Stormclouds Gather

[Hemlocke]

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The directness seemed to lighten the extreme tension that had surrounded the two, his foot steps followed behind her as she entered the room, the crimson gaze still watching her every move, his eyes hadn't been taken off her since she had arrived within the ship. Nothing left unnoticed, that was made clear. The door shut behind him, another hiss as it re-pressurized, He stood in silence and watched, idly tugging at the hem of the suit's left sleeve to re-adjust it before his arms returned to his side. As the very aptly self proclaimed matriarch turned to face him, her deadpan voice and intense gaze drew his attention. Though he visibly grew more annoyed as the mask began to slowly slip back on, and the compliments, that were nothing more than polite manipulations for the sake of business, had returned. And just as quickly, his ire did as well.

She a took a step toward him, his eye caught the movement, she thought she knew him, another assumption of what he really wanted. Desperate, that's what she was. She needed him, and tried to find a way to make him need her. Yet he didn't. She was right, those things meant absolutely nothing to him, and yet she didn't understand that he truly wasn't anyone she had dealt with before. Legacy meant nothing to him, reputation. Things that usually got in his way, and so he offered a very grim and cold tone in return, knocking her assumption entirely to the floor. The dark tone reminding her to keep her manipulations to herself, he wasn't having it.

"Why should I care what others think of me when I am gone, I hardly care now. I don't understand why you should either, but to each their own, as we say here. When you are gone, Yolande. No one but those who were close to you will remember you. The title of matriarch will fall to your next in line, and for your sake, I hope it wasn't the one I saw on the feed. Caring about my legacy would give others needless power over me, in a world full of assumptions and lies, how easily such a thing could be destroyed. We could both die right now, and the world wouldn't change."

His words held fire, she had sparked something within him. And yet she'd finally teased out part of who he was, something she could actually understand, something tangible. However alien his existence and how unknown his motivations still were beyond the scope of legacy, money, power. The situation seemed almost hopeless if she couldn't establish a way to appeal to his drive, it was almost shocking how abrasive his seeming lack of ideology was. His voice lifted again soon after.

"Before my patience runs out, I'll give to you a courtesy in the form of opportunity. Sit down, quit the façade, we'll have a drink. And you will tell me how you plan to benefit us both. If I find your proposal to my liking, then you will return to your family. If you continue to play games with me, I'll watch the radiation eat through that pretty body of yours as it's tossed out an airlock, and that ship will join the graveyard around us. You only stand to gain."

This was quite a shift from his previous disposition of lacking words, intent displayed by action. She'd gotten under his skin but not in a good way. Considering his lack of grand speeches or even a considerable amount of talking up until this point, it was very likely he'd follow through with what he said. His eyes glared, burning through her, though his face remained entirely neutral, almost as if he felt nothing toward her, as if she was insignificant. And despite the fact she herself had admitted that her absence today would have meant nothing to him, it still felt entirely wrong to see his visual reaction to things. A disturbing action followed, one that displayed what she had walked into. The man's head tilted every so slightly to the side, staring at her from an angled position, as if waiting to see her next move, a cocked gaze. Continuing to study, continuing to wait, watching. This was a game to him in a way that couldn't be described, or even understood by someone with actual goals in mind and at heart. Something dark resided within his human eye now, a hunger, a lust, that altered the very way he looked at her, she hadn't seen this in the beginning. Something lurked within, and the more she talked, the more she attempted to negotiate, to appeal to a nature she didn't understand, the worse it got, his natural eye had become just as cold as the mechanical gaze, and yet, it burned just as brightly.

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