gabriel_tam | (no subject)

(no subject)

Gabriel is in his study, ostensibly going over a sheaf of files that need review before the next Parliamentary session.

What he's doing instead, however, is twirling a pen back in forth in his fingers, and paying absolutely no attention to the open document on his desk.

He's looking at a picture of River, taken just before she went to the Academy.

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"Building a communications device that will let Mary contact someone. River herself, I imagine, though I may be wrong."

His voice is very dry.

"That would be quite a feat of engineering, should it work."

"It would indeed."

He relaxes again, but his gaze drifts back to River's picture.

"... I can certainly understand why."

Galadan remains silent, eyebrows lifted.

"Can you."

It hardly needs to be a question.

"Yes."

Gabriel glances up, meeting the Wolflord's cool gray gaze directly.

"Galadan. Did... did my daughter say anything to you to indicate that she feels that Mary is in danger of any sort?"

"She has very little certainty on that point, so far as I could tell."

His voice is dry.

"I doubt she finds that pleasant."

"To say the least."

He drums his fingers on the desk in a restless rhythm.

"Mary doesn't seem to think she is, either."

The unvoiced 'but' hangs silently in the air.

"Mary is young."

Galadan can give voice to that 'but'.

"And her world, I imagine, is very little like your own."

"One hopes."

There's a long silence before he says, baldly,

"I can't afford to be wrong a second time."

Galadan refrains from saying he could hardly afford to be wrong the first time.

"There is that, yes."

"I just can't figure out how..."

Gabriel trails off there and looks up at Galadan with sudden speculation.

Galadan raises one eyebrow.

"I do have some investigative skills, as you may have noted."

He is looking back at Gabriel, winter-grey eyes assessing and cool.

"Though what use they may provide here, when I have never been to Mary's world--that, I believe, is up for debate."

"I'm well aware," he says, dryly. "Just as I'm aware of precisely how skilled you are in those areas in which you take an interest."

He has reason to know, after all.

"They may not be of particular use in this instance here, as you say; but if you were to go there..."

Galadan's eyebrows go up.

"I hardly imagine her uncle would be best pleased with a stranger investigating his conduct."

His mouth quirks, if only slightly.

"Though perhaps you are speaking of something else."

"I'm more concerned with Mary's school than I am with her uncle's conduct," Gabriel replies crisply.

Galadan's eyebrows remain upraised.

"Ah. There are, I suppose, ways and ways to accomplish such a task. Shall I ask your preference, or shall you instead leave it up to me?"

"As you'll be the one doing the investigating, I hardly feel that I should dictate the details," he says.

"Needless to say, I trust to your discretion."

"And here, at least," he says, smiling faintly, "I have lived through similar time periods before."

As opposed to having to learn about computers and spaceships at a ridiculous rate.

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