@astrummorte inquired: [ Aryin ] "You're not... scared of me?" || (in reference to their claws and sharp teeth)
Miri's fins pressed back, folding on top of each other so that the set of three each appeared more like one, pointed back towards the line of her neck, the crest of her spine. The gesture, troubled as it was, though shadowed in ways innate to Miranda's manners and very few else not already familiar with merfolk, came accompanied by a tensing of her mouth, the line of it going briefly rigid. This, more than the fins, was obscure. With the way her mouth was made, the tip up in the middle of her snout like that of a cat's, it made the gesture appear, even for a moment, like a smile she did not possess.
Well, she didn't see a reason to be scared. This was to such a point that she couldn't even tell what this other was referring to, eyes glancing over their form for a moment that answered none of her questions.
That was not so unusual, of course, in her common course of thought. All too familiar to her was the other who attempted to threaten her, to make some gesture to suggest her and the powers imbibed in her by her title should sway and falter to someone else's whims. That was common among the circles she ran in, the rich and powerful, the authoritative. Common too, was just how quickly they learned to regret that suggestion, how much they underestimated exactly what Miranda could do to rot the throne out from under them, to consume them whole. It was a talent of hers. She didn't have the name she had for no reason, or rather, she had been named for the virtue she was guaranteed to wield to full effectiveness.
Again, Miranda's eyes glanced them over again. There was some gesture made to the hands, but Miranda still didn't understand this. Their hands were like landfolk hands. Maybe the difference mattered between them to landfolk, maybe the gesture implied a cultural touchstone which Miranda herself could not and would not share. She still didn't get it. She saw claws, but that was all she saw. That was just normal, expected, and certainly when she waved her hands around no one took the presence of an essential tool as a threat. It wasn't even being held threateningly, with only one thumb with which to grasp, and nowhere near the full size and curvature which would have implied the thickness of the muscles in her hands to utilize them properly.
"Am I... intended to be scared?" Her voice was restrained, letting the rich undercurrent of sound, of the booming base of her vocal organs, echo out and through the air. An extra layer of certainty, of guarantee. Least of all because her own hands were held loosely to her chest, casual, unbuffered, each finger tipped with claws five inches long and wickedly curved like meat hooks.
