"I see that now," Jon nods, slow and somber. "I suppose I had just... assumed, really. That such positions, such power over people around them, would give them a lack of regard for those lost while dealing with these problems. I apologize for that."
"It's...okay." It's not, but Jean would like it to be. "There are bad Managers. Madam Gebura had to learn, she...used to be very monomaniacal, hahaha! But she did learn. She...was better even when being better was the hardest thing in the world. Sort of like you."
You know that sound someone makes, that light thing that isn't quite a scoff, fond and wistful? Yeah. "She was forever smoking inside the library. And we'd trade off being her personal assistant, because Madam Gebura can barely read. First person to joke about it, Patron Librarian of Language can't read. But she really did care, Comrade. She really did."
Better, even when it was the hardest thing in the world, sort of like you.
Jean brushes past it so quickly, for something that leaves a lump in Jon's throat that he struggles to swallow. It's hard to wrap his head around something so meaningful, likely one of the kindest things any friend of his has said about it, said so plainly as to be a footnote of a deeper explanation. His knee-jerk to push back against it isn't even granted the time. He simply has to sit with it and try to manage.
"From everything you've told me, I can see that she did," Jon agrees, gentler this time. "And we all have to learn our way out of bad habits. I'm glad she had the opportunity to do so, and did right by you and your colleagues. ...What was it like, working with her in the library?"
"...Intimate." Beat. "Not that kind of intimate," Jean clarifies. "At Lobotomy Corporation, she could not fight alongside us, as desperately as she wished to. The Library was, in some ways, a far vaster space. Its dimensions were not constrained by limitations like space, or engineering. And yet, there were so few of us there, compared to L-Corp Headquarters. Just five, for the Floor of Language, Madam Gebura included. We were in frequent contact; we often met with other teams to compare books, to socialize. She could be...difficult, to be around, it's true. She was so heavy with memory and regret that at times it was as if she wasn't there. And yet, when it mattered, she made herself be there, for us."
"In a line of work like that, I can't be all too surprised that she... pulled away, a bit. It's hard not to, when you see things like you've told me about." Jon pauses, just long enough to have a sip of tea. "But I'm glad she'd been able to be there for the five of you. I'm... shocked, honestly, that there were so few of you, for the scale of things that you've mentioned happening in the Library. Why was that?"
"We're the ones who survived, Comrade." Jean almost shrugs, looking down at their teacup. "Director Angela preserved what lives she could when the self-destruct activated in headquarters. The Sephirah, as many Employees as she could reach, but...she is not a god. There was only ever so much she could have done. I survived by blind chance and even then I was so injured that I was in stasis for a great deal of the Library's early assault on the people of the City."
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Date: 2024-09-05 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-05 07:50 pm (UTC)You know that sound someone makes, that light thing that isn't quite a scoff, fond and wistful? Yeah. "She was forever smoking inside the library. And we'd trade off being her personal assistant, because Madam Gebura can barely read. First person to joke about it, Patron Librarian of Language can't read. But she really did care, Comrade. She really did."
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Date: 2024-09-06 02:55 am (UTC)Jean brushes past it so quickly, for something that leaves a lump in Jon's throat that he struggles to swallow. It's hard to wrap his head around something so meaningful, likely one of the kindest things any friend of his has said about it, said so plainly as to be a footnote of a deeper explanation. His knee-jerk to push back against it isn't even granted the time. He simply has to sit with it and try to manage.
"From everything you've told me, I can see that she did," Jon agrees, gentler this time. "And we all have to learn our way out of bad habits. I'm glad she had the opportunity to do so, and did right by you and your colleagues. ...What was it like, working with her in the library?"
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Date: 2024-09-07 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-07 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-07 03:18 am (UTC)