“Mnn..nope! I didn’t think you’d have anything you’d want to share, anyway.. It would be dumb to ask you.”
Especially with the mood he seemed to be in. Was this always the way he was, or had she caught him on a bad night? Concealing eyes.. Ellen didn’t hang around her elder sister as much as she did her brothers, but she did wonder what seemed to draw Maeru to this snake.. Was there something likable about him, or was it simply what Saeru had groomed her to look for in another snake – power?
Ellen might not like the subject, as it was still too “adult” for her – but she wasn’t stupid. She’d caught on to some things that were expected, as she paid more attention to the interactions she’d witness between her reluctantly-adoptive father and her adoptive sister. She’d learned that ‘love,’ was treated more like a disease, and that if Maeru were to play around with others for the mere sake of fun, and something were to..happen…
Well, things wouldn’t end well for her or the offspring, most likely.
“Maeru-neechan seems interested in you, for better or for worse.. I just want to see if I can figure out why. I guess, because of that..you’re a little interesting to me, too, right now.”
already, she had begun to speak a terrible amount -- enough words rolled off of her tongue to hit a sour spot. annoyance was easy to trigger with him; almost laughably so, & firing off chatter like machine gun rounds ( at least, in his mind, which held a low tolerance for any kind of extended conversation ) was one way to do it. his brows pinch together as she goes on -- & he can credit her to some degree for not being stupid enough to ask him for food of all things. that just would have given him a worse headache, & he would snapped at her harsher & hissed for her to go slaughter an animal herself -- & he finds himself letting a noise pass through his throat, roughing up his vocal chords as his gaze tosses itself aside.
of course it had involved maeru. she was the only one he bothered to speak more than one word to on a regular basis. why she hadn’t annoyed him, he didn’t full well understand -- but she did, & there wasn’t a change to that. although he understood this interest ellen had mentioned. he recalls asking her about it himself -- & he remembers her answer well enough. it minimalizes his headache only slightly, but his arms still cross themselves across his chest as he sighs through his nose, slow & with force to show irritation over the matter.
❝ so you have questions then. ❞ it doesn’t quite ring out as exactly deadpan, but there’s an exhale of air that comes with it -- it sounds as if getting through this conversation is akin to pulling his teeth out. ( questions were always so annoying, especially about himself. ) ❝ fine. get on with it. ❞
