Smooth Talking | Ari

[Cyrille LeFoux]

Cyrille had, in all of the excitement of a missing Prince and a drama-filled Prom, missed his chance to talk to the resident queen of mean, Aristeides. She was bound to take his conspicuous absence badly; so, after managing to not run in to her for a solid couple of weeks, he'd slipped into her room - thankfully shared with Gigi, who was as absent-minded as she was a social butterfly - and left a note for her. Gigi hadn't noticed a thing; they rarely talked, but it had been nice to catch up with someone from 'home', so to speak, even if it was under subterfuge. And maybe leaving Ari a note was a little close impertinent, but - well, either he'd come out of their little late-night meeting or he wouldn't. Cyrille wished for the third time that night that his gun was less conspicuous than it was; he'd love to have something on hand to defend himself with - lacking magic as he did.

In a little hollow space between two old trees, there was a stone bench. A little fountain stood off to one side, surrounded by flowers and mossy rocks, spitting water gracefully, powered by whatever magic most of the school ran on. Cyril sat on the bench and eyed the opening between the trees; blue and white flowers were draped along the trunks, and that was how he'd told Ari to recognize their meeting spot; a nod to one of her more...eye-catching features. Huffing out a breath of impatience, Cyrille wondered if she was going to show up; he'd been waiting fifteen minutes, at least! Even if he didn't particularly care about them, he did have classes to attend in the morning. He would give her five more minutes, the French sidekick decided, then he'd give it up for a lost cause.

tag: Aristeides -- note: nothing spooky about this, right?

[Aristeides]

Summoning Aristeides with a note after an extended absence was a terribly bad idea. A terribly bad but effective idea, because much as she did not want to be summoned with such impertinence, she also felt an overpowering need to go and explain to Cyrille exactly why he shouldn't have done what she did, and it made a lot more sense to go somewhere he'd already told her he was going to be rather than spend an age and wasting her precious time looking for him.

Still, she wasn't going to give him everything, so she allowed some time to pass beyond when he'd requested the meeting, just to make him wait. Eventually, she grew bored of waiting herself, and decided she wanted to know what he had to say for himself, so she made her way to the meeting spot, sweeping regally into the clearing. She'd been flying pretty high ever since prom, it was an utter delight watching those idiot good guys fall all to pieces looking for their friend, and nobody was messing with her in a hurry.

"Well?" She asked, stopping a few feet from him and placing her hands on her hips, quirking one eyebrow.

[Cyrille LeFoux]

Cyrille got to his feet as Ari strode into the clearing. (Well - more of a nook, actually. If it hadn't put him within ten feet of someone with a vengeful streak as wide as the Styx, he might even have called their little meeting place 'romantic'.) He held up his hands, low and held out, in a half-stalling, half-pleading way. "Listen, I got spooked by that disappearing fish. And my fight with the fairest prince; you can't blame me for wanting to lay low." Cyrille blurted out, in that rambling way he had when he got nervous - much like his father in that way, although Cyrille was privately happy he was less effusive with praise than his father. Gigi didn't need a toady like Gaston had needed LeFoux. Ari would certainly know what he was referencing; everyone knew about Eli - and presumably, most people had eventually heard about the fist-fight he'd had with James in the library.

Dark skin and black hair a contrast to her pale skin and blue locks, contrast highlighted by the moonlight filtering through the trees hiding them from passersby, the Frenchman drew closer to Aristeides. He might not have the innate, snake-like charm of the handsomely gawky Louis, but he had picked up a thing or two at Seacombe - enough, he hoped, to keep his skin intact. Girls could be unpredictable; villainesses even more than princesses. So he knew he had to tread carefully; he was on thin ice. Cyrille smiled at Ari, hands spreading out from his calming gesture to one of supplication.

"I didn't want to risk drawing more attention to myself...or to you, and whatever you were cooking up. That would have been bad planning." Cy dropped his hands to his sides, holding them there loosely - not much he could do if she tried to turn him into a pumpkin, but he felt better for trying. "You understand, don't you?"

tag: Aristeides

[Aristeides]

Aristeides just watched him impassively while he babbled his excuses, he definitely took the right track trying to make it sound like he was just thinking of her, but she wasn't about to give in that easily, she didn't want him to think she was a pushover after all.

"Understand?" she repeated coldly, "Understand your cowardice? Your disloyalty? How am I supposed to rely on you for anything if you go to ground the second there's any trouble? I thought you were supposed to be better than that, you were supposed to be useful to me, there's nothing useful about disappearing when things start to go wrong."

As she spoke, there were cracks in her calm tone that revealed the anger underneath, her volume increased and by the end of her little speech her voice was ringing across the clearing, causing a flock of nearby birds to flee into the sky.

[Cyrille LeFoux]

The cold, unforgiving tone of her voice made him wonder if he'd made a mis-step he couldn't recover from...either in his excuses or in calling her out to the clearing. He almost laughed at her; his cowardice? That was pragmatism; he was being realistic! He didn't want to get pulled down with her and Louis if they got caught; no doubt they'd try to throw him to the wolves if they could, to save their own skins, or just get them some extra time to clean up their tracks.

