She breaks off, and then says, abruptly, "I meant to say thank you. It is what I came to say. Thank you -- I am glad you did come. It was very awful. But I also wish you had not. I had forgotten how much I hate it -- for people to be ill or hurt and to have it be my fault."
Galadan's smile is a bare twist of one corner of his mouth, and he quickly smooths his face back into its usual sardonic expression.
To do otherwise would be unfair and, perhaps, cruel.
"I find it equally distasteful, I am sure, to see those I call friend harmed. Particularly when I may have some hand in preventing it, or ameliorating it after the fact."
He does not bother with a shrug, or with denying her own claim to responsibility. It would serve little purpose, anyway. He does not much think she would believe him.
"That is its own matter of prevention, is it not? But you are right, our lessons certainly ought to have prepared you well enough for situations such as this most recent one. Among others."
And now he does smile, if only faintly.
"The evidence suggests that, while certain points may need a bit of polishing, you are capable of keeping your head in trying circumstances. This is the bedrock upon which you'll build all the rest of your strategies."
"My other studies should have taught me to keep my head, at least. But I had been neglecting your kind of strategy, I think. I suppose," she adds, ruefully, "there is nothing for teaching one to do better than making an awful mistake -- but it does not make the mistake any more pleasant for all that."
From now on, Mary vows not to forget her general scheming and suspicion training in among everything else!
She makes a face. "You do not mean the world; you mean people. Flowers do not work that way any more than viruses do. But one cannot deal with viruses, it seems, without dealing with people as well - and even if you do not wish to deal with them, it seems what I ought to remember is that they may try to deal with you."
Again Galadan stifles the briefest flicker of a smile.
"That is, indeed, one of the things you ought to remember, Mary, and not only in the context of strangers. Though they, of course, can often be the most troublesome."
. . . and quite probably this already gives Galadan a good idea of who is standing outside.
Reply
He's moving a bit slower than was previously his wont, but his eyes are clear.
"Mary Lennox," he says, opening the door and stepping aside to give her room to enter.
"Today finds you well, I hope?"
Reply
She steps inside and then stands there, unsure of where else to go, folding her hands into her skirt.
"And you?" Her mouth forms the word ought, and then she bites down on it before the rest of the sentence can emerge: ought you to be standing up?
Reply
During this speech he closes the door, then turns to regard Mary.
"Do you care to sit?"
The room has a chair, which he is not using at the present time.
Reply
"I have never seen you so tired," she says, once she's sitting down and facing him once again.
Reply
This is more true than Mary can guess. Perhaps.
He'll wait until she is seated before moving to sit on the surface that remains to him. Which is to say, the bed.
"But such exhaustion is a very rare event. This occurrence will make it thrice in two thousand years."
Reply
"You should not have had to. I wish -"
She breaks off, and then says, abruptly, "I meant to say thank you. It is what I came to say. Thank you -- I am glad you did come. It was very awful. But I also wish you had not. I had forgotten how much I hate it -- for people to be ill or hurt and to have it be my fault."
Reply
To do otherwise would be unfair and, perhaps, cruel.
"I find it equally distasteful, I am sure, to see those I call friend harmed. Particularly when I may have some hand in preventing it, or ameliorating it after the fact."
He does not bother with a shrug, or with denying her own claim to responsibility. It would serve little purpose, anyway. He does not much think she would believe him.
"Though I much prefer prevention."
Reply
Reply
"That is its own matter of prevention, is it not? But you are right, our lessons certainly ought to have prepared you well enough for situations such as this most recent one. Among others."
And now he does smile, if only faintly.
"The evidence suggests that, while certain points may need a bit of polishing, you are capable of keeping your head in trying circumstances. This is the bedrock upon which you'll build all the rest of your strategies."
Reply
From now on, Mary vows not to forget her general scheming and suspicion training in among everything else!
Reply
He sheds that quietness a moment later, as if it had never been.
"May I take it that you will look to certain types of lessons as less of an intellectual exercise and more of a training ground, of sorts, in future?"
It would make a great deal of his work a very great deal easier.
Well, at least in part.
Reply
"I do know -- it is not that I do not know why you teach them to me! It is only that I have been out of the habit of thinking that way when I have --"
She's trying to make an explanation, worried that it will sound like an excuse.
"One cannot turn medicine into chess. Or if there is a way, I do not know it. It is not a game one can win."
Reply
He has known Mary long enough to feel fairly sure of that.
"But the rest of the world does not partition itself nearly half so well."
Which means he would prefer Mary to learn to think like that around her medical responsibilities, at the very least.
Reply
She makes a face. "You do not mean the world; you mean people. Flowers do not work that way any more than viruses do. But one cannot deal with viruses, it seems, without dealing with people as well - and even if you do not wish to deal with them, it seems what I ought to remember is that they may try to deal with you."
Much as Mary might prefer they didn't.
Reply
"That is, indeed, one of the things you ought to remember, Mary, and not only in the context of strangers. Though they, of course, can often be the most troublesome."
And the least. It's all a question of context.
Reply
Leave a comment