[open] chivalry fell upon his sword

[Gale]

Gale idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on his sword. innocence died screaming; honey, ask me, I should know Gale been thinking of Islandres, of long black beaches and warm blue waves, of a horizon that stretched farther than even his enhanced eyes could see. He had been alone there, before Erne, before the memories of his early life had returned to him. Some quiet part of him knows that finding the physical place won’t change anything, but surely there is purpose in trying. It gives him something to do, anyway. Something interesting. I’m Cordis, she says, the second word punctuated by a crackle of lightning as a miniscule bolt leaps from the tip of one navy ear to the other. Gale is content to wait for her answer, and though it’s less precise than he’d wanted, it is more than satisfactory. Far longer than he’s had it, which he admits before her second question: “Not long enough to be used to it.” Long enough to have grown tired of it. Long enough to have used it to excise every bit of it from himself only to have it return in the next storm. Does he like how it makes him feel? It flickers across his skin, brief flares of tiny luminescence. That is the lightning he does not hold, the inevitable bits that slip through the restraint he has on the lightning kept beneath his skin. They are the little threads not worth trimming off, now worth losing focus and risking the whole thing unraveling. It makes him feel on edge. It makes him feel as if he’s a bolt of lightning himself, jittery and bright and strange. It makes him feel like potential, like power, like possibility. “Usually.” The single word answer is barely useful, and his brow furrows as thinks of how she’d paused to consider, and wonders if competition had been the key to conversation. Whomever could get more out of the other while giving up the least wins? No, he decides, still frowning, that hadn’t been it. Whatever it was, the silence the follows the brevity of his answer stretches on, long enough that when paired with his frown, seem enough to end the conversation. He’s only thinking, oblivious to the expression on his face or the lull in conversation. When he’s given it enough thought, he continues as though no time at all has passed: “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, but there’s not much I would trade it for.” @Cordis