The sound of crackling ice wakes her quickly, pulling her from the half-doze that she had entered upon closing her amber eyes. Her expression sharpens in that moment, pulling back too fierce to be gentle and too present to be meek, but she does her best to wipe it away quickly—leaving her soft and sweet once more, pushing the truth of her away from her features nearly as fast as it had risen to the surface.
“Oh?” she says with a simper, angling her head into a nearly demure position. Pushing off from the tree, she stands straighter, noticing the slight weight from the brambles that have caught in her lengthening tail. Without saying anything else, her gaze flickers to his neck and the frost that covers it, the cold that rides down the young muscle of him. She notes lightly, as if in disinterest, even though she feels anything but.
Were she to know that she was being judged for how quickly she could hold his attention, she would gladly do everything in her power to do the opposite. She would become as boring and dull as possible, hiding the calculating sheen in her eyes and the coy smiles she loves so much when she plays pretend.
But she does not know and thus she can only be that which she is.
So she takes a step forward, looking into his orange eyes for a breath too long. Searching them, finding the molten core and then holding on as she feels that familiar sense of enthrallment.
“Tell me, stranger, what makes you think I am so interesting?”
She has no real need to hear the answer—after all, she herself has a wonderful idea of what makes her as interesting as she is—but she still likes to hear it. More so, she likes to know that she can compel someone to tell her should she want. That it is a weak control. That it is short-lived means little to her.
In the end, it’s the control that matters.
Any control.
but in all chaos, there is calculation