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 Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:56 pm
"But I do," she replied quietly. "I do things wrong or, if I don't, then I just don't do them quite right and that isn't acceptable." Slowly, she raised her head and met his gaze. Her lower lip was a bit red; she had obviously been chewing on it while formulating her answer. "But I do my best and I just get... Upset when my best isn't quite good enough and then I apologize because it's polite." She shifted her weight from foot to foot nervously. "And I want to be polite and respectful," she added, low voice even quieter. "I respect you... Hadrian. You are very nice and you know things."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:06 pm
He didn't quite know what to say to that. In general he wasn't used to people suggesting specifically that they respected him. And he was quite positive that she only though he 'knew things' because she was quite young.
"Who tells you that you don't do things quite right?" He asked gently, "I'm really very honored that you respect me, but I don't think you've done anything wrong or even not quite right since I nearly stepped on you because I wasn't watching where I was going."
He folded his hands behind his back, and prepared to make a list, "You told me something about logs and bark that I didn't know. And you let me show off a little bit, which was very nice of you."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:22 pm
Her eyes widened in surprise at the compliment and the reassurances. Then she smiled shakily and shook her head and brought her arms back around to her front, knotting them together once more in front of her. "Th-thank you," she murmured. "I don't think it was nice of me at all but thank you. I just wanted to see. It was fascinating."
Heart in her throat, she prayed that he would not press her further on her habit of apologizing or her sense of self. She simply could not explain it in any sort of coherent way and she had a feeling that, unless she did it exactly right, he would be upset. He might even blame her Captain or the Doctor or the Director or someone else, equally clever and strong and sensible. It wasn't their fault at all. It was just the way she was.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:43 pm
Hadrian decided that someone definitely needed to say nice things about Galatea once in awhile. It sounded like no one ever did, which was really disconcerting. He let her avoid answering his question, but of course, her silence made it easier for him to let his own assumptions run away with themselves.
"Well how about this then. You can talk around me as much as you want. And it won't bother me." He grinned, "In fact, if you don't talk, I'll just keep going and going on about very little. Someone has to interupt me sometimes. Do you suppose you could manage to take care of that? We can't have me talking all the time you know?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:37 pm
"Why not?" The look on her face denied any sort of sarcasm or teasing on her part. She honestly wanted to know why it would not be a brilliant idea for Hadrian to continue talking until he ran out of breath. "I like listening to you talk. You have a very nice voice. It sounds..."
She hesitated and then gathered herself once more, straightening and meeting his gaze firmly; she was obviously trying to obey his wish that she would stop interrupting herself and speak freely. "It sounds warm."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:55 pm
The older feien opened his mouth to protest, his face coloring ever so slightly - hard to see under his tannish skin.
"Ah...well...thanks." He smiled self conciously, "I don't have that many useful things to say though...really. I sort of tend to think out loud...and never come to any conclusion."
He didn't mention that he tended to think out loud when he was by himself too. It helped him stay focused on a single line of reason, instead of losing his train of thought among a thousand distractions.
"And...well its important to get other peoples input you know? You can't do that if you're always talking."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:01 pm
"Certainly," Galatea agreed with a tiny nod, still focusing on not apologizing and not downplaying her own worth. "All plans and knowledge is better shared. One mind can't absorb everything or think of everything. Of course, discussions need leaders and groups do but the best of everything is when they," her voice slipped to a quieter level as if something had occured to her, "listen."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:09 pm
Hadrian smiled warmly, and nodded, "And I'd rather listen then always be talking all the time."
He was pretty impressed, actually. She'd put it alot better then he would have. Not that he thought he was a very well spoken person, and he knew he wasn't very good at explaining things.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:19 pm
"I would, too," she admitted after a moment's consideration. She unlocked her fingers and rubbed absently at the inside of her wrist. "You learn more when you listen." She looked down at the log and suddenly pointed a foot and dragged it in a line along a ridge of bark. "Like with this log. I listened to something on the television about it. I wish I could read the big books, though."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:24 pm
"Do you mean," Hadrian asked, "That you can't read them because they're long...or because they're actually big, like to big to open?"
He was thinking that she was probably alot smarter then he was, and could probably read very long complicated books - or would be able to someday. He never had the patience for them.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:35 pm
"Oh, no." She held out a deceptively thin arm as if showing him what she meant. "I can open them just fine. Unless they are the really large books with the heavy covers. It just takes a very long time to read them since each letter is the size of my hand at least. Then there are the books in languages that I don't know."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:42 pm
That wasn't exactly what he had expected her to say, but he took her at her word. He did, amazingly enough, have a solution for part of the problem. Not, of course, the language issue. Although he knew all about things in languages you couldn't read - heavens there were whole countries where even the SIGNS were in langauges he couldn't read!
"You could find somewhere to sit a little bit away from the pages." He said helpfully. His bond had explained this to him when he was young and wanted to read fairtales by himself. "You just get far enough away that the words look small. Like...that tree!" He pointed across the path to a tree a few yards away, "It looks smaller from here, then if we were standing right in front of it."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:00 pm
Galatea's face lit up with an almost luminescent happiness at his suggestion and, before she could stop herself, her hands had clapped together once in front of her, under her chin, an endearing moment of true youth. "Oh, Hadrian, yes," she replied. "That would make a lot of sense. Perspective. I never thought of using that."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:07 pm
Hadrian smiled delightedly at Galatea's reaction.
"The only problem is figuring out how to turn the pages. Otherwise you have to keep getting up." He said cheerfully, rocking up onto his toes and back in an almost bounce.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:25 pm
Even before he had finished, she was already shaking her head. "Oh, I don't mind getting up," she replied. "It's good exercise and I enjoy flying. Also, extra practice in a skill should never be refused."
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