11-21-2018, 08:17 PM
The dog growled -- a rumble, chthonic -- at the second ingress, but she stayed frozen in her gargoyle crouch beside the window, inspiring Near to a letdown cancellation of the internal ‘beware of dog’ quip that had drifted smugly across his thoughts outside. Nope, nothing to beware of here. Not that it should have surprised him to discover she was bark without bite, considering her personal history.
Just the growl, then, while a stranger who could have been a robber, an arsonist, a murderer, brushed past and into the deeper channels of the house with a level of nonchalance so unwarranted that Near found himself glued to the floor, still dripping, mouth fish-agape and unable to muster a response outside of a temptation toward another iteration of the fuck instead of the question (at least) or protest (better) that all of this deserved.
He didn’t indulge. Something about the way the kid moved through into hall, the way he set his shoulders, heightened a sensation that had infected him since he drove up Farr Reaches. He and the Lew seemed to arrive at a similar sort of conclusion at the same time: she got quiet and stood up, clattered off toward the dining room with her habitual houndlope. And he shrugged into the impression that, regardless of what any lawyers said, the notarized papers, he had no claim on this place. Maybe the one who did had arrived.
“I wouldn’t know.”
His reply to the party comment was dryer than he was, delivered from the sofa into which his clothes, his hair, imparted spreading halo of damp. He had replaced the gun (now leaned up next to him) with the bottle of Barolo.
“So what, did he owe you money?” After a glimmer of surprise to realize that his visitor hadn’t just toweled off in the bathroom, he had changed clothes. It followed somehow, clicked into place after a second as fitting with the rest of this encounter.
Just the growl, then, while a stranger who could have been a robber, an arsonist, a murderer, brushed past and into the deeper channels of the house with a level of nonchalance so unwarranted that Near found himself glued to the floor, still dripping, mouth fish-agape and unable to muster a response outside of a temptation toward another iteration of the fuck instead of the question (at least) or protest (better) that all of this deserved.
He didn’t indulge. Something about the way the kid moved through into hall, the way he set his shoulders, heightened a sensation that had infected him since he drove up Farr Reaches. He and the Lew seemed to arrive at a similar sort of conclusion at the same time: she got quiet and stood up, clattered off toward the dining room with her habitual houndlope. And he shrugged into the impression that, regardless of what any lawyers said, the notarized papers, he had no claim on this place. Maybe the one who did had arrived.
“I wouldn’t know.”
His reply to the party comment was dryer than he was, delivered from the sofa into which his clothes, his hair, imparted spreading halo of damp. He had replaced the gun (now leaned up next to him) with the bottle of Barolo.
“So what, did he owe you money?” After a glimmer of surprise to realize that his visitor hadn’t just toweled off in the bathroom, he had changed clothes. It followed somehow, clicked into place after a second as fitting with the rest of this encounter.