Pepper blinked at Valdis for a moment before speaking. "You know you're not alone in feeling like that, right?"
Her words were soft, worried almost. It seemed to her that Valdis considered vulnerability a bad thing - and perhaps when faced with the Void, it was bad - and that might be part of the problem.
"Well, they were all really good," she said, quietly encouraging. "Maybe we could look at them together sometime, if you feel like it." Her mouth thinned to a line, wondering how to phrase what needed to be said in a way that wouldn't be too upsetting or rile the Void. "That thing thinks emotions make you weak, that they hurt you. And yeah, it's sort of right: if you feel, you feel the good things and the bad things. You feel the best and the totally, absolute worst. But that's just part of being who you are; things hurt because you care. Things hurt because you love. Things hurt because people do stupid things sometimes, because they're people. And hurting is important. Needing help is important. If you want to be able to fight this thing, you need to be willing to fight for what hurts and what you hate about feeling emotion as much as you're willing to fight for what's amazing."
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Her words were soft, worried almost. It seemed to her that Valdis considered vulnerability a bad thing - and perhaps when faced with the Void, it was bad - and that might be part of the problem.
"Well, they were all really good," she said, quietly encouraging. "Maybe we could look at them together sometime, if you feel like it." Her mouth thinned to a line, wondering how to phrase what needed to be said in a way that wouldn't be too upsetting or rile the Void. "That thing thinks emotions make you weak, that they hurt you. And yeah, it's sort of right: if you feel, you feel the good things and the bad things. You feel the best and the totally, absolute worst. But that's just part of being who you are; things hurt because you care. Things hurt because you love. Things hurt because people do stupid things sometimes, because they're people. And hurting is important. Needing help is important. If you want to be able to fight this thing, you need to be willing to fight for what hurts and what you hate about feeling emotion as much as you're willing to fight for what's amazing."