we built this city on broken glass

He had already accepted, on some level, that Raven was one being he may never fully understand. The woman baffled him. Her demeanor, her manner of thinking, her very way of being was outside his own knowledge of how an individual might be given to exist. Some part of him near admired the woman for her ability to perceive the world as if she still believed it had some scrap of goodness left within it. As if a part of her, ultimately, still believed in the moral decency of the world or the idea that people were inherently good. Even after all she had suffered at the hands of others she believed in a way he could not, he would not and perhaps- once- had feared to do. It spoke of her strength in some fashion. Her fortitude was beyond perhaps any he had ever known before. Save for Tetradore. Perhaps, once, he might have been like her had he chosen a different path and yet it was far to late for such things now. She chose remorse and he chose revenge. That scrap of admiration he held for her overshadowed by that near equally potent belief that the woman was a fool. One who allowed the world to use her over and over again with her wretched beliefs that this time it would be different. That surely she would not be hurt again. She acted as if she was somehow seeking to atone for her perceived sins. As if she was the one who should apologise when the world should have apologised to her. As if what had happened to her defined her. Perhaps he was the way he was for those very same reasons and yet- at least he owned them. At least he knew what he was. The equine almost sure she was in denial about her own true self and yet what did it damn well matter? She had no desire for his help and he hardly cared to give it to her. Those quietly uttered words were hardly missed and yet this time he made no effort to correct her and that belief that you could hardly kill someone purposefully and still feel remorse. How little she knew.

A rough snort merely stirred from within him, dismissing her further ideas on her own righteousness. On this, it seemed, they would agree to disagree. Frost caring no longer for this conversation when it was surely wasted. The stallion instead choosing to fixate his attention upon those offered cookies as he bit into that gingerbread. It was well baked, if nothing else and yet his features remained that ever impassive canvas of devoid emotion. The only sound he cared to offer the singular crunching of that treat, the barest trickle of her thoughts tugging at his mind and yet he offered them little room to invade his consciousness. He did not care to know what she thought of him. He already knew. Just as he hardly cared to delve into her thoughts. He had already seen them and the darkness that lingered there. It was, however, that singular note of....pity that seemed to find her that saw the war horse pause. His violet gaze cutting sharply upward to eye her from beneath that snowy white forelock. His voice slicing like ice itself toward her then.

"I do not want your pity. Save it."

Their was little save coldness in those lyrics then. The only emotion that seemed to taint them one of frosted disdain and yet that too seemed to pass merely a moment later as that contented chewing finally invaded the silence left in the wake of those cold words all the same. Did she think him sad? Did she think him lonely? Maybe he had been once- but he was hardly those things any more. He had no time for those emotions. What good had they ever done him? God who had the time for all that....feeling. Frost oblivious in that moment the very fact that it was that very way of thinking that so made Raven pity him at all. The man whom hated the world so much he no longer believed in it. It was that soft comment the woman offered on her Father that prompted his own words once again. Frost snapping off another limb as he idly enjoyed that treat before assuring her he hardly cared for her Father's role in any of this nor did he have any intent on helping her rescue him or kill him or whatever foolish notions her mind had come up with. Her own tone setting firmly then. Hmm. So she did have a little bite when pressed enough. How intriguing. The stallion snorting softly once more as he reached for another cookie, the compliment on her cooking followed by those blunt, accented words.

"It would hardly matter to me if you were a damsel in distress. I wouldn't save you just as you would not save me. I don't care what your father knows or does not know and I have spent my entire life assuming I have more then my enemy does because it inclines them to believe that I do."

There was, perhaps, very few animals more capable than a horse of so convincing his enemies of one thing when he so intended to do another, Frost allowing his gaze to wander from the woman then to eye several of those artefacts littered about the room almost absentmindedly. His words were blunt perhaps and yet- at least they were not dishonest in any sense. Frost under no delusions about the woman's (rightful) dislike of him and his disdain for her in turn. The man content to keep this more about that business at hand even despite Raven's lack of ability in crafting those deals. Frost once more remaning as apathetic as always as he afforded her those new terms. That sudden...sympathy once more catching him off guard. Why did she care? Why did she try to care? That flicker of emotion dancing briefly across that guarded facade then before he managed to pull it aside. After all he had done to her she still....cared? Why? How? What was wrong with this woman? She professed to hate him, like she should, and yet within the same breath she asked if he needed help? Why could she not just hate him like she was supposed to? Frost hardly caring to deal with whatever tiny thread of emotion attempted to stir within him. That irritation surfacing once more as his gaze narrowed upon her in some effort to obliterate any remenenent of feeling about the woman. That cool nonchalance forced back into his voice once more.

"That is hardly your concern. I do not need your help.......thank you."

It was perhaps the smallest slither of politeness, one snapped sharply onto the fractured end of a frosted sentence. The barest glimpse of some ability for kindness and yet it was as fleeting as a summer snow itself. Frost instead listening with some vague intrigue as she offered him more money then he had initially requested, one eye lifting slightly in some surprise. She was exceedingly bad at making deals of any kind, the stallion holding some vague hope Tetradore did not send her whenever he dealt with any other packs and yet he supposed it mattered little now. The woman querying his honesty then. That, it seemed, the true gamble here. A bet she alone would need to decide to make. Frost eyeing her once more.

"I prefer the truth to lies. It is far more entertaining. As for our deal I will take your cookies but I do not want your help. Keep it. I don't need it. Fifty five thousand, I will tell you what the amulets do and how to activate them and you give me one of your choosing when I am done. I don't need them all- some are useless to me. Are we agreed?"

He paused, waiting for that one to consider that agreement before leaning back within his chair once more, one leg folding over the other then as he continued to regard her.

"Which one do you want to know off first?"

FrosT