[A letter to Curtis]

[dejah_thoris]

Curtis,

I have been thinking a great deal about our last conversation. For once, I am staying awake not over the design for your prosthesis, but because I cannot stop thinking about what I said that upset you so. It was not my place to ask such a thing. It is your history to tell to me, when you are willing and able to do so.

But until that day, I do want you to know that I meant what I said. You can tell me anything.

I keep forgeting that you don't know me anymore than I know you. You don't know that in my lifetime, I have survived the ravages of war. I confess, I have never suffered such extreme depridation as you have, but I have seen things -- I have done things that no civilized person should ever have to do, in the name of staying alive.

I am no stranger to violence. My sword has tasted the blood of hundreds of enemies. I have fought alongside dear companions and watched them fall. I have carried the dead from the battlefield and laid them on the pyres so that the predators could not come and feed on their corpses. I have taken a list of names back to Helium and sat with the mothers and fathers of the fallen.

I am no stranger to hunger and thirst. I have lived through two sieges on the city, and I have been the one in charge of rationing both food and water so that we could survive just one more day, until help arrived. I also designed the well systems so that should that day ever come again, we are entirely self-sufficient and now, I am confident that a siege will never break us.

At one point, I laid down my sword and took up the hand of my enemy, because I honestly thought I had no other choice. I thought that by laying down my principles I could live to fight another day. Doing so almost cost me my life, but it was the only choice I could make in the moment. I thought it was the right thing to do for the people of Helium.

I gave up who I was in my heart, and it almost killed me. It was one of the most difficult lessons I ever had to learn. I learned that there are always more choices than the ones right in front of my face. I learned that my pride blinded me to options that could have spared so much suffering. I learned that there are some enemies who have no capacity for compromise, who will not yield to reason, who cannot fathom compassion. I made mistakes. I learned from them, I hope. And above all, I did what I had to, to survive and to see the enemy of the people cut down.

I do not know any more than the few simple details you've shared with me. About the train. About your confinement. About the engine and its captain. About your fight to gain the front. These are only glimpses of your story. But I have learned a lot about you from those brief glimpses.

I know you swing a mean war club. I can see your valor in your wounds. I see your sacrifice. Your loyalty. Your fierce passion and determination. I see your righteous rage. I see your grief. But I also see in you an infinite capacity for gentleness. I see a heart that is burdened with so much loss, and yet, still has more to give. Even to one such as myself.

I see you, Curtis. And I trust what I see in you. I see that you're hurting and that you think you have to bear that burden alone. You don't. I offer my hand to you. (Not just in synthetic form.)

Please give me another chance. That is all I ask.

~Yours in friendship,
Dejah Thoris


Jeddak of Helium
Imperatrix of the Helium Navy
Consul Jeddak of the City States of Barsoom
Regent of the Royal Academy of Sciences