[There's a long silence. And then she takes a long breath, debating whether to actually say what she's about to say.]
[And then she does.]
I'm allowed to have secrets, and private things, just like everyone else. It's part of being a person and not communal property. So yes. I didn't tell everyone I was spending time with him for the first... month or two. And then he did. After that, if you could only guess, it's because you never asked me. Because no one ever asked me.
And I used him. When he first came here, I used him because he knew me, and because I was afraid of Riful, for me and for Senji, so I used him, and I made him protect me, and I made him protect Senji even though just talking about Senji made him angry, and made him teach me and I didn't care about him, and I didn't even think of him as a man, just a monster, and I didn't really believe he cared about me even a little, but I did it anyway. And I kept going back to him because he had things that I wanted. So maybe that makes me terrible.
But as for whether I gave him a wider latitude than most, no I did not. When he came here, he was guilty of nothing in this world, and I hold no one responsible for the crimes of their past, so I treated him normally because he was normal to me. And I let him on the Patrol because I had no viable reason not to. I did, or would have done, the same thing for both Riful and Luciela when they arrived, and it remains the same for Luciela, for the most part, because she hasn't done anything that I know of to remove that absolution. The only differences between them and him were his interest in me, and mine in him. I guess that put us down a different path. But it started from the same place.
These are all things I've either said before or would have said if anyone had bothered to ask me. But they didn't. They never do.
I KNEW WHAT YOU MEANT!
[And then she does.]
I'm allowed to have secrets, and private things, just like everyone else. It's part of being a person and not communal property. So yes. I didn't tell everyone I was spending time with him for the first... month or two. And then he did. After that, if you could only guess, it's because you never asked me. Because no one ever asked me.
And I used him. When he first came here, I used him because he knew me, and because I was afraid of Riful, for me and for Senji, so I used him, and I made him protect me, and I made him protect Senji even though just talking about Senji made him angry, and made him teach me and I didn't care about him, and I didn't even think of him as a man, just a monster, and I didn't really believe he cared about me even a little, but I did it anyway. And I kept going back to him because he had things that I wanted. So maybe that makes me terrible.
But as for whether I gave him a wider latitude than most, no I did not. When he came here, he was guilty of nothing in this world, and I hold no one responsible for the crimes of their past, so I treated him normally because he was normal to me. And I let him on the Patrol because I had no viable reason not to. I did, or would have done, the same thing for both Riful and Luciela when they arrived, and it remains the same for Luciela, for the most part, because she hasn't done anything that I know of to remove that absolution. The only differences between them and him were his interest in me, and mine in him. I guess that put us down a different path. But it started from the same place.
These are all things I've either said before or would have said if anyone had bothered to ask me. But they didn't. They never do.