Mama remained outwardly impassive to the news.
“My route’s going to take me all over town today,” she told him. “Including the west. You need Sam’s…”
“I have cleared it with him already,” Ivan said. “Though it would be preferable if I could move around the city… unfettered.”
“Not after that move you pulled last year,” Mama told him.
“It needed doing,” he said darkly.
“Why do you want to drive me around, Ivan?” she asked him.
“To protect you,” Ivan said. “Why else?”
“What from? The city’s at peace,” she said. “Tribe is secure.”
“I respectfully disagree,” Ivan said. “I have a report from the director of western intelligence…”
“The witch of the west,” Mama interjected. He waved the correction off, as though shooing a fly.
“…of a possible threat against us.”
“You have other duties,” Mama reminded him.
“What duties?” he asked, giving a diffident shrug. “The city is at peace. Tribe is secure.”
“That brings us back around to the question of why you want to spend your time shuttling me around,” Mama said. “It’s not like I lack for volunteers.”
“Of course… it is an easy job, and carries much prestige,” Ivan said. “Perhaps I pulled rank to get it for myself… perhaps I wanted to take a little vacation.”
Though he spoke perfect English with a mild vanilla accent, there was some hint of a ghost of a trace of another, older accent beneath it. This, when combined with his general manner, made it almost impossible not to imagine him saying this as “Perhaps I am vanting leetle wacation.”
This was Ivan’s personal curse, and it occasionally made men giggle at him, when they should have by all rights and natural laws been trembling helplessly with fear.
Although, actually, they usually managed to do both.
“How long do you envision this ’little vacation’ lasting?” Mama asked him. She did not giggle.
“Not long,” he said. “Just until the bad feeling in the back of my skull goes away.”
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essence of cool
Witch of the west. Awesome.
Seems like one of the other poster got it right.
Ms. Erin, you astound me. I think I like this Tribe arc even better than the last one, and I didn’t think that was possible.
For some reason I am seeing Ivan hear as something akin to a “Vampire”. I can’t explain why though. And I do not mean it in a literal sense, just that he is something more then human.
I wonder what a “mild vanilla accent” is?
@Fiona: It’s the American “no accent”… what people in the central plains or people who had dialect coaches help them lose their own regional accents speak with. It’s also called the “broadcast news accent” or “CNN accent”, for that reason.
There are New Englanders, such as those from Connecticut, that often refer to themselves as not having accents. It’s a long-running joke up here. We really don’t, though.