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[lyingheart]

Two questions.

1.) Who are the least responsible adult (18+) imPorts here?

2.) Is anyone interested in doing summer tutoring in higher level mathematics, chemistry, biology, or modern and ancient history? Geography is also useful. I won't be able to pay well at first, but we can work out different forms of compensation.

- A. Leonhart

Comments

[lyingheart]

[ Heaven forbid! ]

From coming here, or before, back in the "City?"

[slightlyoffchilt]

Both. I was able to focus more on the criminally insane, when I was located in the City. The market was larger there, you understand.

[lyingheart]

No, not entirely. Unless your access to the general public, and their criminally insane, was different there then its been allowed to be here so far.

[slightlyoffchilt]

I was working at a mental hospital designed for imPorts, mind. We don't have anything quite like that here.


Yet.

[lyingheart]

You're aiming to have that changed?

[ Reiner you are so outlawed from getting too involved with this guy

#things-to-remember-to-tell-him ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

The criminally insane are not the only imPorts of interest. I doubt I would advocate something so specific a second time around.

[lyingheart]

You've broadened your scope since then.

[slightlyoffchilt]

We ought not fool ourselves into accepting limitations.

[lyingheart]

Not any more than we should fool ourselves into thinking we truly have none.

[slightlyoffchilt]

How did someone so relatively young become so pragmatic?

Hope you don't mind that I've been reading your other correspondence to this public address.

[Like, especially Gideon's, Will's, and Danger's.]

[lyingheart]

I'm sure you have your own guesses, if you've been reading through my correspondence. As for minding... if I did, then I made a poor choice in writing any of this in public.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Implying my assumption only invites my analysis.

Fair enough. Though as I'm sure you've deduced, Abel Gideon and I are not the only ones mired in (quote, unquote) bias.

[lyingheart]

It's about how I expected this to go. I'm interested in opinion more than fact, for the time being.

[slightlyoffchilt]

A curious set of priorities. It suggest an angle that necessitates manipulation.

[lyingheart]

Are you surprised?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Intrigued. And I would much rather be intrigued than surprised. Now I understand that you'll want to obscure your goals, but let me as you this: do you feel like the endeavor will be successful?

[lyingheart]

[ Her nefarious purpose in finding someone to be an irresponsible guardian is... looking... potential, she supposes. ]

There's a greater chance of success now than before. If that means anything will result remains to be seen.

[slightlyoffchilt]

I have little doubt that you're pleased with yourself, then, with such a promising direction.

[lyingheart]

Is that so? I suppose. I'm not displeased, either way.

[ She's more watchful and planning for what might come next. It's careful planning, weighed against acceptable risks. All within the lines she's trying to understand here. It's still ridiculous how childhood is pushed to such an extreme in this place. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

Quite the neutral answer. I'm surprised few people have praised you on your talent for diplomacy. A specific kind of diplomacy, mind, the sort that weaponizes tacit speech.

Would you consider it a natural ability, or something learned?

[lyingheart]

That's asking me to consider it in the first place.

[ Both, after a fashion. Necessity simply hones it. A tendency toward silence has made it simpler in the long run. She knows how to listen... the things she says aren't always kind, and aren't always diplomatic, however specific in kind. She lies to herself as much as she does to anyone else.

I'm weak. I'm scared. I'm not like you. There's no justification or righteousness behind her, not from before. Not even now. I'm afraid of what's down there. I can't go where you're asking me to go.

All of it makes her almost want to laugh. Then she does, with no one to hear the disused, uneven noise. Diplomatic is not how anyone who's known her from the military would describe her, for good reason. It'd require more interfacing and more thought for others than most suspected she'd do. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

[He latches onto a halfbeat, before responding; it's a wayward answer given, he thinks, intended to distract, perhaps even dissuade. The suggestion of a dead end -- though Chilton thought it was, in fact, anything but.

Persistence had to be measured softly.]

Are you given to self-refection?

[lyingheart]

No.

[ She really hasn't been able to afford herself that luxury. As soon as she starts, there's nowhere to really end. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

Perhaps another reflecting upon you would help?

[lyingheart]

To what ends?

[ While she does find it darkly amusing the man who works with the criminal and unbalanced would intimate there may be a reason she'd benefit from talking with him or someone like him. To what ends is self reflection helpful for someone like her? She knows what she is, even if she doesn't feel the need to share that around with everyone. The excuses she makes up aren't to excuse what she's done. ]