Matteo

It's tough to be a god

The young womans very insistence, despite herself, that he could not be any less himself even if he tried so readily prompted that touch of a simper to his lips all the same. Matteo unable to deny the amusement he took from the words if only for the sheer truth of them. Harley not the first to have observed that very tendency he so had to be exactly the being so expected of him each and every time and yet, ina way he had come to near adore, Harley was perhaps the most direct about it. Some of her fighting spirit, it seemed, remained entirely intact. A little beaten perhaps, a little broken and chipped and in need of that metaphorical glue and string he had so long been using to piece Aiden back together- but still there. That very notion alone settling at ease within himself a veritable niggling doubt of sorts he had been almost unaware had existed. He had anticipated Harley would be stronger than most, then so many that had come before her and yet to see proof of it all the same was further reconciling for his own concerns. Hidden from view though they were and nestled within the very depths of his own soul.

Matteo gestured smoothly towards the coffee and cake laid out upon the table, a pre-dinner snack of sorts and yet one designed to be wholly tempting to her exhausted, starved figure. Coffee and sugar veritable cravings the woman was sure to have experienced within those two days of torment. Neither so rich as to afflict her damaged system negatively and by that notion he was wholly content to present them to her. That near baffled defiance upon her features was hardly missed and yet, for now at least, the Frenchman so little need to goad at her, even despite the veritable presentation of the very words that might allow him just that. The ancient Fae, instead, affording her that near abject honesty of just exactly why he was here. There was a time for teasing after all, that banter between them by far some of the most glorious he had ever experienced and yet too- it was....important, in another fashion, that she understood just why he was here. Truly here. If he had learned anything in those tumultuous years of raising his own son beneath the press of that woman's thumb it was most surely that providing that assurance that someone cared was far more critical then he suspected even Harley herself so understood here and now. One day, perhaps, she would understand his intentions and if she did not- maybe they might fight about it then. The very thought of that verbal brawl in itself wholly satisfying.

Her next words were very near baiting, Matteo glancing away from that stove to meet her violet gaze, even if only briefly. Harley veritably searching for the fight, as if seeking to have him admit he had seen the depths of her torment, before, during and after the fact. Matteo distinctly careful in his choice words then. How to explain those visions? How to explain the future and its ever changing nature? Even after twenty years he was near assured even Aiden did not understand just how that affinity worked and why there were was it simply could not be used in turn. How terribly fickle that future was. How lined with traps and pitfalls and nightmares that might so easily set a path in motion so never designed to be. One Matteo himself need pay the price for in that eternal check and balance of the universe. Aiden had long since come to....accept that Future Sight and yet whether or not he fully understood still remained to be seen. Harley perhaps equally as uninclined to understand in much the same way Raven had been as to why he simply could not....save them all from those fates that awaited. After all, at the very heart of the manner, he surely could. Yet the price to change the fate of another in so great a way was....costly near beyond measure. Hmm. Later, perhaps, he might yet make a more potent effort to have Harley understand. The Frenchman, for now, merely admitting that he had both enjoyed and found disdain in that aforementioned 'show' all at once. For twenty years he had watched his own son suffer at the hands of vampires and yet, to watch Harley suffer in turn had certainly become no easier. Had he truly been foolish enough to hope for some measure of...apathy? Two thousand years of life and his emotions remained as potent as they always had. Alexander was right. He always had been...soft. His words, in the least, managing to prompt that touch of a simper to Harley's own lips at the memory. That spark of life returned to her own lyrics.

"That, Mon Cherie, I believe entirely. The vampire breed is not used to being told no. It does them some good to hear it every now and then."

Risque had not been accustomed to being told 'no' even within her human years. How very curious it was, that such a memory might find him here and now, dancing upon the very periphery of his thoughts after having remained unviewed for centuries. He remembered that party, the chateau, the Lord of Bernard. A party Matteo himself had not even been invited too such was its exclusivity and yet...she had convinced him to go. Appear as if they were invited, Risque had said, and the rest of the world would act as if they were. They will not say no to me, Teo. Her voice had been far less....heavy then. Filled with life and impish delight and that singular assurance that she knew they would not refuse her. Matteo wholly quick to dismiss that very memory along with that nickname of sorts he had not thought on in so very long it near surprised him to consider it at all. Teo. It had been...centuries since he had been Teo. Only Risque and his own mother ever having offered that moniker. The Fenchman caring to think on niether now. Harley's near shaking steps so readily prompted his gaze toward her once more. Matteo so silently contemplating that damage. Her bitten shoulder likely to be the source of most of that discomfort and yet, with that food, her healing would rapidly begin to repair it. That sudden stumble readily prompted the Frenchman into action. Matteo stepping away from that stove hurriedly in some effort to catch the young woman before she fell, Harley quick to grasp that table in turn and keep herself upright. The Fae so letting his hand fall back to his side, his features rearranged near hurriedly to prevent her so witnessing that concern upon them once more as she cursed her own legs. That very act coaxing a chuckle from within himself once more.

