Phaedra had her side to Peter when he growled, hands busy with the task of making the water into coffee. He likely did not see it, but his growl made her stop what she was doing, and as she stared at the wall behind the stove, her eyes glowed an otherworldly green. She did not turn around until the feeling that went with that--the desire to bite and rip and make someone bleed--was dead. The impulse passed fairly quickly.
... I try not to get my ass kicked by cowboys with gills.
When Peter started cursing, Phaedra did not blush. She'd done similar things since finding herself in this situation. In fact, all his blue streak did was make her feel for him, and make her annoyed at how fucking terrible his pronunciation of her language was. Is that what three centuries had done to Roma? Tsk.
In another second, Phaedra'd put the pot and the cup down. They sat on the top of the stove for the moment, waiting for a time when Peter might be a little bit calmer.
Since Peter was still butchering her language, Phaedra decided to intervene. It seemed like he needed a bit of that, and unfortunately, his anger at the situation--while logical--wasn't something either of them actually had time for. Not on this planet. Not somewhere where they seemed happy to beat him for little to no reason, and where Phaedra'd been hung.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, then strode over to her chair, grabbing it in one hand. Her movements were very smooth, and her actions very deliberate. She wasn't threatening, she was simply graceful--a little too graceful. Once she had the chair, Phaedra went to the other side of the table and pulled Peter's chair away from it, then set her chair down, back to him, and sat mirroring how he sat--leaned against the back of the chair, leg on either side. She removed any distance that might stop the words from getting through.
At least, that was why she told herself she was doing what she was doing.
Now, face to face, it was really difficult not to see Nicolai, but the anger and frustration on Peter's face trumped seeing a dead boy she'd known in the 1940s.
"Besh! Sako peskero charo dikhel*," she said. Her accent made the words sound slightly different than they might've to Peter in the past, but he'd understand her easily. And it was something she was sure he'd heard before. "Gadje, *everyone* here has problems they need to address back home. Everyone was taken."
At this point, she didn't care if he knew she could read minds.
"I came here from York," she said. "Pennsylvania. I was guarding someone." The absence of anyone else in the room made the point for her. "There are people I care about, that are lost, and I have to be here, in a fucking cage."
Her eyes changed again, at the thought. She didn't look away from him. They would go back to their normal green in a moment.
"I am very sorry you're here. You may never actually understand how sorry. But you are here. And this time, we don't get to run."
Because that had been her answer to things, too.
"Fuck the cowboys with gills. They aren't the problem. You focus on the problem. You let us help you do that. You let me help you do that."
She stood up for a second and moved at vampire speed to retrieve the coffee, then set it next to him on the table. In her movement, she no longer cared if she accidentally touched Peter. Her arm slid past him, and her waist.
"Kafa," she said, unceremoniously. Then she sat back down facing him.
Sitting this close, the smell of blood was more powerful. She sighed. Phaedra put a hand on Peter's shoulder, then the other hand on the other. Her movements were deliberately slow so that if he really cared to, he could stop her. Once she had the leverage, she pushed him away from the chair so she could see the front of his body.
For a moment, she looked like she'd been slapped. There was an exhale that sounded like an "ach," an expression of superior frustration. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft, and almost a caress.
"Ves'tacha.*" A shake of her head went with it. ---- *Sit! everybody sees only their own dish/ie, can't see the forest for the trees. Coffee. Sweetheart.