Logic did serve Glenn well, at least in so much as he wielded it to match wits, infuriating his correspondents. Conversations with him had taught her well. Though, if one were to document his actual application of the subject, Genny thought they might find the man far more susceptible to gut reactions and emotionally driven response. Then again, perhaps it was hints of Rhaena’s perception, embedded within her, influencing the assessment.
“In fairness, I wager the method of diplomacy you have pursued, in logic’s stead, is vastly more effective.”
With one foot upon the first rung and Gloria at her sleeve, Genny turned to face the other woman. Pausing long and still, she eventually cocked her head to the side ever so slightly, holding her inquisitive and listening gaze with the intensity of a raven.
Even after Gloria drew up the fabric of her nightgown, Genny stood still as a statue. Her flame hair, undulating upon a breeze that didn’t exist, was the only evidence that she had not entirely frozen in place. Here, at the base of a great, impossible tree, in a fantastic realm that pulsed with warmth and light, that felt like the safety of a warm bed on a winter morning, Genny’s pale and impassive face stared with a flat line upon her lips.
...protect Elliot Brown from me, Genny
“No.”
Although her tone was flat and lacked any of the gentle comfort of the place where they stood, her left hand lifted from the rung and reached out to gently clap the other woman’s shoulder.
“We are not so different, you know. You came once, ready to ‘eliminate’ me too, I think. Because of impulses I had yet to learn to control.” She sighed deeply and offered a weak smile that betrayed the truth of the conflict in her eyes, the cool darkness of moonlight on one side and the red and gold of the fire shimmering against the other. It wasn’t that she was unwilling, or even unable, but that she had come to know her limits.
“I, too, am fighting with every breath.”
If her hand had been flat upon Gloria’s shoulder, her fingers now curled, pulling the fabric and sifting it through her fingers like sand, before tracing the woman’s neck to lovingly touch her cheek.
“I will help, as best I can. Restrain you if I must. But know that I have no intention of harming you or Elliot,” and without saying it directly, she had tasked Gloria with learning to control her own impulses. Because if Genny could learn to do it, then the Jerno who mended trousers and tempered men’s faces, could fix and fight her own demons.