Chapter Text
"Hey."
Sunny rolled to look up, seeing Rex. "What?"
"Wanna talk?"
"What about?"
"The Traveler."
He was the only one that really knew what she was upset about. The evidence. The wound she helped create, even unconscious. Her Guardian couldn't kill her before it happened, which Sunny knew was the only way it could have gone. She wished Nimbus had grabbed her sooner, but she couldn't help or stop or change anything.
"It wasn't my fault," Sunny said truthfully, hoping Rex would see the truth. "It's not like I could fight the Witness. You've felt it before, haven't you? I heard you helped on the Moon."
"You remember nothing?" He hovered in a circle and settled in front of her, flaps rotating around him.
"Nothing."
"Your guardian has been in fits because she couldn't shoot you to stop you."
Sunny boiled at the core. He made it sounds like a bad thing, like it shouldn't have been like that. Just because he and his hated each other. "Yours couldn't shoot you either and you know it. He wouldn't have the same trouble as Freija, but he certainly couldn't have brought himself to pull the trigger any more than Freija could. It wasn't her fault, either. Only a couple of things would have stopped it, and they didn't happen."
"You feel guilty," Rex insisted, spreading his flaps and rotating them faster. He was going to hound after this, but Sunny could only wonder why.
"Yes. I wish there was something I could have done to stop me, and I wish there was something I could do for Freija. I almost wish she had killed me, for the Traveler, but that makes me feel bad, too. She's this bad after just thinking about it, I don't think she'd recover from doing it herself. But it would have saved the Traveler. So I don't know what to think."
Rex's flaps slowed and closed in, but continued their revolutions around him.
"And still none of that is important because what is important is that I'm alive, which is nice, and the world didn't end, so the apocalypse wasn't my fault and it wasn't Freija's fault and there was only one mistake made and that was that no one grabbed me before I got up there. It's the only truth that will ground Freija anymore, her real, true, sole... Fuck up.'
Rex laughed, wheeling his flaps. "You can't swear worth a damn."
"You'd think Freija would have taught me. She knew several when she woke up. You know, i--"
"I am talking to you about you. Your guardian has very little to do with this conversation."
Sunny rolled her petals as she turned a somersault. "You're just jealous. Anyway -- no one grabbed me when I said I felt sick. That was the mistake. Aside from that, there was no stopping this."
"Do you believe that?"
"Actually, yes. I know by the time Freija is pointing a gun at me, there aren't any other options, and she could never."
Rex's flaps finally stopped and settled into place. "You're right, I am jealous. Your faith in your Guardian is touching and, from the sound of it, is genuine."
"Yes, Rex, when we don't abuse our guardians, they build strong bonds that facilitate trust and reliance and interdependence."
"I don't abuse him."
"Name-calling is abuse."
"If you're weak."
"Okay, see, this exchange we're having, this is why you're not sure Thomas wouldn't shoot you. I know he wouldn't any more than you'd leave him dead, but you don't 'cos you're a jerk."
Rex spun his flaps irritably. "I'm here to ask about you."
Sunny snapped her petals out then in. "Well you have your answer. My guardian couldn't shoot me. And I do, indeed, feel mildly guilty for the thing that happened via my body without my consent or awareness, which is absurd but still something I'm handling. And I feel guilty for surviving an event that would have ended less poorly if it had killed me. What do you want?"
"You seem to be fixed on your Guardian's tantrums, you've hardly been minding your own."
"I feel horrible, but I can't remember why. I see the Traveler wounded like that and I know it was because of me. I know it's irrational. There's no right way to feel about it."
"You remember nothing?"
"Would you like to check? I can't find anything."
"I can't do that trick. I believe you."
"Honestly, it feels kinda gross, knowing that thing used me."
"Ha, that was an answer I expected."