Re: The Cat: Rae and Kratos
Rae's smile was years and years of female calculation, distilled into one not-quite woman who tugged at the warp and weft of all that experience as deftly as any master. She'd not turned the full force of it on Kratos, merely a sliver and she let it bloom as he refilled the glass she'd barely put a dent in. It wouldn't touch her, not really. It took hard liquor and a lot of it to curdle her and she picked up the glass and put it to her lips once the flow of wine had been capped.
He adulterated his once again: it looked dreadful. She caught the glance in its turn, the pull of his mouth. For a man who lacked expression, he had tells. When he looked like anything, he felt something. His last wife, which implied more. She hadn't the idea that he was all that appealing to women in the broadest sense. Possibly the kind who liked to feel small, delicate. Rae was too fond of power to wish to be purposefully overpowered.
She knew, without knowing why that one of his marriages had issue. Oh, it was a talent, to know things - both what lay on the horizon (fuzzy, if you're asking) and to know the blood-lines. "A child," she remarked, "Hers?" She slid deftly from Norse to his tongue, darting as if to prove she could.