For a second she imagines it, vivid and easy. A handful of lamb thrown across the table to splatter his tailored suit. A plate snapped in her hands and dropped like a gunshot in the restaurant hush. She can hear Carmine's voice as clearly as if he's sitting at the table. You are a Falcone. You are not an animal.
She swallows the bite she already has and sets the fork down with care.
“Yes,” Sofia says simply, polite as bone china.
Then she picks up the lamb chop with both hands and eats it exactly like an animal, deliberate and unhurried, looking at the middle distance while she does it. Making her point to no one in particular. To the ghost of her father's voice. She lets him see the choice. Let him measure what it costs her to be civilized.
She sets the bone down, wipes her fingers on the napkin, picks up her fork and knife, and returns to eating with the perfect composure of a woman raised to host state dinners.
"Every day," she says, voice pleasant, as though the last thirty seconds didn't happen. "The temptation is constant." She cuts a precise piece. "But Gotham already decided I was its worst nightmare before I'd done anything to earn it."
She eats, sets her utensils down properly at the two o'clock position.
"So I'm selective," she says. "About when I prove them right."
Becoming a monster because of being treated like one is hardly a rare story. It's not one Logan fell into. He became a monster for other reasons. Yet it's curious how Sofia reacts to such social pressures. Insisting on playing both roles, if only to prove she's in control of her own fate.
She cares too much about what other people think, Logan suspects. In between thinking how she looks like a balverine when she eats with her hands.
The switch doesn't get a reaction out of Logan, except for a curious tilt of his head. After all, she's showing him this part of her. It's only polite to pay attention.
"And what about you?" he asks after a moment of silence. "What do you want to be?"
Sofia’s knife stills. The question is soft enough to sound kind, and she hates it for that.
It's not a question she gets asked. People tell her what she is. What she was. What she should be grateful for, or ashamed of. Nobody asks what she wants to be. Not since before Arkham. Not since Carmine looked at her across a room very much like this one and decided she was more useful as a sacrifice than a successor.
For a heartbeat she thinks of answers that would have made Carmine proud. Legitimate. Respectable. Smiling for cameras while men with blood on their hands call it charity. Then Arkham cuts in, colder. Wanting does not protect you. Wanting is how they steer you.
She sets down her cutlery, then picks it up again, correcting the placement with exacting care.
“What I want to be changes depending on who’s asking,” Sofia says, voice pleasant.
She takes a small bite, chews, swallows. Then she looks at him, steady.
“I want to be unavoidable,” she adds. “Not as a story. As a fact.”
Her mouth curves, faint and controlled. “And I want to be free enough that nobody ever gets to decide what I am again.”
It was too much to hope she might give a single, earnest answer. She plays the game, and she plays it too well. She's not about to stop, even for a moment, just because he asks a particular question.
That doesn't mean her answer isn't informative, of course. It is.
From the admission of manipulation to the precision with which she places her knife and fork. Everything tells him something. He just has to pay attention.
Not that her last answer is hard to miss. An answer he would never dare to give himself. True freedom. True independence.
Logan gives a single, small nod. "That's a good answer."
Sofia's fingers tighten around the cutlery, briefly. She loosens them before he can notice.
A good answer. She can't tell if it's approval or placation, and it bothers her more than she'd like that she cares about the difference. Ten years of hearing doctors say that's good, Sofia in voices designed to manage her. Ten years of every honest thing she said being catalogued and weaponized.
"It's the only answer," she says.
And then, because she can feel the dinner shifting into something too close to vulnerability, too close to the space where Carmine would have leaned in, she redirects. Deliberately. The way she changes modes like changing shoes.
"Your fish is getting cold," she says, and nods at his plate. Her voice is lighter. Hostess again, the version of herself that runs a room without raising her voice. "And you haven't told me what you want to be."
She picks up her own fork, cuts another careful bite.
It's a good answer because it's the only answer. Because Logan can tell any other answer would be a lie, and that's important. Her honesty is important.
That she turns it back onto him isn't surprising. He didn't push for more information, didn't ask more questions that might risk testing her patience. It's understandable that she would take the opportunity to find out about him instead. Information is power, after all. She showed she shares that believe when she gave him the schematics.
Logan looks at his meal and, slowly, starts to pick at it again. It is nice, he's just not a good eater.
"I don't know what I want to be." Honesty deserves honesty. "I don't think it matters. The sea can't be anything but the sea. A city can't be anything but a city. I'm a prince."
He sets his cutlery down and takes a slow sip of wine, before looking at Sofia.
"But what I want to do? I want to protect my people, and that means not letting our history fall into the wrong hands."
Sofia watches him set down his cutlery after barely touching the fish and thinks, briefly, that Carmine would have had something cutting to say about a man who can't finish a meal. Then she thinks about Arkham, about eating everything on the tray because you never knew when they'd decide to skip a meal as punishment, and she lets it go.
