rattlerofthestars:

His immature laughter with Morph faded with the prodding question. Why did he care so much? Was he just trying to make small talk or was he genuinely interested? Not that Jim was going to pass up a chance to talk about himself. He had achieved some pretty amazing things, even if they were few in number. In fact, you could narrow it down to about two successes. To talk about either of them was fine by him, but the story would need a bit of twisting.

“Nah, not really. It all sort of fell into place. The school I attended was both a normal university and a military academy. I was trained in combat and schooled in the-…ways of the Earth.” Then he thought back to his week sailing the open space in search of a legendary treasure. Dr. Doppler came to mind. Although annoying at times, his lessons had become very valuable in the present day. He tilted his jaw upward to gesture to the sky. “I could tell you all about the stars and what some of them mean. I could show you where the Coral Galaxy is located…or Montressor." 

Jim gave a simple shrug and pushed the topic to the side to answer his latest question. “Sometimes knowing too much can hurt.” He said this somberly as his jaw lowered to the view in front of him. “And being a soldier always hurts.”

Ping nodded soberly.  Being a soldier always hurt - as proven by his cracked lips, aching limbs and stiff neck - and he hadn’t even been in his first battle.  In their daily drills, Captain Li Shang dismissed his soldiers’ fatigue by reminding them that there would be worse in store when they met the Huns in battle: wounds, amputations, infections.  Death.  And of course, nobody was going to argue with that.  But if the recruits grumbled their discontent, they did it in their tents, where the captain wouldn’t hear - and where Ping had nobody.  It was good to be able to commiserate with this, other boy and know that he understood.

Which made the less-familiar tones of Jim’s speech ring all the more jarring to Ping, who felt suddenly very ignorant.  If he was both a scholar and a soldier, then Jim must come from a very prominent city family - and he must see Ping as a naive, country bumpkin.  The worst of it was that he was probably right.  "I’ve - I’ve never heard of the Coral Galaxy,” he blurted, too forthright to take on the assuming air men so often did to hide that they were out of their depth.  "Or Montressor.  Where in the sky are they?“