[Certain points bear repeating, in Palamedes' mind; certain points bear being stated at all, and I won't die for you is at the top of his list.
He'll repeat himself later, if he has to. The negotiation is continuing, which is both a surprise - a continuation - and not - none of the questions. He can put together only so much with secondhand context and conjecture (but he is pretty good at that), and he knows when he's being promised just enough shiny things to tide him over. He's the Sixth one, after all, he's supposed to go googly-eyed over research notes and delight in picking at wards and collaborating.
That's all very patronizing, but he expected it, and so it settles over him as if a second blanket; again, he's too tired to make it a whole thing.
He says,] Mm.
[And then God apologizes. Palamedes listens the same way he's listened to the terms, the offer, and slowly but surely every one of his nerves catches fire. Suddenly sitting on the floor feels more supplicant than comfortable; he pushes his tea-with-biscuit-in further into the center of the table and braces his hands behind him on the sofa, to haul himself back up onto it with middling effort, and he says:]
I am not a Lyctor.
[And since meeting the three now that he has, if counting what Harrow did and the Third Princess' various atrocities is valid, he's never been more resolute in not wanting to be a Lyctor, either. They aren't even that good, he wants to say, YOU LIED TO US, did a single one of them figure out the work before it was too late—?
That feels, unfortunately, petty. Surely some of them were nice people, once.]
Don't apologize to me. I don't pay for anyone's mistakes but my own; those are mine to keep.
[This, here, is the point of pride: he sees the guise of the penitent savior, the effort to ply him with notes and curiosities — he chafes against it in an instant, white-hot.]
no subject
He'll repeat himself later, if he has to. The negotiation is continuing, which is both a surprise - a continuation - and not - none of the questions. He can put together only so much with secondhand context and conjecture (but he is pretty good at that), and he knows when he's being promised just enough shiny things to tide him over. He's the Sixth one, after all, he's supposed to go googly-eyed over research notes and delight in picking at wards and collaborating.
That's all very patronizing, but he expected it, and so it settles over him as if a second blanket; again, he's too tired to make it a whole thing.
He says,] Mm.
[And then God apologizes. Palamedes listens the same way he's listened to the terms, the offer, and slowly but surely every one of his nerves catches fire. Suddenly sitting on the floor feels more supplicant than comfortable; he pushes his tea-with-biscuit-in further into the center of the table and braces his hands behind him on the sofa, to haul himself back up onto it with middling effort, and he says:]
I am not a Lyctor.
[And since meeting the three now that he has, if counting what Harrow did and the Third Princess' various atrocities is valid, he's never been more resolute in not wanting to be a Lyctor, either. They aren't even that good, he wants to say, YOU LIED TO US, did a single one of them figure out the work before it was too late—?
That feels, unfortunately, petty. Surely some of them were nice people, once.]
Don't apologize to me. I don't pay for anyone's mistakes but my own; those are mine to keep.
[This, here, is the point of pride: he sees the guise of the penitent savior, the effort to ply him with notes and curiosities — he chafes against it in an instant, white-hot.]
Do the Ninth still live here?