The face-dabbing gets her to twist her face away, of course.
...After the first dab.
"You're so good at these manipulations, silver," she hisses, after he's pulled that final maneuver. "You would have been very successful in Dark Specter's court."
No, she's not going to blast him. They both know that. Astronema does jab the sharp tip of the staff's diamond-shaped blade into his chest a little, though. Just enough to hurt, the tiny chains below it swinging from the motion.
"Capitalizing on my embarrassing human emotions? A classic. Did you get any good footage of me pacing around waiting for you, that day? While I slowly figured it out? What a win it must have been, to make the enemy feel so blind and stupid."
It wasn't that he'd been late, per se. It had been a matter of what her experiences had translated that lateness into.
So much has happened since that day, so much objectively more important stuff has happened since that day. Like the now-damaged hardware forced into her flesh, which reminds her of its presence now by crackling; a snapped wire from her shoulder, and the lower piece on her cheek.
Astronema doesn't move, though, except to narrow her eyes against the pain, the staff held surgically-still where it presses in.
"They told me the Rangers killed my brother, did you know that?" she continues, low and strained as the implants snap and hiss, the visible current crawling up into the embedded pieces in her forehead.
"The rivers of Ranger blood I shed in revenge could drown your entire team. Tell me why I should do less for Ecliptor, who always shielded me from the worst of the empire. Who died trying to do the same, one last time. Who may have lied to me, but never did anything he didn't think was for my best interest. I knew Andros for four years. I knew Ecliptor for twenty."
Teeth bared in a grimace of pain that isn't just physical, she still doesn't move.
"And you can't tell me he wouldn't want to be avenged."
no subject
...After the first dab.
"You're so good at these manipulations, silver," she hisses, after he's pulled that final maneuver. "You would have been very successful in Dark Specter's court."
No, she's not going to blast him. They both know that. Astronema does jab the sharp tip of the staff's diamond-shaped blade into his chest a little, though. Just enough to hurt, the tiny chains below it swinging from the motion.
"Capitalizing on my embarrassing human emotions? A classic. Did you get any good footage of me pacing around waiting for you, that day? While I slowly figured it out? What a win it must have been, to make the enemy feel so blind and stupid."
It wasn't that he'd been late, per se. It had been a matter of what her experiences had translated that lateness into.
So much has happened since that day, so much objectively more important stuff has happened since that day. Like the now-damaged hardware forced into her flesh, which reminds her of its presence now by crackling; a snapped wire from her shoulder, and the lower piece on her cheek.
Astronema doesn't move, though, except to narrow her eyes against the pain, the staff held surgically-still where it presses in.
"They told me the Rangers killed my brother, did you know that?" she continues, low and strained as the implants snap and hiss, the visible current crawling up into the embedded pieces in her forehead.
"The rivers of Ranger blood I shed in revenge could drown your entire team. Tell me why I should do less for Ecliptor, who always shielded me from the worst of the empire. Who died trying to do the same, one last time. Who may have lied to me, but never did anything he didn't think was for my best interest. I knew Andros for four years. I knew Ecliptor for twenty."
Teeth bared in a grimace of pain that isn't just physical, she still doesn't move.
"And you can't tell me he wouldn't want to be avenged."