- Messages
- 8
- Character Biography
- Link
As their Mistress gave her permission for them to stay behind and made her leave for the temple Kiyari would simply remain upon the dais. Listening, watching, timidly hunched and not speaking a word unless spoken to. Information was what they were there for, not to be seen, not to be heard, not to be a person, but oooooh was it all so boring and nonsensical.
Politics. Politics. Politics.
Even as Kiyari stared at the floor, expression utterly dull, did they tuck away mentions of places and people. Empress Medja. Xeraphine of Alliria. Amol-Kalit. Alliria. Like picking fruit from a thorny bush did Kiyari pluck out these bits of useful information from the bluster and displays of power. The size of armies, the grandeur of merchant fleets, the languishing of consorts and Kiyari half-expected the two women in the Valsharess's presence to begin listing off battles they had won in the next breathe, or fondle their goblets before making some sly remark that he could only barely follow.
His face scrunched as if he'd bitten into a rotten grape for only a heartbeat before settling back into dull passivity.
This was all much too complicated. Why not simply fight one another to display dominance? Blades, spells, tearing flesh, evisceration; those made statements. Ambition unchecked, that was what the umbral pits had whispered to them, as a virtue. Power. Though, he supposed numbly, power had many forms. It did not mean he had to like the chortling and proverbial breast-swinging going on.
But as the conversation turned toward retiring for the evening and other mundane matters Kiyari would simply walk away into the crowd of nobility. Small, hunched, dark as a living shadow, hopefully unnoticed, to gather what further information he could.
