[video]

[ka_sera_sera]

[The lines and creases of his face are carved deep with stress. There are bags under his eyes. Neither of these things are going to be unusual, he thinks, and he's seen no reason to hide them. He'd be surprised to hear a one among all the Legionnaires have been getting a good night's sleep.]

You all know what happened on that ship. The Silent Horizon. My part in events was small but, in its way, not insignificant. I broke my oath. I believed I was holding to it, at the time; I allowed my arrogance and my- my grief to blind me to what I knew was right. I allowed myself to become something which would have killed every one of you, given half a chance, and dragged you all into hell with me. I had my doubts about all of you, all of this, but I see it's myself I should have been watching - should've watched my cowardice, but instead I allowed it to drive me, and in so doing broke the oath we all took. That was unforgivable, but I'm crying your pardon anyway. All your pardons, I suppose. Anyone who feels moved to give one. You who don't will, I guess, just have to learn to work with me. The Legion's purpose here is noble, after all, even if one of its members has forgot how to measure up.

[For a second he watches the screen, considering. That could, perhaps, have been more succinct. But it's been a long time since he's done something like this, and it would be shameful not to get it right.]

[No, he decides, that's it. That's all. He reaches out toward the screen, and the video ends.]

Comments

[bachido]

[Kubo hadn't seen. He'd shifted without concern into his song. Because as much as Kubo had lost, and as much as he blamed what he lost on not paying attention - he still didn't have a warrior's situational awareness. His life had depended on reading audiences, not people who could - might - kill him.

But when he set the instrument aside, his smile shrinking, his expression less comfortable, it wasn't due to Roland's non-compliment. Azula had said worse to him of his abilities, in such an unkind way that anything less insulting could no longer register. In a way, she'd done him a favor, forcing all the insecurity he'd find over his particular skillset into his awareness immediately, so that he'd already assessed and passed through it. Particularly now, that he'd survived the Silent Horizon. Protected his mother there, and his new teammates, too. And not had to kill anyone.

Roland had no way to know that yet, though, and Kubo's expression HAD grown uncomfortable.]

That's true. We should all be able to trust each other.

[He held his words for a second, frowning, the work of thought clear in his expression as he tried to pick his words. There were questions he wanted to ask, but none of them were easy to phrase.]

When . . . my mother was in disguise, once, and I didn't know her, she let me ask three questions, because I had too many.

[More questions had irritated Roland to the point of trying to kill him, but that was on the ship, under different circumstances. Even so, to barrage him with questions as serious as Kubo wanted to ask might be rude - even if it didn't get him killed. And the stakes were such at that point that he could afford to prioritize etiquette over getting all of his questions answered at once.]

If it's all right with you, I'd like to ask you three questions.

[He wasn't so stuck on etiquette, though, that he was prepared to lose one of his questions to asking if he could ask. The days since he'd wasted his questions to Monkey by not thinking them through were far behind him.]

[ka_sera_sera]

[Roland watches the boy think, watches how carefully he thinks. It's that which prompts Roland not just to agree but to bind himself to that agreement, not just to answer without lying but to be honest about doing it.]

That's fair. Three's a fair number, too, a powerful number.

[He straightens up, watching Kubo evenly.]

Ask. And I'll answer, so well as I can.

[bachido]

Why don't you want to be forgiven?

[No reason to hold off on the hard questions.]

[ka_sera_sera]

[That surprises him. For a second his eyes go wider, his mouth opens - but then he realizes what the question must refer to. He shakes his head.]

That's not quite it. What the others said to me, it wasn't forgiveness. Forgetting mistakes, going easier on myself, acting as if I haven't done anything that needs forgiving at all- I understand that must be the way things are done here, but I have limits.

[The answer's even honest, too. Well, almost. It's as much of an answer as he's aware of. Still, that answer doesn't feel quite right.]

It's not about forgiveness, anyway. Not completely. That's not what's important. Moving forward, like I told you. Can do that without pretending everything's alright.

[bachido]

Were you doing what you would have done without the Faceless . . . being there?

[His second question kind of dissolved there at the end, but it got his point across. It's not even a rhetorical question.]

You said it was a way to save all the rest of us. That . . . that siding with the Faceless would save us if you just let yourself be hurt.

[He knew it wasn't the truth, because after all, someone doesn't shoot someone they genuinely believe they're trying to save, and he did remember that moment. He remembered it too well.

But how much of that had been Roland truly willing to sacrifice himself for their sake?]

[ka_sera_sera]

[Roland pulls a face. He thinks he sees where Kubo might be going with this - but he'd agreed to help him see this out. That means no backtalk.]

Of course I wouldn't have. I wouldn't believe a heap of trash like that unless it'd been sold to me as a feast. Think I go around believing everyone I've killed is better off? In spite of first impressions, boy, I haven't lost my mind just yet.

[Alright. A minimum of backtalk. When it's appropriate.]

[bachido]

[The direction was fairly obvious. But Kubo didn't go there right away.]

I only have first impressions.

[He pointed it out with a frankness that wasn't resentful. And, remembering the tea he'd left to brew, he reached over the table to pour Roland a pale green cup.]

I didn't know that was the Faceless' plan, exactly, to just kill all of us. I thought you thought you were taking a burden for us. By suffering like the Faceless wanted us to.

[A careful set of not-questions to elaborate on his second.]

[ka_sera_sera]

[The cup, he thinks, is probably a warning, offered up to soften the blow of whatever question he's about to ask. No point in not taking it anyway, though, and buying himself time by studying whatever type of tea Kubo's offering. He takes a sip and, while the top of his mind devotes itself to studying the taste, the rest of him decides to let the boy get away with the question-that-isn't. There are times to stick to the letter of an agreement rather than the spirit, and this isn't one.]

