"It looks bad because it [i]is[/i] bad," she countered almost immediately. Seeing that he was not eating (presumably because she was not), Solae picked up her knife and began to habitually cut her ham into delicate lady-sized pieces with great precision. Once she had mused to an etiquette tutor that nobles made excellent surgeons because of the practice and refinement with blades required just to survive a six-course meal. The elder countess was not amused at this observation and had chastised her for comparing the skills. Age seemed to diminish the sense of humor if it was not completely eradicated by proximity to the throne.

She took a singular bite, chewed thoroughly, swallowed, and motioned for him to indulge himself even as she ate slowly. Truthfully the stress was tying her stomach in knots such that she was both famished and nauseous all at once. "I'm sure in the Imperial Marines you must minimize your injuries and power through them, but it puts me in a bad spot if you're worse off than I am and say you're fine," she said with a soft smile.

"I can't be sure- I haven't had a singular course in medical training- but I believe I'll need to stitch my forehead back together," she admitted in reference to the gash. It had stopped oozing blood even after the shower but it was still an open wound. The skin was split from where a foreign object had collided with her forcefully during the initial blast at the Imperial Embassy. Fortunately, despite the unpleasant appearance and swelling, there was no damage to her skull itself. Solae crossed her ankles under the table and was glad that her knees and feet were both concealed from his sight. "If it scars that will reduce my value on the market, so I'm somewhat hoping it does," she added impishly in light allusion to her unwed status and the prominence of arranged marriages for a woman of her status.

Solae pushed a piece of meat around on her plate as she sighed and allowed her mind to wander. "Did you know that every language has a word for the concept of 'luck?' Not every abstract thought translations between cultures, but that is one of the ones that does. I keep wondering why I was so [i]lucky[/i] to survive. I know part of it is because I went under my desk after the first round of fire, and that shielded me, but that answer isn't satisfying. All of my friends on New Concordia worked for the Empire and have almost certainly been killed. My parents are unquestionably dead- they would be too large a political threat and liability for a rebellion of this size- and it makes me wonder about my 'luck.'" In the common tongue this was called 'Survivor's Guilt,' which she knew, but reading about it and feeling it so acutely were incredibly different experiences.

"Why did you save me, Rene? You could have walked away," she asked boldly as she raised her eyes to his. In the pale illumination they were more gray than blue, reminiscent of a cloudy see on a sunless day. "If you turned me in now they might be willing to allow you to escape to your home planet, wherever that might be." There was an unspoken understanding that doing so would condemn Solae to a fate worse than death and hand the the coup keys to even further success. Solae made a compelling hostage in more ways than one and, with her genetic code and linguistic abilities at their disposal, they could spread their word farther than just the nearest communication station for the Empire. This greater costs might not mean anything to a common man, however; people tended to be selfish. They thought only of their personal gains and losses and not that of a greater populace.