Lucile wasn’t a smoker, she had bad memories of addiction, when one craving vanished another took its place and you were enslaved to a different substance. She had fought hard to squash such things and now as a rule avoided any highly addictive substances, even her coffee was decaf.

So instead of taking a smoke break Lucile doing something far less damaging than inhaling pesticides, she was punching a wall. The hardened and reinforced bones of her knuckle pounded into the wall. The pain focused her, and the punching gave her pent up anger a place to go.

She had wanted to sit patiently through their little meeting, make sure her daughter stayed on task and wasn’t distracted by the girl, keep an eye on Hanzo, and most importantly watch for any potential weaknesses. But unfortunately, she couldn’t separate Hanzo’s face from his brothers, and his juvenile beliefs about justice just made it worse.

Lucile’s mind kept flashing back to that night, her dad had just died in an industrial accident, and the company housing her father was given, was revoked. In one day, she was orphaned, homeless, and all alone, until she wasn’t alone. Though her nightmares always inserted a dark shuttle craft with black clad men, the truth was she never even got to see her kidnappers, didn’t even feel the prick in her neck, or maybe she did, and the drugs just destroyed the memories.

Her last lucid thought was of her father, and the next was of awaking in an alley belly swollen with child and her neck covered in deep purple bruises. Sure, there were a lot of other half-baked memories in-between, but those all felt more like nightmares than reality. Honestly if it hadn’t been for the undeniable proof that was Astarte, Lucile would have doubted any of what she could remember.

Her fist hit the wall hard, and a nearby light went out. She pulled her hand back and stared at the light. “How the fu-“

“Must have pulled a wire.” A voice said from behind her.

Lucile whirled around, her hand pipped to the strap at her side and in practiced movement had an axe in hand.

The Dumpy Asian lady put her hands up “Sorry, I just felt the walls shaking and came to check things out.” She said quickly.

Lucile narrowed her eyes at the women. “You’re the noodle lady.” She said eventually.

“Hai, Tanka Mei to issmasu.” The women answered.

Lucile scowled “I don’t speak Japanese. I already have enough trouble with Swahili and Union common, I don’t have time to add another.”

The women blushed “sorry, my name isn’t noodle lady, its Tanaka Mei.”

Lucile didn’t speak much Japanese, but Aster’s fascination with the language taught Lucile a few things. Like how Japanese swapped the order of surnames and given name from what was normal, and how they didn’t like being called by their actual given name unless you were close. “Right, sorry about busting your light Tanaka-chan.”

The women winced “San, we’re both adults here.”

Lucile scowled “Your culture is so confusing.” She muttered. Evidently, she might need to pay more attention to Astarte’s lessons on her adopted heritage. It still irked her that she had so readily taken to the heritage of that bastard. Then again Lucile carried hand axes nearly a millennium out of fashion and wore a faux pelt without ever even setting foot in what was left of Norway.

“Maybe to outsiders, but I think its easier when you realize its all about courtesy and respect.” The noodle lady said softly.

Lucile glared “I haven’t experienced much courtesy or respect from your people so far.”

Lucile was growing tired of dealing with the women and just wanted her to leave, so she decided to lay on the venom and vitriol. But counter to her expectations the women stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know the anger comes easy, but letting it control us is how he wins.”

Lucile snapped her eyes to the women, that’s right, if she was the girls mother that meant she shared a common enemy with Lucile. “No, we let him win by letting him still draw breath. Debts must be repaid.”

She smiled sadly “And then what, will you stop at just destroying him, or will you go further?”

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“I wont stop until every trace of him is destroyed.” Lucile growled.

“Not every trace though.” The women pointed out.

Lucile blinked. She was confused for only a second before she understood her meaning. “Aster is not his.” Lucile said unconvincingly.

“If you believe that then why are you out here? Shouldn’t the same apply to Judge-sama.”

Lucile frowned “Doesn’t sama mean lord or something?”

“Sometimes. It more a honorific of respect.”

Lucile snorted. “There’s no way I’ll ever show a pig respect. He’s known about his brothers sins for nearly twenty-five years and has done nothing with it.”

“Presumably you’ve known for longer.”

Lucile grinned wolfishly “And I’ve been working to destroy him ever since.” She turned on the women. “Once I was clean and capable, I began to tear everything that had allowed a man like him to exist down. A man like Kenzo doesn’t exist in a vacuum, he is only allowed to hunt his ‘prey’ because society as a whole doesn’t care if a powerful man grabs an orphan off the streets. But where I chose to destroy the system that sheltered such an evil man, Hanzo chose to join it and become another cog in the system that ruins people like you and I.”

“You can’t really fix anything with destruction.”

“Who said I want to fix anything, fixing things is someone else’s problem.”

“You can’t really believe that, what about your daughter, how can you possibly raise a child with so much anger in your heart?”

“I didn’t.” She said coldly. “I couldn’t look at her face without seeing that bastard’s tainted blood. I gave her up, made sure she was in better hands, and then cut her out of my life.”

