[ he's quiet as ernesto speaks, hearing him out. and he's quiet for a long, long moment after that.
no, this isn't life experience that rand has. how could he? he grew up in a small, sleepy village. wars were always some far distant thing, events concerning fools with fool things to fight over. romanticized, too, like in all the stories he read as a child. how exciting it'd be, to go to exotic places, to fight bad people, to (as usually went in such stories) impress some beautiful princess or other and end up happily ever after. life really is so little like the stories, isn't it.
he remembers something else, slow. his father had probably been a soldier. tam al'thor hadn't been on the slopes of dragonmount, bearing a sword with the mark of a blademaster, in the thick of battle during the aiel war, by coincidence. maybe he'd say something similar to what ernesto does now, or maybe he'd at least understand better. and rand remembers, too, the small piece of ernesto's life he saw in venera. people don't just wake up one day from peaceful lives and choose to commit actions like that. people with quiet lives don't dream nightmares like that.
his voice is so soft when he asks, ] Did you have a choice?
[ there's no demand in the question. ernesto doesn't have to answer that; and surely he knows by now that rand doesn't feel he's owed any explanations. ]
no subject
no, this isn't life experience that rand has. how could he? he grew up in a small, sleepy village. wars were always some far distant thing, events concerning fools with fool things to fight over. romanticized, too, like in all the stories he read as a child. how exciting it'd be, to go to exotic places, to fight bad people, to (as usually went in such stories) impress some beautiful princess or other and end up happily ever after. life really is so little like the stories, isn't it.
he remembers something else, slow. his father had probably been a soldier. tam al'thor hadn't been on the slopes of dragonmount, bearing a sword with the mark of a blademaster, in the thick of battle during the aiel war, by coincidence. maybe he'd say something similar to what ernesto does now, or maybe he'd at least understand better. and rand remembers, too, the small piece of ernesto's life he saw in venera. people don't just wake up one day from peaceful lives and choose to commit actions like that. people with quiet lives don't dream nightmares like that.
his voice is so soft when he asks, ] Did you have a choice?
[ there's no demand in the question. ernesto doesn't have to answer that; and surely he knows by now that rand doesn't feel he's owed any explanations. ]