Work Text:
"It's a weird expression."
That pulled him out of the daydreaming staring-into-a-cup-of-too-hot-a-coffee. He frowned and slowly looked at his companion, not fully sure if he heard right, and not fully sure if he cared.
"A weird expression?"
"Moral compass."
He did hear right then. She did that sometimes. Said out-of-context sentences while her train of thought spiraled through incredibly colorful tracks. That's another expression, 'train of thought'.
"Why?" He decided that if she started a thought, she might as well finish it. Not that he was planning on listening, really.
"A compass points north. What does 'north' mean in moral terms? And what are the other three", she stopped talking for a moment, until she remembered that she was saying something, "directions?".
"North is the right thing to do? That's why people who have a moral compass know what is the right thing to do?"
"But you don't always want to go north. People with moral compasses wouldn't have to be 'good'. They just would know what 'good' is."
Why was he engaging in this conversation? "Sure, maybe that is the definition."
"And people without moral compasses can't be good, because they don't know what it means?"
"If you never stop moving, you'll go north eventually."
"Does good work like that?"
"Every 'bad' person did something good in their life."
"But they knew it."
"You can do good without knowing it."
"How would you know?"
And that sentence finally hit a rock. They stopped and started thinking about this conversation alone. He realised the coffee felt colder than it should.
None of them minded the silence. She thought, he was tired.
Perfectly balanced. As all things should be, she would add sometimes.