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chapter six. the devil you know
"What it is you ... have to offer?"
Fallon's brow knitted together, speaking the words as if they held as much sense to her as a riddle.
Her eyes rested on the man before her as she acclimatised to her surroundings. He was handsome certainly, sturdy with an air of elegance to his posture. Perhaps on the face of another, his jaw would have been a mark of heroism, but set below a pair of cold hard eyes it read more as a manifestation of malevolence. He wore clothes of a finery not unlike Astarions, the scruff of his white collar peeking out like the scalloped edge of a shell. Around his waist was a band of iron, emblazoned with the thorned heads of three devilish figures. Its presence was not lost on her, even as she forced herself to fully meet his gaze.
"Yes! Certainly it's something that you mortals are coy to ask, which is why I prefer that you cut to the chase. Your life is so little, a grain of sand awaiting your turn down the slender curve of an hourglass. Tick tock, let's make our moments together count."
Every inch of her skin crawled as though beset with the brush of a thousand insect legs. Whoever the man was, he possessed powers far greater than he had displayed thus far. Indeed, he had torn her through the material of time and space to supplant her before him. As much as he demanded her to ask something of him, the matter of cost burned in the pit of her stomach. She would need to tread deftly with her words if she hoped to keep her skin.
"I still ... I still want to know who you are. And where I am." Fallon said, watching as he paced deliberately around the exterior of the dining hall. She would let her back be turned to him again. "It would help to know how to address you."
He arrived wordlessly at the chair opposite her, curling his fingers around the ornate wooden backing. Slowly he seated himself, the coals of his eyes resting firm on Fallon as a crescent moon of white formed below. She had never encountered one who breathed wickedness before, yet that was what he was doing. The man reached out a hand to gesture towards the chair in front of her.
"Please. Sit."
Fallon hesitated. Moments later the chair shot out from the table, halting just short of her legs. She gasped, flinching as she took a step back.
"I insist."
"Will you tell me your name if you do?"
"I'll tell you anything your heart desires. But please, you're a guest in my most humble of abodes." He stretched his arms outward, gesturing to the cavernous room around them. Fallon blocked the urge to follow the movement. "It would be rude to refuse an invitation to dine with a devil."
