When is a good day to die?

[HoD Bch 0]

Jay sat cross-legged on his quarters’ floor despondently poking cockroaches with his dagger. Val was on the slab nearby watching.

 

“It is good that you impale them when they are facing you,” Val said, “It is a much more honorable death.”

 

Jay smiled for a moment, but his face quickly fell back to a frown and he went back to poking his cockroaches.

 

“Jay…?”

 

“It doesn’t matter. Not all death has honor. Why would death be honorable at all? What’s honorable about it…”

 

Val didn’t really have an answer. He wasn’t much older than his brother, and as much as he wanted to cheer him up, he didn’t have any answers. Their mother was near death in the medical bay, and the unspoken reason was that he and Jay had been doing what they were not supposed to. She had saved their lives and jeopardized her own. But she shouldn’t have had to…

 

He was still the older brother, and he had to do something. Val got up and walked over to the cockroach massacre. “Can I help?” he asked as he sat across from Jay.

 

“Sure.”

 

Val picked up another dagger and started stabbing roaches with Jay. “Maybe when we’re done, we should go see her?” he suggested cautiously.

 

“Yeah,” Jay answered.

 

They both focused their attention on the roaches.