Welcome to Gaia! ::

Matasoga gave a small smile that didn't reach his eyes, though by now this wouldn't seem unusual. None of his smiles affected his eyes, anymore. This smile wasn't as sincere as either. He was now feeling tired, though the kind of weary that no amount of sleep would alleviate.
He walked her to her room and made sure that the placement of the tree was to her liking. "Goodnight, Leiko," he said, standing in her doorway.

Matasoga watched for a moment, but then it seemed to him as though he shouldn't interrupt her, so he slowly and quietly closed the door.
Standing in hall-like area before the three separators, he heard sounds of habitation. It wasn't so much a noise that he heard so much as the lack of complete silence offered by a room wholly uninhabited.
He openned the door to find his newest slave hadn't left.
((Enter Madame Vocaloid.))

((Sorry, and thanks for the adjustment. I found this the most direct way of adding you back into the story.))
He was a bit surprised that she was still in the manner. He had thought that she may have wandered off and escaped.
"Nothing that can't wait until later, if you're too tired," he said. He called Sergius and sent him away to get another package containing the outfit made for his slaves. He meanwhile waited in the doorway to see if she had slept enough or was ready to get up. It was rather late, but he could use someone that shared his sleeping schedule.

"Nothing," he said. "Though I was considering offering you a tour."
He wondered if any of his slaves was to share his schedule. He knew that Akima would, but somehow it was beyond his capacity to imagine sharing a warm cup of cider on the roof, pouring his heart out. He was sure that she would prefer guard duty and probably almost surely be better suited to it.
Maybe he should simply order one of them onto his schedule... He might. His nights had never been as cold and empty as they were now that she was gone. He'd have loved to convince himself that there was a replacement out there for her... But he knew better.
"Nothing that you need to get up for," he said wearily, another wave of melancholy suddenly upon him.

What was he to say? Not particularly? No? Never again? Rather he composed himself, for now.
"Nothing I can't live with," he said, which was at least half true.
"In any case, there's nothing for it," he said with an assuring and dismissive levity that was miles from sincere but sounded very authentic and convincing, as was his wont. It sometimes surprised him that even in the depths of his depression his lies were still so effortless and convincing.
He vaugely felt his arm lift, bent in the manner of one about to lead in the fashion of a courtly escort and heard a voice very much like his own say "Shall we?"
I suppose when I want to, I can make it appear as though it never happened, he mused from the part of himself, buried deeply, that he'd fallen into.

((I've gone through the tour countless times, and it's always very much the same. I do hope that you won't mind glazing over it, but you're welcome to ask the questions that she has if any. when he's finished talking about each floor. If not, then please just move on with a reaction post... Unless you insist on me giving the tour, yet again.))

The largely indifferent expression that he wore shifted not in the least, despite the inward answer that came immediately.
I was going to grab some of the photo albums, lock myself away in my room, drink myself delirious, probably smash at least some of the bottles against the wall, and hope no one hears me cry myself to sleep... How the mighty are fallen, eh?
But he didn't even blink. This one was less familiar than Leiko, so she would see no hint of his weakness... And that isn't the sort of thing he'd dream of saying to anyone, regardless.
"Oh... Not much, really. I'm on something of a late schedule," he said. "Perhaps some socialization, perhaps some music... Well, no. Scratch that. Just socialization," he said, seeming to muse over trifles, but it was so much deeper.
She was music to him. She was the other part to his songs. Without her accompaniment in the air and in his heart, the songs were just like him: incomplete mockeries of what they were supposed to be and had been. Empty, hollow, and utterly meaningless.
"And what about you?" he asked, not missing a beat.

((She knows that Matasoga isn't aware of her circumstances, creation, and reason for being, doesn't she? Or does she believe that he does, because of some indicating factor that I wasn't aware that she had.))
"Being needed," Matasoga began, his vast facade now being allowed to weaken "isn't all it's cracked up to be. Look at how many supposedly important men who would sleep forever just because they were no longer needed by someone, or in some cases by anyone."
His expression darkened as he continued, saying "I could tell you at least one tragic little tale of a man who learned all too late to look out for number one before he looked out for anyone else."
He stopped. What on earth was he doing? Telling a slave, whose task it was to serve him, to be more self-serving...Had his misery at last driven him mad? He stopped himself, hoping that his implication had been unclear.
"What I mean to say," he said, leaving his last point to hang, hoping that it was forgotten. "Is that if you are tired, then you are dismissed. If your sleeping habits are ordinary, then you very well may be."
((Just to note, it is later than you supposed. It's probably still much closer to sunset than it is to dawn, but we're a few hours into the night.))
"I have no specific tasks for you, tonight, so you're welcome to do as you like. I'll determine your task-set sometime tomorrow, most likely," he said, sounding a bit weary.