Collette draws in another breath, sounding less shakey than before. She's not sure how to frame everything in her head, stirring her all up. What she blurts out isn't what she expects.
"Can you teach me proper first aid? I just... I don't know what to do. When people get hurt, I know how I handle myself but not... and it's different and I don't know what to do with everyone else and I can't carry a lot on me all the time but if I'm there first," she says, but it's all a tumble of words and Collette doesn't even know what she's asking.
"What do you do when they're nothing you can do? It's right there, and happening, and you should be able to help, but you don't know what to do, or how to make it better, you just hope someone who does comes along before it's too late and then if they don't you --"
She's looking distressed again, realizing slowly that it's not a lack of faith in what the people around her can do, or that they can handle themselves. It's an uncertainty that she really can handle having to know how fragile and at risk the people around her were while they were taking similar risks to her own. Or even if they hung back, they could be killed for no better reason than close association.
She knows about mortality, her own, and that of her friends. It's touched family and every aspect of her own life. And now it's that kind of time, with that kind of war. She's scared realizing how quickly she can lose all these people she cares about, and have it sometimes, possibly, be her fault.
no subject
"Can you teach me proper first aid? I just... I don't know what to do. When people get hurt, I know how I handle myself but not... and it's different and I don't know what to do with everyone else and I can't carry a lot on me all the time but if I'm there first," she says, but it's all a tumble of words and Collette doesn't even know what she's asking.
"What do you do when they're nothing you can do? It's right there, and happening, and you should be able to help, but you don't know what to do, or how to make it better, you just hope someone who does comes along before it's too late and then if they don't you --"
She's looking distressed again, realizing slowly that it's not a lack of faith in what the people around her can do, or that they can handle themselves. It's an uncertainty that she really can handle having to know how fragile and at risk the people around her were while they were taking similar risks to her own. Or even if they hung back, they could be killed for no better reason than close association.
She knows about mortality, her own, and that of her friends. It's touched family and every aspect of her own life. And now it's that kind of time, with that kind of war. She's scared realizing how quickly she can lose all these people she cares about, and have it sometimes, possibly, be her fault.