Young Rayne (to Young Sunny): There is no shame in competition. Life is a competition and you shouldn’t fear winning.
Young Rayne (to Young Sunny): Don’t kid yourself, Sunny. The world is a nasty place full of all kinds of monsters. But you are a monster too.
Lt. Sunny Stratum: Do you remember that summer we found those ruins near Delfina? When Mam and Da were still around?
V. Admiral Rayne Stratum: And you jumped from that sunken tower!
Sunny: You all did it first! Besides it didn’t look that high from the top. All I could see down below was the grass.
Rayne: The way you crumpled… I thought you were dead.
Sunny: My mouth hurt.
Rayne: Mam beat the tar out of us both when she saw your face.
Sunny: And Da wouldn’t stop kissing and hugging us for months on end. ‘My silly girls’, he’d say. ‘My stupid brave little girls.’
Rayne: …
Sunny: Do you remember the button?
Rayne: …what?
Sunny: I always thought I was of an age with you and all the boys in town. I had to do everything you all did. I had to, or you’d all call me a baby and run away. But after what happened, you became so serious and I realised how small I really was.
Rayne: I had to be Mam to you. It was the only way I could do it.
Sunny: And when you left, I tried my best to copy you. I did everything you did, perfectly. And I couldn’t wait to show you how good a job I was doing in your stead. I felt like I’d caught up to you again finally. Do you remember your first visit back home?
Rayne: Not a thing out of place. Mam would’ve been proud.
Sunny: You were in your new uniform when you stepped off the carriage. I’d wanted to impress you so badly but I got shy the moment I saw you. You looked like a different person.
Rayne: I felt like a different person. The town looked so small.
Sunny: Oh you’d become a grown woman, to be sure. And the way you carried yourself was new. But it was your eyes that had changed most. I looked at them and I thought ‘I’ll never catch up to her’.
#TheMonsterIsUs
abdulj. 