This week’s chapter, randomly selected from the archives: Elara Dorne, shortly after Balmorra in the SWTOR Trooper class line, meditates on the recent change in her commander, Vierce Savins. It contains spoilers throughout Overcoming Adviercity up through Balmorra. I don’t think it’s in Adviercity’s main text; it’s a bit of a supplement.
This one is dear to me because it takes Elara’s perspective of the unexpected change in the Vierce/Elara relationship. Adviercity is almost uniformly Vierce’s perspective. This one-shot shows the other side.
If Elara didn’t recognize Vierce’s struggle, his irrational, traumatized struggle, they would never have worked as a couple. And if she hadn’t forgiven that struggle, when he isn’t entitled to that forgiveness, they would never have worked as a couple. As it turns out, they’re one of my favorite ships in the whole Bright!verse.
Excerpt:
I must confess it was difficult to watch the first indications of the better side of his character after I joined Havoc Squad. It’s hard not to be bitter in the knowledge that one’s colleague has a sense of fairness and compassion that he chooses not to extend to oneself. I was surprised, then, when he started to accept my recommendations in the field, and even started defending me against outside challenges. A working relationship is built from such small favors; I just never expected it to happen with him.
It remains to be seen whether this balance can continue. Walking on pins and needles has become standard operating procedure. But that snap to barely-restrained anger that might be triggered by everything and anything I do hasn’t happened since we spoke on Balmorra. Sometimes the Captain visibly catches himself. More often he doesn’t seem to have to.
Was it just a matter of asserting that I’m a human being? Whatever the case, he has expressed contrition for his prior behavior and I’m certain it’s genuine; deception is foreign to him. A different person might be too proud to acknowledge having been wrong. He does acknowledge it, for the same reason he does any difficult thing: it’s the right thing to do.
War has made him a harsh man, but I think that he is not altogether a bad one.
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