"And logic puzzles are the ones that bore me. I suppose, more accurately, if there isn't adequate treasure behind them, they bore me." He's fickle. He knows it.
"If you ever decide to pierce your ears, I will have you wear a pair. Oh, David, the jewelry collection I left behind. It was fit for a king." Literally. It was a mix of tomb robberies, court robberies, and gifts from his mother.
The question makes him tense, though he's careful to make his body relax almost as soon as it does. He'd avoided that topic. Nearly gotten away with it. But of course David is astute.
He could brush it off. But he thinks maybe he owes David at least some of it, especially after what he's shared today.
"Yes and no. I--I was involved with Wilhere, the head of that crew. Romantically. I very foolishly thought we'd spend our lives together, even though he kept other partners and hated to be tied down. But I was his favorite for awhile, and I was young, and he was the most dashing person I'd ever met.
"He had a job he needed me for. It was part of why he'd taken me in the first place -- some jobs take a long time to put in motion, and he'd been through others trying to make this one work. The short of it is, he wanted to steal tech from Archades. From my father's research lab. I didn't know that was specifically where. But I had the accent, the social awareness, the contacts. I felt so important. So untouchable.
"It went poorly. He got what he wanted, but I got jailed. My father found me, pulled influence to try to get me out, but under the condition I more or less live under house arrest and do what he said. The alternative was execution. And I'd realized by then that Wilhere had betrayed me.
"I knew Fran by then. She was with me. I almost gave in, honestly, but she more or less asked me if I was that easy to corner. Shook some sense into me. We escaped, and -- I may have stolen my father's prized military prototype because I could, and that may have turned into the Strahl. And I may have only headed my own crews after that." Partly for security, partly because Wilhere had humiliated him in the pirate community.
no subject
"If you ever decide to pierce your ears, I will have you wear a pair. Oh, David, the jewelry collection I left behind. It was fit for a king." Literally. It was a mix of tomb robberies, court robberies, and gifts from his mother.
The question makes him tense, though he's careful to make his body relax almost as soon as it does. He'd avoided that topic. Nearly gotten away with it. But of course David is astute.
He could brush it off. But he thinks maybe he owes David at least some of it, especially after what he's shared today.
"Yes and no. I--I was involved with Wilhere, the head of that crew. Romantically. I very foolishly thought we'd spend our lives together, even though he kept other partners and hated to be tied down. But I was his favorite for awhile, and I was young, and he was the most dashing person I'd ever met.
"He had a job he needed me for. It was part of why he'd taken me in the first place -- some jobs take a long time to put in motion, and he'd been through others trying to make this one work. The short of it is, he wanted to steal tech from Archades. From my father's research lab. I didn't know that was specifically where. But I had the accent, the social awareness, the contacts. I felt so important. So untouchable.
"It went poorly. He got what he wanted, but I got jailed. My father found me, pulled influence to try to get me out, but under the condition I more or less live under house arrest and do what he said. The alternative was execution. And I'd realized by then that Wilhere had betrayed me.
"I knew Fran by then. She was with me. I almost gave in, honestly, but she more or less asked me if I was that easy to corner. Shook some sense into me. We escaped, and -- I may have stolen my father's prized military prototype because I could, and that may have turned into the Strahl. And I may have only headed my own crews after that." Partly for security, partly because Wilhere had humiliated him in the pirate community.