Sometimes, Less is More

[Scherezade deWinter]

Family was everything. She remembered believing that. She remembered believing that so fiercely. But... "Is it?" Scherezade asked, "my own grandmother split me away from my parents and brother, and left me to figure things out on my own. Then I was adopted by someone who said she would be my sister, but when I was recovering from being almost murdered by a Jedi, she and the man I love decided to become an item and claim each other." Did Daisy know what claiming was? She wasn't sure, "Which is sort of like getting married, while I was out cold for a week. I told her we were no longer family after that."

Scherezade became quiet them, the same expressions of lifeless mouse that Daisy had seen on the beach returning to her face. She sighed, taking her bottle from her hip, realizing it had been perhaps a full ten minutes since she'd drank (new record!), and took a very long swig.

"So no. I don't think I'm capable of moving heaven and earth. I'm not really capable of much, anything. I'm only still with the CIS because I don't have anywhere else to go."

She blinked when the droid arrived with the cream. She hadn't had any in.. In the two weeks since that dreadful night. Had she eaten anything at all in that time? She coudn't remember right now. For now, she just held the glass in her hands, not drinking yet.


[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

“Real family is. Be they bound to you by blood or water. If they’re true—they’d die for you.”, Daisy responded softly, feeling like she was missing a huge part of the story, when she mentioned a Jedi nearly killing her. The golden-haired woman also didn’t understand this ‘claiming’ nonsense but she did understand love. And a broken heart. No wonder Scherezade drank so much. “How long ago did this happen?”

She also looked remarkable for having recently been near death. The shadows returned to the brunette's face and she sighed softly. “You may not think you’re capable but ah do. Ah saw you move on the beach and it was nothin’ to laugh at, especially, being intoxicated. Ah’ve seen men move a lot slower a lot more sober.”

“The CIS isn’t a bad place to hang your hat. It’s better than where ah came from—and there’s enough space to avoid the people who hurt you until it doesn’t smart so much.”

Blue-green eyes squinted at the cream she held. Was it the wrong thing? Surely, it was better than the booze she’d been inhaling like water. She felt unsettled about this sister and lover. Why would they do this? Why would they take away all she had?

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Real family would die for you. Scherezade blinked at the statement. She didn't know anyone who would die for her, and wasn't sure she ever had. Theoretically, her parents might have, but she had not seen them in so long that she couldn't even know if it was true or if she was just fantasizing about the perfect family that she simply didn't have.

How long ago did it happen? Another thing she had to think about, had no immediate answer to. She hadn't been keeping track of time. There were events she remembered, things she'd done, things she'd seen. She could account for maybe two weeks since that dreadful night when she managed to break free of the Darkness. And into that she'd had to calculate things like lost memories, drunk moments... "Two weeks... I think... I'm not sure," she admitted.

How could Daisy think she was capable of anything? Based on those three seconds during which Scherezade had almost killed her brother?

She noticed the look Daisy gave to the glass in her hands. No, it wasn't the wrong thing. But how did you... How could she explain... With a sigh, Scherezade took a small sip. It tasted like heaven. It also served to rise memories to the surface, memories that she didn't want to have right now, of mornings of cream for her and black coffee for him. She closed her eyes and set the glass aside. A sip was better than nothing, she supposed.

"Is there enough space?" she asked, looking at Daisy again, "I can always feel it, when he and I are on the the same planet. Like everything inside me knows which direction to go to to be with him again. But... I can't. It feels... Too small."


[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

"Two weeks is a drop in the bucket. No wonder you're such a mess.", Daisy responded bluntly, though, not unkind. She had been put out on her back end for months after the worst of breakups. Usually, her beau of choice simply disappeared, but Scherezade had it much worse. It would have been like one of her sisters dating her guy. The golden-haired woman shuddered. "Ah'm sorry."

It was a pathetic apology. What else could she say? It was clear that it hurt her, clear that it was still hurting her, and there was nothing Daisy could do. "Things like this...Ah never know what to do. Say. Ah try and ah just wind up soundin' like a preacher. Point me in the direction of a bad guy and ah'll bring him back trussed up like a holiday ham. But somehow, ah figure, that's not gonna help."

She watched as the brunette took a sip of the cream. She didn't spit it out, however, it seemed to make her worse. She looked so young. A few years her junior? But her eyes were hazy. Old and jaded. "Give yourself time darlin'. They say it heals all wounds, but, ah don't really think that's true. It's more like your heart covering itself with scar tissue. It lessens the pain, but, it doesn't completely go away. You just learn to live with it."

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade just stared at Daisy, the stunned look all too obvious on her face in response to the girl's first several sentences. It was a long silence before she finally managed to find her voice again, eyes cast down to the ground. "Preaching is what everyone's done so far," she admitted before looking up at the blonde and managing to give her a little, albeit genuine, smile, "I prefer stabbing people myself. It's easier. But you're right, I don't think it's going to help either."

