No interruption comes, but Ludo absorbs more about this telling than just the words Daud gives. He sees the way one hand rubs the other, right on left, that left hand that never clenches. He watches every minor twitch, every flicker of an expression. Stillness lends itself to keen observation, to seeing far better than most.
He takes the number in stride; twenty is a fourth of a lifetime, longer than some have lived, but when he looks back, doesn't twenty years seem like one lifetime, and twenty more another, and doesn't he feel different than who he was twenty years ago? That number doesn't mean much. It's the other, the assassin part, that he tries to wrap his mind around, tries to envision the man before him at the head of a group of criminals. Giving commands. Killing.
Maybe twenty years ago, in another life. (Or maybe he doesn't want to envision it. That's the problem with listening to someone when the word 'devotion' comes into play: impartiality is a lost cause.)
Ludo's careful not to move, not to pull back in his chair and seem to be placing more (very real) distance between them. He keeps the stillness. Debates whether he wants to hear more, whether he can, whether this slow-creeping chill up his spine is one he can bear much longer before -
What?
Asking Daud to take it all back? Telling him this isn't a story he wants to know? Would he give Daud less regard than anyone else for the sake of his own feelings, for his own worry of having to reform his ideas of who this man is?
So, he remains silent, seconds ticking by into minutes, watching, watching, settling in to the idea and trying to push it on the man in front of him like an ill-fitting coat. You were a murderer.
You have killed.
Daud.
Killer.
It doesn't...work. Fit. It seems too abstract, like hearing that once, this land was populated by native tribes. Like knowing a chair was once a tree. Reasonably, he knows it's true, but he can't imagine the shape it takes without having seen it for himself. So the only thing to do - the only thing to do is let this tale go on.
no subject
He takes the number in stride; twenty is a fourth of a lifetime, longer than some have lived, but when he looks back, doesn't twenty years seem like one lifetime, and twenty more another, and doesn't he feel different than who he was twenty years ago? That number doesn't mean much. It's the other, the assassin part, that he tries to wrap his mind around, tries to envision the man before him at the head of a group of criminals. Giving commands. Killing.
Maybe twenty years ago, in another life. (Or maybe he doesn't want to envision it. That's the problem with listening to someone when the word 'devotion' comes into play: impartiality is a lost cause.)
Ludo's careful not to move, not to pull back in his chair and seem to be placing more (very real) distance between them. He keeps the stillness. Debates whether he wants to hear more, whether he can, whether this slow-creeping chill up his spine is one he can bear much longer before -
What?
Asking Daud to take it all back? Telling him this isn't a story he wants to know? Would he give Daud less regard than anyone else for the sake of his own feelings, for his own worry of having to reform his ideas of who this man is?
So, he remains silent, seconds ticking by into minutes, watching, watching, settling in to the idea and trying to push it on the man in front of him like an ill-fitting coat. You were a murderer.
You have killed.
Daud.
Killer.
It doesn't...work. Fit. It seems too abstract, like hearing that once, this land was populated by native tribes. Like knowing a chair was once a tree. Reasonably, he knows it's true, but he can't imagine the shape it takes without having seen it for himself. So the only thing to do - the only thing to do is let this tale go on.
"I'm listening."