Desmia knows it's logical, and that's probably the worst part.
Kodos kills her family, her friends, her village. And even as she's running, holding the blond boy's hand, it's logical. It makes sense. Your continued existence means slow death- she's lost everything- to the more valued members of the colony- and yet she doesn't see any alternative that could have been taken.
If she was Kodos, would she have done the same?
She runs with the others, she shoots her phaser without flinching, she scavengers for food, and she knows it's only logical. She buries her friends, she kills, and she weeps like her heart is breaking. (Maybe it is.)
Who was it that said Vulcans couldn't feel?
(Maybe, she thinks on one of the coldest nights where her fingertips go a greeny-blue colour and her teeth chatter consistently, she's just not Vulcan enough. Her grandmother was Vulcan, and Desmia had always embraced her culture with a fierce passion that seemed rather human in retrospect. Now she has shed tears, lost hope, regained it, now she barely feels anything at all.)
The first night, when they've been running for hours on end and everyone is exhausted beyond words, she looks at the bloody blisters on her feet and wonders at the fact that only forty-eight hours ago she was wearing scuffed up leather shoes and having her hair brushed by her mother. They weren't wealthy, Desmia's family, but once they were content. Now she sits in a dead forest, limbs aching more than they ever have, watching the littlest children fall into oblivion, their blond saviour standing guard.
He'd found her, lying as still as she could, surrounded by her dead village members. There'd been a kid on his back and two others hiding behind his legs. "Come with us," he'd said, bloody and tired and really just a child, they were all just children, and Desmia had let him pull her to her feet without protest. She still isn't sure why she listened to him, the boy she'd known for all of twenty seconds. Was it logical?
He lowers himself gingerly onto the tree stump beside her, concealing the pain that he must surely be feeling. Desmia saw him carry the sick four year old girl on his back the whole time they were running. His weary blue eyes look at her in concern. "You okay?" He whispers, voice making him seem both younger and older than he appears, and then he looks away quickly. "Stupid question, I guess." Desmia watches him, exhaustion seeping into her bones. "You should get some rest," he croaks. "I'll stand watch."
Desmia tilts her head. "That is illogical," she replies, "you have been running longer than I have. I will keep watch." This is easy. She knows how to do this. Numbers, words, reason. (She doesn't want to keep watch.)
Blue eyes looks back at her and his lips try to smile. "Rest," he says. "Please." Desmia hesitates. "It'll be okay," he stresses. "Desmia, sleep."
How does he remember her name? She doesn't know his.
(She knows other things about him, though. A pathological need to protect those in his care. Extremely resilient and physically able. Wary of authority. Used to running, or possibly hiding. Desmia is Vulcan, though maybe not completely, and she knows how to read people. Unfortunately for her, he does too.)
He gives her a hand getting of the stump and she knows his eyes are scanning the forest and the children as she drifts into sleep. She doesn't know his name, but she trusts him already.
(One day, she will give her life for him.)
(His name, she will never learn, is Jim.)