"A prince," she says. Not mocking, for once. Just placing it, fitting it into everything else he's told her tonight. The suit. The posture. The way he watches a room like he's responsible for everyone in it.
She takes a sip of wine, sets it down.
She's quiet for a moment, turning her fork slowly between her fingers.
"You don't know what you want to be, but you know what you want to do." She considers that. "That's backwards from me. I know exactly what I want to be. What I'm doing to get there changes every week."
She looks at him, and for a moment the calculation drops. Not warmth. Just recognition. Two people sitting at a table in a city that belongs to neither of them in the way they need it to, eating food that's getting cold.
"Protect your people," she says quietly. "Must be nice. Having people who are yours to protect."
She picks up her knife and fork again, cuts a precise bite.
A small pause.
“Just don’t forget you’re doing it here,” Sofia adds. “And here, the wrong hands are usually wearing gloves.”
She lifts her glass. “So. Tell me one practical thing, Prince. When you say ‘history,’ are you talking about something that can be carried out under a coat, or something that needs a truck?”
Eating had never been one of Logan's strong suits, but it had become harder after the paranoia had set in. Reluctance to give people another way to remove him from the throne was a perfect excuse to eat less. No one, not even him, had thought to rectify that after his removal. It wasn't important in the grand scheme of things.
He does, however, eat a little, bit by bit, while Sofia ponders and speaks. It gives him something to do while he listens.
It stops him from remarking that having people to protect is nicer when those people don't want you dead. The comment isn't necessary. He doesn't blame his people, even if he is frustrated by them.
He nods at her warning and sips his wine as she moves to practical matters. She truly does want to eke out any bit of information she can.
"A bag is adequate," he tells her. There's no need to keep that much information hidden. Plenty of things for in a bag. It doesn't narrow things down for her much. "Unless there's something in Gotham that I'm currently unaware of. Anything I know about can be stored in a bag."
Sofia’s eyes flick to his hands, to the careful way he eats like each bite is a decision. A bag. Portable. That narrows it enough to be annoying.
She thinks of Carmine again, of ledgers and keys and little objects that ruined lives more efficiently than any gun. She thinks of Arkham and how small things could still mean a locked door, a missing privilege, a week of pain.
Out loud, she stays mannerly.
“Because bags get lost,” Sofia says, and cuts her lamb with quiet precision. “Bags get stolen. Bags get swapped by someone who smiles the whole time.”
She lifts her glass, makes a little gesture and sets it down.
“And because if it fits in a bag, it fits in a coat pocket,” Sofia adds. “Which means it fits in a waiter, or a cop, or a man brushing past you on the sidewalk.”
Her gaze stays steady on him. “If you want quiet, you need boring. You need to look like you are carrying nothing worth taking.”
She dabs her mouth, then gestures lightly toward his plate, hostess again. “Eat a little more. You can be paranoid and still be functional.”
Then she lets the edge back in. “So tell me what kind of bag. Normal leather, or something you would notice if it was touched.”
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
For a second she imagines it, vivid and easy. A handful of lamb thrown across the table to splatter his tailored suit. A plate snapped in her hands and dropped like a gunshot in the restaurant hush. She can hear Carmine's voice as clearly as if he's sitting at the table. You are a Falcone. You are not an animal.
She swallows the bite she already has and sets the fork down with care.
“Yes,” Sofia says simply, polite as bone china.
Then she picks up the lamb chop with both hands and eats it exactly like an animal, deliberate and unhurried, looking at the middle distance while she does it. Making her point to no one in particular. To the ghost of her father's voice. She lets him see the choice. Let him measure what it costs her to be civilized.
She sets the bone down, wipes her fingers on the napkin, picks up her fork and knife, and returns to eating with the perfect composure of a woman raised to host state dinners.
"Every day," she says, voice pleasant, as though the last thirty seconds didn't happen. "The temptation is constant." She cuts a precise piece. "But Gotham already decided I was its worst nightmare before I'd done anything to earn it."
She eats, sets her utensils down properly at the two o'clock position.
"So I'm selective," she says. "About when I prove them right."
no subject
She cares too much about what other people think, Logan suspects. In between thinking how she looks like a balverine when she eats with her hands.
The switch doesn't get a reaction out of Logan, except for a curious tilt of his head. After all, she's showing him this part of her. It's only polite to pay attention.
"And what about you?" he asks after a moment of silence. "What do you want to be?"
no subject
It's not a question she gets asked. People tell her what she is. What she was. What she should be grateful for, or ashamed of. Nobody asks what she wants to be. Not since before Arkham. Not since Carmine looked at her across a room very much like this one and decided she was more useful as a sacrifice than a successor.
For a heartbeat she thinks of answers that would have made Carmine proud. Legitimate. Respectable. Smiling for cameras while men with blood on their hands call it charity. Then Arkham cuts in, colder. Wanting does not protect you. Wanting is how they steer you.
