[No one who had known this woman as "Havoc" would ever have said that she was a good actress. Admittedly, she had not really been trying- there hadn't been a need. Her reputation had proceeded her, and there had been little need to waste the effort on blending when her specialty had been assassinations and acts of terrorism from a distance, and she had hardly ever been dispatched for spywork or information retrieval. This, though... is not her world. This place is not one with the same power balances, rules, cultures, or people-
And it is safer here, until she can investigate further... to blend. It's the rational, logical choice. And with life as a Regressor so fresh in her memories... her smile is a more convincing than it had been five years ago. To a demon, though, to someone observant... there is that thing that isn't quite right. Something not quite natural in how the muscles in her face move, something lacking in the natural warmth and realness she'd seemed to possess the last time they had met.
But as if there was no difference or anything to notice at all-]
I'm sorry about that...
[She surrenders his hand to him once he takes a seat beside her on the stone slab, as if she could possibly be something like trusting. The breaks in her two fingers are clean and sharp, intentional snaps and not the twist or rend of an accident. She doesn't bother trying to hide that it is painful when they're examined, but she also isn't loud about it either.]
I shouldn't have asked that of you in the first place.
[For a Contractor, telling lies is not much different from breathing air, and seeing as she hadn't died... she makes her fingers twitch slightly where he tends to them, drops her gaze slightly as if in thought.]
... I was just scared.
[... Though that actually wasn't a lie. She had been a Regressor a few minutes ago, and as a Regressor... she had been perfectly capable of feeling something like fear, sadness, or regret. She still remembers feeling it... she just no longer has the capacity to connect with it, viewing it more like she was watching a movie rather than recalling something she herself had actually done or thought.
How risky and pointless it seemed now, the behavior of a Regressor.]
no subject
And it is safer here, until she can investigate further... to blend. It's the rational, logical choice. And with life as a Regressor so fresh in her memories... her smile is a more convincing than it had been five years ago. To a demon, though, to someone observant... there is that thing that isn't quite right. Something not quite natural in how the muscles in her face move, something lacking in the natural warmth and realness she'd seemed to possess the last time they had met.
But as if there was no difference or anything to notice at all-]
I'm sorry about that...
[She surrenders his hand to him once he takes a seat beside her on the stone slab, as if she could possibly be something like trusting. The breaks in her two fingers are clean and sharp, intentional snaps and not the twist or rend of an accident. She doesn't bother trying to hide that it is painful when they're examined, but she also isn't loud about it either.]
I shouldn't have asked that of you in the first place.
[For a Contractor, telling lies is not much different from breathing air, and seeing as she hadn't died... she makes her fingers twitch slightly where he tends to them, drops her gaze slightly as if in thought.]
... I was just scared.
[... Though that actually wasn't a lie. She had been a Regressor a few minutes ago, and as a Regressor... she had been perfectly capable of feeling something like fear, sadness, or regret. She still remembers feeling it... she just no longer has the capacity to connect with it, viewing it more like she was watching a movie rather than recalling something she herself had actually done or thought.
How risky and pointless it seemed now, the behavior of a Regressor.]