Maybe it isn't, and Ava doesn't want him dead. (Maybe it isn't a canine at all, and there's no kind of animal mind there. It's hard to read the body language of something invisible, even if it is standing on you.) Maybe she's biding her time. Maybe she's at war with herself.
He has hypotheses, reshuffling themselves on a scale of probability, but in battle you have to rely on gut intuition to sort through them. Time for thinking out the intermediate steps comes before or after, if it's ever worth bothering with.
Trowa doesn't move. (If he has to move, he knows what leverage he has, and what he'll do. Maybe he won't have to.) "See?" he says to the maybe-dog, still level and calm. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Unless he has to. He will if he does. But with an animal, the tone of voice matters more than the words.
(Assuming he's speaking to an animal. There's another variable in the situation.)
no subject
Maybe it isn't, and Ava doesn't want him dead. (Maybe it isn't a canine at all, and there's no kind of animal mind there. It's hard to read the body language of something invisible, even if it is standing on you.) Maybe she's biding her time. Maybe she's at war with herself.
He has hypotheses, reshuffling themselves on a scale of probability, but in battle you have to rely on gut intuition to sort through them. Time for thinking out the intermediate steps comes before or after, if it's ever worth bothering with.
Trowa doesn't move. (If he has to move, he knows what leverage he has, and what he'll do. Maybe he won't have to.) "See?" he says to the maybe-dog, still level and calm. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Unless he has to. He will if he does. But with an animal, the tone of voice matters more than the words.
(Assuming he's speaking to an animal. There's another variable in the situation.)