the size of the fray :: [ calliope + io + mace ]

as if it were designed
painted in sand to be washed away

"Ugh. I didn't —" Calliope cuts herself off, swinging her feet off the desk with a muffled THUMP as she plops her face down gracelessly on the surface of the desk. I didn't mean it? Lies. She did. But part of her doesn't want to mean it anymore and it makes the idea of the sentiment feel almost genuine somehow.

The lacquered wood is cool against her cheek as she stares blankly into the shadows trying to swallow up her office. Well... not hers. It just feels that way, the same way if feels like maybe she really was joking when she tried to make a crack about Emberstatts versus Blooms, Emberstatts versus Wies. What she said wasn't untrue. Even after all these years it's not something any of them are able to treat lightly, so she doesn't know why she tried.

Tired? Same.

Exhausted? Absolutely.

I admire your energy — She might laugh if she weren't so worn out, but somehow it's not a joke any more than her own attempts were, so it's good that she stays silent.

Part of her is positive that Mace and Io and smarter than her, regardless of the grade point average she used to pride herself on as if it were the only thing she might ever need. "Maybe," she murmurs, mulling over thoughts of Ada and the attack tactics of her speeches, always speaking as if she and Calliope are on opposing sides, "she doesn't talk like we want the same things, like she thinks I've done anything good." Then again, Ada is a teacher, trained to nurture the District's best and brightest... whereas Calliope is a champion for the losers and the hooligans, for the junkies and the factory workers, for the kids who wonder if they might be better off dead than to live out the downhill future that Six offers the Less Than Perfect. Or at least she tries to be.

"Some of it will get undone," she thinks of the crates of medicine that she sets aside for the Rebellion each month and the people who will inevitably die without it — how it'll be Ada's fault the same way it was Calliope's fault when that little girl died during last year's penicillin production failures. Accidental. Unintentional. Completely due to one of Calliope's decisions, although no one thought to blame her for something that seemed so far beyond her control. "Here, at least."

Picking at the crack in her desk where she smashed a baseball bat against it that first night of being Mayor, she presses her lips to the evidence of her achievements and tries to reroute her mind back to the positivity she had intended when arranging this phone call. "But that one thing is a pretty big deal, Io. It's like... Kieran turning nineteen level of big deal." Lifesaving level.