Covering your heart with scar tissue... Scherezade blinked again. That did sound better than healing. Well, not in the better-better sense, but in the... Maybe? "How did you manage to get so knowledgeable about these things?" she found herself asking.


[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

Daisy’s eyebrows rose, a little concerned, when the petite woman stared at her as if she’d grown a second and a third head. “Did I say something wrong?”, she questioned lightly, biting her lip, as her face expressed a little bit of apology. She had been trying very hard not to offend Scherezade ever since the beach. She couldn’t tell how much of her headspace was the liquor talking and how much was the heartache.

“Shootin’s easier than stabbin’ if you want to split hairs.”, Daisy offered up with a little shrug of her shoulders. “People intentionally preach when they think they know best. It can take time for them to realize that what works for them may not work for you.”

The soft woman fell silent for a moment when Scherezade asked how she knew so much. Her eyes flickered down, searching the blade she held, before she set it down next to the others. “Experience, ah guess. Lots of people in my life wanted to tell me how to live. How to be.”

“My hearts been broken a time or to in the past. It sucks.”

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

All she could do was nod to Daisy's first two statements. She didn't know if they were true, not even in her own case. She didn't know enough about the people who'd made the statements and what their hearts looked like on the inside. And then she looked at her when she spoke about people wanting to tell her how to live, and about her heart being broken.

Scherezade didn't have any experience with the former. The second one... "You mean this can happen more than once?!" she asked, the look of sheer terror on her face.

[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

"You can love more than once. Many times. Sometimes, more than once, at the same time.", Daisy responded honestly. She could see the terror in her eyes and her expression softened. The flaxen-haired woman hadn't meant to scare her but her words were naive. Confusing, because someone by her age, should have known better. "You don't strike me as being overly sheltered but ah feel like ah'm missin' somethin' here..."

The knowledge gap was too wide. The reactions, the food requests, it all made her feel as if there was a huge part of the Scherezade-puzzle she couldn't see. It was to be expected, considering they'd literally just crossed paths, but it felt like more than simple stranger danger. Daisy sat quietly for a moment before she gathered up the knives in a clean cloth and stood up carefully. Nothing could hurt more she imagined than falling with an armful of knives. She laid them out on a low dresser neatly so they could dry. "Your weapons should be right as rain in a few hours and the protocol droid will take care of your clothes."

Daisy paused. She felt like she was putting her foot in her mouth but she had to ask.

"Was this your first?"

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

More than once at the same time? Scherezade blinked at that statement. No, that didn't sound right. Not for the type of love she'd been referring to, anyway. You could love more than a single friend, more than a single family member, at the same time. You could generally love a lot of people at the same time. But the love that she, stupidly, still held for Gerwald was not one of those types of love. It was something that had reached much deeper into her, and she couldn't even begin to phantom how it could have happened at all when it was so apparently one sided.

She half snorted when Daisy said she didn't strike her as being overly sheltered. She was right. Scherezade wasn't, and there was a lot that Daisy was missing, mostly because Scherezade hadn't told her. What was the point in telling, anyway? Of those who'd known the full story, truly knew it, all had betrayed her. And now here was Daisy, getting to know her better, dancing on the line of becoming a friend, and there was another one who was doing the same though Scherezade would deny it for as long as she could.

Were Daisy and Josh simply the next people on the list to use her and break her? She had no easy answers for that.

"Thank you," she said politely when Daisy mentioned her weapons and clothes. Few hours. That meant time to kill.

And then... Daisy hit her with that last question.

Scherezade looked at the blue eyed blonde, the surprise all too easy to register in her face. But surprise melted quickly away to pain, and all she could do was nod. "My only." No, she was not referring to the physical part; there'd been more with that. Well, one more. But in terms of the heart... There had never been anybody else. And never again would be.

[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

Daisy smiled a little when it seemed that her words took a moment for Scherezade to process. It could be hard to wrap the mind around it and even harder for the heart to accept it but it was true. It was possible to love more than one person. Deeply, truly. There just usually came a point where usually a decision had to be made. In very rare instances it was all right to love both. It just took very special, very open-minded, and secure people to see it through.

The derisive snort the brunette issued made the sweet spacey Mandalorian nod her head slowly. “Ah’m gonna chalk that up to no, not sheltered, then.”

Scherezade had been hurt. It was obvious. Not in the way that a teenager got dumped for the first time. She had been crushed, broken, by a friend, family, and her lover. Daisy could see that her question had bothered her. The pain on her face was palpable and the blue-eyed woman regretted putting it there.

“Ah understand. Ah’m sorry. So sorry.”

