"It's a good thing I'm Warden's Hand, then, and not a childminder," she says, but it doesn't have quite the archness it might. She feels something in her stomach relax when he at least makes a pretense at eating something.
She lifts her eyebrows and tilts her head in wry agreement. Most of the House traditions don't stand up under real scrutiny against arguments of personal agency, or if they do, it's in obeisance to something much larger and older than anyone practicing them has a full grasp on, which is frankly, more unsettling.
Palamedes can run on, and she doesn't always hide from him that he's doing it. Privately, though, she's of the opinion that an impassioned Palamedes is Palamedes at his best, even if he's not at all unbiased at this particular moment. "You know I back you on this, Warden," she says, and the title -- much as it can mean a variety of different things depending on her tone, especially when it's not for the benefit of anyone but the two of them -- is meant here as a nod to a point well made and his right to make it. She shrugs irritably. "Civilizations cling to tradition when everything's crumbling. Here more than anywhere else, maybe: we live in a Library, for God's sake. Some people forget that means you can learn from the records we keep."
Cam sighs softly, eating the wedge of tuber herself and stepping down off the table. The crack in his voice, the faint wobble of pursed lower lip, is like an rapier straight through the ribs.
He'd winced away from her touch before, but sometimes comfort is for everyone involved, and anyway, she thinks he might need to be forced to actually get it all out. "Come here," she instructs, and reaches to wrap her arms around him, running her hand into his hair and resting her chin on his head. He's tall enough sitting that the top of his head mostly just thunks into her clavicle.
"I could go kidnap her from the mountains of Cypris on a stolen shuttle. You'd have to come after me. It'd practically be your duty." It's absurd, of course, it's meant to be absurd, but there's some little part of her that isn't a hundred percent sure she wouldn't do it.
no subject
She lifts her eyebrows and tilts her head in wry agreement. Most of the House traditions don't stand up under real scrutiny against arguments of personal agency, or if they do, it's in obeisance to something much larger and older than anyone practicing them has a full grasp on, which is frankly, more unsettling.
Palamedes can run on, and she doesn't always hide from him that he's doing it. Privately, though, she's of the opinion that an impassioned Palamedes is Palamedes at his best, even if he's not at all unbiased at this particular moment. "You know I back you on this, Warden," she says, and the title -- much as it can mean a variety of different things depending on her tone, especially when it's not for the benefit of anyone but the two of them -- is meant here as a nod to a point well made and his right to make it. She shrugs irritably. "Civilizations cling to tradition when everything's crumbling. Here more than anywhere else, maybe: we live in a Library, for God's sake. Some people forget that means you can learn from the records we keep."
Cam sighs softly, eating the wedge of tuber herself and stepping down off the table. The crack in his voice, the faint wobble of pursed lower lip, is like an rapier straight through the ribs.
He'd winced away from her touch before, but sometimes comfort is for everyone involved, and anyway, she thinks he might need to be forced to actually get it all out. "Come here," she instructs, and reaches to wrap her arms around him, running her hand into his hair and resting her chin on his head. He's tall enough sitting that the top of his head mostly just thunks into her clavicle.
"I could go kidnap her from the mountains of Cypris on a stolen shuttle. You'd have to come after me. It'd practically be your duty." It's absurd, of course, it's meant to be absurd, but there's some little part of her that isn't a hundred percent sure she wouldn't do it.