sling

The first time we met, she had her arm in a sling and a look about her like she hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep in weeks. I try my best not to make assumptions based on first impressions, but when she was in similarly rough condition on multiple subsequent meetings, I started to wonder if she didn't simply have an extraordinary disregard for her own well-being. She even chastised me for suggesting that we take a slightly longer rest than was strictly necessary, and I got the impression that if it were possible she would have prefer that we travel through the night without stopping.

This was early on in the war, well before it could properly be considered a war. Her particular breed of recklessness was instrumental in our first few victories, after which people started to believe that our rebellion wasn't a lost cause after all. I'd assumed that once we no longer needed her to regularly perform impossible feats at great personal risk, she would have stopped, but at every strategy meeting she volunteered another death-defying plan, and even if we usually managed to talk her down, "usually" wasn't "always," and I consider that a failure on my part.

She was one of the first to leave us. I had proposed a risky strategy to retake the city, which I had assumed she would support--was she not a thrillseeker?--but she was furious at me for risking so many lives. There were safer ways, she said. She accused me of a monomaniacal obsession with recapturing the city, that my recklessness would put us all in danger, that I cared nothing for the cost, so long as victory was achieved. And as soon as I tried to defend myself, she stormed out. I never saw her again.

Before she left, I'd never thought to ask what happened to her arm before our first meeting. So I asked her friend, the one who introduced us, and she just shrugged. "She gets in a lot of scraps, and she isn't much of a fighter."

"That doesn't seem wise," I said.

"It's like a compulsion for her. She sees someone who needs protecting, she does it, no hesitation."

That was almost enough to make me second guess myself--almost. I thought of myself as a champion of the people, and if someone left me because I wasn't doing enough to save them . . . but no, my choice had been made long ago. There was risk, yes, but I was prepared to take those risks. Even if it was a certainty--well, she was right about one thing. No cost was too great.

Still, I hoped I hadn't made an enemy of her. I imagined her out there, picking a fight she knew she'd lose in the hopes it might help someone, and wondered if one day she'd be picking that fight with me.