hoo boy

“Gristle, flex-muscle.”

Interesting that Syr learned her earliest diplomatic tricks not from books but from her own father. His hatred for humans tends to obscure it, but he does have some political instinct; he wouldn’t be rising through the ranks of government without it.

Fr’Nj’s talents started appearing early, it seems.

The literary passage here is a variation on the old aphorism, “Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.” I’m afraid I bought into its attribution to Mark Twain, which appears to be false, but the last few words in the passage do at least infuse it with some of Twain’s sense of humor.