Besca let Quinn go, frowned, and found herself wishing she could smoke in here. She knew this week was going to be trouble but she hadn’t expected it right out of the gate. More fool her, with how things had been—why would she ever expect mercy? ‘[i]When will it be good enough[/i]?’ she asked in echo, and bitterly the answer came: ‘[i]Never.[/i]’ But you couldn’t say that, not to a kid, and certainly not to Quinn. The cynic in her believed it though; Quinn could give her best every single moment of every single day, and surpass every pilot in Illun’s history by every metric, and it wouldn’t matter. The world would push her further, and keep pushing her until she collapsed, and then it would toss her aside. Maybe in memory her valor would be honored, and people would appreciate her suffering, but it would only be because they couldn’t squeeze any more out of her. 

Perhaps the more appropriate answer would have been: ‘[i]When you’re dead,[/i]’ but that seemed like an even worse thing to say.

This was the pilot’s lot, and Besca had seen it claim them all, sooner or later. She was fooling herself believing she could bring any true happiness to people like Quinn. Eventually she’d see through her, eventually she’d want more than comfort or sympathy, and when Besca couldn’t give it to her, this would all come crumbling down. Then, brick by brick, she’d rebuild it for whoever came next, because that was [i]her[/i] lot. 

“[color=gray]I don’t know,[/color]” she said, eventually. “[color=gray]I’m sorry, hun. I don’t. It might be tomorrow, it might be a year from now. Some people wait their whole lives for it to be good enough. By then they either give up, or they keep trying, and settle for the good they [i]can[/i] do.[/color]”