oye como va, mi ritmo
bueno pa gozar, mulata
“Passable,” he replies, amused. Following Tristan’s second attempt, he nods once. “Yes, better. Your accent needs work; you sound like a Gringo. Like me,” he weighs his accent down heavily so that the English words become difficult to distinguish, “if I were speaking like this. Not so easy to understand, is it?”
Gringo is a Spanish and Portuguese slang word which Tristan may or may not know, referring to white foreigners. It’s a somewhat derogatory term. Tristan proceeds to act like a true Gringo by reverting completely to English and chattering away at top speed, forcing Mallos to concentrate harder for the first few minutes until his brain settles back into his second language. By the time he’s registered the first couple of sentences – something about guards letting him in (where’s the fun in that?) – Tristan has already moved on to telling him about some smelly man who had tried to abduct him once. Apparently, he’s no longer uneasy. He also seems to have inherited Lilith’s ability to talk at great length, rather than Arthur’s minimalistic approach to dialogue. Mallos listens attentively, showing Tristan the same regard he would have given to any respectable adult.
The rain is beginning to ease off outside. Before, the hammering precipitation against the windows had been an audible distraction, but now it patters at a gentler, friendlier rate. Much like the conversation. Mallos hadn’t been worried; he possesses an innate knack for provoking whatever sensation he likes in people (generally annoyance), and has supreme confidence in his ability to diffuse a situation. Besides which, it’s extremely unlikely that Tristan would have attacked him without baiting. The worst he could have done is call Arthur, and Arthur wouldn’t be likely to do much. Even now that he lacks his divinity, it’s not particularly wise to upset Mallos – especially not since the aforementioned divinity is not gone forever, only on a twenty-year hiatus. Arthur is too clever to irritate someone who not only could be either a very dangerous enemy or a very powerful ally, but is also his future father-in-law.
“I have been several times,” he replies seriously to Tristan’s question about knights, toning his accent back down so that the words are understandable. “Not recently, though.”
Quaint, the careers which children obsess over. The frequency with which ‘my father’ is brought up hasn’t escaped his notice, either. His light smile fades slightly at Tristan’s next words, however, and his forehead creases a little. ‘Only the important stuff’? If Mallos doesn’t qualify as an ‘important stuff’, then Arthur must be deranged. Only explanation. And what’s this crap about dangerous people? Gwythr masqueraded under Mallos’ appearance for over a thousand years; he has one of the most ‘dangerous’ faces in Shaman. Even now that his name has been cleared, he’s still greeted with wary looks wherever he goes.
Unimportant. The god of Spain, unimportant. Ha.
His tone is slightly nettled when answering the final question. “Yes,” he replies, as matter-of-factly as if Tristan had just asked ‘is your hair black?’. Still slightly affronted, he feels compelled to add after a moment: “very.”
What do they teach children these days?
“Why did your father teach you Spanish?” He asks now, raising an eyebrow. “If he did not teach you who you could speak it to? That is very poor diplomacy. You could have offended me.”