She could relate. Daisy had suffered a string of terrible luck. It never worked out. She had all but given up on finding the right person and instead focused on enriching her family and friends. It wasn’t perfect, but, it gave her something else to focus on. Something new to believe in.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"Don't be," Scherezade said, looking down at the floor that suddenly seemed so interesting. Everything was interesting when you wanted to avoid looking someone in the eyes. "It's not your fault. You had nothing to do with it." But it didn't mean she wouldn't in the future. Scherezade sighed. "Everyone I've ever truly loved and trusted ended up betraying and breaking me."


[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t suck. Someone should apologize.”

Daisy knew it would never be enough, that it wasn’t the same, and wished more than anything she knew of some way to help. In a very literal way, Scherezade needed time to adjust to the new normal. And the new normal was a steaming pile of poodoo. “Sounds to me like they were the wrong kind of people. You loved them. You trusted them. They didn’t do the same things for you.”

“Which means, all of this—”,Daisy twirled her finger in the air in a general sense, “—Not your fault darlin’. Not even close.”

Some people were just chit people.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"That someone isn't you though," Scherezade answered, eyes moving to Daisy. She didn't smile. But she almost did.

With a sigh, she asked, "so how do you know you're choosing the right people?"

[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

Daisy reserved the right to stick her tongue out at Scherezade and instead gave the brunette a cheeky smile that made her nose crinkle. Part of her wanted to bop these people into next week, and truthfully, she wasn't certain that it wouldn't happen. There were a lot of times where parts of the Confederacy came together. She could totally get the drop on a man-dog that seemed to have a taste for anything that moved. "Ah don't think ah should be in the same breathing space as these people, who, should be growing you apologies in a garden outside your window... Ah'm just sayin'."

The next question that Scherezade asked caused the blonde to tilt her head and think it through. "Truthtelling? Ah'm not sure. There's no formula to figure out if your friends are scum bags. You just have to keep tryin' and eventually, your gut will start to know. Once you've been treated like you should be you'll be able to recognize it."

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade looked at Daisy as she mentioned not being in the same breathing space. There was no explicit threat in those words, but... But she shook her head. Both Gerwald and Katrine were still under her protection. Despite everything, she couldn't let that go. If Daisy tried to do something, Scherezade would have to interfere, and she didn't want any of that to happen.

Apparently there was no formula. Scherezade sighed, looking at the floor again. "Then it's as I thought," she said quietly, "the only way to protect yourself is to not have anyone at all."

[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

Daisy had no way of knowing that Scherezade wouldn't want her to deck either of her old friends. So, given the chance, she'd deck 'em good and proper. Especially the guy. It seemed like the female in the equation hadn't entirely known the depth of what had happened but the timing and the response was truly awful. The mutt? He had no excuse at all. Nothing in this universe or the next would make Daisy not want to pop him just one good one in the kisser.

Realizing that once again, she'd explained something poorly, the golden-haired Americus sighed. "Don't say that darlin'... The right people? They're worth all the crap you deal with along the way. They'll fill some of the holes you have. Again, nothing is perfect. The world doesn't work that way. And being alone... That's not livin'."

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She couldn't keep sitting. Scherezade stood up, and walked to the window, looking out. There was nothing to really distract her. So few things did, these days. "No," she said quietly, "if this is what it's like when it's not the right people, there won't be anything left when the right people do come." She thought of Josh, the one person who'd tried to actively help her since this whole thing started. He tried to be a friend. Scherezade couldn't trust him, couldn't let her guard down around him. Daisy was in for the same treat if she was going to stick around. "Alone is better."

[member="Daisy Americus"]

 

[Daisy Americus]

"There's always somethin' left. Somethin' more. Love is one of the few things we have that we never run out of. There's always more--Even if ya gotta dig deep to find it."

Daisy really did believe that. Too many times she'd been abandoned in the past. Her beau's just disappeared. Off the map, off the grid, gone. Talk about being ghosted. If she just gave up because it hurt...What was the point of it all? "I can't argue with your opinion. It's yours, darlin'."

She just didn't have to agree or like it. She hoped that one day her new friend would see it too.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Was there always something left? Scherezade sighed, still looking out the window. It didn't feel that way. She couldn't find her own pieces anywhere. Whatever she was now, it paled in comparison to what she been before. There were pieces of her left after she'd come out of the Darkness, even if her mind wasn't entirely there yet. It was only a few moments after that...

"I thought he loved me," she said quietly, "the way he responded to what I was saying, the way he looked at me... He told me he couldn't say the words, and I thought that was fine, because every breath he took around me showed that he did. I survived years of torture because I promised him I'd always find my way back to him. But while it was years for me, it was a week for him, and he ran out of it in that time..."

[member="Daisy Americus"]