RORY
i told the stars about you
Rory watched: he always did. He watched and he listened and he thought about what he saw and what he heard. He drew parallels in places other perhaps would not, knowing what he did of what drove certain animals towards certain behaviors. He knew that you could teach a horse with either fear or love, and he had seen that the same wasn't true for humans. Some you could only teach through fear.Some dogs (and horses, truly) challenged you, but you could usually win that fight with violence. Without fear.
Humans? Nah. Not so much. Their wild and complex thoughts added wildness and complexity to solving their problems, some so far gone into selfish survival that the ends justified all means. No holds barred. He bit the inside of his lower lip, watching her with tired and thoughtful blue eyes. "Well," he said noncommittally, a small smile curving the corner of his mouth, "that depends on how much time you give me to find other ways of stopping you."
Because honestly, what was he supposed to have done? Tried to talk to Roana? He had tried like three times total and she had been dissuaded not by his words, but by the fact that she would've had to start laying into unprotected people in order to get through. No: the mob had been a security measure. A human fence.
Then she apologized and he regarded her for a moment, the silence broken only by their breathing and the spinning of the awl. It whirred, wood on wood, as he regarded her. Again, he found himself torn: to comfort her, or to let her sit in this misery she had put herself in? He didn't like it when his empathy was appealed to in such a way, even if it wasn't her intention, and the sigh he heaved was small and quiet.
"Maea, I might not like what you're doing, even if I see the merits of it, but anyone would've had a mess on their hands with this. It's just the nature of it. As Vai said, you're trying. No one of the Naturals has any particular experience with leadership or politics. Everyone has to start somewhere, regardless of what they're doing." He used the awl to tap the leather strips he'd been working on when she came in. Rory certainly hadn't been born proficient at leatherworking. He had learned, over the years.
Just as she would learn, if she stayed on her path.
