I told you so (Bailey)

[Bailey Oleander]

Their thoughts were along the same line.

"Back when I first came here, someone would have had to drag me onto that field." She opened her eyes and looked at the scenery behind him, losing track of her focus for a moment before blinking and coming back to the present.

"I still don't like it, but somewhere along the way, I think I started accepting it's a part of what happens in life."

[Blake Oleander]

"Why?"

[Bailey Oleander]

"I don't know." She frowned, trying to pinpoint exactly when it happened. "Thinking about it now, it makes me want to throw up. But I did it anyway.

"Maybe it was when I started caring. About this place and the people in it."

[Blake Oleander]

He'd keep walking in silence, giving her time to work through her thoughts and emotions. She didn't need him butting in with his own opinion every five seconds.

[Bailey Oleander]

She would do exactly that, grateful for his silence.

"I don't even know when that happened. I was going to graduate, go home. Then I wanted to get stronger and...things happened. My first mission ended in genocide." God she hated thinking about that still. "Now this.

"I've killed, before. Before I came here. But I almost died before it happened; I was defending myself. Some of this? I can't even claim that."

[Blake Oleander]

"I have too."

He replied. Deadpan.

He wasn't going to judge her for killing, or her reasons. He had an idea of the type of person she was, and he knew the weight of a life. It was a weight that got lighter every time you took one. The first was, and would always be the hardest. Discipline was not just for combat, but also to remember the value of life.

[Bailey Oleander]

She gave a soft huff that was almost a chuckle.

"You did warn me, though. About staying...and the weapons." She did shiver this time, remembering how her first round had ended with her bashing a man's head in and her own near-fatal experience.

"Have you come close to dying, yourself?"

[Blake Oleander]

He nodded. He had told her so.

"Several times."

[Bailey Oleander]

She nodded automatically in response, a small smile on her face as she continued.

"Part of me thinks I shouldn't be here right now, you know? I know I shouldn't let that hold me back - I don't intend to. But it still feels surreal." She remembered laying on the battlefield, blood between her fingers. Knowing it was something she couldn't heal. Then the flowers, and the medic that took a spear to the neck. It could have been her. She might not even have needed the second spear to finish the job.

"Not quite a dream, but like something's off."

[Blake Oleander]

"I don't know what you mean."

The surreal part at least.

"What's off?"

[Bailey Oleander]

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe it's just me or the shock or something."

She paused, then, "What happened? When you nearly died?"

[Blake Oleander]

"Which time? The first? Or the last?"

[Bailey Oleander]

"The first."

[Blake Oleander]

"Time seemed to slow. I remember not feeling any pain, and just being shocked as my flesh was torn off of my body. I didn't even feel it until later. I froze up, unable to move my body as that single moment stretched on for eternity. Then like a bubble the moment burst and everything happened at once. Blood everywhere, screams and howls from around me, and my body just wouldn't move no matter how hard I tried to will myself to do something."

[Bailey Oleander]

The symptoms of shock. She could recognize those logically enough, nodding at his explanation.

"And the last?"