Camille huffed, lips twisting into an ephemeral sneer, a rueful shadow in her eyes, before she was statuesque again. She shook her head, and for a moment it seemed like she would simply turn and leave. This wasn’t her duty, after all. Keeping Loughvein alive was her lot, but stopping her from shaming herself was a challenge for the psychologists, and one that was seeming more and more unconquerable. 

But, she didn’t, yet. She met Loughvein’s hollow eye with a hard, indifferent stare. She’d seen looks like this, the sort of blankness she’d come to associate with people who would become statistics in this field. She’d killed no small number of pilots with looks like this, but she could not kill Loughvein. The girl was not her enemy. 

“[color=a187be]Apologizing for a mistake means nothing if you make it again,[/color]” she said coldly. She sighed, her voice lowered. “[color=a187be]People think pilots don’t make mistakes, and pilots think they can make as many as they want. The truth is a union. We make mistakes, like everyone else, and they build. Not just mistakes in the cockpit, though those matter, but everywhere. Here, in this shade, you have made a mistake. They are stones on a pile, added one atop another. Some people’s piles grow tall, and vast, some stout. All, eventually, fall.[/color]

“[color=a187be]You will never know when. Never know which stone will be the one you can’t afford to place, or perhaps which one, deep in the pile, will shift after who-knows-how-long, and topple over on you even when you’ve not added one in a long time. We are not our mistakes, Loughvein, but we are beholden to them, and we do, inevitably, feel their consequences. Pilots only feel them once.[/color]”

She turned away, not to leave but to look, across the military zone and over the opposite border, to the town and the bay. “[color=a187be]If you wish to avoid people, you should steer clear of the harbor. They set up carnivals there, every year, they’ll be doing it now too. Likewise, the community center, main street, and Henn road, where all the expensive restaurants are. There are parks in the neighborhoods to the northwest, which ought to be quite empty for the next few days. There is a nature trail as well, which will be tour-guided, but sparse—most people want to explore the town, not the forest. Eat here, if you must. The food will be cheap and packaged, but you will be left alone inside the barrier.[/color]”

Perhaps she had more to say. She was precipitously silent for a moment, teetering on the edge of something. Eventually, however, she simply muttered, “[color=a187be]Dismissed,[/color]” and walked away, back onto the thoroughfare and out, into the town.