02-03-2018, 04:50 PM
The greeting was warm, but evaporated quickly to an appropriate formality.
The emphasis was not unnoticed, of course, though the US Representative was the last person she'd thought to be corrected by. Pure belligerence erased the absurd title from her tongue, and she was not repentant of it; in fact it had been absent the entire conversation with the man himself, and either he'd not noticed or he'd simply not cared enough to comment. It was somewhat ironic that whilst gently pointing out her disapproval, Evelyn spoke with poignant familiarity about the man who ruled half the world, like a patient mother guiding an errant child despite the abyss between their ages. Given the sour aftertaste of her own recent encounter with him, it was almost enough to make Natalie smile. Instead it made the gears turn a new direction.
The ideologies between these two did not align, and yet Evelyn defended his title like it was a personal affront to call a man simply by his name. Then she recalled the ghost of a smile when Brandon spoke the representative's name.
"I think he will need more than a nudge. But perhaps that's why I'm not a politician."
So she kept insisting. And yet her interests here were not as transparent as a moral interest in channeler rights.
Natalie accepted water graciously, and sat when invited. Her thoughts cycled through the bare facts she had to work with, and the greyer areas of assumption she used to build a picture. She sought an ally in Evelyn, but already suspected that painting a common foe was not going to work. Her gut cautioned her away from detailing all the sharp edges of Brandon's faults, lest the woman mistake her for an enemy -- or worse, a traitor in the same vein as her father. Still, some knee-jerk reaction wanted to rip the veil from Evelyn's eyes; to force her to confront the reality that Nikolai Brandon was not some misguided fool to be manoeuvred to the correct answer, even if doing so might result in a swift bullet for the messenger. Instead her tactics adjusted, with a little regret. She'd have preferred to be blunt.
"Broadly speaking, I am interested in it all, since they will be my rights too."
Her lips lifted in a half-smile, but her intensity never really wavered; the attempt at lightness fell short of her eyes. "But I do have specific concerns. I've been in Africa the last few years, working with the Red Cross. Projects that promote education, mostly -- I was in Sierra Leone during the recent coup. My school was caught in the crossfire."
She spoke to give some context, her tone level despite the pain wrapped so tightly around those words. "We do enough harm to one another without the power to aid us. I'm not naive. How do you stop it? But men conditioned as weapons? Hoarded like nuclear missiles?
"When we spoke he likened the power to a loaded gun, but it's such an imperfect analogy; a gun has only one purpose, after all. This gift is dangerous because it's not understood, but it doesn't feel like a weapon to me. It has disturbing implications that we think of military might before simple education.
"You sound like you know him better than I do. My family has been aligned with the Custody since it was first conceived as the ASU, but I've never met him before today.
"Do you think he will listen?"
The question was asked in earnest. Clearly Evelyn had faith in her convictions; this was not a disparagement of that: she would not be here, as a guest, if she sensed a lost cause. It was an appeal; one woman to her elder. The touch of worry wasn't even feigned, just a lowering of the defences that kept her expression so coolly still. A breadcrumb trail glimpse of a personal investment. She blinked her gaze away, looked down at the rim of her glass. The faint ripples within. The emotion was real, but its revelation was pure calculation. "And what happens if he will not?"
The emphasis was not unnoticed, of course, though the US Representative was the last person she'd thought to be corrected by. Pure belligerence erased the absurd title from her tongue, and she was not repentant of it; in fact it had been absent the entire conversation with the man himself, and either he'd not noticed or he'd simply not cared enough to comment. It was somewhat ironic that whilst gently pointing out her disapproval, Evelyn spoke with poignant familiarity about the man who ruled half the world, like a patient mother guiding an errant child despite the abyss between their ages. Given the sour aftertaste of her own recent encounter with him, it was almost enough to make Natalie smile. Instead it made the gears turn a new direction.
The ideologies between these two did not align, and yet Evelyn defended his title like it was a personal affront to call a man simply by his name. Then she recalled the ghost of a smile when Brandon spoke the representative's name.
"I think he will need more than a nudge. But perhaps that's why I'm not a politician."
So she kept insisting. And yet her interests here were not as transparent as a moral interest in channeler rights.
Natalie accepted water graciously, and sat when invited. Her thoughts cycled through the bare facts she had to work with, and the greyer areas of assumption she used to build a picture. She sought an ally in Evelyn, but already suspected that painting a common foe was not going to work. Her gut cautioned her away from detailing all the sharp edges of Brandon's faults, lest the woman mistake her for an enemy -- or worse, a traitor in the same vein as her father. Still, some knee-jerk reaction wanted to rip the veil from Evelyn's eyes; to force her to confront the reality that Nikolai Brandon was not some misguided fool to be manoeuvred to the correct answer, even if doing so might result in a swift bullet for the messenger. Instead her tactics adjusted, with a little regret. She'd have preferred to be blunt.
"Broadly speaking, I am interested in it all, since they will be my rights too."
Her lips lifted in a half-smile, but her intensity never really wavered; the attempt at lightness fell short of her eyes. "But I do have specific concerns. I've been in Africa the last few years, working with the Red Cross. Projects that promote education, mostly -- I was in Sierra Leone during the recent coup. My school was caught in the crossfire."
She spoke to give some context, her tone level despite the pain wrapped so tightly around those words. "We do enough harm to one another without the power to aid us. I'm not naive. How do you stop it? But men conditioned as weapons? Hoarded like nuclear missiles?
"When we spoke he likened the power to a loaded gun, but it's such an imperfect analogy; a gun has only one purpose, after all. This gift is dangerous because it's not understood, but it doesn't feel like a weapon to me. It has disturbing implications that we think of military might before simple education.
"You sound like you know him better than I do. My family has been aligned with the Custody since it was first conceived as the ASU, but I've never met him before today.
"Do you think he will listen?"
The question was asked in earnest. Clearly Evelyn had faith in her convictions; this was not a disparagement of that: she would not be here, as a guest, if she sensed a lost cause. It was an appeal; one woman to her elder. The touch of worry wasn't even feigned, just a lowering of the defences that kept her expression so coolly still. A breadcrumb trail glimpse of a personal investment. She blinked her gaze away, looked down at the rim of her glass. The faint ripples within. The emotion was real, but its revelation was pure calculation. "And what happens if he will not?"