There's so much going on under the surface that Nine isn't privy to, and with regular food and water and conversation she's able to concentrate enough to notice that. Originally, she hadn't been sure what Miles, a Barrayaran lord, was doing here, especially with that damning lack of accent that she'd eventually picked up on. But before long it becomes clear enough to her, especially after she's overheard several conversations between the guards, her sensitive ears having nothing else to listen for apart from the sounds of life going past her room. Nine had started to wonder if he was a clone anyway, just from his sheer familiarity and his presence here, but that had clinched it.
He's a clone, and she knows that made-to-order clones, like herself, are used for something. They're not allowed to just simply live. The details past that are not so important to her. Something about a revolution, something about Komarr-- Nine listens to the tone rather than the content and it all washes over her. Miles is the only real thing to her in this place, the only one she feels really sees her when he looks at her. He becomes her lifeline, the reason she doesn't just lay down and refuse to get up again in her cage. Nine has even mostly stopped scratching at herself from frustration and boredom. She has something to actively think about now: what they'll do when they get out of here.
That, too, is not a daydream Nine believes has any hint of possibility behind it. It's just to give her something to wile away the hours with. Like thinking of what it would be like to have Miles touch her, in a way not combat related...
Seeing someone else touch him cruelly gets her hackles up in an instant. Nine is aware that this is the head of things around here, but that only matters to her as part of her cool assessment of the battlefield around them. She knows you should always cut off the head of the snake first, if it comes to that, and watching him do that to Miles has her snapped into combat mode as training Miles never truly had.
But it's not the pain he's in that spurs her to action. It's the fear. Nine has seen hints of that fear here and there, and now, now she knows the source.
Because she's not an animal, she gives a warning. She steps up closer to them, all eight bristling feet of her, and growls, low and guttural. "Let him go."
no subject
He's a clone, and she knows that made-to-order clones, like herself, are used for something. They're not allowed to just simply live. The details past that are not so important to her. Something about a revolution, something about Komarr-- Nine listens to the tone rather than the content and it all washes over her. Miles is the only real thing to her in this place, the only one she feels really sees her when he looks at her. He becomes her lifeline, the reason she doesn't just lay down and refuse to get up again in her cage. Nine has even mostly stopped scratching at herself from frustration and boredom. She has something to actively think about now: what they'll do when they get out of here.
That, too, is not a daydream Nine believes has any hint of possibility behind it. It's just to give her something to wile away the hours with. Like thinking of what it would be like to have Miles touch her, in a way not combat related...
Seeing someone else touch him cruelly gets her hackles up in an instant. Nine is aware that this is the head of things around here, but that only matters to her as part of her cool assessment of the battlefield around them. She knows you should always cut off the head of the snake first, if it comes to that, and watching him do that to Miles has her snapped into combat mode as training Miles never truly had.
But it's not the pain he's in that spurs her to action. It's the fear. Nine has seen hints of that fear here and there, and now, now she knows the source.
Because she's not an animal, she gives a warning. She steps up closer to them, all eight bristling feet of her, and growls, low and guttural. "Let him go."