"Some people are meant to be led," she spoke, matter-of-factly. She rarely watched her tongue around most people - establishing either a partnership or an element of superiority over those around her - and she burdened herself less so with Skald, sparing no thought that he might take umbrage with her someday. She busied herself pointedly staring at her nails, lifted under the starlight, and turned them over until specks of gold within the red caught it and shimmered. They had an open honesty policy ... more or less. Didn't they? He hadn't balked at her yet. She cast a side eye back over to him, the camouflage of her manicure tending ineffective. "I'm not one of those, of course. I can't say I spare much pity for Pergrande. I like the castle. Whatever Ryuko does elsewhere rarely concerns me."
She twirled a finger before dropping both, looking forward over the dirt path and the trees that crept in from the cliffside at either side of them. She walked in a comfortable quiet to spare a knife-pointed ear for his words, mulling them over. He wasn't incorrect. She didn't know much about dragons - no one really seemed to, just harness or exploit their powers in whatever ways they could get their hands around - compared to Ryuko, at least. They were undoubtedly an ancient species. She had felt the power in that throne room, in the thrum of their language, and in the ... the heat radiating from the egg at her side. A vampiric fang nicked her tongue to keep it from nerves. "I thought ... her goal was obvious, no? What do you think we're doing today, Pinky? Why ... aren't we taking over the world?"
She shrugged. Being a ruler wasn't an abject interest nor disinterest. She wanted the power and the money and the adoration that came with it, but bureaucracy's work always seemed far more trouble than worth. She'll be at Ryuko's side as she ascends to whatever megalomaniacal being she's chasing ... and Karstaag's ... and Skald's. A quiet laugh, just a breeze through the willows. "I suppose we don't know for sure."
"And you are quite diplomatic, aren't you, my darling?" A hand would stray dangerously and play up his arm, running the back of her fingers over the side of his neck. Restraint was facetious in her vocabulary. She didn't make a habit of holding back her interest of him, around him, in the way that they ... reaffirmed it. Continually. Still, she was enjoying the night. She'd let her hand drop away with a tap, a derisive sound built playfully in her throat without finding an escape as her gaze roamed again. Steady amber trailed over the blanket of stars that had rolled over them in their discussion. Goodness. Civilization really did ruin all of this. People.
It was a good moment to get lost in, for what Skald dropped on her next needed her wistful to appropriately address. The truth be told: she struggled with empathy. It was a fight to feel for other people - and not one she often desired to fight at all. She'd sooner no longer care again. She was doing a fine job of it so far, every little poppet in her life tied to different strings and dancing a different tune for whatever boon she was playing them for ... and, yet, there was a vestige of something left in her onyx-encrusted heart. A glimmer of red in the depths of deepest darkness. A weakness; for the young and their struggling caretakers, something better left unexamined. And ... Skald, he wasn't bad company.
She shifted imperceptibly the bag closer to her side, bringing the egg where she could watch it from her peripherals. "My ...,"
She spoke soft, carefully, her first word of surprise coming with clear condolence. "That must ... have been hard." How did she do this? How did anyone? It felt gross, whatever feeling it was rising from her chest and rounding in her throat until she had the smallest biting - no, choking - sensation. She'd tut it away at a less fragile time, words failing. Words fail. She's not that kind of woman - that kind of monster - and she can't think of what to offer him. So she reaches out an arm again, and lays it this time without the salacious edge of her previous contact, and she rubs his shoulder. It only lasts briefly. Just a passing olive branch to his feelings and a closing of the curtain - the eyes - that laid open on his past, and she retracts it like a cat that dipped their paw in something strange and confusing.
"A-hem." He declared himself for her and this ... their ... the dragons, as well, and she averted her face and her eyes. They were lucky her stride couldn't overtake him; not with his legs just beating out the slender length of her own. "... What do you plan to name yours, Skald Ragnulf?" Did her voice sound tight? It evaporated, too, her body finding its comfortable frame again. Must have been the wind.