therookery | OPEN

[That causes hackles to rise. As inane as this conversation has been from Pel's viewpoint, she should have been able to coolly deflect this. But that word. That. Word.]

Don't. Call me girl.

Oh, shit. Don't tell me you're gonna ask another question you don't care on now, because someone called you a mean name.

Fen'Harel ma halam, ignorant bitch. And don't worry, none of those scary Dalish words are race-specific.

[ ignorant, oh that's ever rich, coming after this pissing and moaning on answering questions. but that's the way it always is, isn't it?

people who claim to prize knowledge, they're the last ones who ever actually want another point of view.

got to be humbling, coming in from the trees where you didn't have to talk to anyone didn't take you seriously. got to sting a certain sense of pride. she wasn't looking for a fight here, but she's somewhat delighted to find how easy it's been to start one.

(it's been fifteen years since she's been home, and she still remembers how denton looked with the roots growing out of him) ]

Hey, hey kiddo. [ she sounds far too pleased with herself ] Why's bitch better than girl? Enlighten me.

[Pel wants a fight. After today, after having to reason and ration away the anger when those men called her daughter a baby rabbit, she wants to teach some other shem racist a lesson. She has lived her entire life as a Keeper's First, as a scholar, as anyone who never had to deal with this kind of interaction either as a child or as an adult. She has so much to prove here, so much respect to earn, she doesn't know how to just let this go.

And now kiddo. Pel knows she's being provoked. She used to have to peel Merrick away physically at this point. She has no one here to control her but herself.

...Dammit. Seriously? She wants to wipe the floor with this asshole and Mythal wants her to control herself. That's what she always did, dispelling wars between other gods before they started. Also, she is somebody's mother now. Getting into a fight is not appropriate for anyone old enough to be somebody's mother. It would feel so good, though. So damn good to show Little Sina how mommy deals with people who are mean. Nope, she has to settle for telling her stories of how the all-mother tricked people into not fighting.

...Okay maybe an argument then. Surely Mythal argued with people.]

Because bitch isn't the first time I got under your skin. Can't say the same about girl. I was under your skin the moment I made you think. Too much exercise?

You tell me. Gotta be a workout, all them gym-nas-tics you’re doing to keep the high ground.

[ a heavy drawl. is she thickening her accent on purpose? almost certainly. the crystals’ distance means there’s less danger in portraying even sardonic weakness.

that wouldn’t be an option, if they were face-to-face. any chance of violence about, and you’ve got to make an impression, got to make it hard and quick.

but like this? seems a good angle to rub it in; there’s nothing fancy jackholes hate more than knowing it’s someone low’s got them fussed up. maybe it confirms their bias, maybe it makes all her people (human, and common, and dirty and bitter: take your pick —) look bad.

maybe. but that's someone else’s problem. ]

Seems a little jumpy to me, maybe you oughta take a breather.

[ is that. yes, yes it is ]

[That emphasis is unmistakable. But Pel is not a fancy jackhole. She talks like one. Sometimes she has to pretend she is one, dress up and wear a mask and stand on her tip-toes so people don't notice she doesn't belong. But there is always the looming knowledge that she is in the company of some of the best scholars in the world, and she has to hold her own against them with her paltry oral tradition. This hick is not going to destroy all that hard work.]

Proud of that one, are you? Took you the whole conversation to come up with it. You've got nothing. I, as you have pointed out, have got the high ground. There's increasingly little point to this, it's not really even a satisfying argument at this point. Step it up, I'm getting bored.

[ this is the real secret: everyone thinks they're on the bottom, and everyone thinks they ought to be on top. there's more than one kind of fancy; there's more than one kind of low. everyone pisses on each other to climb.

melys should know. you don't position yourself as an outsider without some arrogance in your heart. without the idea you deserve better — ]

Child, you want a real argument, try engaging with someone outside your own hot little head.

[ — else, what purpose to bitterness? melys is well-aware she's chosen to walk outside the lines, that she did this to herself. that others might not have, that's a little more of a leap than her sympathies can make. pain doesn't endow you with great feeling for others. that's how the books get it wrong. pain just makes it harder to see anything outside yourself. ]

You didn't ask none of this because you wanted an answer. Fact is, you're right pissed someone gave it. Might have to think, then. Might have to think on why people say that shit, and that'd mean admitting you ain't the only wounded party in the world. Might mean admitting you ever had a part in the wounding.

You can be pure or you can be angry. Ain't no one in the world gets both. Go find yourself a shoulder to cry on or a pound of flesh to chew. I don't got enough to spare.

[It's far enough off that Pel doesn't even get angrier over this. Melys doesn't know anything about her. In that, the length of this argument is probably Pel's fault.]

I asked, [she says, voice low but consonants crisp,] because it wasn't said about me. It was said about my daughter. Who was just born. And I wanted to know how much danger it meant for her in the immediate sense. Rabbits are useful isn't a piece of information I can use, it's just an attempt to get a rise out of me. No, I am not grateful for it. If you want to keep extrapolating some story about what that says about my attitude toward history, which is an entirely unrelated subject, go straight ahead.

I wanted to get a rise out of you, I'd tell you it's because Orlesians got a thing for roasts.

[ it had been, in her estimation, a damn tame explanation. no point to curbing that now, ]

Rabbits're useful. Pretty little pets, fur or food, you wring their necks when they bite and no one sheds a tear because there'll always be more. You want to know how much danger that means, you go and ask it straight. Give you the answer, but you wouldn't like it no better.

[ everything's dangerous. fever's more likely to steal a child than some dread stranger — but it's not the close threat that matters, the wolf at the door. it's the wolf in the woods, over the hill, behind that next shadow. it's the wolf that starts after you before you're ever born. ]

Best have long legs, you want to outrun history; bitch always wins.

Edited 2017-06-17 10:00 (UTC)

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