Cyrille kept his insulted amusement in check; Aristeides did raise a good point; he also wasn't going to get anywhere if he laid low every time some goody-two-shoes cried the alarm. He would have to temper his natural inclination for safety, then, with some borrowed bravery...or, perhaps, fear at the rising tide of anger he could see almost swamping Ari's tight control over herself. Yes, he thought, fear would do nicely when his bravery failed him.

"There's nothing I can do for you kicked out of Seacombe, either." He pointed out, voice quiet, quieter than it had been before, as if he hoped to coax Ari down - hoping his argumentative words would be the death of him. Who knew what Ari could do when she was really angry? He certainly didn't want to be the one to find out that she had her fathers' connection with death if her temper got too hot. Already he'd flinched away from her angered shouts. "I need information to be useful." He pressed. "And protection. I can take care of myself in a fight, but even the council will notice something if I get caught somewhere I have no business being - I'm only a sidekick, after all." The last was said with a bitter twist to Cyrille's mouth; being a sidekick at Seacombe had its' advantages; people looked the other way on certain actions...and, like everything else, it too had its' disadvantages.

Aristeides

[Aristeides]

"So now you need me to protect you as well?" Ari shot back, throwing her hands up in disgust. His words were true, she had to admit that, but she wasn't about to do so out loud, if anything it made her angrier that he was making such reasonable arguments.

She turned away from him, trying to hide just how angry she was, the fire glowing in her eyes. Her hair may not be able to explode into flames the way it used to, but there were still some obvious signs that she was fighting hard to keep herself in check. Was it getting warm out here?

"So, did you call me back here just to tell me what I'm doing wrong?" she asked without looking round, tone dangerous "Or is this your attempt to beg for forgiveness? If you intend to work for me again you better give me one good reason why I should trust you."

Not that she would trust him, she didn't trust anybody.

[Cyrille LeFoux]

Cyrille let the wounded scowl show on his face as she gestured widely with her hands. "I can protect myself from most things, Ari. I need your help to protect me from people who don't care about fists and sneakiness." He retorted, defensive. He was 'only' a sidekick in Seacombe's eyes, but dang it, he had his pride too! Not much, but enough to bristle when a pretty girl above his station sneered at him. As if Aristedies didn't have her own weaknesses! Everyone had some, and, he told himself, it was unfair of her to pretend he'd need to be perfect. Granted, he didn't exactly know what her weaknesses were, but the somewhat-clever Frenchman figured he could find out, given time.

Now that she'd quieted a little - maybe she'd realized that, while it was the dead of night, that didn't mean people magically went deaf - he raised his voice back to a normal, if quiet, speaking level. He moved after her as she turned away, intending to catch her arm and stop her from storming off; only half a step later he paused in the motion to frown. Was it suddenly a little warmer near her? Stopping where he was as his animal hindbrain warned him of danger, the magicless young man sighed and studied the back of her head for a minute. At least she wasn't literally smoking.

"I didn't call you here to tell you what you did wrong. Mostly." Cyrille corrected, softly. Hands loosely bundled into his pockets, he hoped to project the same aura of 'please don't eat me' that a rabbit might. Hopefully it wouldprotect him from the fallout his next words would no doubt bring crashing down upon their tranquil little midnight nook. "You don't trust anyone, and don't lie to me and say you do; everyone with brains to rub together could tell you're lying. You're a villain; none us trust anyone easily, and certainly not someone who betrayed them and disappeared." There; it was out of his mouth and off his chest. "But I still want to work for you. You aren't stupid, and you have connections to other kids in the school that I don't." The truth rang in his words; he just hoped he wouldn't fry for them. Now, the bargaining chip; something to make him look useful to her. "Ask Louis; he knows I can get into places other people can't. I'm still useful."

Aristeides

[Aristeides]

Ari was ready to cut him loose and reject his request after he admitted he did need her help (since of course that was the only part she paid attention to) and his smug little 'mostly', and she couldn't decide if his bluntness about her honesty (or lack thereof) was intelligent or impudent. It certainly didn't help that his dip into being complimentary was... not particularly overwhelming for someone who expected worship. Overall, he wasn't painting the best of pictures, but her rage was in check just enough to realise something important.

He was right.

Oh, not about everything of course, she was too arrogant to concede a lot of that, but the part where he could still make himself useful. The unspoken additional that she couldn't avoid was that she sort of needed him too. What was a villain, what was a goddess, without followers? She could do an awful lot for herself, but every evil empire started with a single person, and if she couldn't even keep that, how was she supposed to gain others? She could already feel her grip slipping on Louis, he was far too enamoured of the fish girl to really be a useful ally when push came to shove, she needed more loyalty - and while she wasn't sure she could trust Cyrille to be loyal to her, she was at least fairly confident that his first interest was to save himself, and she was certain enough about that to be able to use it.

"Fine," she finally ground out, spinning on her heel to face him and leaning in, tone dangerous "But betray me or run off again, and believe me, they won't even be able to find the charred remains of your body."