Under Construction: Lorellon Brand
Aug. 22nd, 2011 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinPrevious Writing: ~1200 words (+500 yesterday.)
2:00-2:30: ~1700 words (+500)
2:30-3:00: ~2300 words (+600)
5:00-5:30: ~2900 words (+600)
[Half hour in today. Wasn't expecting to expand the Lorellon/Xylon bit at the beginning, but... they're just so fun to write!]
"So you're the expert, Lorellon... do you think it was a fire demon, then?"
"Xylon, what have I said about you sneaking up on my desk?"
"I don't know, was I supposed to be writing that down?" Xylon said. "Anyway, I wasn't sneaking. In respectful deference to your creepy, paranoid obsession with privacy, I was deliberately foregoing my naturally silent elven tread so as to give you ample warning of my approach, because that's how much I care about you, Lorellon Brand, as a valued and respected co-worker."
"You walk like a cat."
"Exactly. Have you ever heard one of those things stomping around?"
"No," Lorellon said. She glanced down at Xylon's feet. "You're wearing elven boots."
"So? You have something against my culture now?"
"I mean, elven boots," she said. "You're wearing boots designed and enchanted specifically to be silent."
"Well, my tap shoes are at the cobbler's," Xylon said. "I just think these look nice. Who has time to sit around comparing the loudness and softness of different styles of footwear? Honestly, this is just like the time..."
"...you mistook the single occupancy restroom for a cloakroom. Right."
"And everybody was so suspicious and I had to take that stupid class. But seriously, why else would I be hanging out inside it in my cloak?"
"Why would you be hanging out inside a cloakroom in your cloak?" Lorellon asked.
"I thought that's what cloakrooms were for," Xylon said. "Honestly, cloaks have fallen so far out of fashion that nobody ever seems to wear them except for sneaking around, so I think I can be forgiven for a trifling little faux pas like that. Incidentally, in the course of committing that tiny error of judgment, I did find out why Karen from the pocket dimensionality study group always..."
"I really don't want to know," Lorellon said. "Now, one of us has a lot of work to do and both of us, for some reason, are employed here."
"Oh, it's easy to stay employed here when you figure out that they can't afford to waste anyone with usable mind-talents in non-production positions, like personnel resources or administration."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."
"If you say things like that, how will I know you're serious when you say you don't hear me sneaking up on you?"
"Xylon, why are you in my office?"
"I wondered what you thought of this," he said, laying a newspaper down on her desk.
"Well, as a concept, I think it has a few years of viability left in it, but they're going to have a real struggle to keep up with the innovations the world wide weave is bringing," she said.
"Not the medium, the story," he said. He tapped the picture over the fold on the front page, a full-color image of a barn on fire. "Do you suppose it was a fire demon?"
"Excuse me?"
"The one who was besieging the town," Xylon said. "Or did the villagers try to burn it out of the barn? That wasn't really clear from the news reports. Just that there was a demon and then fire."
"First of all, while I'm not about to go marching for demon rights, given the villagers had him surrounded and trapped in a barn, I'm not sure you have the subject and object of that sentence in the right place," Lorellon said. "Second, all demons are 'fire demons'. They were all cast through the elemental plane of fire into the infernal realm, or are descended from demons who were."
"Right, but some are more... fiery... than others," Xylon said. "Right?"
"In a way, I suppose," Lorellon said. "I mean, some will have spent a lot of time honing their control over their flame, and some will have spent more time suppressing it... though I have to imagine that some of those with the most control over how they use their flame will also be those who are best at keeping it in check..."
"But aren't fire demons just naturally better at it?"
"Xylon, I just said there are no 'fire demons'," Lorellon said.
"Well, actually you said they're all..."
