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Loose Ends
#3
As she waited she watched the trading floor, internally revising the various paths of her actions, painting and repainting her understanding of just exactly what Jai had done, which still had vague blurs amidst the clarity. Her posture never softened, despite the moment being as close to a silent respite as she had had all morning. No matter how she tried to bring closure to the matter in her mind – and securing these funds should be an end to it – her thoughts thrummed ceaselessly, sorting through every fragmentary piece of knowledge like it might suddenly shine through an epiphany. It only irritated her further. Coldness permeated her aura; she thought she might be intimidating the man sat opposite, who had been nothing but polite this whole time. She had never heard so many sequentially reverent “Accepted’s” in all her life, and now that the preliminary interview was over with nothing to fill the time waiting, he seemed uncomfortable to be left with her uncompromising silence. And that was just tough.

Nythadri spotted him long before the clerk’s superfluous introduction; it was hardly difficult to identify the lord in his manor, after all. And in watching his approach, punctuated by so many seeking his attention, she had plenty of time to study. His very manner oozed the confidence of a man in his element. And as he drew ever closer, she saw how much he looked like Jai, if Jai were to play the consummate business man. Straight-laced, stiff-backed, serious-faced. The menacing height of the north, the strong breadth of shoulders. He shared the sleeve-tugging habit, as well as that unmistakable intensity. Definitely the intensity; in fact it might be said it was something Jai appeared to share of his brother, rather than the other way around. It was certainly a word that claimed ownership over her initial perception of Zakar; every action serving precise function, every flicker of his gaze set with iron-cast purpose. Nythadri could not imagine a smirk softening the solemn set of his mouth, nor any flashes of boyishness breaking against such a cool exterior. If Jai was a man in constant flux, then Zakar was cast concrete in reason. Not a man to mess with. Not a man to mess with. Except she could already feel the faint urges to test the edges of his austerity.

When he studied her, it was akin to the analysis one gave to insects splayed under glass. Detached, but single-mindedly curious. The question, then: was he the type to scrutinise every new patron so thoroughly? Impossible to answer, easy to hope. Does it mean he knows something? The courtesies he extended were quite obviously rote, all the right sounds and inflections but with all the warmth of ice. Nothing in his persona indicated unusual interest, except the lingering of his presence. A busy man; she had already witnessed that. So was it her Tower affiliation, or something else?

She answered the questions patiently, despite their repetitiveness. It seemed unlikely Zakar would employ men he did not trust to do their job, nor did he seem a man uncomfortable with stark silence. She crossed her legs, idly smoothing the snowy fabric; the first vestiges of implied boredom, coupled carefully with a gaze that did not flicker its attention. Then he dismissed his shadow and her accountant both, with a faint tilt of his head. And her interest renewed, despite the mundane nature of topic pursued. The careful creep of his tread began to itch at her; that still uncertain precipice between watching the moves play out and making her own. “I’m of the White Tower. My heritage is negligible really.”
An answer designed to frustrate; non-committal to the obvious. A smirk quirked the edges of her lips; the first hint of smile… well, probably since she had left the Tower hours ago. Only it was not quite the smile intended to set one at ease.

Ellis? This name was new to her. A gentleman on the director’s board of the same bank from which Jai had secured the funds gifted to her family. The missing link between Lynn and Kojima. Perhaps that was not so strange; Jai would have had to engage some third party in order to distance himself from the trail; why not an old colleague of his family’s business? But what import did any of that have to Zakar? Clearly he knew something of the intrigue in Caemlyn, as well as his brother’s involvement. He wouldn’t still be here otherwise. But… light, what was she missing?

“Accents are not so difficult to change.”
So long as Zakar’s establishment did its job and protected the funds in its care she had no secrets she cared to keep from him, if she did not entirely appreciate his round about tact of interrogation. “But I gather that’s rather beside the point.”
To gamble or not? She’d come to the Kojimas for a reason, if she’d planned to be subtle with it. Except, now that she was here, impatience tempered the desire to be careful. She'd chosen Green after all, not Blue, and rather revelled in the thrill of risk. A short sigh and a heavenward glance; saidar rippled soothing tendrils as she cast an invisible net about them, soundproofing the remains of the conversation. “Do you mind terribly if I make this easy? Not that I doubt sparring words would be interesting for us both. To put it plainly, my only concern is the security of this light-forsaken money. I’ll assume you are aware of the waves in Caemlyn. I’ll also assume your picture of what happened, what Jai did, is as fractured as mine. You have questions? I’ll answer them, to the best of my ability. But if you ask them, Zakar Kojima, then you’ll promise me to do everything within your power to keep that coin safe from those who might come searching for it.”
A pause. He would want to know what she knew, of that she was fairly sure, but he seemed a man more accustom to dealing in subtleties than transparency. Her forthrightness might work against her in that case, she couldn’t be sure. But he was fishing, and she never did well as meek bait, nor as a prescribed game piece on a board. If he expected the glib riposte of a Tower woman, then he got the opposite. Sometimes others found that the more disconcerting. “You can speak freely. No one can hear you. And there are no strings here—”
words cut by a wry smile “—whether or not you choose to believe it.”

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Messages In This Thread
[No subject] - by Natalie Grey - 01-20-2018, 05:21 PM
RE: Loose Ends - by Jay Carpenter - 01-22-2018, 01:32 PM
[No subject] - by Natalie Grey - 01-23-2018, 03:08 PM
RE: Loose Ends - by Jay Carpenter - 01-23-2018, 10:09 PM
[No subject] - by Natalie Grey - 01-25-2018, 01:46 PM
RE: Loose Ends - by Jay Carpenter - 01-29-2018, 02:55 PM
[No subject] - by Natalie Grey - 02-01-2018, 04:44 AM
RE: Loose Ends - by Jay Carpenter - 02-06-2018, 08:47 PM
[No subject] - by Natalie Grey - 02-11-2018, 01:12 PM

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