Re: Doing the Accounts [Keara]
Posted: 10 Nov 2013, 10:48
Pi wondered again why the woman spoke like she did, as if English was something she couldn’t quite get her head around. In her time in the city Pi understood a select few of the older vampires had lived long before the current time, when social mores and customs differed so widely as to be near alien. But her speech was broken and difficult to understand, as if the woman channeled Yoda. A vision of the dreadlocked woman with green skin, pointy ears and moles with long hair amused her. The idea of it made Pi smile, a little meanly, her lips twisting as she did and not entirely pleasantly.
It felt impossibly uncharitable to think those things about the woman, when she was so obviously attempting to be nice. But Pi couldn’t help herself, not really. She had never been prone to irrational jealousy before Elliot and even now she wasn’t immune to the bite of it. It rose from nowhere, unbidden, unwarranted but stewing under the surface of her skin, pricking her pale skin with goose bumps. This woman with her jagged words and attempt to be .. social grated, sawing against Pi’s nerves.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again as Elliot’s hand reached for hers under the table, squeezing gently. Slowly she slid her gaze to the man and stopped the sharp words that bubbled from her brain and attempting to spew from her lips. It was uncharitable, the thoughts and the near words. They were and with his look and his overly forced cheer she tried to rein back the inclination. She nodded instead.
He was explaining to her, like a man who had something to hide, as if explaining the why he realised she needed … assurance. In a small part of her mind she felt a twinge of embarrassment at her thoughts and at the delay of her response to the woman. A delay that obviously forced Elliot to fill the space with words that drew her to the right conclusion before her jealousy landed on another.
Her smaller hand, fit comfortably in his. She squeezed in return.
“We have had problems with hackers and I’m… well, neither of us are very good at such things.” Turning to Elliot she asked quietly. “Is this something Madison could be.. taught?”
“English is also my second language.” She replied to the woman, trying to grab the conversational ball and string out what she hoped was the right tone. “I know how difficult it can be to… adjust.” She finished even as her mind finished meanly But obviously better at it than you are.
Biting her lip she glanced guiltily in Elliot’s direction as if he could read her mind and guess at the meanness of her internal commentary. That he knew her so intimately that he could pluck the silent barbs she threw in the other woman’s direction even as she spoke the right words, in the right way, because politeness required it of her.
It felt impossibly uncharitable to think those things about the woman, when she was so obviously attempting to be nice. But Pi couldn’t help herself, not really. She had never been prone to irrational jealousy before Elliot and even now she wasn’t immune to the bite of it. It rose from nowhere, unbidden, unwarranted but stewing under the surface of her skin, pricking her pale skin with goose bumps. This woman with her jagged words and attempt to be .. social grated, sawing against Pi’s nerves.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again as Elliot’s hand reached for hers under the table, squeezing gently. Slowly she slid her gaze to the man and stopped the sharp words that bubbled from her brain and attempting to spew from her lips. It was uncharitable, the thoughts and the near words. They were and with his look and his overly forced cheer she tried to rein back the inclination. She nodded instead.
He was explaining to her, like a man who had something to hide, as if explaining the why he realised she needed … assurance. In a small part of her mind she felt a twinge of embarrassment at her thoughts and at the delay of her response to the woman. A delay that obviously forced Elliot to fill the space with words that drew her to the right conclusion before her jealousy landed on another.
Her smaller hand, fit comfortably in his. She squeezed in return.
“We have had problems with hackers and I’m… well, neither of us are very good at such things.” Turning to Elliot she asked quietly. “Is this something Madison could be.. taught?”
“English is also my second language.” She replied to the woman, trying to grab the conversational ball and string out what she hoped was the right tone. “I know how difficult it can be to… adjust.” She finished even as her mind finished meanly But obviously better at it than you are.
Biting her lip she glanced guiltily in Elliot’s direction as if he could read her mind and guess at the meanness of her internal commentary. That he knew her so intimately that he could pluck the silent barbs she threw in the other woman’s direction even as she spoke the right words, in the right way, because politeness required it of her.