[ Okay. That was ... a lot. Certainly more words in one go than she'd probably said to him in the whole of their conversations, and it all held a lot to unpack.
There was the obvious, of course, which was the state of her world and the challenges it faced. Quite honestly what she described sounded horrible to Lockwood and he was city boy for the most part. He knew of the trash and debris that floated in the Thames from his association with Flo Bones, so he certainly couldn't cast stones on the idea of a dirty city, dirty rivers and who knew what the ash from the furnaces contained. But the hopelessness in his world stemmed from the struggle against the Dead. If anything, animals and plant life were flourishing as humans destroyed themselves in this war of the Dead verse the Living.
He felt a touch of empathy the political climate she shared. It seemed the attitude of the rich, destroying all they felt beneath them in the quest to get richer, was unfortunately universal. He could understand that anger and even join her in it, even though he did not have her same zeal for the natural world. Abuse of power was abuse of power; period.
Finally, it was the expression of that frustration that did exactly what he'd been hoping for when he made the conscious decision to keep popping up in her space. It helped him frame, in his own mind, an understanding for her prickliness. He'd never considered taking it personally, after all usually people got to know him before wanting to wring his scrawny neck.
Sipping from his mug, he gave her time to drink her tea, take a couple of breaths, and settle her armor back into place before he broke the silence. His tone was low, genuine and there was an apologetic kind of empathy to it. Lockwood was high energy much of the time, but he had his moments when he remembered to dial it back a notch or two and apologize for all his EXTRA. ]
I cannot imagine how difficult it must be, to possess a passion for life and the natural world as to dedicate your life to botany, biochemistry, and then have to face the kind of uphill battle you describe.
Never change, Ivy. Never change
There was the obvious, of course, which was the state of her world and the challenges it faced. Quite honestly what she described sounded horrible to Lockwood and he was city boy for the most part. He knew of the trash and debris that floated in the Thames from his association with Flo Bones, so he certainly couldn't cast stones on the idea of a dirty city, dirty rivers and who knew what the ash from the furnaces contained. But the hopelessness in his world stemmed from the struggle against the Dead. If anything, animals and plant life were flourishing as humans destroyed themselves in this war of the Dead verse the Living.
He felt a touch of empathy the political climate she shared. It seemed the attitude of the rich, destroying all they felt beneath them in the quest to get richer, was unfortunately universal. He could understand that anger and even join her in it, even though he did not have her same zeal for the natural world. Abuse of power was abuse of power; period.
Finally, it was the expression of that frustration that did exactly what he'd been hoping for when he made the conscious decision to keep popping up in her space. It helped him frame, in his own mind, an understanding for her prickliness. He'd never considered taking it personally, after all usually people got to know him before wanting to wring his scrawny neck.
Sipping from his mug, he gave her time to drink her tea, take a couple of breaths, and settle her armor back into place before he broke the silence. His tone was low, genuine and there was an apologetic kind of empathy to it. Lockwood was high energy much of the time, but he had his moments when he remembered to dial it back a notch or two and apologize for all his EXTRA. ]
I cannot imagine how difficult it must be, to possess a passion for life and the natural world as to dedicate your life to botany, biochemistry, and then have to face the kind of uphill battle you describe.