[ War is apt — living is an act of war for those born with nothing, isn't it? Eating, breathing, sleeping, all of it requires snatching a loaf of bread, a spare moment, a place to lay your head from the hands of those who already possess them. Violence will do the trick, but not violence alone, lest it bring retribution thundering down like the head of a hammer. There's also this: the terms she's set, borrowed from what one might call polite society, demanding a pretty show of respect to thread the needle the rest of the way. His wardrobe, his demeanor. The tools of his enemy. (He knows she doesn't number among them — wouldn't be here if she did. He plays for keeps, and he has no use for a spoiled, silver-spoon brat.)
Still, "nice" makes him laugh, just a little, like flipping a page to find a torn sheet in his usually steely book. Not a word ever associated with his name in Zaun nor Piltover, he expects, except to stress that he's the exact opposite. He wants to say it's hardly a demand, that he knows that nothing he could say or do would move her if she didn't approve of the gift — and more to the point, if she didn't want to go with him to begin with, but that's a presumptuousness that's just asking to be cut off at the stem. ]
Would you be my date for the night?
[ The words come out a little more gently than he means for them to, though he lets them go with the awareness that they can hardly be spooled back. A gift on its own terms, as much as the butterfly, as much as the plant. Their sharper edges often come to oppose each other without their meaning to — he can afford to let go of a moment of softness, all the more because she's asked for it. Well, not so much asked as demanded in much the same way she'd accused him.
So he weighs the next word that leaves his mouth, giving it over with a slight bow of his head. (He'd knelt, that night at the club. He's not likely to go that far again, not straight away.)
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Still, "nice" makes him laugh, just a little, like flipping a page to find a torn sheet in his usually steely book. Not a word ever associated with his name in Zaun nor Piltover, he expects, except to stress that he's the exact opposite. He wants to say it's hardly a demand, that he knows that nothing he could say or do would move her if she didn't approve of the gift — and more to the point, if she didn't want to go with him to begin with, but that's a presumptuousness that's just asking to be cut off at the stem. ]
Would you be my date for the night?
[ The words come out a little more gently than he means for them to, though he lets them go with the awareness that they can hardly be spooled back. A gift on its own terms, as much as the butterfly, as much as the plant. Their sharper edges often come to oppose each other without their meaning to — he can afford to let go of a moment of softness, all the more because she's asked for it. Well, not so much asked as demanded in much the same way she'd accused him.
So he weighs the next word that leaves his mouth, giving it over with a slight bow of his head. (He'd knelt, that night at the club. He's not likely to go that far again, not straight away.)
Lightly: ] Please.