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It was a fair question. They were all fair, pointed, reasonable questions. Every single one of them; points to take notes on and disseminate down into parts so he could parse them out and reply to her appropriately. Hearing her respond - not scream - not shout - just question, but hearing it come back out of someone else's mouth at him, instead of being spoken from his own? It did make him seem rather odd. An enigma with a death wish, maybe?

"Say you don't accept my offer?" the urge to hiss a sigh for that, and he held his hand up in pause. Ordered his thoughts better.

"With your family - I'll give you time, exactly two weeks worth of it. Offer your reassurances, tell them about Reynard Michael's and the St. Romanos school he works for. Say you've been offered a position even, fencing instructor, right? Tell them how you're a grown woman, and you'll visit oft and fondly, because it's just a 'trial' of a thing. Wanting for money, wanting to test your wings with a roommate who will seem so utterly benign at a glance..." a handwave at it all, handwave of her concerns, handwave over anything that could have been seen as concerning because he didn't have enough fear in himself to care if she could've been a threat or not. It was easier for him to do this with her. Keep her on the surface, offer her a place on its face - that she could come and go from freely - wasn't as if he didn't know where she lived, where she worked, and he wasn't going to be setting off into the annals of the castle to fetch her anytime he had a need.

Hated the place always, the barracks, and he had a semblance of a life in the eye of the public. Better to keep her there with him to make it all believable. Let some steel enter his voice, gave her a more stern look. "You will get them up to speed though, warm them quickly and get your affairs in order. I'll give you the information you'll need to make the changes seem imminent - address, phone numbers, etcetra." did sigh then, dropped the steel a little. Seemed to puzzle out something complex for all the lines that drew across his face briefly, looking at something inside his own mind.

"As for your acceptance of it all....Despite the new regimes preaching's of love, light and unity. Despite the fact that Senshi are no longer a 'magical commodity'; little better than pets? I know for a fact that there are enough old guard who still remain who remember how it was, that remember Charonite, like I do. They groomed us on starseeds, and the new ones on the snatching of snippets of energy in discreet well mannered ways. I wonder who, if not me, they would send to deal with the likes of you?" knew, could imagine, could fear. For all that the new kings and queens were kinder beings than before, brought from afar to reign in a new era. Despite the wealth of good they proposed. There was still the old to contend with. Bones not buried, carcass that lay fresh in the minds and traumas of all who had come into place years ago, years before. Those who still served and still held their resentments tightly, especially after all the death that had swept in the new.

"I am not your jailer, 'this', the offering of my home? It is not meant to be as a cage. I am simply a reminder that a cage does indeed exist, and along with it? The types of people who would gain great joy on seeing you in it, for they've grown bored with the new softness of things." seemed weary for it, exhaustive and exhausted with speaking. Rolled his shoulder and winced for the problem of that, settled instead on rubbing it as he looked her over. A shrug on his face, no apology, no offer of condolences, his look only said 'what did you expect', begged her for better options that took the glaive of the weighted blade off the back of his neck and the heel of his boot off of hers.

If she'd told him she would flee - if she'd told him anything - No, if she suddenly did decide after all this time to do something with herself that would bring true freedom for her and her families? He would've allowed it. Except he knew her type, he was her, in many ways. The worst ways. The ones that led one to sit in the pot and par boil rather than hop out. Hope and pray the chef never noticed it had a meal waiting in the wings. It all worked very well right up until one started talking about things, with people, and then found hand written missives on their desks not shortly after.

Of course she would argue her points. He had to wonder what sort of family she had that she would put up a resistance so vehemently against it all. Stern and sound arguments, every one, and he felt like he was throwing down with the pavement. How to explain the necessity of the swiftness of things, damn her need for relations...

Winced for the thought of that, the way it ran so easily through him to deny someone else the things he didn't have, because she too should've been fine without them; or was he jealous of her having them at all. At having a family worth arguing over to stay and express herself to? Worth staying with? He flailed on his loss of understanding for it and settled on annoyed. Breathed a sigh for hearing his legal name which sounded like the hiss he'd wanted to give.

"You're going to be insufferable about this aren't you? I'm willing to bargain you down to three weeks - it's not as if I'll be keeping you under lock and key - you can come and go, I encourage it even. That you pursue the semblance of your civilian life for the sake of maintaining a presence in the public eye..Makes you slightly harder to make vanish..." a humm of a thought, and maybe her family would be good for that.. No....no her family was a liability. Seperate and apart as she wished to keep them, an anchor, a sword of Damocles that could be held over her head and dropped at any moment.

"Reynard Michaels is strictly for them - legally speaking. So they may find me and absolve their worries at leisure. If we're going to be familiar with each other..though..Reed. I'd prefer Reed." pained huff for that, and he waved his hand at her briefly as she went over - what - her space? Her things? He was going to provide acceptable square footage for that, or hadn't he said as much?

