Strength? Was it strength? That's always what she was told by numerous people. How she was strong or willful enough to push onward despite her disability. She knew they meant well but the statement always struck her as odd, as if it implied that there was a choice in the matter. Whether the choice was to get up that day or to be blind altogether. Was she strong or willful for being able to get up in the morning without sight? She had never seen a thing, yet with the way the world worked she knew she was missing something, even if she got along well without it. There were periods of sadness where she lingered on what she'd never have, but even when she was stuck on the ground in those moments, she was aware that one day she would have to stand back up, so each and every time she decided that it might as well be then and there.
What good would it do to linger? None, though that hardly stopped her sometimes. But, perhaps most damning of the statement most given was that it implied that it was difficult, as if she had somehow been cleaved or shackled in a way the standard person would be unable to deal with. Was it supposed to make her feel strong or powerful? Was this strength supposed to come from the knowledge that she was carrying an unnatural load of unbearable weight, and had made it this far? It didn't, it only made her feel fatigued.
Her thoughts did not betray her face, and instead she took it in stride as she always had. She could never afford to react to the sympathy, and she most certainly could not start now. It wasn't that she disliked or loathed the sympathy, it was simply that she never knew quite how to respond to it. What did they expect her to say? "I don't believe it's any particular kind of strength." She admitted after a moment, lingering on the subject a bit more than she initially anticipated. "I was born blind, it's not like I ever had to adjust to it, I've always known that the galaxy wasn't designed for someone without sight, but it's never... Concerned me." Then what did concern her? She knew that it wasn't sight itself that she wanted. "If no one made a big deal of it I don't think I'd ever think about wanting sight." She gave a small smile, but in her flow of emotion the intention was clear. It was a sad one, a tinge of regret, of past thoughts.
She wanted sight because that's what other people had, and since she didn't have it, she was different. Even among those who tried their best to accommodate her, she could notice the small awkward tinges as they thought too much on how to react or to act or to respond. It faded with time as they got to know her, and figured out how to treat her, but she had met so very few people who lacked that uncertainty. Was it selfish to think that?
She was happy that Sera posed a different question, and though she was willing to linger and talk more on the previous subject, she certainly wouldn't abandon the next question for it. "A place to visit?" She had thought of a question like that before, but it had been some time, and regrettably she had not spent a great deal of time thinking about it. A few years ago she would say something like a spice factory or certain restaurants or what have you, but having visited a few of places like that she regrettably found that more official places such as those tended to smell more strongly of purification and cleaning supplies than the product they truly craft. Oddly enough she found a certain form of restaurant where the food was cooked in front of you to be her favorite. The flashes of heat, the wafts of ingredients being freshly cut and cooked, the sounds, and the companionship that such places often required, it was heavenly in its own way.
"It's hard to say, to be quite honest." She admitted before she got lost in thought. "I'd love to visit one of those libraries that a place like Yamatai could make, you know, one of those giant ones, a quiet place that's absolutely massive, row after row of books, floor after floor." Libraries had certain qualities about them that was hard to describe. The way people politely kept quite as well as the general ambiance of the carpet-floor, open spaces that echoed small sounds into the general hum of the library itself. Plus the smell was hard to describe, she would hate to describe it as 'clean paper and carpet' but she simply didn't know a better way to describe it. Did Yamatai even have massive libraries of physical books anymore? She honestly didn't know.
"I've been to restaurants where they cook the food in front of you, and I'd love to go to more of those." She smirked briefly. "It's probably far more achievable than the others." She spoke with a light humor about her. But I've always lived in places with a good population and foundation, so one place I'd like to visit isn't quite a specific place. But, say like a tundra of some habitable planet, far from civilization, in the fall." It took her another moment to really pull together her reasoning for herself. The lack of human ambiance, no noise pollution, no lack of nature, the crisp smell of frost and the hum of the world and the wind. "-That's about all I can think of for the moment."