"The idea that there are different types or classes of demons is the pet theory of a lot of armchair demonologists," she said. "But it's a mistake. It's based on the fact that this account over here has a demon who's clever and charming, or who's concerned with long-term planning, and that one over there has one who seems to only care about destruction, or immediate self-preservation. Add in the fact that some demons use magic or study various mundane skills and some don't, and you've got the makings of an imaginary infernal taxonomy... but the truth is that while demons differ from each other, it's the same way that humans differ from other humans or elves differ from other elves, not the way that humans differ from elves."
"Well, obviously saying that two demons were as different from each other as elves are from humans would be going a touch too far," Xylon said. "But are you so sure that there isn't something to it?"
"To what? The tendency of people to try to classify everything into neat little boxes?" Lorellon said. "There are other classes of beings in the infernal realm, yes. Imps and hellhounds and things, stuff that was banished at various points or that may be native but no one really knows because it's hard to conduct a proper survey of a realm that's actively trying to devour your soul. But demons... demons were a mortal, created race like most of the races that live on this plane."
"Wow, sorry," Xylon said. "I feel like I've backed my cart over somebody's beloved pet peeve."
"I'm sorry," Lorellon said. "It is a pet peeve, I guess. I'm used to it from humans... we spend so much time... for lack of a better word... demonizing demons that a lot of important information about them is forgotten or obscured. I can see where some of it comes from. I mean, it's easy enough to understand why people might be more comfortable imagining that monsters who look just like humans might have some hideous and recognizable 'real form'. Or to understand why someone might want to believe that demons have some kind of magical-seduction-mind-control power... believe me, there have been times I've wanted to believe that."
"Oh?"
"Yes."
"That was the cue for you to elaborate on those times," Xylon said. "How did you get so interested in demons, anyway?"
"I didn't," Lorellon said. "Until one got interested in me."
"You're just going to keep saying things like that and then act all mad when it piques my interest, aren't you?"
"Believe it or not, Xy, I don't frame my statements with any thought as to how they're going to affect you," she said. "I just say what I feel comfortable saying. If that's more or less information than you'd optimally prefer, that's just too bad."
"So... I guess you know," he said.
"I've worked it out, yes," she said.
"Must've been hard not to, with the evidence staring you in the face like that all this time."
He gestured towards the other room.
"It was more given who my mother is. It wasn't hard. I'm not stupid, you know."
"Of course not. You were never stupid."
"No, I just had a cool and mysterious older friende who never got tired of telling me how smart and mature I was. I wanted you to be right about that... made me reluctant to question anything. Consciously, because I didn't want you to change your mind. Subconsciously because I needed you to be right. I thought it was pretty slick, when I first started figuring out how you'd wored me over."
"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" he said. "I'm not going to insult either of us by denying it. Modesty is a bad color on me."
"It wasn't slick, though. It was obvious and easy. Any child needs to know she's special. Distant mother, absent father, sisters who treated me like the kids the baby-sat. I was an easy target... I was the low-hanging fruit."
"Little lady, you are no one's low-hanging fruit."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Call me that. Or flatter. Or cozen."
"Cozen," he repeated. "Sometimes you bust out a word and I can't rightly tell if you picked it up naturally growing up in the backwaters of Blackwater, or if you picked it out of a book. Who says cozen?"
"Don't try to distract me. either."
"Alright, listen. I may have adjusted my tactics to make them, shall we say, age-appropriate..."
"The age-appropriate way to seduce a child is don't."
"You were never just a child to me, Laurel Ann Blaise.
"No, I was Brimstone Blaise's child."
"That may have added a certain frisson of danger and excitement to the proceedings, but it's not why I wanted you, no: and I'll swear on anything you find meaningful that I would have been just as interested if you hadn't been a child when we met."
"Try to imagine what a comfort that is to me. []
"I showed you the safe way in, didn't I?"
"You showed me, yes," Laurel Ann said. "By definition, that means I saw what you wanted me to see. You told me that, durimg the thing with Jeanine."
Jeanine the Queen of Mean... already that seemed like a lifetime ago. People with less strange lives than her probably felt like high school had been another life, another world.
"My own words, used against me," the man said.
