(no subject)
Oct. 30th, 2008 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Tomorrow Mary turns thirteen.
The cook is going to make a cake and she is to be let off lessons. Other than that she's not really sure what to make of this; despite the cold weather, she's sitting outside by her tree (now bare) in her garden, trying to decide.
The cook is going to make a cake and she is to be let off lessons. Other than that she's not really sure what to make of this; despite the cold weather, she's sitting outside by her tree (now bare) in her garden, trying to decide.
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:23 am (UTC)His response takes Mary a few moments to parse, but when she finally works through it, she frowns.
"There are only a very few choices in any given situation that are sensible. Sometimes it may be different depending on what people can do - but not so different as all that."
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:25 am (UTC)Not that he expects her to understand this. Yet.
But one day--
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:29 am (UTC)"You are talking about strategy."
All the Roman historians have paid off to some extent, at any rate.
The wind is cold; Mary leans forward and wraps her arms around her knees, putting her chin on top of them.
"I do not know if strategy and sense are the same thing."
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:30 am (UTC)This may or may not be intended to be a lesson. It hardly makes much of a difference, now does it?
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:34 am (UTC)"Strategy is cleverness," she says, finally, "but it is not always sense. Strategy is about winning but sometimes it is more sensible not to be fighting."
Obviously this whole 'more sensible not to be fighting' thing is something that Mary feels applies much more to other people than to her. But.
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:37 am (UTC)Galadan speaks from experience, here.
Just don't try getting him to admit that.
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:42 am (UTC)"But I do not think it is always strategy. For there to be strategy you must be wanting to win something."
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:42 am (UTC)"And do you truly imagine that there is a moment in which a man or woman is not looking to win something?"
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Date: 2008-10-31 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 04:57 am (UTC)"I may, I suppose, hope that such a belief serves you well. I find it doubtful, as your world is not so very different from my own."
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Date: 2008-10-31 05:01 am (UTC)"And you always are because you are always thinking of strategy.
If neither of the people who are talking is trying to win then - then it is different."
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Date: 2008-10-31 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 06:14 am (UTC)The word Mary is looking for, and not finding right at the moment, is 'trust'.
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Date: 2008-11-01 03:58 am (UTC)Is he still teasing? The arch of his eyebrows suggests he may well be.
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:00 am (UTC)"I do not think that 'I do not wish you to die' counts as an agenda."
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:02 am (UTC)Galadan's own agenda for Mary, such as it is--
Well. That is neither here nor there, at the moment.
Or is it?
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:08 am (UTC)Mary is fairly certain that Galadan does not wish her to die, and that he does wish her to be well-educated. She has not yet thought about what other goals he might have than that.
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:11 am (UTC)Don't answer that.
"And shall I ask you about your friend Wellard, then?"
Galadan has trouble believing that Mary does not have plans to keep Wellard safe from himself. Somehow.
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:19 am (UTC)"Though I think sometimes that perhaps I ought. Mostly I just shout at him."
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:23 am (UTC)"And how effective a tactic has that proven to be? If I may ask, of course."
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:30 am (UTC)Obviously this is all due to Mary's expert coaching.
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:36 am (UTC)Galadan's tone is very dry.
"In the spirit of academic curiosity, of course."
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Date: 2008-11-01 04:40 am (UTC). . . has she spoken to him more than that?
"- and things have gone more quickly here than they have in Milliways!"
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