The Poppy War

Those weren’t lives.

They were numbers.

They were a necessary subtraction.

“Then I will die on my feet,” she said. “I will die with flames in my hand and fury in my heart. I will die fighting for the legacy of my people, rather than on Shiro’s operating table, drugged and wasted. I will not die a coward. And neither will you. Altan, look at me. We are not like Jiang. We are not like Tearza.”

She would not die like this. She would not die without vengeance.

It’s easy to be brave. Harder to know when not to fight.

You can’t stop an avenger. You can’t reason with a madman.

Warfare was about absolutes. Us or them. Victory or defeat. There was no middle way. There was no mercy. No surrender.

If you were the victim, what could you say to make your tormentor recognize you as human? How did you get your enemy to recognize you at all?

And why should an oppressor care?

And if your opponent was not human, if your opponent was a cockroach, what did it matter how many of them you killed? What was the difference between crushing an ant and setting an anthill on fire? Why shouldn’t you pull wings off insects for your own enjoyment? The bug might feel pain, but what did that matter to you?

Rage gives you power. Caution does not.

“Great danger is always associated with great power. The difference between the great and the mediocre is that the great are willing to take that risk.”