"I do not fear the sea!" The crash of the waves below erupt against her shores in response to the snapped words, in response to his anger. The sea itself seems to be throwing a tantrum like a scorned lover, reaching and battering itself against her rocky coast as it stretches for him with gouging streams like the moon above, eroding and dragging down the rocks with foam-tipped claws.
He takes a deep, calming breath then, and as he exhales the sea retracts with a slow groaning woosh of rushing water, millions of gallons dragging itself home. Then, he smiles. It's a different smile to that of his counterparts, yet there's an eerie familiarity in it, not quite England's smile, and not quite Antonio's. It's some amalgamation of the two, something that looks wrong upon his face in this setting, in spite of his good looks. A familiarity of darkness, dark as the deepest trenches of the Atlantic, of the very things she tries to warn him of. Vulture, perhaps, or maybe shark; razored pointed teeth and bloodied maws.
"Antonio will know what we want him to know." He retorts, and his head tilts as he inspects her. He doesn't shy away as she comes closer, but neither does he advance. There's an unnatural stillness about him then, and suddenly, a flicker of something like amusement in his gaze. "I think we both know the answer to that, não? Or, perhaps you don't know him as well as I assume?"
If there was one thing that Antonio thirsted for, craved, obsessed over more than any other, it would be the man before her now. A derangement of the mind that consumed everything within the Spaniards ever burning soul— whatever tattered remains were left of it. Antonio without João is like the sun with no sky. If his husband has kept João off his lips around her, it is purely for selfish reasons, to hoard the other nation for himself solely like a dragon to coin. If Antonio rte to find out about this visit, they two were culpable. After all, what Antonio does, so too could João in Antonio's jealous mind.
Yet... There are as many similarities with João and the other two as there were differences. When his gaze roams over here, there is no desire within them, there is no greed nor bloodlust. There are far more simple things within his; almost human in nature. Curiosity, suspicion, anxiety and compulsion.
It's fully directed at her, but not for these circumstances they both find themselves in. The anxieties and compulsion doesn't stem from this stand off, but that which he can't see, what Antonio and she get up to behind his back.
There's a sickness in this man's mind; as powerful as João is, he is a slave to his emotions.
"I know your name." He retorts bluntly, and it's clear he expects that she knows his as well. "I do not play these games, you know damn well who I am without me giving my name." He says it in disgust, as if it's beneath him to tell her. He stares down at her, hazel eyes darkened to brown in the low light.
"You are testing patience that I have lost within the journey." He warns. João is typically quite patient, charming, a man that stood by the little man— not in these circumstances though. Not when it involved someone so precious to him.
"You think yourself so wise, so clever, don't you?" He says bluntly. "Even as our support wanes, and far more of your people's blood fall into these seas than Arthur's, you still think yourself a boulder, when you are a grain of sand." He leans in then, not in intimidation, but as if two lifelong friends sharing a secret.
"You make think I don't, but I see you." He says, and when their gazes meet it's almost haunting, as if that ancient look of his has connected something within them far deeper than eyes, like his soul had skimmed hers with the ghostly, skeletal fingers of death. "You place your trust foolishly if you think Antonio to be a help, or even a friend. You are little more than a single, crumbling stepping stone for him to use."
