Sitting on the Dock of the Bay [Loske]

[Sarge Potteiger]

[member="Loske Matson"] [member="Cira"]

A hand came up, brushing at his jaw, and then his index finger and his thumb slipped between his lips. Whistling in a piercing manner, he looked to her with a concerned furrow to his weathered brow, thumb brushing at the right corner of his mouth in apparent study of her eyes. "If you think you did, you probably did." He begins carefully, voice neutral. This was a subject broached with caution, if only because it was clear the memory of such a thing was still fresh in her mind.

"The sum of a decision lay within the outcome, but it also lay within the process in which it was made as well as perspective.

Say, for example, you and I are manning the line somewhere, and the enemy pushes into a neighboring sector. I comm for permission for you to take your men and flank them, and command tells me no. I send you anyway, and we find out later that if we hadn't done that the line wouldn't have held.

That is a correct decision, but it is also the wrong decision. I have been insubordinate, but I have saved lives. It's a cost benefit analysis. Staying in place would have been the wrong-right decision, which sounds silly, but it's true.

'Correct' decisions rarely come in black and white, and much like the truth, you find that they live in a world of gray." As he spoke, his hands gesticulated in a reserved manner, his hands half flexing as if gripping a large ball of nothing. As he said black and white, they gestured left and right, before going palm outward when he said 'gray.' It seemed to keep him on track. "But let's operate on the assumption that this was the wrong decision to make.

Did you accomplish enough to make it a good one?"

 

[Loske Treicolt]

“I don’t know if I personally did. In the end, the Galactic Alliance ‘Won’ the liberation..’ her fingers came up for complementary air quotes. “I’m sure some of the objectives were… achieved. The numbers were just…really not in our favour. I saw a lot of death that I..didn’t really prevent and may have instead, agitated.

To be honest, I don’t know what happened in the end. There was this Sith Lord, I guess, and I..” and they interacted and she felt like she overloaded with something. Like a circuit being flooded with too much electricity and blowing a fuse “-I passed out. Alliance Rescue teams took over.

We did…no, I guess we did our objective.” She mused aloud now, running through the story in her head once more. Their objective, herself and Padawan Abel, had been only to keep some of the ships from departing full of slaves and taking them away to The First Order. They’d certainly accomplished that.

“I can definitely see what you mean about a grey area.”

[member="Sarge Potteiger"] | [member="Cira"]

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

[member="Loske Matson"]

"Mm." He says quietly, sipping his tea in a cautious manner, torso turned towards her even as he leaned on a palm he'd set onto the railing. For all intents and purposes, he was a professor at his office hours, attempting to help the newest student understand the application of critical thinking on old concepts. "We live in gray. An old phrase, but a true one.

Do not mistake platitudes for falsehoods."

His gaze drift down to the stone walkway below that bisected home from lake, and he caught sight of a ragged long-fur wolf trundling along, head up, ears alert. It's hair was russet brown and rust red, mottled in that distinctly canine way that caused the colors to blend seamlessly in a manner painters only wished they could manage. Lengthy canines hung from it's upper jaw, longer than a beast that size had any right to have. Each was coated in iron, and gave it the look of a sabretooth.

A meter high at the shoulder, it looked up, realizing where Sarge was. "Heya, girl." He says quietly, and the wolfs tail wags slow, not recognizing the new person. "This is Ashai, Loske. My biggest tip for you moving forward is to come to terms with being unable to change the past. You can, however, endeavor to understand and pull it apart.

Lessons lay scattered along the chosen path like pebbles on a slope - a sign of danger to come, but not inherently dangerous in and of themselves. It is the manner in which these lessons are taught that welcome violence - the boulder rolling downhill, the ground giving way underfoot. Understand, but do not be overcome and live there.

Living in the past is the surest way to forget you have a future." And he spoke fully from experience, the memory of drinking himself to vomiting before blacking out on the kitchen floor (after bashing his head off the counter) still fresh in his mind even years later. A dark time, and something only Linna had seen. Stormclouds swirled over the midnight pools of his eyes, and he looked down with a frown before it was cast aside by the raising of his tea to his lips.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

The arrival of the furry friend was a distraction for the young girl, who sometimes mirrored the attention span of a four year old. Mostly because, for all chronological actualities she really was a four year old. It held her focus, as soon as its four legs went into motion before Sarge, and unconsciously she dropped to a crouch, a knee touching the ground to make herself more level with the otherwise extremely menacing creature. Should she have met it out of calm context, she may have been more cautious.

“Hi Ashai,” Loske repeated once [member="Sarge Potteiger"] introduced the creature - pocketing that no indeed, this was not related whatsoever to the term Ashla. Her thumb and first two fingers brushed together as if she were breaking crumbs against her fingertips for the wolf and she extended her arm to indicate that she wanted to touch the creature. It was a slow process, but maybe she’d come over for a pet, rub or even a hug after a while.

Living in the future and present wasn’t a difficult task for Loske; mostly because memories weren’t a common thing for her. Perhaps they would rise if something triggered them, but she didn’t have enough experience to dwell on anything save for this Karfeddion mishap, which was probably why it occupied so much of her conversation. It was the only real experience she’d had as part of the Galactic Alliance. As part of anything really, as far as she could put emotions to.

Still at a lower level, she chewed on his words for a bit before replying. She looked up, barely catching the overcome darkened look which was soon replaced by the bottom of the tea cup. There wasn’t much she could say to that, other than compliment his mastery of language and illustration. “Thank you, Sarge.” She gave way to, stretching an inkling further to try and touch the tip of Ashai’s nose, or at least let it sniff her to know Loske was as safe as could be.

“You’re a well of wisdom and experience, you know that? I appreciate you listening and helping…I feel a little better; so long as I don’t use those imperfect choices as a crutch. I can only imagine there’ll be so many more to come.” Anyways, enough of this sullen talk. “You’re not active in the field anymore, are you?”