[Of course that's some of her motivation. She's so much younger than the other immortals she knows; she'd be a fool not to learn as much as she can from them. Scientific curiosity, too, plays a part, but those aren't the only reasons.]
Your experiences, your immortality, your way of looking at things . . . in some ways, you are my future. Learning about your past and comparing it to my own helps me understand what my own future may be like.
[But. But that isn't the only reason, and she glances over at him.]
You're insufferable, you know. Insufferable and arrogant and sadistic. You've so many flaws I can't possibly count them right now, and I'll admit I'm a fair bit annoyed with you right now for what you did to me the last time we met. You take any inch someone gives you and turn it into a mile of agony, all because you suffered in your past, and now want nothing more than to pay it forward.
. . . but despite all that, or perhaps because of it, I'm . . .
[What's the right word? She hardly wants to choose something inappropriate, or that might make her look weak.]
It's rare enough I can find anyone who manages to do anything but bore me. You fall into that exception. And I'm fond enough of you because of it.
[Not just because of that. Because he's sharp and clever and impossible to understand, and it's so rare Rosalind meets someone like that. Because he is her future, and that thrills her as much as it terrifies her (will she end up like him, bitter and cynical? Will Robert?). And because, like it or not, he is one of the few people who can understand the things she's seen and done.
She might not be nearly as old as him, but there are some things even she has gone through. Death and rebirth, seeing all the worlds stretched out before her . . . what human could understand that?]
no subject
[Of course that's some of her motivation. She's so much younger than the other immortals she knows; she'd be a fool not to learn as much as she can from them. Scientific curiosity, too, plays a part, but those aren't the only reasons.]
Your experiences, your immortality, your way of looking at things . . . in some ways, you are my future. Learning about your past and comparing it to my own helps me understand what my own future may be like.
[But. But that isn't the only reason, and she glances over at him.]
You're insufferable, you know. Insufferable and arrogant and sadistic. You've so many flaws I can't possibly count them right now, and I'll admit I'm a fair bit annoyed with you right now for what you did to me the last time we met. You take any inch someone gives you and turn it into a mile of agony, all because you suffered in your past, and now want nothing more than to pay it forward.
. . . but despite all that, or perhaps because of it, I'm . . .
[What's the right word? She hardly wants to choose something inappropriate, or that might make her look weak.]
It's rare enough I can find anyone who manages to do anything but bore me. You fall into that exception. And I'm fond enough of you because of it.
[Not just because of that. Because he's sharp and clever and impossible to understand, and it's so rare Rosalind meets someone like that. Because he is her future, and that thrills her as much as it terrifies her (will she end up like him, bitter and cynical? Will Robert?). And because, like it or not, he is one of the few people who can understand the things she's seen and done.
She might not be nearly as old as him, but there are some things even she has gone through. Death and rebirth, seeing all the worlds stretched out before her . . . what human could understand that?]