It must have been ten minutes that they stood like that, with Penelope simply watching him, and Vol not knowing that she existed. He murmured things under his breath occasionally, as if putting pieces together, but to Penelope, Vol had never seemed like the sort of man to excessively strategize. And so, if not strategy that he was thinking about, what were the pieces that he was putting together?
"What do you see, Vol?" Penelope said, quite quietly, unable to wait any longer without saying anything at all.
To her surprise, he answered her with more than a grunt. "Difficulty," he said. "Things that don't seem worth thinking about."
"And yet you are thinking about them regardless," Penelope noted.
