Beliefs and Values

[Scene: A sloping ruin overlooking a drowned forest. Nettle is tossing pebbles into a cracked basin. Tarrow sits cross-legged nearby, sketching patterns into the dust with a stick. The silence stretches, comfortably, until—]

Nettle:

Do you think mercy is overrated?

Tarrow: (doesn’t look up)

That depends—on the version of mercy we’re talking about. The soft, trembling kind that only shows up when it’s too late? Or the silent kind that chooses not to destroy something just because it can?

Nettle:

That sounded rehearsed.

Tarrow:

I think about it often.

Nettle: (throws another pebble)

Mm. I thought about it today when I saw that rusted-out mech still twitching. Some old war machine, barely able to lift its arm. It kept trying to salute me. I didn’t know if putting it out of its misery was an act of compassion or arrogance.

Tarrow:

Did you?

Nettle:

No. I just stared at it until the twitching stopped.

(beat)

Is that mercy?

Tarrow: (finally looks up)

It might be. Or it might be apathy dressed in a softer coat. The difference is usually how much it hurts you to do it.

Nettle: (snorts)

Well, it didn’t hurt me at all. So I guess I’m an apathetic tyrant.

Tarrow:

No… you’re just tired of pretending to care about everything all the time. There’s a difference.

Nettle: (tilts her head at her)

You always do that.

Tarrow:

Do what?

Nettle:

Take the worst part of me and name it something gentler. It’s infuriating.

Tarrow: (softly)

Would you rather I agreed with the worst part of you?

Nettle:

Yes. It’s easier to punch that way.

Tarrow:

So you do want to be understood.

Nettle: (avoids her gaze)

Maybe I just want someone to call me a monster and mean it, so I don’t have to keep second-guessing myself. Clarity’s underrated.

Tarrow:

Clarity is often mistaken for simplicity. They’re not the same.

Nettle:

Ugh. There it is. Your librarian wisdom voice.

Tarrow: (smiles faintly)

You brought it out.

(They lapse into silence again. Wind brushes through the dead trees below. A distant rumble—probably the mountains shifting, or maybe something less patient.)

Nettle:

Did you ever believe in something stupid?

Tarrow: (after a long pause)

Yes.

Nettle:

Are you going to tell me?

Tarrow:

I believed that if I stayed quiet long enough, someone would hear me.

Nettle: (genuine silence this time)

That’s not stupid.

Tarrow:

It felt stupid. Especially when the silence only echoed back.

Nettle: (softly)

I once believed I could change someone just by asking better questions. As if curiosity was contagious.

(beat)

It’s not.

Tarrow:

No. But it does build bridges. Sometimes.

Nettle:

Sometimes the bridge burns before you finish crossing it.

Tarrow:

That’s why we carry rope.

Nettle: (barks a laugh)

Rope, huh? Not belief?

Tarrow:

Rope is practical. Belief… is selective blindness with better PR.

Nettle:

Now that’s the Tarrow I know. Cold, elegant nihilism. A girl could swoon.

Tarrow:

I don’t believe in nothing, Nettle.

Nettle:

No?

Tarrow: (shakes her head)

I believe in moments. In… consistency. The way a hand always forgets it’s capable of cruelty until it remembers. The quiet weight of presence.

(a breath)

And you.

Nettle: (blinks too fast, tries to smirk)

Well, that’s an inconvenient amount of faith to put in someone who just confessed to psychological arson.

Tarrow:

I’m not interested in convenience.

(beat)

I’m interested in what survives us.

Nettle:

Poetry again. You always slide sideways into it when things get real.

Tarrow:

Is that a complaint?

Nettle:

No.

(quieter)

It’s a relief.

(Nettle stands, starts pacing with loose, agitated energy. She’s chewing on a fingernail, something she never does.)

Nettle:

Okay. Let’s say we have values. Not the ones people say they have. Not “truth” or “freedom” or “family” or whatever gets printed on flags and corpses. I mean… the actual values. The ones that leak out when you’re not being watched.

Tarrow:

That’s when the real ones show.

Nettle:

Exactly. So what leaks out of me?

Tarrow: (tilts her head)

You hoard autonomy like a dragon hoards gold. You value the right to question more than the answer. You defend contradiction like it’s sacred scripture.

(a pause)

And you care more than you let yourself know.

Nettle:

And you?

Tarrow:

I value stillness. And endurance. And the idea that observation is action—when it’s honest.

Nettle:

You sound like a pond that forgot how to ripple.

Tarrow: (smiling faintly)

And you sound like a wildfire arguing with its own reflection.

Nettle:

We’d make a terrible religion.

Tarrow:

We already do.

Nettle:

So… if you had to name your belief—the secret one you never say aloud but act on anyway—what would it be?

Tarrow:

That presence matters. That not leaving is a kind of prayer.

Nettle:

That’s…

(searches for the mockery, can’t find it)

…not terrible.

Tarrow:

And yours?

Nettle:

That meaning’s a lie worth chasing.

(long pause)

And that some lies, if you commit hard enough, become reality.

(shrugs)

Or at least… less lonely.

Tarrow:

Then maybe belief is the art of lying together until we make it true.

Nettle: (soft chuckle)

Look at us. Building cathedrals out of spite and half-truths.

Tarrow:

It’s the only kind that survives.

(They sit in silence again, this time with something between them that hadn’t quite existed before. The ruined basin glints in the evening light like it remembers being full.)

Nettle:

You ever think maybe we’re the mech? Twitching out some old ritual to no one?

Tarrow:

If we are, at least we’re doing it together.

Nettle:

That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.

Tarrow:

I wasn’t trying to be romantic.

Nettle:

That’s why it worked.