[Admittedly, they would find many differences in the ways in which they’d spoken to the woman who called herself Yima. Hayame had confronted her the very first thing she did after awaking from the pods, rejecting a Kenoma’s (now Zenith’s) offer of help and medical treatment to instead push towards the one in the room who seemed to be in charge, demanding the release of death over another foreign world and bewildering “mission”-
And that woman had embraced her when she stumbled and collapsed with weakness, held her close like a mother would… and most unforgivably… made her feel for a brief moment as if she was the sort of woman who was familiar with a mother’s love. Liem says it’s unusual, but-]
It’s impossible.
[On this, she seems adamantly sure. There is no way she could have felt that emotion by herself. Even if she were so weak as to crave a maternal warmth in her weakness, to seek what she could only assume that was supposed to feel like… there was know way she would know. She’d been taken from her Armless dam the moment she’d tumbled into the hay. They’d put her on the woman’s chest for feedings, at first, but then it was the bottle, and since then she was raised amongst other armed jinba and their grooms. The only time she’d seen the woman was from a distance, and then… she had only felt disgust.
She would never be so weak, so swaybacked, so filthy, so pitiful. She would be a warrior-
One who couldn’t ever feel a sense of familiarity when embraced by a mother. Yet that is what she’d had experienced in Yima’s arms, and that same emotion which had brought many to Zenith’s side… drove Hayame away, instead. And even if that alone did not… Hayame and Liem are united by one more thread.]
I do not want her new world. I have duties I must see through in my own.
no subject
And that woman had embraced her when she stumbled and collapsed with weakness, held her close like a mother would… and most unforgivably… made her feel for a brief moment as if she was the sort of woman who was familiar with a mother’s love. Liem says it’s unusual, but-]
It’s impossible.
[On this, she seems adamantly sure. There is no way she could have felt that emotion by herself. Even if she were so weak as to crave a maternal warmth in her weakness, to seek what she could only assume that was supposed to feel like… there was know way she would know. She’d been taken from her Armless dam the moment she’d tumbled into the hay. They’d put her on the woman’s chest for feedings, at first, but then it was the bottle, and since then she was raised amongst other armed jinba and their grooms. The only time she’d seen the woman was from a distance, and then… she had only felt disgust.
She would never be so weak, so swaybacked, so filthy, so pitiful. She would be a warrior-
One who couldn’t ever feel a sense of familiarity when embraced by a mother. Yet that is what she’d had experienced in Yima’s arms, and that same emotion which had brought many to Zenith’s side… drove Hayame away, instead. And even if that alone did not… Hayame and Liem are united by one more thread.]
I do not want her new world. I have duties I must see through in my own.
[Even if that duty is to die.]