Oh, you still are. [Of the two of them, a thought unsaid but still just as readily shared. And perhaps it's not the most charitable reply—certainly he expects it might earn a touch of ire from Peggy—but then again, what's another drop or two in the lake that Rip already seems to be mucking about in?] I was simply displaced a bit before I could tarnish.
[Taken at ten years old to a time and place utterly beyond his imagination. But before then, Michael had sought to survive; Peggy's absolutely right to assume he'd been after pity with the lie, paired with the idea that maybe she might underestimate the strength of a six-year-old who was really eight. Perhaps from an adult perspective those two years didn't so much matter, but at that point in Rip's life?
Two extra years of survival were practically worth bragging about.
Rip's left to watch while Peggy crosses her legs, and indeed, he does rather appreciate the way it causes her skirt to fall while she idly flips through the book. Yet he's not so naïve as to think he's suddenly been forgiven. No, not when she paints such a fine picture sitting as she does, proper and prim and above it all, ever so casually pointing out at which point Rip—then Michael—had truly begun to lose any charm he might have possessed due to his age.
And really, Rip had known on some level that this was coming. The only problem is, his first words aren't actually an apology.]
Oi, now; I didn't mean it as an insult. [Some wiser part of him knows that if there had been a possibility for one of their more typical Wednesday night pursuits, he's quickly snuffing it out just now. Still, the point stands—and never let it be said that Rip isn't stubborn about even his phenomenally bad decisions.] Simply as an indication of what your role in the house hierarchy might have been. It's certainly not as if cutpurses and street urchins were given lessons on proper terms of address.
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Oh, you still are. [Of the two of them, a thought unsaid but still just as readily shared. And perhaps it's not the most charitable reply—certainly he expects it might earn a touch of ire from Peggy—but then again, what's another drop or two in the lake that Rip already seems to be mucking about in?] I was simply displaced a bit before I could tarnish.
[Taken at ten years old to a time and place utterly beyond his imagination. But before then, Michael had sought to survive; Peggy's absolutely right to assume he'd been after pity with the lie, paired with the idea that maybe she might underestimate the strength of a six-year-old who was really eight. Perhaps from an adult perspective those two years didn't so much matter, but at that point in Rip's life?
Two extra years of survival were practically worth bragging about.
Rip's left to watch while Peggy crosses her legs, and indeed, he does rather appreciate the way it causes her skirt to fall while she idly flips through the book. Yet he's not so naïve as to think he's suddenly been forgiven. No, not when she paints such a fine picture sitting as she does, proper and prim and above it all, ever so casually pointing out at which point Rip—then Michael—had truly begun to lose any charm he might have possessed due to his age.
And really, Rip had known on some level that this was coming. The only problem is, his first words aren't actually an apology.]
Oi, now; I didn't mean it as an insult. [Some wiser part of him knows that if there had been a possibility for one of their more typical Wednesday night pursuits, he's quickly snuffing it out just now. Still, the point stands—and never let it be said that Rip isn't stubborn about even his phenomenally bad decisions.] Simply as an indication of what your role in the house hierarchy might have been. It's certainly not as if cutpurses and street urchins were given lessons on proper terms of address.