[It's a show, to be certain. James truly required no instruction - he is as expert a dancer as he is a swordsman and when you spend half your life on a ship deck you learn to move with something beyond grace - but there's something precise and laudable, certainly, about the way the man moves.
What gives him pause is how freely it's done, and how perilously close they are to inhabiting the same space for the duration of the demonstration. He doesn't step backwards, yet he arches one eyebrow, and a muscle jumps faintly in his jaw as he shifts it to one side.]
And to what do I owe this generosity?
[His tone is an absolute zero of neutrality. Nothing given or offered in the cadence of his words. That his heart is an awful cacophony somewhere between the cage of his ribs is no one's business but his own. Fight or flight. An old ache like a bone broken badly and never mended. No one alive has this fucking right of him. Fuck tests, this feels more like a dark hood and rough rope against his neck.]
no subject
What gives him pause is how freely it's done, and how perilously close they are to inhabiting the same space for the duration of the demonstration. He doesn't step backwards, yet he arches one eyebrow, and a muscle jumps faintly in his jaw as he shifts it to one side.]
And to what do I owe this generosity?
[His tone is an absolute zero of neutrality. Nothing given or offered in the cadence of his words. That his heart is an awful cacophony somewhere between the cage of his ribs is no one's business but his own. Fight or flight. An old ache like a bone broken badly and never mended. No one alive has this fucking right of him. Fuck tests, this feels more like a dark hood and rough rope against his neck.]