Harlow

Solal noted the flirty undertone in her speech, the slyness in her once-over of his body, but nothing in him gave. He was busy taking in her words, watching their formation and the source of their vexation. If it were any other woman he'd return the favour. With Freya, there was nothing to play with but fire.

She was lying through her teeth about the gloves, he knew it because she barely tried to dress up her little fiction better. She wanted a reaction out of him and at first, as always, it was working.

Anger rose and rose within him like a tidal wave, colours swam in his head, until the crash — never happened at all. There was no crescendo of that strain, but a simple fluttering down to the ground like the ash from a fizzled-out firework. A muscle in Solal's jaw moved, the only symptom left over from the repressed rage. He coasted a gaze over Freya's face and enjoyed the pulse of silence stretching as he let it, knowing that under seige, his self control might yet be finite but Caldwell's was irredeemably shorter. He broke the quiet with softened words, the first tenderness she'd come to be acquainted with, "It is easy to make anyone your villain, this way."

A glance at his sides revealed the hallway empty but for the two of them, two creatures of different polarity with hidden agendas, heavy secrets and dark talents. Solal had taken a deep breath. In the brevity of the moment, the calm that he rode on, he realised that though there was a cautionary gulf at their feet, it was all in how you mixed the two.

When his eyes faces Freya now, they are settled in a pacified gentle hue. No frosty words any longer, no icy rugged stare.

"But, it's... the gloves. They're the last memory I have of my mortal parents who raised me. So it was easy to come after you; easier now to misspeak." He pauses as if she'd sympathise with his allusion to having an unsolicited rage hard to contain. Although the man knows that she would recognise a morsel of truth in his words at least. "I heard once before that 'to err is human, to forgive divine.' We're made human that way."

He shook his head as though to drive home the point. His eyes tore away, and he blinked timidly. "I think I've spoken enough." Solal made to leave, but his broad shoulders and lean body moved differently — as though they had weights tied to every limb that bore him from her. He looked back.

"One last thing, Freya... Am I welcome to catch up with you in here tomorrow? That one regular of yours was a heap of help, made something much clearer. A development of sorts. And again, I'm.. sorry for what unfolded at the bar. I'll compensate for the damages."

“Hello, Freya. Didn't expect to see me again so soon, did you?” Solal greeted, as the redhead would take her time registering his presence by her door. The chaos that was the explosive conversation and backhanded spell he performed at the bar left a bad taste in his mouth, naturally, since he was all but still human. Human and then some, but there was no cure for regret but to kill it with patience.

“I do apologise for what happened. In your sleep, you said /something/ that interested me- my line of work isn't all what it seems but that's as far as I can let you in on. You understand the weight of secrets, now, don't you?”

He would begin inching over the threshold, knowing the spitfire wouldn't like that at all before the pull of an invisible force hauled his leg back. So he still had to be invited. Curse Rhiannon...

“You have something of mine. My gloves. You took them with you, and *I want them back*.”