His voice is quiet, but he agrees to her terms. Not that he necessarily had any choice, but it’s moments like those when she always wonders what they will actually do next. It’s the boys who don’t stop coming around, who treat her first like a person and second like a pretty object, that she’s looking for. A lot of them don’t come back, don’t care to try. It’s those that she weeds out with her declarations, with her stipulations and “rules”. Because they were not really rules at all but guidelines and a test.
The next bit has her raising an eyebrow. Cells? In his own home? She bites down hard on the questions that come to mind, sure this is not a topic to press with someone you have, essentially, just met. It is also perhaps something he just would prefer not to talk about. So she lets the conversation drift on, grinning as he responds. ”Besides our loose morals, of course. But who doesn’t have loose morals?” Anyone who said they didn’t was probably lying. No one was as good as they thought.
His smile slips away at the mention of magic and Caido. Apparently he has felt the brunt of what that means here, how quickly and easily the gods turn their back on their own simply because of what they can do. Even The Voice, who was the reason the Outlanders were here, didn’t seem overly interested in those that did not want to Ascend (though she does know there is some small exception to that, according to Wessex). Still, she doesn’t quite understand the gods and their motivations. They didn’t make sense, and yet, here they were all the same. ”It is a tool and little more, though a very useful one if you master it. Some of us are born with magic, or manifest it so young we don’t understand the consequences anyway. I’ve had it as long as I can remember, and have been shunned and ignored because of it. It is a tool many are far too quick to turn their back on because of a war hundreds of years ago none of us had a damn thing to do with.” It’s a whole lot of truth, but she doesn’t mind sharing it with him, suspecting he will understand where she is coming from. Not many do.
He pulls his hand back and she lets it go without issue. ”I wonder that same thing every day. My brother was the best of us. But I’m here and he is not. It would be a waste not to make the most of it.”
He seems interested in her own life, and she is happy to oblige. It doesn’t hurt to talk about it. She misses the way things used to be and she misses her family, but she is happy to share their story so that they can live in more memories than just her own. ”Swords, knives, hand to hand combat, magic. Though I never learned much of my magic, so I’ve got a ways to go on that. My mother believed in making sure her children were well equipped to survive.” She was an expert in nothing but proficient in many things because of it. Her scythe was her favorite though, the strange weapon her signature anda piece of her mother’s legacy.
She listens as he talks a bit of his own life, and she wonders where Zariah factored into that. She doesn’t understand the details of their family, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives. She only knows their last name and the rumors of Zariah she’s learned in the Grounds, but the pieces make a strange amount of sense together. It’s a puzzle with a border but not the middle. ”I’m sorry,” she says simply, having nothing else to offer. Not to his childhood story, and not to the fact he could not even dream. She could push and prod more, but it seems unlikely that would do anything. So instead she simply offers empathy where she can.
The next bit has her raising an eyebrow. Cells? In his own home? She bites down hard on the questions that come to mind, sure this is not a topic to press with someone you have, essentially, just met. It is also perhaps something he just would prefer not to talk about. So she lets the conversation drift on, grinning as he responds. ”Besides our loose morals, of course. But who doesn’t have loose morals?” Anyone who said they didn’t was probably lying. No one was as good as they thought.
His smile slips away at the mention of magic and Caido. Apparently he has felt the brunt of what that means here, how quickly and easily the gods turn their back on their own simply because of what they can do. Even The Voice, who was the reason the Outlanders were here, didn’t seem overly interested in those that did not want to Ascend (though she does know there is some small exception to that, according to Wessex). Still, she doesn’t quite understand the gods and their motivations. They didn’t make sense, and yet, here they were all the same. ”It is a tool and little more, though a very useful one if you master it. Some of us are born with magic, or manifest it so young we don’t understand the consequences anyway. I’ve had it as long as I can remember, and have been shunned and ignored because of it. It is a tool many are far too quick to turn their back on because of a war hundreds of years ago none of us had a damn thing to do with.” It’s a whole lot of truth, but she doesn’t mind sharing it with him, suspecting he will understand where she is coming from. Not many do.
He pulls his hand back and she lets it go without issue. ”I wonder that same thing every day. My brother was the best of us. But I’m here and he is not. It would be a waste not to make the most of it.”
He seems interested in her own life, and she is happy to oblige. It doesn’t hurt to talk about it. She misses the way things used to be and she misses her family, but she is happy to share their story so that they can live in more memories than just her own. ”Swords, knives, hand to hand combat, magic. Though I never learned much of my magic, so I’ve got a ways to go on that. My mother believed in making sure her children were well equipped to survive.” She was an expert in nothing but proficient in many things because of it. Her scythe was her favorite though, the strange weapon her signature anda piece of her mother’s legacy.
She listens as he talks a bit of his own life, and she wonders where Zariah factored into that. She doesn’t understand the details of their family, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives. She only knows their last name and the rumors of Zariah she’s learned in the Grounds, but the pieces make a strange amount of sense together. It’s a puzzle with a border but not the middle. ”I’m sorry,” she says simply, having nothing else to offer. Not to his childhood story, and not to the fact he could not even dream. She could push and prod more, but it seems unlikely that would do anything. So instead she simply offers empathy where she can.
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
Quote by Charles Dickens