[He wraps his fingers around the cup, smelling the tea, thinking.]

You heard him as well as I did at the end, didn't you? Little though I noticed at the time. He told us what he wanted, and it wasn't to kill. Or perhaps it was, losing our own selves to become part of his.

[He shrugs, dismissing the whole philosophical mess of the true meaning of death as quickly as he'd brought it up.]

I thought-

[It's unpleasant, digging into his mindset as it'd been at that time. Unpleasant and slow.]

I thought any number of things. Excuses, lies. I thought you all wanted what I wanted, but were unwilling to make the decision to get it.

[He's becoming frustrated, tense, but deliberately relaxes his expression and the set of his shoulders, puts a little more ease into his voice.]

I was thinking a lot of things, none of them terribly coherent. If you're trying to make peace with me by understanding my motives you might be in for some long, strange work.

[bachido]

[Kubo saw the tension, and looked down with a hint of dismay. He hadn't wanted this to be a hard conversation. But then, none of what he'd asked was easy. None of what had happened on the Silent Horizon was easy. None of Roland's life, it seemed, could have been easy -]

I didn't invite you here to make peace.

[That sounded harsh, but -]

I don't blame you for what the Faceless got you to do. I just -

[There was a point to all this. And it meant going back over what no one could smooth over.]

My mother died two years ago. [And that needed explaining, since she was so very clearly not dead now.] She's come back from the dead here. It was my fault that she died.

[Every part of it. From staying out past nightfall, to listening to the Moon King, everything that had lead to her death was his doing. And having her back didn't undo it happening in the first place.]

I lead her and my father into the trap where they were both killed. Mother told me not to blame myself. I can't ask her to forgive me, because she'd have to blame me first, and she doesn't. So I . . .

[He couldn't honestly say he didn't blame himself. He could say he tried not to think about it. That he tried to honor his mother by accepting that she didn't want him to think it was his fault. Even though he couldn't see a way in which it wasn't.]

I wish I had acted differently. I wish I had been smarter. Paid better attention.

[A shrug.]

I thought you might know what that feeling was like.

[ka_sera_sera]

[Once Kubo nears the end of his explanation Roland goes a little pale, eyes fixed on him. Once Kubo's finished Roland finds his eyes, still desert dry, closing, feels the quick beating of his heart and his deep breaths. He has some sense that he should say something, something to comfort or condemn or even only acknowledge, but in the face of this particular, unfortunate example and the particularly unfortunate comparison which comes paired with it, those words are locked inside him.]

[He opens his eyes, tries hard to focus on the sight and smell of his tea, and rasps through a tight throat the only thing there is to say.]

Are you going to ask your last question or would you like to keep dancing around it?

[bachido]

[Kubo's dismay deepened. He'd gone looking for counsel, and dredged up someone else's pain instead.

Who's Jake?

The unasked question - the third intended question - hung in the back of his mind. He'd wanted to ask, when he'd assumed that speaking about someone from Roland's past would be cathartic, as speaking about his father always was for him. As speaking about his mother had been.

He should have assumed that it wasn't his business. Just like the Legionnaire Legacies, the Silent Horizon had shown him a window into someone else's story, someone else's tragedy, with no context, with no permission. And he'd overstepped his welcome to address it.

But he'd still been granted three questions to ask.

Who's Jake?

Kubo fidgeted. He could ask the question he was starting to sense would be unkind. He could waste his third on a question that meant nothing. He could refrain from asking any question at all.

But then the unasked question would hang between them, forever, always granted, always a possible way to open old wounds.

And if nothing else . . . if Roland had no counsel for Kubo, if Kubo had no comfort to offer him, they should at least still be able to fight together on the same team. That was what mattered more than Kubo's lingering regret. More than his dismay at having hurt someone else, looking for healing of his own.]

How can we best work together after this?

[Maybe the answer would be not to offer Roland hospitality again. Maybe the answer would be never to speak of what had happened on the ship. Maybe the answer would be not to speak to him at all.

But it wasn't a wasted question, and it wasn't an unkind one.]

[ka_sera_sera]

[After a second it occurs to him that Kubo perhaps ought to have answered by now, that for some reason he must be hesitating. Roland does not have the energy to wonder why. He's not usually in the habit of looking gifthorses in the mouth, at least not too closely - the time, even a brief time, to try and settle himself is valuable, and he is going to use it.]

[By the time the question comes at least some of the tension has been forcibly ejected from him. Enough that when he takes another sip of the tea, it isn't much of an effort at all to focus on the taste. There's a second of that, then two. He breathes.]

I've never been in a situation like this. Never with someone whose impression of me was going to make any difference. I think... training together, maybe. Getting the deeper levels of your mind used to having me at your back. Or anything to make new memories. You said it yourself, your first impression of me is the only one you have. Best not keep things that way.

[bachido]

[Kubo nodded. The situation seemed salvaged . . . a bit.]

Mother trains me with the sword and with my magic in the Sim Room. Maybe you should join us there. She uses it to remember things she's fought, and have me practice against them. She's lost a lot of her memories. I think she would appreciate having someone else's.

[He reached for the teapot, to offer a refill to Roland's tea.] She went out a while ago, but she should be back soon if you'd like to discuss it.

[ka_sera_sera]

I'd like that.

[It's not polite nonsense - he really would. Which is almost a shame, if only because if he were more in-practice with polite nonsense he'd think how to smooth this over. Well, maybe it's right that this doesn't feel quite smooth. He sees Kubo's offer and holds his cup out, politely.]

If it's the when of it that's the trouble, my days aren't exactly full. Talk to your mother and send me a letter on your omnicomm, if you'd like that better. Those machines can do that, can't they?