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The Arms Hotel; Wednesday [ 06/10].

Gunther had seemed all too eager to help Valentine with her German today, even though Valentine had tried to explain to him that she hadn't planned on working on her German today. However, there weren't any sausages involved today, so Valentine supposed she should take the help while it was relatively lacking in traumatic experiences. But Valentine started to realize one problem with his correcting her grammar and spelling every five seconds, and that was that shouldn't he be, you know, cooking and doing his job right now?

Gunther said he had it covered.

Welcome to the Arms Hotel!
Today's Special:
Gourmet PB&J

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"I usually just mention the wars," Valentine said, "and the colonies. That seems to satisfy most people. The ones I've talked to, anyway."

"I point out military school," he said, a little dryly. "It doesn't solve everything, but it closes off some avenues of questioning."

Even if 'military school' was such a complete understatement.

"Yeah," Valentine said with a dry smile of her own. "That does seem to be enough for most people. I don't have the benefit of actually having cone to close things off nicely, though when I mention why, and the monitors, or even that kids go when they're six, they stop asking questions. Sometimes. Anenome's interesting. We bonded over machinery in our neck, even if she claims to be the invading enemy. She's a little easier to look at that a Bugger, though."

"I know Anemone." He'd met her during that spell in Special Collections he would likely never tell her about. "She's a little off in a different way." Easier to understand for him, on some level. "But I don't think she's invaded anything recently."

"Not outside of sections of the library, anyway. She's always herding the books when I come in, it seems."

He wondered, then, if bringing up Ben at all would be a smart idea - it'd probably be best not to involve anyone else, so he could settle it without having to deal with the things he kept trying to bring up.

So Ender kept with the topic. "She seems to enjoy her job," he said, "I thought about joining the library staff, but StuCo took up most of my time. I'd probably get distracted by all the books..."

Edited 2009-06-11 17:02 (UTC)

It was fairly easy to replace the image of pink-haired Anemone wrangling the books into order with that of her little brother, so either way it would seem a position of leadership. She wasn't surprised if he leaned more toward the one involving other people. "They definitely seem to demand a lot of attention," she noted.

And she also noted that they seemed to be paying a lot of attention to rather inane details in this conversation, and she took a moment to look at Ender, wondering if maybe there was more to this visit than just being bored and knowing she was here to help fill that boredom.

Who was she kidding? Of course it was something more. It was Ender.

"They do."

Ender leaned on the desk, and looked at her.

"What's on your mind?"

So he noticed. Either that, a lucky guess, or just hoping for more banal talk.

"Wondering what's on yours. Unless idle conversation is to become a part of the Wednesday mid-week predictable routine."

"There is a distinct lack of predictable day-to-day routine on the island," Ender noted. He was drawing it out a little bit as he considered how to best breach this topic - faking anonymity in terms of the parties involved would be an insult to Val's intelligence.

And so was expecting her to believe that he meant that. Valentine quirked an eyebrow. "Your brand of predictable day-to-day involves a lot less talking to other people, doesn't it?"

"I spent most of it talking to my laptop," he said, with the kind of small quirk of his lips that should alert Val to the fact that he knew the jig was up.

Which meant that Ender was getting a wry grin back, one on the edge of an eyeroll. "And did it have anything interesting to say back?"

"Not as of recently," Ender said, shaking his head. "I can't get Ben off my back."

Ah, there was the rub. Valentine would be kind and spare the comments about lovers' quarrels.

"About what?"

"He somehow feels entitled to hearing me wax poetic about my life," Ender said, dryly. "'Poor Ender' is starting to wear on me."

"He probably just worried about you, Ender."

Probably. Valentine, of course, knew better.

"He's worried about himself. I happen to be a good proxy."

"The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive."

"No," he agreed, "But they're unnecessary and annoying, in this case."

Ah, Ender Wiggin's brand of bitching.

"Annoying, yes," Valentine said, "but if they were unnecessary, you wouldn't be wasting your time bitching about them."

"Or evading the topic."

Edited 2009-06-11 18:24 (UTC)

"I'm not 'bitching'," Ender told her, tilting his head. "Or evading. But you wanted to know what was on my mind."

She hadn't asked, no, but she'd been fairly obvious in implicating.

Edited 2009-06-11 18:29 (UTC)

"Okay, then," Valentine nodded a little. "If they were unnecessary, you wouldn't be wasting brain space on them. Better?"

"I'm not wasting brain space, either," he said, with a wiggle of his eyebrows. "I'm trying to work out how to convince him that it's really not worth asking."

"Probably would be easier just to tell him," Valentine offered, weaving yet another understatement, all things considered. "People don't just stop caring because someone's tried to convince them not to."

The Arms Hotel; Wednesday [ 06/10].

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