Triss is eight, she has a connoisseur's ear for the hovering but, and equal odds of obeying or disregarding depending on the stuff that follows. This time she listens intently, the thin lines of her face straining like a dog waiting for a ball to fly. It's just lucky for both of them that she already knows the risks of messing with magic she doesn't understand - if he tried for a dozen years and put all his considerable brainpower to it, Hannibal couldn't've come up with a more effective lesson than the one she brought down on herself. She's quick to nod agreement to his terms.
"I'll be careful," careful not to set them off or damage the books. To Triss, these are practically equivalent sins. "Can I read this one?" Her hands frame the book now buried at the bottom of the pile, but she doesn't tug it out. Hannibal said it wasn't magic, and he probably wouldn't have handed her anything she could break, but she literally just agreed to check with him first. A book about potentially dangerous magical creatures sounds like the exactly the sort of thing she oughta be cramming into her head.
She runs her fingers over the silver endcaps while he explains that, no, he can't just sniff out the right kind of books. He kinda makes it sound like people who use magic have a smell, though? Or 'components' do? Triss gets a little stuck on those words, as well as 'outsource', but it doesn't take a perfect SAT vocab score to understand that he gets other people to find magic for him. People who can detect it more directly.
(Though if she can see magic and Argus can hear it, couldn't there be an Allomancer who smells it?)
"Then...I can help?" Triss looks up from the book's embossed spine, the crinkle of a frown smoothing out in a wide-eyed blink. "So you won't hafta ask Argus or, um, so other people can learn about stuff they need?"
It's the first time anyone's suggested there might be some benefit to her powers. So far she's been A) dangerous to others, B) dangerous to herself or C) so much of A and B that there are things out there who want her dead. The beauty of seeing magic was enough to leech away some of that horror, but she hadn't understood, just then, that she could really do anything with it. Hannibal speaks of family, sort of, and Triss thinks maybe she can see what her place might look like in it.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2016-08-09 12:34 am (UTC)"I'll be careful," careful not to set them off or damage the books. To Triss, these are practically equivalent sins. "Can I read this one?" Her hands frame the book now buried at the bottom of the pile, but she doesn't tug it out. Hannibal said it wasn't magic, and he probably wouldn't have handed her anything she could break, but she literally just agreed to check with him first. A book about potentially dangerous magical creatures sounds like the exactly the sort of thing she oughta be cramming into her head.
She runs her fingers over the silver endcaps while he explains that, no, he can't just sniff out the right kind of books. He kinda makes it sound like people who use magic have a smell, though? Or 'components' do? Triss gets a little stuck on those words, as well as 'outsource', but it doesn't take a perfect SAT vocab score to understand that he gets other people to find magic for him. People who can detect it more directly.
(Though if she can see magic and Argus can hear it, couldn't there be an Allomancer who smells it?)
"Then...I can help?" Triss looks up from the book's embossed spine, the crinkle of a frown smoothing out in a wide-eyed blink. "So you won't hafta ask Argus or, um, so other people can learn about stuff they need?"
It's the first time anyone's suggested there might be some benefit to her powers. So far she's been A) dangerous to others, B) dangerous to herself or C) so much of A and B that there are things out there who want her dead. The beauty of seeing magic was enough to leech away some of that horror, but she hadn't understood, just then, that she could really do anything with it. Hannibal speaks of family, sort of, and Triss thinks maybe she can see what her place might look like in it.