Post by Charlotte on Jan 9, 2008 8:13:37 GMT -5
NEAR OSSUS
Snippet
"Well?"
"Well what?" Some vague irritation weighted his tone; it had not been in his manner before she'd prompted him.
"Did you do it?"
"Yes."
"You apologized." She sounded dubious, and maybe a little amused.
"I offered to cure his headaches. That's like an apology, isn't it?"
"Not... really. Offering to fix something you broke is a thing that you do when you, for instance, nick someone's paint."
"That's essentially all that I did." He was already past her, brushing her off, moving on to The Next Thing.
"You can't really believe that," she was saying, trying to follow him through the shadowy webwork of pipes and wires. He was moving faster than she was, though, and when it started to seem like he wasn't going to respond anymore, her exasperation burst out. "You messed with his brain!"
"His spinal nerves, also."
"How can you compare that to nicking paint?"
"The paint of his personality." He was getting further and further ahead of her, and was now only visible as a flitting shadow every now and then when the angle was right.
"You can't believe that," she repeated. "This is the act. I can't believe that you really think that."
"If we were to linger on all of the things that you apparently can't do, we'd be here for days, and I really don't have the time."
Feeling increasingly claustrophobic, she had already stopped trying to move through the dark jerry-rigged gauntlet of a drive on total life-support, and suddenly she didn't even want to catch up with him anymore. But he moved like a leopard through the jungle, utterly at home in this massive tangle, and he may have been lost to her, but he certainly wasn't lost in it.
Snippet
"Well?"
"Well what?" Some vague irritation weighted his tone; it had not been in his manner before she'd prompted him.
"Did you do it?"
"Yes."
"You apologized." She sounded dubious, and maybe a little amused.
"I offered to cure his headaches. That's like an apology, isn't it?"
"Not... really. Offering to fix something you broke is a thing that you do when you, for instance, nick someone's paint."
"That's essentially all that I did." He was already past her, brushing her off, moving on to The Next Thing.
"You can't really believe that," she was saying, trying to follow him through the shadowy webwork of pipes and wires. He was moving faster than she was, though, and when it started to seem like he wasn't going to respond anymore, her exasperation burst out. "You messed with his brain!"
"His spinal nerves, also."
"How can you compare that to nicking paint?"
"The paint of his personality." He was getting further and further ahead of her, and was now only visible as a flitting shadow every now and then when the angle was right.
"You can't believe that," she repeated. "This is the act. I can't believe that you really think that."
"If we were to linger on all of the things that you apparently can't do, we'd be here for days, and I really don't have the time."
Feeling increasingly claustrophobic, she had already stopped trying to move through the dark jerry-rigged gauntlet of a drive on total life-support, and suddenly she didn't even want to catch up with him anymore. But he moved like a leopard through the jungle, utterly at home in this massive tangle, and he may have been lost to her, but he certainly wasn't lost in it.