"I learned a lot from you."
[]
"Tell me your name."
"Do you know what your mother could do with that, child?"
"Yes, but I don't want it for her, I want it for me."
"I'm supposed to believe you wouldn't give it to her after you went and gave my son away?"
"Aidan was mine, too."
"The point is that if you were so careless with something that halfway belonged to you, how can I trust you to be mindful with something you have no claim to at all."
"The point is that people don't belong to each other
[Previous Progress: ~1200 words]
"So you're the expert, Lorellon... do you think it was a fire demon, then?"
"Excuse me?"
"The one who was besieging that town," Xylon said. "Or did the villagers try to burn it out of the barn? That wasn't really clear from the news reports. Just that there was a demon and then fire."
"First of all, while I'm not about to go marching for demon rights, given the villagers had him surrounded and trapped in a barn, I'm not sure you have the subject and object of that sentence in the right place," Lorellon said. "Second, all demons are 'fire demons'. They were all cast through the elemental plane of fire into the infernal realm, or are descended from demons who were."
"Right, but some are more... fiery... than others," Xylon said. "Right?"
"In a way, I suppose," Lorellon said. "I mean, some will have spent a lot of time honing their control over their flame, and some will have spent more time suppressing it... though I have to imagine that some of those with the most control over how they use their flame will also be those who are best at keeping it in check..."
"But aren't fire demons just naturally better at it?"
"Xylon, I just said there are no 'fire demons'," Lorellon said.
"Well, actually you said they're all..."
"The idea that there are different types or classes of demons is the pet theory of a lot of armchair demonologists," she said. "But it's a mistake. It's based on the fact that this account over here has a demon who's clever and charming, or who's concerned with long-term planning, and that one over there has one who seems to only care about destruction, or immediate self-preservation. Add in the fact that some demons use magic or study various mundane skills and some don't, and you've got the makings of an imaginary infernal taxonomy... but the truth is that while demons differ from each other, it's the same way that humans differ from other humans or elves differ from other elves, not the way that humans differ from elves."
"Well, obviously saying that two demons were as different from each other as elves are from humans would be going too far," Xylon said. "But are you so sure that there isn't something to it?"
"To what? The tendency of people to try to classify everything into neat little boxes?" Lorellon said. "There are other classes of beings in the infernal realm, yes. Imps and hellhounds and things, stuff that was banished at various points or that may be native but no one really knows. But demons... demons were a mortal, created race like most of the races that live on this plane."
"Wow, sorry," Xylon said. "I feel like I've backed my cart over somebody's beloved pet peeve."
"I'm sorry," Lorellon said. "It is a pet peeve, I guess. I'm used to it from humans... we spend so much time for lack of a better word demonizing demons that a lot of important information about them is forgotten or obscured. I can see where some of it comes from. I mean, it's easy enough to understand why people might be more comfortable imagining that monsters who look just like humans might have some hideous and recognizable 'real form'. Or to understand why someone might want to believe that demons have some kind of magical-seduction-mind-control power... believe me, there have been times I've wanted to believe that."
"Oh?"
"Yes."
"That was the cue for you to elaborate on those times," Xylon said. "How did you get so interested in demons, anyway?"
"I didn't," Lorellon said. "Until one got interested in me."
"You're just going to keep saying things like that and then act all mad when it piques my interest, aren't you?"
"Believe it or not, Xy, I don't frame my statements with any thought as to how they're going to affect you," she said. "I just say what I feel comfortable saying. If that's more or less information than you'd optimally prefer, that's just too bad."
"So... I guess you know," he said.
"I've worked it out, yes," she said.
"Must've been hard not to, with the evidence staring you in the face like that all this time."
He gestured towards the other room.
"It was more given who my mother is. It wasn't hard. I'm not stupid, you know."
"Of course not. You were never stupid."
