"Of course," Mark answered to Aidou's vague statement about the time he'd been here. That was exactly what was expected.
Sasuke was being prodded again, twitching, and frankly bearing the insults with far more grace than Mark could imagine himself having in the same situation. He'd met rulers of worlds with less presumption... but then again, the more power one had, the less one felt the need to compensate in self-defense. Not that he knew Aidou well enough to surmise that was the young man's problem, of course. For all he knew, Aidou was worse when in his native surroundings, whatever those might be.
"I'm not the most polite or the most diplomatic person in the galaxy," far from it, "but barring anyone's requests for special testing, I don't think Sasuke's skills need to be vouched for before he can continue this breakfast. And since Sasuke's already agreed to travel with me tonight, we're both blindly, if you'll excuse the phrase, trusting each other to be competent enough to do what we say we'll do. If we're wrong, we'll suffer for it, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. And it's Sasuke's decision whether or not to take that risk as well. Maybe this is your way of saying you care, but it's really not any of your business at the moment whether Sasuke is at full capacity or going to fall over his own feet just trying to walk. Helping people who don't ask for it isn't generally a good idea. Just in my experience."
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Sasuke was being prodded again, twitching, and frankly bearing the insults with far more grace than Mark could imagine himself having in the same situation. He'd met rulers of worlds with less presumption... but then again, the more power one had, the less one felt the need to compensate in self-defense. Not that he knew Aidou well enough to surmise that was the young man's problem, of course. For all he knew, Aidou was worse when in his native surroundings, whatever those might be.
"I'm not the most polite or the most diplomatic person in the galaxy," far from it, "but barring anyone's requests for special testing, I don't think Sasuke's skills need to be vouched for before he can continue this breakfast. And since Sasuke's already agreed to travel with me tonight, we're both blindly, if you'll excuse the phrase, trusting each other to be competent enough to do what we say we'll do. If we're wrong, we'll suffer for it, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. And it's Sasuke's decision whether or not to take that risk as well. Maybe this is your way of saying you care, but it's really not any of your business at the moment whether Sasuke is at full capacity or going to fall over his own feet just trying to walk. Helping people who don't ask for it isn't generally a good idea. Just in my experience."