"Are you afraid?" Beneath the urgency is empathy. Nina might not have known what death was like, but OA does, with perfect intimacy. She knows exactly how crushingly terrifying it is to stand at the precipice of the most absolute finality life can create, not knowing what lies beyond, not knowing if it could have been prevented, not knowing if it can be escaped.
It can't. Not forever.
"Is that why you did it? You've had these lapses, in and out; you remember, your counterpart doesn't. So much of who you are, what made you, stripped away -- without your control, half the time without your knowledge. It's a kind of death, isn't it?" Her grip on Sniper's hand... adjusts. Gentles. She understands, or she thinks she does, to the greatest extent it's possible to understand.
"Nina is me. She's me in another life, me given other chances, other choices." Choices OA ruined, deliberately and consciously, the moment she took that sharpened scrap of copper and began to carve the code into her own flesh. Sniper may have killed Nina, but OA orchestrated that end a long time ago. The fact that she hadn't been fully aware of the consequences doesn't absolve her of guilt.
"I remember, so I carry her. Not all of her fears were mine, but some were. You remember, so you know: would you be ready to die? Would your counterpart?" The pained compassion on her face suggests she already knows the answer: nobody ever is. But there are degrees. "I don't know what just happened to me. I don't know if we can find a way to do it to you. If we do, you'll carry it."
no subject
It can't. Not forever.
"Is that why you did it? You've had these lapses, in and out; you remember, your counterpart doesn't. So much of who you are, what made you, stripped away -- without your control, half the time without your knowledge. It's a kind of death, isn't it?" Her grip on Sniper's hand... adjusts. Gentles. She understands, or she thinks she does, to the greatest extent it's possible to understand.
"Nina is me. She's me in another life, me given other chances, other choices." Choices OA ruined, deliberately and consciously, the moment she took that sharpened scrap of copper and began to carve the code into her own flesh. Sniper may have killed Nina, but OA orchestrated that end a long time ago. The fact that she hadn't been fully aware of the consequences doesn't absolve her of guilt.
"I remember, so I carry her. Not all of her fears were mine, but some were. You remember, so you know: would you be ready to die? Would your counterpart?" The pained compassion on her face suggests she already knows the answer: nobody ever is. But there are degrees. "I don't know what just happened to me. I don't know if we can find a way to do it to you. If we do, you'll carry it."