isolt griffin
It is a valiant effort put forth to ignore the caress of his eyes as they sweep over her, an effort honed by months spent attempting invisibility whilst being eyed wantonly and unapologetically by one individual or another within Syn. Such deeply engrained modesty has the young woman either flinch from such glances or attempt to ignore their presence entirely. Perhaps it is not the presumed appreciativeness of his glances that has phantom vermin crawling about over her flesh, but more so the memory of how he had regarded her in life, moments before he had delivered her to the mistress he met with such fealty. It had been innocent then, the way he had looked upon her, his eyes seemingly bereft the insidiousness he had planned; and it is this recollection that spurs Isolt's aversion to meeting his eyes for a time. Should she discover tenderness there, regret, she would be all too aware that it was a fallacy, a trick... and the auburn-haired woman might once again feel the stinging blades of mental anguish kiss her tender heart.

Thankfully, when blue eyes finally do find green, it is for but a moment, as he too seems unable to sustain such intimacy for more than a matter of seconds, instead offering a rather peculiar item. Isolt's eyes rove over the sand dollar offered upon his palm before slicing to the gemstone eyes that are now dutifully trained elsewhere. She knows not why he means to give this to her, and yet her own thoughts linger upon the matter hardly longer than do his, chilled fingers reaching out to collect the pale disc that is then clasped gently into her hand. Delicate fingers move idly over the ridges that nature has made upon the brittle shell, a small furrow digging into her brow at his words. It was a privately conceded fact that Isolt had hardly been amiable to the presence of the Were pack within her home when first they had begun to roost there. The crushing heft of Harley's departure had made the young vampire all the more susceptible to some modicum of defiance to the presence of stranger's within the home she had once shared with the raven-haired woman. And yet now it occurred to her with mounting frequency that the promise of company besides her own (no matter how distant and peculiar) was largely the only thing that saw her return to the apartment anymore. In truth, Isolt knew of nowhere else that she might find reliable shelter during the daylight hours; however, wandering about as some vagrant even seemed a far kinder fate than returning to the shell that would have been the empty apartment.

Isolt turns to face him once more, a shrug hitching its way across her shoulders as a beautifully innocent smile hints at the brims of her lips. "I don't mind, really. They can both stay. It's kind of nice having other people in the apartment, it doesn't feel so...," the syllables wither to ash upon her tongue, their taste every bit as bitter, eyes diverting to the blissful rolling of the sea as a sigh whispers from her lips. "Nevermind." For a time thereafter there is naught but silence between them, accented only by the timely swishing of the ever-moving tide as it washes in white-tipped crescents upon the dampened shore. Even now, in the company of this man who breeds within her greater apprehension than she might ever care to admit, Isolt is soothed... if only just.

Finally, the fire-locked girl finds herself no longer able to shoulder the pregnant silence that lingers as some choking miasma between them, turning instead to nod towards the ship that is but a darkened suggestion in the distance. "Have you been staying there," she questions tentatively, all too aware that she dances a thin conversational border betwixt polite curiosity and outright pretentious nosiness... however this would-be social demerit is something she finds herself willing to grapple with if only to break through the smog of silence. "What's it like?"