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 Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 7:51 pm
Though the terms she might use were different - family or tribe rather than troops - the sentiment is much the same. She was glad that he understood at least that much in the same way that she did. It cut down on the need to explain basic concepts.
Her eyes narrowed at his attempt to use her own words against her, but she was not convinced.
"For your words concerning a match between her and Last, I could forgive you," she said. After all, as patriarch of the Grimm clan, he had a right to interview potential matches for those under his care. Though of course, he still ought to have contacted her before initiating even that sort of talk.
"But it seems you went and said a few unnecessary things, as well. Whether or not they were worthwhile is not for you to decide. She's under my care. If she wants to protect those closest to her in the war to come, then she'll do it. Without your interference." If her thumb happened to be caressing the flat of a blade, it wasn't really meant as a proper threat. It was more habit than anything.
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 11:55 am
“So it is to be hoped,” he says immediately, without any sense of having made the words up for her sake: his gaze drifts briefly up to Hawthorne, perhaps comparing the darker pattern of his feathers to Unwelcome’s far less distinguished plumage. “But I hope you will understand it when I say that my words were not, in fact, an attempt to dissuade her.” He draws his attention back to the gypsy, aware that such a statement is likely to be met with either scorn or disbelief, even though he has uttered it with complete seriousness and a convincing sincerity which his siblings have often employed in the past. “I am not sure what was reported to you, but I never imagined that I could prevent her from any course of action which she wished to take — if I had been able to do so, I would hardly have considered her worthy for my brother’s company. No, I simply laid out for her examination the possible consequences of a war: death, crippling injury, and the losses she might endure, of friends and of the family she has built, because I would a thousand times over prefer her to confront those realities in the secure, warm space of her little smithy than upon a field of battle, facing the wolves for the first time.” He leans forward, then, elbows upon his knees, gaze intently fixed on the gypsy’s face, and there is no cruelty there, no anger, no malice, only patience and perhaps a mellowed sorrow, old enough to have long ago taken the edges off the emotion. “Tell me, Miss Rajani, how has she behaved after my little conversation with her? Has she cowered or withdrawn? Or has she built more weapons and sworn more fervently that she will fight, knowing that the consequences expressed to her are worth the risk?”
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 7:48 pm
"You're trying to tell me you said those things out of the goodness of your heart?" she scoffed. As if she would believe that. The fact that he might have had a point only further irritated her. So what if Rosalie clearly had some issues that she needed to work out before she was really committed to the coming war? It was hardly Jacob Grimm's place to make her confront them.
The gypsy would not admit how close Rosalie had been to giving up completely; that terrible timidity that had crept into the lady smith, almost driving her away from even her own profession. She did not know whether Rosalie would have been able to shake herself out of it, or if she would have only sunk deeper and deeper into her self-imposed timidity and depression without Rajani's intervention.
Regardless, she would acknowledge nothing about this man when it came to the mental state of her people. It was in part a matter of pride, but mostly it was about possession. Rosalie was hers to tend to and no shady Grimm patriarch would be meddling in her affairs. Besides, she by no means trusted his motives, even if she was not yet able to determine what they may be.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 8:00 pm
“Certainly not. I’m not sure if you have noticed, m’Lady, but the Grimms do not much believe in goodness.” He watches her steady and quiet, and it’s hard to say what he knows: certainly he has shown himself better able to plan than his younger siblings. He is older and cleverer and maybe just a bit canny, and perhaps unlike his siblings he may actually be dangerous. It would have been like him to have had some way of watching Rosalie, that he might learn just how she handled his scolding.
“What we believe in is Grimms. And whatever her strengths or her faults, I suspect that your little smith will be leading at least one — to war or elsewhere. If you have a care for her tears, I hope you would be able to see that I have an interest in theirs.” He sits back now to watch her, wondering what she will make of this peculiar idea of Rosalie as a threat: and yet there is something else to his gaze, something to the exact words that he has chosen to use here. He isn’t just referring to the fact that Last (and probably First) will follow Rosalie into battle. He seems to know full well what First felt for her, and what result there was from it. His opinion on that is hard to determine -- he isn't exactly angry, he isn't really vengeful, but he wants her to know that he knows.
“But you are owed an apology,” he continues, though he is watchful, though Unwelcome has sat up straight again, and fluffs her feathers nervously, picking up again on some of the tension here. “I did not mean for such misunderstandings to come between us: for I had not meant for it to seem that I was attempting to take one of yours, or harm her in some way. Indeed, my actions were quite the opposite: I wished to see if she was a fit leader, for I expect that it will be Rosalie Satre who brings the Grimm family into the war.”
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:16 am
Now there was a truth. None of the Grimm siblings that she had met or heard of had ever seemed much interested in right or wrong - just what suited them. The gypsy could hardly cast stones, nor was she especially inclined to do so. However, neither had the siblings - the younger ones - seemed a particularly bad sort. Oh, she knew the kinds of things they got up to, but they weren't really bad people. Not dangerous for the sake of being dangerous, though they could certainly be a threat when they had a mind to. But this one? The Freds had told her, but even the fear in their warnings had not properly prepared her for the full impact of one Jacob Grimm. He was calm, he was polite, and he was most certainly a predator. A very shrewd one, at that.