"Mon Cher, I think they have carried you this far in life, perhaps they deserve a little credit. Besides- they are nice legs. I know. I have looked."

One eye arched but briefly upward. Matteo so daring then to allow that conversation to shift, ever so slightly, back toward that veritable norm for them. That tireless, flirtatious banter. His words distinctly true, after all. Harley had rather exemplary legs. Even in that exhausted state. The Frenchman simply seeking to return so sense of....normalcy to her otherwise shattered evening. Her insistence she was determined to glare at him all the same was met with that simple roll of his eyes and yet he saw little need to argue. To offer himself as a focal point for her irritation, her rage, her despondency was far, far better then allowing those very emotions to fester and rot away at her inside until they became near...septic in the way She had. All those years ago. That corruption having spread with more viralance then the Plague ever had. No, it was far better Harley unleash those emotions then allow them to stagnate. Better still that she release them towards himself rather then attempt to take on Darcy once more. There would be time enough for that later. A few bites of that cake, it seemed, prompted at least some return of energy to the woman, her tongue finding that sharpness again. Matteo, once more, presenting her with that simple assurance that was here to help. Even if, perhaps, she might not yet understand that help in the moment itself.

Ah, but he could near feel her eyes so boring into him from here! Matteo aware, near painfully so, of those very emotions that surely turned within her then. How desperately he so wished he might take them away from her! How much he wished to show her that future that could and would one day exist in which she returned to the freedom of her own life and that life she so painfully deserved. How limited he was in those things he could say and do and yet- how determined he was all at once to try for her. Even if she hardly knew it. The cake, it seemed, could not longer be ignored. Harley all but ravaging it much as he had anticipated she might as he turned to face her then, that bowl of soup pressed across the table towards her then. Harley's words near bitter with that skepticism then as his own shoulders lifted abruptly.

"I can help, but you must help yourself too. I am going to say something you do not desire to hear. Are you ready to hear it? Some of this-"

His hand shifted then, gesturing towards her broken, battered frame. Those accented words wholly gentle and yet affirmed all at once. His silver gaze meeting her own before offering those veritable bullets towards her, words he knew were likely to incite her irritation and yet words she so needed to hear all at once.

"-was made worse by your own doing. You know it is true. There is a balance to be had in defiance. Sometimes the most defiant act of all is silence. You must choose your battles, choose your words and choose when to use them. Else you will throw yourself agianst the bars over and over until it is only you who is bloodied and bruised."

Aiden had perhaps near mastered that very thing. That ability to say nothing having saved his own sons life far more then once and in the very least- having spared him further torment. The Frenchman so sighing softly once more as he regarded that raven-haired beauty whom sat like a broken toy at her own table. In the very least his words might yet spark that fire within her once more, a veritable hidden agenda laced within them.

"You are as proud a creature as they come and there is nothing wrong with that, I am much the same. I know, Mon Cherie, I know the struggle to say nothing when Darcy goads you but to rise to his words is to fall for his ruse all at once. It gives him reason to hurt you. This is a new game to play, but you can learn to play it and play it well. This was merely one battle in a war."

She needed to hear those truths whether or not she desired to. Matteo near assured she knew them all the same. Her near inability not to lash out with that acidic tongue of hers only prompting those reactions from Darcy and Risque in turn. The sooner she learned to choose those battles she fought the better. Another simper so briefly finding the Frenchmans features.

"It is harder for ones such as us especially. We are so quick of wit it is near painful not to take up those lines we are given by those of....less mental fortitude."

That soft chuckle so found him once more, that bread and butter easily summoned to his hand then before being placed upon that plate beside that meal. No meal complete without such accompaniment he was assured. That softly uttered thank you upon Harley's lips prompted thatnod from himself in silent acknowledgement before his own affinity was so embraced once more. Matteo disappearing only to reappear opposite her and within his own seat at that table. The Frenchman content to eat in turn if only to ease that awkwardness she might feel eating alone. Harley's sudden insistence that Indonesia was her plan of escape readily coaxed that lift of both his own eyes, Matteo dipping his own spoon into that soup before lifting it to his lips. Hmm. It was...acceptable. Not his finest and yet he had been given limited time to prepare that meal to its fullest extent. Next time perhaps.