This was going to turn out to be a headache. He could feel it. Could almost barely feel remorse for whatever he was causing to her, the upheaval of her everything, but such was the way of the Negaverse, always. Snatching children from their cradles - better than order for they allowed those children to reach tweenhood - but still, a habit of snatching without warning nonetheless.

Scrubbed at his eyes, and his head shot up along with his eyebrows at the mention of - of what - her needing to get to know him, as if that really mattered at all for any of it! Certainly not to him, who was he to care about who she was - someone who didn't deserve whatever worse things would be offered by someone else he was sure, and if she had habits, and if she was - annoying. It didn't matter either. He worked, he had hobbies, he could be busy and away from her. So long as she didn't touch his things and stayed out of his most personal spaces...

"I'm sorry but, what?" and he had to clarify that he'd heard her right. That she would require so much extra of him, sufficient explanations, and maybe him meeting them?! Meeting who, why?! "You need me to..to what? To be convincing to...and you wish to what? If it's concocting some semblance of a charade..." frustration and a clench of something other in his guts because hadn't this been his problem from the start. The bisection of needing someone in his home and not being ready for it, and needing to more than likely put her there so they wouldn't simply put her in a cage in the barracks. Show her reformed and functioning well so they wouldn't put him in there alongside her for an infraction of not following through. Not forever, not for him who had a place in the world, but for her who couldn’t leave once they had her?

"Just......for the record? I do not like it. Any of it. I didn't chose this? It's just the best option available to you, to me." showed his teeth like an animal and chided himself mentally for it, because he was better than that. "Fine though. You need to get to know me - to ‘spend time’ and ‘familiarize your surroundings'." he could've taken her tonight even, dead of dark, shown her around his home, a grand tour of sorts, extinguish her worries for that immediately so they could move onto the next steps as quickly as possible. "I accept. Even the challenge of meeting with them. To assure them that they're not handing their precious baby girl off to - whatever it is parents believe strange men to be. I can be charming when the need arises..." at least he thought he could be, maybe. At least he could be non-threatening, he was sure of that, when a civilian, nothing that stood out about him or raised alarms, he was sure of it.

“Alright” said the word like a defeat, like an acquiescence to her win - and while he had all of the power - in this? She had the high ground. He was tired and worn and ached, coffee sounded nice almost, a calming barrier to place between himself and her and smooth over his rankled nerves with. “Alright, I’m willing to try this again. Coffee is fine…we’re only halfway across town from your home, near the festival tree, there’s always something open around here.” Dropped his guise of power like a leaden thing, like shrugged weights. Lighter for it - and somehow worse off without the glamour to hide behind.

Reed stood and offered her his left hand instead, as his right shoulder was stiff and he could feel the refusal in it wanting to lift even high enough for that “Reynard Michaels, though I vastly prefer Reed. I’m twenty five now, though I joined at fourteen, am a captain of six years and agent of - it’ll be eleven years now? Soon. I work on and off at St. Romano’s occasionally. Officially as an adjunct when I’m away, and primarily as a professor of various sciences when I’m in the city.” And Reed sounded like he was reading off a resume rather than discussing any part of himself. A summary of a person that existed on paper and paper only - as I’d he didn’t care whether or not he was real, or relatable.

“You can ask what you wish, Mrs. Sonia, we’ll do the part - the parts with your family - your way.” And he was willing to do it, quelled the parts of him that wanted to give orders and make demands, because at least she had acknowledged the strenuous burden of it all, and because he didn’t want to spend the whole rest of the night arguing in circles. “Though I really don’t see what my…maleness? Has to do with any of it. I’m not courting you, or dragging you off to a cave to wed you, honestly.” Roll of his eyes for the statement. He’d fat more interest in plants than he had in people, he wasn’t trying to..

Whatever. It didn’t matter. So long as they came to an agreement.

The look she gave him got him to give up something of a smile, so she wasn’t one for formalities then? Fine. It’d be fun to do it a few more times maybe - errantly - tag on Ms. to her name every now and the to be annoying, obnoxiously proper with it all.

He wondered if letting others think otherwise would help, would it garner them a better outcome if people thought he had a paramour of sorts? Except he knew damned well he wouldn’t have been able to pull it off, no better than she would. “It’s entirely possible there is. All things considered.” One sided shrug because he’d lost so many he’d known, had watch them leave, purify, die…

“Leading, I’m leading….at least it’s nice out tonight…” solace and sigh in that as he turned heel and led. Felt on the back foot for all that she was giving him orders now, she offered to pay at least. Polite of her to extend the olive branch that way.