If he was a Temple Assassin, he dearly wished someone would have the decency to tell him so. Now seemed a rather insensitive time to raise the question.

“Nothing so grand, terrible, and straightforward as that. I’m afraid I’m just a sheep.” He starts, hands folded carefully in his lap. No fidgeting. “And a chef. Then a runaway, and a pirate. Now, a Captain. I did stumble into that one, but, to be fair, I was already thinking of trying something new.” Not even a nod. He’ll furrow his brow, and that’s plenty to tell her he’s giving her due consideration. “I’m not sure what that makes me now. All of them? None of them? It’s difficult to say.”

She searches for the strike she fears is coming. Generations of instinct, running on finely-tuned genetic hardware, wind her body tight with adrenaline. This close, he can hear her heart thundering, fit to burst. How much must it hurt, to stand so still, when your nerves are screaming death, death, death comes for you! Run! Flee! Scurry! Save yourself!!!

It isn’t fair. To complain about a knife in your ribs after you’ve drawn your sword. That’s not a rule, at least not one he’s familiar with, it’s just good sense. But. It makes it difficult, to hold your sword steady, when there’s blood running down your coat, and steel jabbing at your lungs with every breath. Put down the sword, and the wounds can be tended to. Put down the sword, and lose what you took it up for in the first place. 

It’s isn’t fair. But he holds himself steady. No movement that could possibly be a signal. The most he can do, all he can do, is leave her no doubt if he swings. If.

Because the choice is still hers.

He swallows hard. “But whatever I am, I want to be the sheep that makes this the last voyage. I want it all to stop. Not just good people throwing their lives away year after year, and half the galaxy growing dim. The Spear of Civilization. The Atlas Cultural Sphere. The universe shattering over and over again, falling apart, and broken people without a chance to put themselves back together again. Enough of it. It has to [i]stop.[/i]”

“I know I could try and get…on with it, and live a happy life. I’m glad you want that for me. But how am I supposed to live a quiet, happy life with Vasilia, knowing what I know now? The universe is in dreadful need, and I have a chance - maybe the only one I’ll ever get - to help set things right. Maybe everyone could pull it off without me. Maybe it’ll be just a little bit better if I’m here. I don’t know. But I don’t think I’d ever be able to live with myself if I didn’t try.”

They may need all the help they can get, to stop the one behind it all, the one he is wise enough not to name aloud.

“So. I want to go. That’s my choice, Jil. Mine. And not anybody else’s. For what it’s worth, I don’t [i]think[/i] you’d have a problem with that. But I can’t do any of it if I get overthrown and stuffed in an escape pod. So.” He holds himself steady. He whispers a silent prayer. “So do you have a problem with that?”