"The Indonesian climate would not suit you, it is hot and humid constantly. I suggest the nordic countries. Cold, yes, but they are afflicted every year by the soleil de minuit, the Midnight Sun. The sun does not set. No vampires."

His head nodded in assurance, as if this veritable plan for Harley to simply abandon her life for some foreign country was wholly practical. Matteo, it seemed, willing to indulge her in those idle fantasies. After all, it could do little harm.

"As for my visions..."

There was an abject pause, Matteo seeming to taste those words upon his own lips as if he tasted that soup. His silver gaze once more meeting the bright violet of the Harley's own.

"Do you want me to explain them to you, Mon Cherie?"

How difficult those notions of the future could be. Even himself prone to a lack of understanding- in some regards and yet, whether now or later, there would surely come a time in which Harley was owed that explanation of just what he did and how. Those limitations, those rules, both self-imposed and otherwise. Whether or not she was in any state of mind or mood to listen however remained to be seen, that choice, tonight, offered to her alone. That second piece of cake was quickly demolished by his companion, that return to food seeming to bring with it a further return of her character as she reached once more for the spoon. Matteo so taking that moment to poke at that metaphorical wound and expose it to the air. The Frenchman determined, whether Harley liked it or not, to have her speak about everything that had gone on those past nights, the Fae insisting he hardly cared how she spoke about it so long as she spoke. That veritable pause seemed near pregnant, Harley considering those very words, her features giving away that near influx of emotion that danced behind her eyes before she declared she wanted everything and nothing all at once. That she was tired of being sick and tired. Hmm. How well he knew that very feeling. He had been tired for two thousand years.

"That, I understand. Food, a shower and sleep will make the world seem a little better, I promise you that much. Your will, it seems, is still intact. Ah, but you worried me a moment with that."

There was, perhaps, the faintest of challenges laced within those very words. Each accented syllable so carefully crafted if only to goad at her a little more and fan those dimmed flames back into that veritable fire that had so come to personify that woman before him. A fire, after all, only needed a little shelter from the storm before it blazed once more. Matteo, for now, content to provide something of that shelter. She had survived her ordeal and for now that in itself was a victory. Her desire not to allow Darcy to win so proving equally intact.

"You owe me a partial gift then."

He had not forgotten their deal, that simper tugging at his lips once more, the Frenchman taking another sip of that meal in that easy, lackadaisical fashion that so often seemed to surround him and drove Dorian to despair with his continued sense of eternal calm.
"That battle is only lost and pointless if you learned nothing from it. In all you saw that night, in all you heard, what did you learn about our vampire friends?"

And therein lay that veritable double-edged sword. If those vampires chose to imprison Harley, then it so came at the cost of allowing her to see how they worked, how they operated, how they functioned. An insight closed to so many and the display of a vulnerability all at once. Matteo, in that moment, determined to provide that young woman with some purpose to her torment. Something to be gained from it lest she lose herself to that hopeless despair like so many before. Her insistence she had learned the way to a vampires heart coaxing that inquisitiveness to his own eternally youthful features.

"The way to a vampire's heart, Mon Cherie?"

How curious that tone she offered those words in, Matteo waiting for her to further elaborate before she declared that food to be nothing short of 'sorcery'. The near ancient Fae inclined to allow that roll of his eyes once more. Good natured though the gesture was.

"Food is a very old magic- one that rarely fails. It is often improved with good company, or so I am told."

That veritable impish simper so managed to find his lips again, seeking to offer her only further comfort in that return to the norm. As if a simple, silent assurance he so hardly looked upon her as some broken thing to be discarded. She had suffered, far, far more than she should have but....the world had not changed, she had survived, some normalcy existed still outside of that place even if they need battle a little to find it some days. Matteo taking another mouthful of soup. Something very near....impish so finding his own lips then.

"I am afraid though we have reached a difficult part in our evening where I must ask something off you."

His gaze so easily met her own, amusement so lingering there, that alone surely enough to warn her off those incoing words. Matteo sighing softly as if resolute to that which must surely be said. As if such was a task or struggle in itself.

"You shall have to take your shirt off for me."

How very seriously he offers those words, his gaze meeting her own directly if only for that look he was near assured he would receive in turn. That grin so at last tugging at his lips before becoming that near glorious smile. A warm chuckle falling from him then.

"Ah, but I do love to see that look on your face. Your shoulder, Mon Cherie, where you were bitten. I can treat it for you. Vampire bites do not heal like normal wounds, even for a Were. If you will let me see it though I can repair it some."