The Eye of the Beholder

[Sören]

He watched Nina, somewhat blandly. She did not run, but it took her some time to rebuild herself. His stance remained still, her escape route beyond him and out of the room still viable if she chose to take it. Meanwhile his arms folded against his chest. There were no further answers to be found here, of that he was certain, and she was correct about the nuisance. She was one.

“No,” he agreed. “There isn’t a thing you could do to stop me.”

No ghosts paraded from her accusation. No guilt, either. She was wrong to suspect he held any feelings on the necessities she spoke of, if it did sting a frown to his lips. Mostly because it reminded him of the dream he had walked before his eye’s malfunction in the streets.

She stepped closer, and his eyes followed her. He stared down. Not a mouse to his cat, he decided. More like a fucking flea. She was relentless.

“Supposing you know something of snakes, and supposing I find an unwelcome guest on my doorstep some time soon. Supposing you could even live with the thought of that blood on your hands, and I doubt that, to whom do you think I would come when they failed to kill me?” And fail they would; nothing short of cool arrogance assured his tone. There was little real threat in it, though, because he was quite certain he understood her loyalty to life. If she betrayed him, it would be for a reason beyond the accident of his birth.

“What do you know of snakes?”