't stopped him from keeping the rapier, though, something from Maine, hidden away near his bed. A reminder that he's out there. A reminder that he's out there, and he's from before. That there's still time. ]
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Wash has tried not to dwell on what he's heard, tried to forget, but Wash doesn't forget has it long drilled into his head that he has to remember, that he always has to remember, and unlearning that is -- essentially impossible. Even now when he looks at her it's hard not to see the room they were in, clean and strangely beautiful like everything else, Zahal's voice, calm and guiding and firm, the syringe on the table, the calm promise she'd made him ( I will put a blade in your heart ) and then her eyes falling shut, opening again with all that conviction replaced with an eerie kind of bliss.
But no. No, if he has to think of it, he won't think of her there. He'll think of her as she described herself, a warrior, a leader, a queen. Jhansi ki Rani.
If he knew how to act in front of a queen, he might say something fitting, but that's -- something that's wholly unfamiliar to him, about as foreign as her Jhansi is to him, as foreign as his own world would be to her. What he does know, though, is how to talk with a soldier that he's fought beside, and maybe they haven't quite fought alongside each other yet, but she's more than earned that respect. ]
I would, if I could. [ A slight upward quirk to his lips, a wry kind of smile. Self-deprecation is another one of those things that Wash does well at, and if mocking him for a bit might amuse her slightly, he's all for it. ] Maybe not the sword.
[ He figures she could've very easily discerned how unfamiliar he is with swords. That hasn't stopped him from keeping the rapier, though, something from Maine, hidden away near his bed. A reminder that he's out there. A reminder that he's out there, and he's from before. That there's still time. ]