Where Exactly Are We?

Destruction was everywhere. Ships that had been destroyed in various ways hung in space like some elaborate mobile. Rolando had no idea where they had just shown up at. He was surprised who ever had lost this battle hadn't come back to at least salvage all the materials. He could see the ships looked fairly old, just by the various different internal components he could see drifting.

"Beautiful isn't it? All this destruction left hanging here, like a memory frozen in time." Trezlan broke the silence next to Rolando.

"Where are we?"

"The end of the red war, or I should say where it was fought, the survivors treated this place as a bit of a sanctified ground, leaving it exactly as they found it. Me I've used it as a hideaway, building on to the wrecks, a place to run to when all others are exhausted." Rolando laughed at the absurdity of it. He knew little of the war, or his fathers place in it, but he did know the location of its final battle was a kept secret lost to time, aside from to his father apparently.

"Glad to see you have the same respect for this place as you do everywhere else." Rolando watched as Trezlan maneuvered the ship near a particularly large wreck and engaged docking procedures. He could see though the wreck looked destroyed there had been construction on it, including a state of the art airlock.

"If idiots want to hold reverence over something they didn't actually cause or resolve who am I to stop them. Besides to the victor go the spoils."

"You are hardly the victor..."

"Don't presume to know everything about a battle you were not at, but I was son. I let you deride me in all manner of ways, but you will not speak ill of my great triumph." Rolando could hear the real hurt in his fathers voice, he was ashamed.

"I'm sorry."

"No you aren't, you don't even know the first thing about it, but that's ok, I blame myself for your lack of empathy. No matter we are docked, settle in we'll probably be here for a bit." Trezlan left without looking at Rolando, and for the first time Rolando was worried he'd actually hurt his father in a way that would not be recoverable. And that made Rolando feel terrible for all the things he'd said to Trezlan, if only because his father seemed like one of the only people who actually cared, even if he did awful things to show it. It was still caring. It was enough for Rolando to wonder how to fix what he broke. He probably wouldn't have felt so bad if he had seen Trezlan smirk on his way off the ship, knowing full well he had caused the exact kind of discomfort in his son that was going on, but Rolando was still learning his father was a master manipulator, especially with regards to people who care.