"No, I just had a cool and mysterious older friende who never got tired of telling me how smart and mature I was. I wanted you to be right about that... made me reluctant to question anything. Consciously, because I didn't want you to change your mind. Subconsciously because I needed you to be right. I thought it was pretty slick, when I first started figuring out how you'd wored me over."
"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" he said. "I'm not going to insult either of us by denying it. Modesty is a bad color on me."
"It wasn't slick, though. It was obvious and easy. Any child needs to know she's special. Distant mother, absent father, sisters who treated me like the kids the baby-sat. I was an easy target... I was the low-hanging fruit."
"Little lady, you are no one's low-hanging fruit."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Call me that. Or flatter. Or cozen."
"Cozen," he repeated. "Sometimes you bust out a word and I can't rightly tell if you picked it up naturally growing up in the backwaters of Blackwater, or if you picked it out of a book. Who says cozen?"
"Don't try to distract me. either."
"Alright, listen. I may have adjusted my tactics to make them, shall we say, age-appropriate..."
"The age-appropriate way to seduce a child is don't."
"You were never just a child to me, Laurel Ann Blaise.
"No, I was Brimstone Blaise's child."
"That may have added a certain frisson of danger and excitement to the proceedings, but it's not why I wanted you, no: and I'll swear on anything you find meaningful that I would have been just as interested if you hadn't been a child when we met."
"Try to imagine what a comfort that is to me. []
"I showed you the safe way in, didn't I?"
"You showed me, yes," Laurel Ann said. "By definition, that means I saw what you wanted me to see. You told me that, durimg the thing with Jeanine."
Jeanine the Queen of Mean... already that seemed like a lifetime ago. People with less strange lives than her probably felt like high school had been another life, another world.
"My own words, used against me," the man said.
"I learned a lot from you."
[]
"Tell me your name."
"Do you know what your mother could do with that, child?"
"Yes, but I don't want it for her, I want it for me."
"I'm supposed to believe you wouldn't give it to her after you went and gave my son away?"
"Aidan was mine, too."
"The point is that if you were so careless with something that halfway belonged to you, how can I trust you to be mindful with something you have no claim to at all."
"The point is that people don't belong to each other
2:00-2:30: ~1700 words (+500)
2:30-3:00: ~2300 words (+600)
5:00-5:30: ~2900 words (+600)
[Half hour in today. Wasn't expecting to expand the Lorellon/Xylon bit at the beginning, but... they're just so fun to write!]
"So you're the expert, Lorellon... do you think it was a fire demon, then?"
"Xylon, what have I said about you sneaking up on my desk?"
"I don't know, was I supposed to be writing that down?" Xylon said. "Anyway, I wasn't sneaking. In respectful deference to your creepy, paranoid obsession with privacy, I was deliberately foregoing my naturally silent elven tread so as to give you ample warning of my approach, because that's how much I care about you, Lorellon Brand, as a valued and respected co-worker."
"You walk like a cat."
"Exactly. Have you ever heard one of those things stomping around?"
"No," Lorellon said. She glanced down at Xylon's feet. "You're wearing elven boots."
"So? You have something against my culture now?"
"I mean, elven boots," she said. "You're wearing boots designed and enchanted specifically to be silent."
"Well, my tap shoes are at the cobbler's," Xylon said. "I just think these look nice. Who has time to sit around comparing the loudness and softness of different styles of footwear? Honestly, this is just like the time..."
"...you mistook the single occupancy restroom for a cloakroom. Right."
"And everybody was so suspicious and I had to take that stupid class. But seriously, why else would I be hanging out inside it in my cloak?"
"Why would you be hanging out inside a cloakroom in your cloak?" Lorellon asked.
"I thought that's what cloakrooms were for," Xylon said. "Honestly, cloaks have fallen so far out of fashion that nobody ever seems to wear them except for sneaking around, so I think I can be forgiven for a trifling little faux pas like that. Incidentally, in the course of committing that tiny error of judgment, I did find out why Karen from the pocket dimensionality study group always..."
