please always trust - i do as i must
Maybe he'd feel a little better about the whole not-quite-sordid-but-also-not-quite-not affair if he'd been simply left there, nigh forgotten, rather than being admitted personally. All down to his own initiative, one supposes.
Melia's retainers are gone, and he hadn't seen her send them away. Does she do this often?
It would make enough sense. Nia shoves him away quite often, when she doesn't need an appropriately stimulating coat of white fur into which to bury her hand when she's thinking about something (or trying not to, as the case may be).
He knows they are similar. For all they may have taken overly circuitous routes to arrive at the same personality, in war, Dromarch knows that his lady and his hostess have ended up in this bloody bout because of parallels, or the lack of them. Do they want assimilation? Do they just want something better to do with their time?
Truth be told, he hasn't seen all that many High Entia around. No, they're vastly outnumbered by the Homs and Machina contingents (leaving the Nopon aside). Is that why she is in charge? Or is there a deeper reason?
"You are welcome to the view from our palace gardens."
Melia is the first one to speak, and already she is offering convenient diversion.
So Dromarch fences back. "You would invite me, the retainer of your sworn enemy, to your personal villa? I do not trust it."
She must know that he is not one to keep secrets - not, say, as Azurda had.
And, he wants to think that he has seen her smile, only the slightest of motions, but of course he cannot. The mask is on. Its lips, full and firm, do not move. They will not ever move. They are meant to capture solidity and rigidity in a way that organic beings, even such as Blades like himself, never can.
"As you wish." She does not address him. He does not address her.
Well then. On to the point. That is to say, on to whatever he's thought to say next, because he's entirely forgotten why he came.
"With my lady...I have found that there are certain circumstances in one's life that necessitate what is called 'character development' - I mean no disrespect, no impertinence, Lady Melia, when I ask: surely you have heard of it?"
Melia scoffs, and the hem of her gown rustles in that perfectly inertially circular pattern as she turns and strides to the window. "Of course I have heard of it. Do not think, Sir Dromarch, that just because I am set in my ways that I am a stranger to change."
Her tone softens. Dromarch considers padding towards her, but thinks better of it. If it were Nia before him, even with all of her decades of precious character development, this might be the point where she would whirl on him with a flash in her eye and a claw in her palm.
"I have seen much, in my life. All High Entia do. Our lives, proceeding at a rate of conversion of about five factors, in comparison to Homs' lives, are filled with so many more images, so many more experiences, so many more challenges and opportunities, and we must develop to consume them all."
Dromarch notes the choice of word, duly. Consumption, indeed. This war lays waste to land like an inanimate, unfeeling famine. It is...unstoppable.
Perhaps he should have come another day. Or, perhaps...perhaps he should not have come at all. What was he hoping to achieve? What does he ever hope to achieve?
There's nothing for it. These women he walks among, nearly underneath their ever-more-purposeful regal feet (some with stiletto, some with geta), are, much as he hates to admit it, operating at levels far beyond that of a simple Beast Blade. He may be wise, and know much about water and flora, but his admonishing counsel is, and has been, only ever so good.
What they want, now...it is beyond him. Maybe it is beyond them, too. And do they know it?
The room is silent. Melia's hands are folded, yet demurely; they do not clench.
"Lady Melia?"
There is a click coming from the general vicinity of her throat, at the prompt.
"Oh, yes. I know of character development. I know sacrifice, and coming of age, and the greater good, and the even greater evil."
Dromarch stiffens, hoping that Melia will not be so observant as to notice the general shrinkage of his silhouette.
"It used to be a joke. But I have come to the point where I cannot find the humor in jokes, anymore. Who has the time? It's so...off-color."
She knows of the theme of growth and change, but these specific modes? They are her friends, and then again her enemies.
"What they said was true - Teelan, and Shulk, and Fiora."
Dromarch knows of Teelan. He doesn't know about these others. See, there? Maybe he should.
Maybe the friendly furball has officially prowled past his prime.
Now Melia turns, as expected (she might just as likely have sent him out of the room without a further glance, however), and though the motion is slow, leveled, measured, but so certainly not calculated, there's a tremor in it.
For a moment, Dromarch sees the shorter hair and lighter colors of youth, with an open face instead of a bare sternum, the collar a decoration instead of a chokehold around the throat.
"If I had to go through any more character development, they teased," and she sizzles the verb's consonance with a terrible venom in her voice, "my character would simply develop into a villain."
It'd be the only logical, possible, conclusion.
"So you see?"
Off comes the mask. Melia, too, seems to have Agnus's signature world-weared creased undereyes. Incredible. And, then again, not so.
"It's not my fault, is it? I'm only a victim of...the plot."
Dromarch takes this revelation in hand - in paw, as it were - and toys with it. Melia Antiqua of Imperial Alcamoth (empress, queen, whichever, it matters not, they array all titles, infinitum) is not stupid. She is not willful. She is not complacent. He simply cannot believe these things of her.
He does not know of Guernica Vandham's plaints, of course. He centers the conflict here, and needs must pounce upon it.
He is, oh, terribly unsatisfied with the ungamely schoolgirl slap of her words.
"And if you had your druthers, Lady Melia, would you tell me a nicer story, a tale fit for bedtime and comfort?"
Now he can see her smile. Ah, yes.
"Perhaps, Sir Dromarch. Perhaps I would not."