Book 6: Chapter 13
Amanda stared at the problematic woman sitting across from her, who was looking back blandly without any outward reaction to the several minutes of silence that had gone by. Amanda’s first impression of Miri was of someone that could take it. What “it” was could be any number of things, but the woman who was Kay’s new majordomo had tenacity and grit somewhere underneath everything else she showed to the world. Sitting in silence wasn’t going to affect her at all and while it made Amanda look like the kind of person who enjoyed petty power plays like waiting for someone else to speak as some kind of test or to “put someone in their place”, she didn’t much care. She wasn’t that kind of person, though she would use that tactic and any other when they were necessary or useful, and the opinion of a stranger wasn’t going ruin her day. The silence helped her organize her thoughts, and if the other woman was going to let her take her time doing that she wouldn’t turn down the opportunity.
After a few more minutes Amanda reached a point where she felt she had everything in hand. “You are problematic.”
“I understand why you would feel that way,” Miri replied easily, “I would probably feel that way if I was in your position and had to deal with someone like me, too.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I wouldn’t believe you if you said you did. You have more reasons to distrust me than you do to trust me.”
“How am I supposed to deal with you, then?” Amanda asked her directly, “How am I supposed to treat you, to interact with you as someone working for the same leader, with the added position as the person making this all run?” She waved her hand around her office but she was really indicating all of Avalon. “You’re going to be his majesty’s majordomo, which takes a good amount of work off of my plate, but it places you in a position of influence that I don’t know I should let you have. You’re saying that you can commiserate with my position, so what would you do if you were in my spot?”
Miri grinned at her, “I’d start exactly where you are and try and sound out the other person and form an idea of who they are, what they want, and how they’re going to act. Personally, I’d be a bit more circumspect about it, but the straight forward approach probably works better for you.”
“Why would you say that?”
“It’s likely experience. I haven’t had the time to really gather background on you, but what little I do know combined with meeting you in person, I have the feeling you’ve done this a lot. Going with the method you know the best Is often better than mixing and matching methods to match the people you’re interacting with, especially if you aren’t as experienced with whatever method matches that person best.” Miri tilted her head as she gazed at Amanda for a moment. “You approached this openly and with a little bit of aggression, almost daring me to prevaricate or hide from anything from you. It felt… dominant, like you were establishing that you are strong and have nothing to fear from me or this conversation. I bet you’ve dealt with a lot of fighters, the type that either don’t do well with following orders or just haven’t been in any type of military unit. Adventurers, singleton combatants, and the like, the kind who’s reputations and potential as a leader are based on how good they are in a fight, because that means they’ll be most effective and obviously know what to do.”