"I really don't want to know," Lorellon said. "Now, one of us has a lot of work to do and both of us, for some reason, are employed here."
"Oh, it's easy to stay employed here when you figure out that they can't afford to waste anyone with usable mind-talents in non-production positions, like personnel resources or administration."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."
"If you say things like that, how will I know you're serious when you say you don't hear me sneaking up on you?"
"Xylon, why are you in my office?"
"I wondered what you thought of this," he said, laying a newspaper down on her desk.
"Well, as a concept, I think it has a few years of viability left in it, but they're going to have a real struggle to keep up with the innovations the world wide weave is bringing," she said.
"Not the medium, the story," he said. He tapped the picture over the fold on the front page, a full-color image of a barn on fire. "Do you suppose it was a fire demon?"
"Excuse me?"
"The one who was besieging the town," Xylon said. "Or did the villagers try to burn it out of the barn? That wasn't really clear from the news reports. Just that there was a demon and then fire."
"First of all, while I'm not about to go marching for demon rights, given the villagers had him surrounded and trapped in a barn, I'm not sure you have the subject and object of that sentence in the right place," Lorellon said. "Second, all demons are 'fire demons'. They were all cast through the elemental plane of fire into the infernal realm, or are descended from demons who were."
"Right, but some are more... fiery... than others," Xylon said. "Right?"
"In a way, I suppose," Lorellon said. "I mean, some will have spent a lot of time honing their control over their flame, and some will have spent more time suppressing it... though I have to imagine that some of those with the most control over how they use their flame will also be those who are best at keeping it in check..."
"But aren't fire demons just naturally better at it?"
"Xylon, I just said there are no 'fire demons'," Lorellon said.
"Well, actually you said they're all..."
"The idea that there are different types or classes of demons is the pet theory of a lot of armchair demonologists," she said. "But it's a mistake. It's based on the fact that this account over here has a demon who's clever and charming, or who's concerned with long-term planning, and that one over there has one who seems to only care about destruction, or immediate self-preservation. Add in the fact that some demons use magic or study various mundane skills and some don't, and you've got the makings of an imaginary infernal taxonomy... but the truth is that while demons differ from each other, it's the same way that humans differ from other humans or elves differ from other elves, not the way that humans differ from elves."
"Well, obviously saying that two demons were as different from each other as elves are from humans would be going a touch too far," Xylon said. "But are you so sure that there isn't something to it?"
"To what? The tendency of people to try to classify everything into neat little boxes?" Lorellon said. "There are other classes of beings in the infernal realm, yes. Imps and hellhounds and things, stuff that was banished at various points or that may be native but no one really knows because it's hard to conduct a proper survey of a realm that's actively trying to devour your soul. But demons... demons were a mortal, created race like most of the races that live on this plane."
"Wow, sorry," Xylon said. "I feel like I've backed my cart over somebody's beloved pet peeve."
"I'm sorry," Lorellon said. "It is a pet peeve, I guess. I'm used to it from humans... we spend so much time... for lack of a better word... demonizing demons that a lot of important information about them is forgotten or obscured. I can see where some of it comes from. I mean, it's easy enough to understand why people might be more comfortable imagining that monsters who look just like humans might have some hideous and recognizable 'real form'. Or to understand why someone might want to believe that demons have some kind of magical-seduction-mind-control power... believe me, there have been times I've wanted to believe that."
"Oh?"
"Yes."
"That was the cue for you to elaborate on those times," Xylon said. "How did you get so interested in demons, anyway?"
"I didn't," Lorellon said. "Until one got interested in me."
"You're just going to keep saying things like that and then act all mad when it piques my interest, aren't you?"
"Believe it or not, Xy, I don't frame my statements with any thought as to how they're going to affect you," she said. "I just say what I feel comfortable saying. If that's more or less information than you'd optimally prefer, that's just too bad."
"So... I guess you know," he said.
"I've worked it out, yes," she said.
"Must've been hard not to, with the evidence staring you in the face like that all this time."
