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[He hesitates, then offers - ]

I'd only had Pess for about two months before I came here. It was clear that she had...come from a difficult background. She'd been abandoned and left to fend for herself. Yet I've never met any living thing with greater cheer or optimism.

They're tough fuckers.

[But the idea of only two months out of a difficult background does make her frown slightly. Happy and carefree was the normal for dogs, in her experience, but things could still weigh on them, turn them belligerent and angry. She doubted Edgeworth would keep a dog like that around, but it still made her wonder.]

You want me to meet her, you can bring her to training.

[...Strange phraseology, and speaking suddenly about training seems something of a non sequitur, since they'd not discussed it before. Still - ]

Then you are willing to train her? My thanks.

I can't train her. She's your dog. I can show you how, give you a hand, but she's got to respond to you or there's no fucking point.

I was talking about your training.

Training...You - Are you referring to physical training?

The shit I said you were gonna have to do if you wanted to stay on SEC.

I...had thought you had dropped that.

You thought wrong.

Well, I can certainly spare an hour or so in a few days.

We'll go a couple of hours every other day to start off. Work you up into doing a standard session every day, lesson once a week.

[That's...Good lord. That's...really a lot.]

Is so much time truly necessary?

Yes.

[Maybe even more, but she'd have to run him through some exercises to assess his current fitness level first.]

...Fine. What should I be reading to prepare?

Nothing.

Am I not going to be studying a particular style of martial arts?

No. Even if you were, I wouldn't have the text for it here, and reading about it means shit.

...Fine.

[He frowns a moment, and then dares to ask:]

Do you really need to use that language?

I'll use whatever language I fucking want to. [Because no, she doesn't need to, but her instructors hadn't stopped her and Edgeworth wasn't going to manage it now.] Wednesday, holodeck one. Oh-nine-hundred.

[But he's not going to let the point go quite that easily - ]

I'm not asking because I'm...prim and proper or anything of the sort. I'm asking because I simply cannot tell when you're angry and you're not. And that's something I'd sooner not have to guess on.

[She's quiet for a moment, surprised. She doesn't really know why she picked up swearing quite so much, except it seemed to be something the Academy didn't like and she was always trying to find ways to stick it to them. That it might make it hard for someone to communicate with her wasn't something that would have bothered her, before, but it makes her frown now. Even more than just the fact she's meant to be standing as head of security.]

So maybe I'm always angry. [She might have been able to say that was true, several months ago. Now, she's not so sure.] I don't know, Edgeworth. Just deal with it. Not gonna change the way I talk for you.

Then some other cue. A red light you can flash. Music you can play. [He's only being half-sarcastic.] I'm your subordinate; I'm to do what you say, and I'm to follow certain codes of conduct, and if we were at home those would be laid out in writing. Here, they're not; here, instead, the security team must look to its leadership to determine what to do. And if its leadership seems to be in a state of constant disapproval bordering on fury, it makes it difficult to pick up on what is right and what is wrong.

[Now she sounds annoyed.]

Try not pissing me off so much and I bet it'd get clearer for you. 'Cause no one else has got a problem.

So your response, then, is that I'm constantly, consistently displeasing to you? Without alteration or change?

No. Managed to make this conversation pretty fucking inconsistent so far.

Then your statement is untrue; it wouldn't clarify it at all. My problem isn't with the anger; it's with the lack of consistency.

[voice] encrypted 95%

puppydogeyes - 2012-09-13 02:06 (UTC) - Expand