She sets down her cutlery, then picks it up again, correcting the placement with exacting care.
“What I want to be changes depending on who’s asking,” Sofia says, voice pleasant.
She takes a small bite, chews, swallows. Then she looks at him, steady.
“I want to be unavoidable,” she adds. “Not as a story. As a fact.”
Her mouth curves, faint and controlled. “And I want to be free enough that nobody ever gets to decide what I am again.”
no subject
That doesn't mean her answer isn't informative, of course. It is.
From the admission of manipulation to the precision with which she places her knife and fork. Everything tells him something. He just has to pay attention.
Not that her last answer is hard to miss. An answer he would never dare to give himself. True freedom. True independence.
Logan gives a single, small nod. "That's a good answer."
no subject
A good answer. She can't tell if it's approval or placation, and it bothers her more than she'd like that she cares about the difference. Ten years of hearing doctors say that's good, Sofia in voices designed to manage her. Ten years of every honest thing she said being catalogued and weaponized.
"It's the only answer," she says.
And then, because she can feel the dinner shifting into something too close to vulnerability, too close to the space where Carmine would have leaned in, she redirects. Deliberately. The way she changes modes like changing shoes.
"Your fish is getting cold," she says, and nods at his plate. Her voice is lighter. Hostess again, the version of herself that runs a room without raising her voice. "And you haven't told me what you want to be."
She picks up her own fork, cuts another careful bite.
"Fair's fair, Logan."
no subject
That she turns it back onto him isn't surprising. He didn't push for more information, didn't ask more questions that might risk testing her patience. It's understandable that she would take the opportunity to find out about him instead. Information is power, after all. She showed she shares that believe when she gave him the schematics.
Logan looks at his meal and, slowly, starts to pick at it again. It is nice, he's just not a good eater.
"I don't know what I want to be." Honesty deserves honesty. "I don't think it matters. The sea can't be anything but the sea. A city can't be anything but a city. I'm a prince."
He sets his cutlery down and takes a slow sip of wine, before looking at Sofia.
"But what I want to do? I want to protect my people, and that means not letting our history fall into the wrong hands."
no subject
"A prince," she says. Not mocking, for once. Just placing it, fitting it into everything else he's told her tonight. The suit. The posture. The way he watches a room like he's responsible for everyone in it.
She takes a sip of wine, sets it down.
She's quiet for a moment, turning her fork slowly between her fingers.
"You don't know what you want to be, but you know what you want to do." She considers that. "That's backwards from me. I know exactly what I want to be. What I'm doing to get there changes every week."
She looks at him, and for a moment the calculation drops. Not warmth. Just recognition. Two people sitting at a table in a city that belongs to neither of them in the way they need it to, eating food that's getting cold.
"Protect your people," she says quietly. "Must be nice. Having people who are yours to protect."
She picks up her knife and fork again, cuts a precise bite.
A small pause.
“Just don’t forget you’re doing it here,” Sofia adds. “And here, the wrong hands are usually wearing gloves.”
She lifts her glass. “So. Tell me one practical thing, Prince. When you say ‘history,’ are you talking about something that can be carried out under a coat, or something that needs a truck?”
no subject
He does, however, eat a little, bit by bit, while Sofia ponders and speaks. It gives him something to do while he listens.
It stops him from remarking that having people to protect is nicer when those people don't want you dead. The comment isn't necessary. He doesn't blame his people, even if he is frustrated by them.
He nods at her warning and sips his wine as she moves to practical matters. She truly does want to eke out any bit of information she can.
"A bag is adequate," he tells her. There's no need to keep that much information hidden. Plenty of things for in a bag. It doesn't narrow things down for her much. "Unless there's something in Gotham that I'm currently unaware of. Anything I know about can be stored in a bag."
Another sip of wine. "Why do you ask?"
no subject
She thinks of Carmine again, of ledgers and keys and little objects that ruined lives more efficiently than any gun. She thinks of Arkham and how small things could still mean a locked door, a missing privilege, a week of pain.
Out loud, she stays mannerly.
“Because bags get lost,” Sofia says, and cuts her lamb with quiet precision. “Bags get stolen. Bags get swapped by someone who smiles the whole time.”
She lifts her glass, makes a little gesture and sets it down.
“And because if it fits in a bag, it fits in a coat pocket,” Sofia adds. “Which means it fits in a waiter, or a cop, or a man brushing past you on the sidewalk.”
Her gaze stays steady on him. “If you want quiet, you need boring. You need to look like you are carrying nothing worth taking.”
She dabs her mouth, then gestures lightly toward his plate, hostess again. “Eat a little more. You can be paranoid and still be functional.”
Then she lets the edge back in. “So tell me what kind of bag. Normal leather, or something you would notice if it was touched.”