@nightdraught ---- cont.!
artemis’s head slowly tilts. their eyebrows climb steadily up towards their hairline, disappearing behind a misplaced curl or two scattered over their forehead. pink eyes flicker, briefly, over to the warm glow of firelight before they land right back on the other human. his nerves, or whatever they are, are rather contagious.
their smile doesn’t quite slip off of their face but it does hedge into something a little more disbelieving.
❝ my employers. ❞ they repeat. ❝ i — … .❞
manicured nails lightly drum against the side of their teacup. a tell, if a quiet one, for well-masked anxiety. ❝ i know that they’re a faction of some of the most influential mages in the empire. ❞ and even to their own ears it sounds wary. ❝ growing steadily moreso by the day. i know that they pay me, and pay me well, to stay within my lane. ❞ ‘ where are you going with this ? ‘
Bribery. Though the confession ---- half-formed and hesitant as it may be, partially conjecture from what wasn't said as what was ---- does not surprise Caleb, what does is that it has apparently worked. What little he knows of the other, having come to seek them on curiosity, are tales of a surprising passion ---- for the arcane arts themselves, and for those under their tutelage. It was the latter, caught in whispers, that surprised him most ---- at least in his own days, the least of the Soltryce Academy's worries was that care from above was required.
What was ever-present then ---- and still held in their beliefs now, Astrid was proof of that as was the insidious, ever-powerful hand of the Assembly at their backs ---- was belief, duty with a fervor that overrode personal care, overrode the simple role of mentor into molder, shaper of thought and body and the magic that flowed through both. What little whispers the Nein had been able to glean ---- and the teacup in his hand, the walls of the other's home so clearly around him rather than one of the towers of the Candles ---- proved that there might well be something different here, someone that could be useful.
Maybe they would share everything if he were to speak again, maybe they would share nothing. Though there had been no formal discussion of a bribe to keep the unfamiliar wizard's mouth shut, Caleb's own pockets are not exactly empty ---- none too heavy, but perhaps enough to at least buy a night's worth of silence and a plan for the morning. He's aware of the subtle weight as he shifts, thumb catching the rim of the cup as he looks down into it. ❝ And do you, always? Stay... within what they ask of you? You have never been curious? ❞