The idea of Rosalie leading people - even the Freds, though that much was likely true - was an odd one for the gypsy. It caught her rather off guard. Rosalie, it seemed to her, had always been the one being led. She was the younger sister in her piecemeal family. It was difficult to imagine her in any position to be a threat. Then again, perhaps it was not completely impossible. Certainly, the lady smith had received her share of promises even from Rajani about what would happen should she break a certain heart, and in their massive mess the pair of them had managed to hurt the elder twin something fierce. Perhaps, too, it was not impossible to imagine Rosalie as a leader. Someday. She has been exhibiting a bit more backbone lately, after all. She supposed, after all of that, it was only reasonable that Jacob Grimm pay a certain interest to his concerns. Yet there was something about him that said his concerns did not end there.
It should not come as a surprise to her, then, that he had likely known for quite some time about First's disastrous confession along with much that had followed. Her gaze narrowed minutely. She could not regret her decision, no matter its consequences. It was something that had to be done for the good of all concerned, no matter what it felt like at the time. There was no apology in her countenance, even had he been looking for one.
Why, if they were discussing Rosalie and there was nothing about the other woman's position that she envied, did those last few words feel like a slap in the face? Perhaps unfairly, the words should have had her laughing or expressing her incredulity. Instead, she felt a bit as though the wind had been knocked out of her.
Rajani did not flinch - or hoped she hadn't, anyway - but she was quiet for several moments. If there was one thing she was now certain of, it was that she did not like Jacob Grimm. She might even go so far as to say she could grow to hate him. She did not like him. She did not like his methods. And she absolutely loathed the fact that she could not argue with his reasoning. Everything he said made sense in a twisted sort of way. It truly made her angry.
"So you were testing her," she said. "Perhaps Grimms do not believe in goodness, but Rosalie has only good intentions. She would do her best by the Grimms, if that's what you're looking for."
Perhaps she ought to have argued more vehemently against the whole thing, but being as closely associated with the younger Grimms as she had been for years, Rajani understood that there were certain inescapable truths about being a woman closely tied to that family. She wondered if Rosalie really understood what she was signing herself up for. She would have to have another talk with the lady smith, if Last hadn't spoken to her about it already.
There was, however, one thing. "But you cannot expect me to believe that you would follow her." Not this man. No matter how deeply ingrained obedience to women was in their blood. In fact, she found it difficult to imagine any sort of person, woman or otherwise, that he would willingly deign to follow.
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:00 pm
“She is not the leader I would have chosen, no. But at this juncture there is very little that you or I could ever say that would keep Last from following her, and where a Grimm goes the others must follow, whether the path be considered good by those that watch them or not.” The emphasis on Rosalie’s intentions does not impress him: whether or not the smith intends good or ill, the results are the same. Last remains smitten with the smith, and it would hardly be a novelty for an impressionable young man of his age to attempt to keep to a different moral code to impress a woman. And when they have no other loyalties but blood, the interest of one is the interest of all, sooner or later.
He speaks, in other words, of inevitabilities. It is inevitable, now, that Rosalie will be involved in the war, just as it is inevitable that she will require he same of Last, no matter what his personal feelings are on the subject. And if Last is involved, Jacob will need to see to it that he succeeds in some measure, at least insomuch as is required for him to survive. It is also equally easy to see — by this simple logic — that she could have been the impetus that pushed the family to this same result, whether or not she accepted First’s confession. All she’d have needed to do was convince them, even just one of them, of the necessity, or maybe the glamour, even the fame ..
“Believe what you wish,” he continues, and there is a trace of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, “but even I have followed another, and hope to do so again, though it is unlikely to happen for many years.” He speaks of Georgie, of course, for there has otherwise been no feminine influence upon their family since the death of their maternal parent, and it is quite understood that Georgie will one day take the helm.
“I very much doubt there should ever be a woman who could capture my interest the way that Miss Satre has enchanted my brother.”
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:58 pm
Rajani supposed that she should have thought of that. Of course where one went, the others followed. She was just so accustomed to finding Grimms in pairs that she had neglected to remember that, when things got serious, there were more. Even if he did not follow Rosalie, per say, he would have little choice but to invest a certain effort into assuring the survival of his brothers - and probably the lady smith, as well. It was such a complicated thing, the balance of the inner workings of that family; but ultimately, she did not think that he could not stop them from following Rosalie, not really. He was right in that, and she really had nothing to add.
There was something about that smile - arrogance? condescension? some sort of wry certainty? - that really pissed her off, though. It was hardly unheard of amongst the less scrupulous members of society - and indeed, her own people had a certain reputation for it - but Rajani had never been one for the dramatics of superstition and false mysticism. She did not have the true gift and saw no reason to pretend otherwise. Her father was gifted, however, and she had learned a thing or two from years of watching him. Perhaps she did not have the power to guide events into being, but she knew that even plain words had a certain kind of power. She very much doubted that Jacob Grimm believed in such things - he was far too grounded and confident in his place in the world, but even if neither she nor he could imagine it, fate was a funny thing. Who could say what the future held?
Rajani stood, her pastry sitting uneaten on the ledge, and turned to face Jacob Grimm. She met his eyes with her most serious look - and if it was a bit scornful, who could blame her? "May you find everything you never thought you would."
Hawthorn sharpened his attention as Rajani mounted her Guardian. As one, they turned back toward the city proper, but the gypsy paused long enough to add, "And may it make a merry fool out of you." And then they were gone, melting into the crowded street with little more than a whisper of rook's feathers.
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