He gestured towards the other room.
"It was more given who my mother is. It wasn't hard. I'm not stupid, you know."
"Of course not. You were never stupid."
"No, I just had a cool and mysterious older friende who never got tired of telling me how smart and mature I was. I wanted you to be right about that... made me reluctant to question anything. Consciously, because I didn't want you to change your mind. Subconsciously because I needed you to be right. I thought it was pretty slick, when I first started figuring out how you'd wored me over."
"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" he said. "I'm not going to insult either of us by denying it. Modesty is a bad color on me."
"It wasn't slick, though. It was obvious and easy. Any child needs to know she's special. Distant mother, absent father, sisters who treated me like the kids the baby-sat. I was an easy target... I was the low-hanging fruit."
"Little lady, you are no one's low-hanging fruit."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Call me that. Or flatter. Or cozen."
"Cozen," he repeated. "Sometimes you bust out a word and I can't rightly tell if you picked it up naturally growing up in the backwaters of Blackwater, or if you picked it out of a book. Who says cozen?"
"Don't try to distract me. either."
"Alright, listen. I may have adjusted my tactics to make them, shall we say, age-appropriate..."
"The age-appropriate way to seduce a child is don't."
"You were never just a child to me, Laurel Ann Blaise.
"No, I was Brimstone Blaise's child."
"That may have added a certain frisson of danger and excitement to the proceedings, but it's not why I wanted you, no: and I'll swear on anything you find meaningful that I would have been just as interested if you hadn't been a child when we met."
"Try to imagine what a comfort that is to me. []
"I showed you the safe way in, didn't I?"
"You showed me, yes," Laurel Ann said. "By definition, that means I saw what you wanted me to see. You told me that, durimg the thing with Jeanine."
Jeanine the Queen of Mean... already that seemed like a lifetime ago. People with less strange lives than her probably felt like high school had been another life, another world.
"My own words, used against me," the man said.
"I learned a lot from you."
[]
"Tell me your name."
"Do you know what your mother could do with that, child?"
"Yes, but I don't want it for her, I want it for me."
"I'm supposed to believe you wouldn't give it to her after you went and gave my son away?"
"Aidan was mine, too."
"The point is that if you were so careless with something that halfway belonged to you, how can I trust you to be mindful with something you have no claim to at all."
"The point is that people don't belong to each other
[Previous Progress: ~1200 words]
"So you're the expert, Lorellon... do you think it was a fire demon, then?"
"Excuse me?"
"The one who was besieging that town," Xylon said. "Or did the villagers try to burn it out of the barn? That wasn't really clear from the news reports. Just that there was a demon and then fire."
"First of all, while I'm not about to go marching for demon rights, given the villagers had him surrounded and trapped in a barn, I'm not sure you have the subject and object of that sentence in the right place," Lorellon said. "Second, all demons are 'fire demons'. They were all cast through the elemental plane of fire into the infernal realm, or are descended from demons who were."
"Right, but some are more... fiery... than others," Xylon said. "Right?"
"In a way, I suppose," Lorellon said. "I mean, some will have spent a lot of time honing their control over their flame, and some will have spent more time suppressing it... though I have to imagine that some of those with the most control over how they use their flame will also be those who are best at keeping it in check..."
"But aren't fire demons just naturally better at it?"
"Xylon, I just said there are no 'fire demons'," Lorellon said.
"Well, actually you said they're all..."
"The idea that there are different types or classes of demons is the pet theory of a lot of armchair demonologists," she said. "But it's a mistake. It's based on the fact that this account over here has a demon who's clever and charming, or who's concerned with long-term planning, and that one over there has one who seems to only care about destruction, or immediate self-preservation. Add in the fact that some demons use magic or study various mundane skills and some don't, and you've got the makings of an imaginary infernal taxonomy... but the truth is that while demons differ from each other, it's the same way that humans differ from other humans or elves differ from other elves, not the way that humans differ from elves."