“Then-“

“Then she tracked me down and beat the ever-loving shit out of me for it.” Lucile pointed to her crooked nose for emphasis.

The women went silent, “You really gave up your own child?”

Lucile saw the troubled look on her face, and felt the same thing she felt every time she looked at Astarte, guilt. Lucile considered stomping on the emotion, but the memory of Astarte right after the fight with the Prophets Flame came to her. “When does it end, we keep making enemies and fighting battles, but to what end?”

This woman wasn’t Lucile’s enemy, if anything she and the noodle lady had a shared experience no one else could ever understand. She slumped against the wall and slid down. “I’m sorry,” she said after an emotionally charged stillness, “that was uncalled for.”

The woman sat next to her. “It’s fine, I think it took me by surprise.” The noodle lady said eventually. “My daughter has been the only constant source of warmth in my life since…” she paused, faltering at any proper word to describe what had happened. When she began again it was like the pause had never occurred “I just have trouble imagining how someone could keep going without that feeling.”

Lucile felt sympathy for the women, if she hadn’t clung to her grudge so tightly, hadn’t made it the cornerstone of her existence, then couldn’t have gone on. Maybe Astarte could have been that reason, but… “I was only fourteen, I wasn’t ready to raise a child. I couldn’t even breastfeed because they were still weening me off the drugs. I didn’t even have it in me to give her a name.”

“You didn’t choose Astarte? I thought thought or think?it was such a pretty name.”

Lucile snorted “No, that was all her. Mary, the woman I left her with, she gave her a different name. Astarte was just a fake name she gave herself, after a war goddess and an archdevil. She was going through this phase or something at the time, I think the word for it is ‘chunibyo’.”

The women smiled faintly “Its an old term, back when most kids still got a public education, but I understand what you mean. Still, you must be proud of her, she seems to have grown into a fine woman.”

Lucile nodded “That was all Mary’s doing. Compared to her and the influence she had I don’t even have the right to call myself a mother. Apparently, Aster’s teen years were particularly difficult.”

Lucile’s sharing seemed to give the woman the courage to speak, because she then gathered herself in a deep calming breath. “Hanzo-sama had been looking into off the books holdings his brother had, I think he had an inkling that something was wrong with his brother. That’s where he found me, alone, naked, and just starting to show. He got me out and helped me find myself again. Apparently, he made a blunder in the investigation which put me in danger, so he helped me disappear. He couldn’t use my experience as evidence without putting my life in jeopardy, so he tried to look for others. But Kenzo covered his tracks well, and someone high up the Union’s food chain obstructed Hanzo-sama’s work.”

“So he could have had his justice, but only if he put you in danger?” Lucile surmised.

She nodded.

Lucile didn’t believe in codes of honor; in her eyes they were just as flimsy as concepts like justice and fairness. But she did believe in personal principles, so long as someone went to sufficient lengths to prove their strength. People like Mary, Terry, John, and even her own daughter had a personal code that was so ironclad that they would never compromise. Lucile still didn’t like that Hanzo had been sitting on his ass for half a century, but if part of the reason was that he was unwilling to risk a victim to bring his brother to justice, then maybe she could at least consider his point of view.

“How old were you?” she asked.

“Nineteen, older than you were, but still too young.”

“Is there even an age at which something like that becomes less traumatic?”

“I guess your right.”

“Thank you, I don’t often get to talk about this, and never with someone who really knows. I think Astarte got the closest, she actually forgave me for walking out after all, but even she doesn’t really get it.”

“Yes, its hard to talk about, but also something that needs to be said. Funny how those two things go hand in hand.”

They were silent. “Listen, Tanaka-san, shit’s about to hit the fan here. You’ve seen the signs, Terrans are being targeted, and public sentiment is going to sour fast with Zera on the loose. I’m not sure how much you’ve studied history, human or otherwise, but all those are the precursors of a genocide.”

She stared at the ground “there’s been rumors and talk of that possibility for years, I’m sure it’s all just-”

“It’s not” Lucile interrupted. “I was recently involved with Bedona conflict before it turned into the full-on race war it became. I saw all the signs personally. So, believe me when I say its coming, sooner than you fear.”

When the noodle lady next opened her mouth her words were choked with emotion. “I don’t, we don’t have the funds to get off station, even If I sold the shop. We wont be able to get to earth before something happens-”

“Earth won’t be safe either, we know the patterns. It’ll start with an expulsion of Terrans from the core, and then when they’re done clearing us out of their stations and have us all in one spot they come for the rest. But we have another place, somewhere unknown and safe. If you decide you want to leave, then I have no doubt Astarte will make room on her ship. I can’t promise you safety, but I can say they’ll need to crawl over our dead bodies to hurt you.”

“You have a colorful way of exaggerating.” The woman said meekly.

“I’m not exaggerating.” Lucile said firmly.

“I will consider your offer, its not so easy to just leave everything behind.”

“That is your prerogative.” Lucile said. She took in another breath and sighed, “I need to go back in.”

“Yes, and make sure you try some of the noodles before they go cold.”

Lucile agreed and walked back into the little noodle shop.