[It is slightly difficult to see when Hayame raises an eyebrow in doubt at what someone else says when much of the left side of her face is covered with a leather eyepatch, but she does it anyway, as if she continues to forget (no, deny) that she is missing that ocular organ.]
Then that is not a friendship.
[She pretends, likewise, that she understands what it is to be a friend- something she has never had and never pursued. The closest Hayame had ever known was hearing the occasional ballad or epic tale of warriors who were brothers in arms, because there was no room for weaknesses such as that in the breeding stable she had been raised in, but in the stories... they were equal, were they not? "Friends".
And it was true that despite how much he'd seemed to try and know about her... No, there had been that moment in the stables when he had hinted at something, but beyond that... he was all smiles and jokes, not what she would call honesty. (Not that she could talk... but she wasn't the one trying to claim people as friends.)
What he reveals so casually, though...]
- a noble.
[She repeats it to herself disdainfully, her lips pursing thin. She knew what nobles were like. The men who showed up for Exhibition and Auction Day, lounging as others hurried around to tend to their every whim, simpering and subservient. The ones who used the Armless behind the stables to "sample" what they might purchase. The ones who leered and ran their hands over her body to inspect her teeth, her hooves, her accursed womanhood.
It explained his silver tongue, but-]
Of course he is a noble.
[Her thin lips curl into a sneer, her poor opinion of such people (the people she had been raised all her life to eventually serve) grown obvious.]
Something he conveniently forgot to mention. But perhaps you are right. Men of such means do so enjoy each other's company.
[And she is offended enough by his silence to spitefully entertain the belief that such a bond might mean that Claude felt some sort of kinship with the foul elf she now called Vern.]
no subject
Then that is not a friendship.
[She pretends, likewise, that she understands what it is to be a friend- something she has never had and never pursued. The closest Hayame had ever known was hearing the occasional ballad or epic tale of warriors who were brothers in arms, because there was no room for weaknesses such as that in the breeding stable she had been raised in, but in the stories... they were equal, were they not? "Friends".
And it was true that despite how much he'd seemed to try and know about her... No, there had been that moment in the stables when he had hinted at something, but beyond that... he was all smiles and jokes, not what she would call honesty. (Not that she could talk... but she wasn't the one trying to claim people as friends.)
What he reveals so casually, though...]
- a noble.
[She repeats it to herself disdainfully, her lips pursing thin. She knew what nobles were like. The men who showed up for Exhibition and Auction Day, lounging as others hurried around to tend to their every whim, simpering and subservient. The ones who used the Armless behind the stables to "sample" what they might purchase. The ones who leered and ran their hands over her body to inspect her teeth, her hooves, her accursed womanhood.
It explained his silver tongue, but-]
Of course he is a noble.
[Her thin lips curl into a sneer, her poor opinion of such people (the people she had been raised all her life to eventually serve) grown obvious.]
Something he conveniently forgot to mention. But perhaps you are right. Men of such means do so enjoy each other's company.
[And she is offended enough by his silence to spitefully entertain the belief that such a bond might mean that Claude felt some sort of kinship with the foul elf she now called Vern.]