"Well, obviously saying that two demons were as different from each other as elves are from humans would be going too far," Xylon said. "But are you so sure that there isn't something to it?"
"To what? The tendency of people to try to classify everything into neat little boxes?" Lorellon said. "There are other classes of beings in the infernal realm, yes. Imps and hellhounds and things, stuff that was banished at various points or that may be native but no one really knows. But demons... demons were a mortal, created race like most of the races that live on this plane."
"Wow, sorry," Xylon said. "I feel like I've backed my cart over somebody's beloved pet peeve."
"I'm sorry," Lorellon said. "It is a pet peeve, I guess. I'm used to it from humans... we spend so much time for lack of a better word demonizing demons that a lot of important information about them is forgotten or obscured. I can see where some of it comes from. I mean, it's easy enough to understand why people might be more comfortable imagining that monsters who look just like humans might have some hideous and recognizable 'real form'. Or to understand why someone might want to believe that demons have some kind of magical-seduction-mind-control power... believe me, there have been times I've wanted to believe that."
"Oh?"
"Yes."
"That was the cue for you to elaborate on those times," Xylon said. "How did you get so interested in demons, anyway?"
"I didn't," Lorellon said. "Until one got interested in me."
"You're just going to keep saying things like that and then act all mad when it piques my interest, aren't you?"
"Believe it or not, Xy, I don't frame my statements with any thought as to how they're going to affect you," she said. "I just say what I feel comfortable saying. If that's more or less information than you'd optimally prefer, that's just too bad."
"So... I guess you know," he said.
"I've worked it out, yes," she said.
"Must've been hard not to, with the evidence staring you in the face like that all this time."
He gestured towards the other room.
"It was more given who my mother is. It wasn't hard. I'm not stupid, you know."
"Of course not. You were never stupid."
"No, I just had a cool and mysterious older friende who never got tired of telling me how smart and mature I was. I wanted you to be right about that... made me reluctant to question anything. Consciously, because I didn't want you to change your mind. Subconsciously because I needed you to be right. I thought it was pretty slick, when I first started figuring out how you'd wored me over."
"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" he said. "I'm not going to insult either of us by denying it. Modesty is a bad color on me."
"It wasn't slick, though. It was obvious and easy. Any child needs to know she's special. Distant mother, absent father, sisters who treated me like the kids the baby-sat. I was an easy target... I was the low-hanging fruit."
"Little lady, you are no one's low-hanging fruit."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Call me that. Or flatter. Or cozen."
"Cozen," he repeated. "Sometimes you bust out a word and I can't rightly tell if you picked it up naturally growing up in the backwaters of Blackwater, or if you picked it out of a book. Who says cozen?"
"Don't try to distract me. either."
"Alright, listen. I may have adjusted my tactics to make them, shall we say, age-appropriate..."
"The age-appropriate way to seduce a child is don't."
"You were never just a child to me, Laurel Ann Blaise.
"No, I was Brimstone Blaise's child."
"That may have added a certain frisson of danger and excitement to the proceedings, but it's not why I wanted you, no: and I'll swear on anything you find meaningful that I would have been just as interested if you hadn't been a child when we met."
"Try to imagine what a comfort that is to me. []
"I showed you the safe way in, didn't I?"
"You showed me, yes," Laurel Ann said. "By definition, that means I saw what you wanted me to see. You told me that, durimg the thing with Jeanine."
Jeanine the Queen of Mean... already that seemed like a lifetime ago. People with less strange lives than her probably felt like high school had been another life, another world.
"My own words, used against me," the man said.
"I learned a lot from you."
[]
"Tell me your name."
"Do you know what your mother could do with that, child?"
"Yes, but I don't want it for her, I want it for me."
"I'm supposed to believe you wouldn't give it to her after you went and gave my son away?"
"Aidan was mine, too."
"The point is that if you were so careless with something that halfway belonged to you, how can I trust you to be mindful with something you have no claim to at all."
"The point is that people don't belong to each other