Does one become less a carpenter without wood? A Londoner away from London?
[He makes a soft, speculative noise designed to imply he has no set answer, even though he's watching her as he speaks. Nothing in his countenance gives away his opinion on the matter one way or another.
McGraw kept his head down, but Flint has a particular knack for getting the measure of someone. Man or woman, slave or freedman. Humans, for the most part, are driven by the same things. They have the same wants, and they all die the same. So as long as you can slot someone into a category with which you've some familiarity, the odds of them surprising you are low.
Silver. Silver surprises him. Or perhaps it's accurate to say he surprised him once, on a day becalmed. He calculated the amount of strength he would need to expend to spear the man in the fucking throat even as he talked. Flint heard every word of it, yet overlaid on those words was an echo: I betrayed you, I continue to do so, I'll do it again. He was impressed by the flagrancy of it all, and there was one single, infinite moment where he thought for the very first time since London, Perhaps I've met an equal after all. It is not often he lets someone a direct threat to his vision live. He can still remember the stench of rotting whale beneath a merciless sun, gaseous bubbles of its decomposition roiling the surface of the ocean. It felt an appropriate accompaniment to their discussion. So yes, Silver surprised him in a singular, meritorious moment.
This woman is doing similarly, albeit on a less grandiose scale. He's used to strong women, of course. His mother was one. Miranda. Eleanor Guthrie another. Max, Anne Bonny and Madi. He does not have the contempt for the fairer sex that most men do. Why would he, when a person is generally dangerous proportionate to how dearly you've underestimated them? But thus far, Wanda has given him no indication that she's even accustomed to being underestimated. Has the world changed so much as to value women, or is this something unique to her? He finds himself curious, and that is surprising.]
no subject
[He makes a soft, speculative noise designed to imply he has no set answer, even though he's watching her as he speaks. Nothing in his countenance gives away his opinion on the matter one way or another.
McGraw kept his head down, but Flint has a particular knack for getting the measure of someone. Man or woman, slave or freedman. Humans, for the most part, are driven by the same things. They have the same wants, and they all die the same. So as long as you can slot someone into a category with which you've some familiarity, the odds of them surprising you are low.
Silver. Silver surprises him. Or perhaps it's accurate to say he surprised him once, on a day becalmed. He calculated the amount of strength he would need to expend to spear the man in the fucking throat even as he talked. Flint heard every word of it, yet overlaid on those words was an echo: I betrayed you, I continue to do so, I'll do it again. He was impressed by the flagrancy of it all, and there was one single, infinite moment where he thought for the very first time since London, Perhaps I've met an equal after all. It is not often he lets someone a direct threat to his vision live. He can still remember the stench of rotting whale beneath a merciless sun, gaseous bubbles of its decomposition roiling the surface of the ocean. It felt an appropriate accompaniment to their discussion. So yes, Silver surprised him in a singular, meritorious moment.
This woman is doing similarly, albeit on a less grandiose scale. He's used to strong women, of course. His mother was one. Miranda. Eleanor Guthrie another. Max, Anne Bonny and Madi. He does not have the contempt for the fairer sex that most men do. Why would he, when a person is generally dangerous proportionate to how dearly you've underestimated them? But thus far, Wanda has given him no indication that she's even accustomed to being underestimated. Has the world changed so much as to value women, or is this something unique to her? He finds himself curious, and that is surprising.]