“My family had enough money to put me through my foundational schooling, but the credits dried up pretty quickly after my brother became addicted to iridescence.”
“Ah, they wanted you to become a nurse to care for your brother then.”
“Something like that.” They’d begged her to make money to help save Rhys, and Eleri had sold her soul to late-night food service jobs to pay for her preliminary nursing certification. She’d managed by running on mostly fumes and caffeine, but the credits were never enough. As much as the family poured into Rhys, he always drained more away.
“What is something like that?” S’samph asked. She felt a brief prickle of annoyance, but she shouldhave known her non-answers weren’t going to be satisfactory. Not for S’samph anyway. He always seemed to want to delve directly into her soul despite her inclination to keep everything superficial.
“You can be finished with that if you want,” Eleri alluded to the shoulder motion. S’samph showed no disagreement with ending the exercise. Eleri pushed out a heavy breath as she packed away the resistance band and pulled out the injectable.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Only if you answer my question.”
Eleri wrinkled her nose but snapped on a pair of gloves to prepare for the injection. "My family needed the credits to pay my brother’s legal fees. His rehabilitation fees too.” The autoinjector made easy work of his tough scales, but Eleri still noticed the slight flinch as the needle went into S’samph’s shoulder. “And that’s not even including all the property damage. A nursing certification paid better than pursuing anything else I actually wanted to do.”
“What is anything else?”
“I honestly don’t know. It’s not meant to be a non-answer. I never had the opportunity to try anything else. I finished my foundational education, and my brother racked up thousands of credits worth of debt for my family. Either I worked or we lost our home. Especially after my da died. My mother never recovered her senses fully.”
“Your parents could not earn credits? Were they also addicted to iridescence?”
“They did have jobs once. But then they were blacklisted from everything in their field after stealing credits from their workplace to help pay down my brother’s expenses.” Eleri tasted the bitterness in her own voice, but for the first time, she didn’t stop herself. “They decided saving my brother was worth everything they had. Even if it meant destroying everything they had.”
S'samph was quiet for a long moment, digesting her words. Finally, his tail flattened along the floor. “You’re talking about yourself. Because of your parents’ negligence, you didn’t have the opportunity to pursue a career you enjoyed or a life you enjoyed.”
“There are things I enjoyed doing, but they were never going to be a career.”
“Why not?”
Eleri gave him a sidelong glance. “Why did you join the military?”
“Everyone on Latilla served the military in some capacity after our foundational education.”
“But you chose it as a career.”
“I did. I was good at it. I felt pride in serving my people.”
“And I feel the same about being a healer. Even if it wasn’t a choice I made out of pure interest, I am grateful I found passion in it. I like other things. I like to sing, I like to cook sometimes, even though I’m not very good at it, but none of those were careers for someone like me on Gaia.” She thought about the people she knew who pursued careers in art or music. Usually, their families had a lot of money and power, enough to send them to study at the prestigious conservatories on Earth.
“You should feel free to do the things that bring you joy.”
“It’s easier now than it used to be. But I still feel guilty for doing it.”
“Why?”
“Why do I feel guilty?”
“Yes.”
Eleri shifted her weight as she packed the rest of her supplies in the medkit. “It’s hard not to. Even though I know I made the right choice, I always wonder if I could have helped more by staying on Gaia.”
“You cannot save someone who does not wish to be saved,” S’samph grunted. “There is plenty of good for you to do here, if this is what concerns you.”
“Speaking of, how is everything feeling today?” Eleri asked.
“It is well enough.” He stretched and flexed the shoulder in question. “We’re lucky to have you here. I’m lucky to have you here. Don’t say you would do the same for anyone else. You will bruise my pride.”
She snorted. He’d learned to read her speech patterns quickly enough and clearly wasn’t afraid to call her out on it. “It’s literally my job to take care of anyone who needs help, but I don’t think I’d have conversations like this with anyone else. But who knows? S’kasia is also a good conversation partner.”
