Renewed Discourse

[Toaster]

Here we go again, Olivia thought as she listened to the Xeno.

Resisting. Surviving. Living. All the while murdering innocent people who themselves were no better off, trying only to make their way through Sirius and provide for those they cared for. It went against every belief - the few there were - she held herself. The mercenary felt anger rise up within her at his words. But she wouldn't get into it again; she wouldn't argue with Damien about how and why he was wrong. Why the Xenos were not righteous freedom fighters but murderous terrorists and extremists. Why their cause would never be legitimate. Why she would never accept it. They had been over it before and neither had changed the other's mind.

Olivia regretted to find that Damien seemed to actually believe what he preached. And that - as far as she was concerned - rendered him irredeemable. No matter what side of him he showed her here, he was what he was. A monster, like so many she had met before him.

And yet, she could not simply write the man off as a lost cause. The fact that he reached out to her again and again proved that there must be something within him worth the effort.

You have your own troubles, she reminded herself. Worry about yourself.

The exact advice she wanted to give the man beside her. But she knew it would go to waste, that he couldn't bring himself to walk away from the movement he helped lead and sustain.

Olivia sighed again.

"I'm no therapist, Damien. But as long as you're with them, I doubt you'll find happiness."

---

Olivia Sable