[It really figures that for all the mostly metaphorical mess he's just splashed across the table Hikage is very nearly the most composed one here, though Subete is coming off that bit of complete blindsiding and there's a slight quirk to his mouth after catching that indignant look from the side -- he's a little pink around the ears but surely, surely that's just the condensation from the tea that he finally takes a sip of, closing his eyes to listen.
Like the tea warming his nose he drinks in the voices around him, the different qualities of softness: nonplussed from Marona like a broken drum, it's so funny that neither he nor Hikage have ever been real eager to talk about whatever they were doing back under the influence of either murder or memories or mayhem all poisoned through with miasma tint, and maybe the weight of that is part of what muffled everything; crackling from Saphir, like a page about to rip or the insidious edge of water damage, and if he ignores the familiarity of it with the ease of practice there's something reassuring about it as well because he's not a good enough person to have mercy here; gossamer from Hikage, no longer opaque but almost invisible and too much in motion like soap bubbles in wind, somehow strangely the easiest to read -- maybe it's all the colors in and out of sunlight that have slowly seeped through over days and years, maybe it's something else.
None of the cadences or the tones match up at all, but he adds his own anyway: lets it float like a freshly plucked leaf, slightly crisp and quiet.]
That mansion hid a lot of things. It had to be good at something, after all.
[This one is aimed at everyone, even if there isn't so much an edge to it; there are things all of them lack context for, even as small as their world became back then, and there are also things he still holds grudges against the mansion for, but -- the fact that this particular thing isn't one of those lets him use it a little more lightly.
He could, of course, build upon it to lead the conversation forward -- the way he was raised to do, and the way he's been blithely doing since before he walked in the door, but instead he just settles back and lets the words and the tea warm him through, sipping easily in the ensuing silence.]
no subject
Like the tea warming his nose he drinks in the voices around him, the different qualities of softness: nonplussed from Marona like a broken drum, it's so funny that neither he nor Hikage have ever been real eager to talk about whatever they were doing back under the influence of either murder or memories or mayhem all poisoned through with miasma tint, and maybe the weight of that is part of what muffled everything; crackling from Saphir, like a page about to rip or the insidious edge of water damage, and if he ignores the familiarity of it with the ease of practice there's something reassuring about it as well because he's not a good enough person to have mercy here; gossamer from Hikage, no longer opaque but almost invisible and too much in motion like soap bubbles in wind, somehow strangely the easiest to read -- maybe it's all the colors in and out of sunlight that have slowly seeped through over days and years, maybe it's something else.
None of the cadences or the tones match up at all, but he adds his own anyway: lets it float like a freshly plucked leaf, slightly crisp and quiet.]
That mansion hid a lot of things. It had to be good at something, after all.
[This one is aimed at everyone, even if there isn't so much an edge to it; there are things all of them lack context for, even as small as their world became back then, and there are also things he still holds grudges against the mansion for, but -- the fact that this particular thing isn't one of those lets him use it a little more lightly.
He could, of course, build upon it to lead the conversation forward -- the way he was raised to do, and the way he's been blithely doing since before he walked in the door, but instead he just settles back and lets the words and the tea warm him through, sipping easily in the ensuing silence.]