Eclair requires a moment to breathe. One sharp intake through her nose, hold two three four five... release from the mouth. She lifts her hand as though to pinch her temple, and slides her fingers smoothly into a still-forming gauntlet of pearly light. She shakes her head. Stands from the table. 

She slaps Injimo full across the face.

It was of course possible to punch her again, instead. To kick or throw her through a wall, or try any number of spells and combat tricks to knock her out and try all of this again later. But it was important to make this hurt. In the correct way: to make it [i]sting[/i]. Not only through her cheek and into her jawbone, but all the way into the secret reaches of her still-yearning heart.

She turns from the table and walks away, so she can sit with Mayzie. Her thumbs press in tiny, gentle circles across her friends' hands, nudging them, insisting ever so barely that they relax. And even when they do she continues, cupping Mayzie's palm in both of hers like the treasure that it is and massaging it until she feels it finally melt. It's not a gesture she knows from childhood: she has no idea if it is even wanted. It is simply something that she needs to do.

"Cretin. Do not come to [i]me[/i] and beg for permission to be a coward. I will simply keep hitting you harder and harder until I find out how much pressure is needed to force your eyes open. Since you're [i]such[/i] a believer in the power of a blade to find truth. Now. If you wish to hire a detective..."

She flicks her wrist and summons a teacup, filled with a proper soothing black rounded out with most of a vanilla pod. She throws it across the room to the table, where it slides until it is perfectly in front of Injimo. The liquid inside of it sloshes violently, exploding with droplets that hang in the air and dance madly with the pure chaos of the end of the world. But they settle into the cup again without a single wet drip falling out of place.

"I really don't need to bother. You can't afford my fee. But for your sake, Mayzie, I will say this much: we are not doomed. Just the collection of us in this room are enough, all by ourselves. Even all by myself, I can be enough. I will save all of Thellamie and become a new Hero of Ages, if that's what you ask me to do."

She smiles.

"The proof is in the world around us. If Heron's disappearance signals the impending collapse of the world as we know it then it also by necessity signals its salvation. It has happened every time, no? Even if Thellamie should be rocked to its very foundations, it always endures. A hero always saves the world. But why [i]must[/i] it be Heron? Either she is destined to return, in which case I must merely hold the world on my shoulders long enough for her to save it, or she is gone forever. But she is Heron: if she left us, [i]it can only mean[/i] we do not need her. So you see, my belo... ahem, my [i]dear[/i], there is no reason not to try."

And now she stands again, and moves to the center of the room. Such as it is. She pulls her curved heartblade, the one with four identical copies of itself that she favors above the rest of her arsenal, directly from her chest in imitation of the proper Kel style. She repeats the process and tosses them to the four corners of Aadya's apartment so that the room crackles with purple thunder.

She smiles and offers a curtsy.

"You must be very tired of hearing me talk about this, aren't you? Well that's too bad~! I am going to continue! I will hypothesize and I will rifle around through your posture and your eye contact and every last shift in the tone of your voice until I have every one of the secrets you wish to hide for your noble cause in the palm of my silly little hand. And then I am going to go out into the world and shine a light on every inconceivable horror you're hiding from until I can conceive of them all. And I will save the world, and not only can you not stop me, I am going to drag you with me. I'll make you my witness. I'll make you my [i]handmaiden[/i]. It's ok, you poor little thing, I'll let you be my shadow instead~."

"Unless. Of course."

Eclair curls her hand into a fist. She taps her own cheek with her knuckles while looking straight at Injimo. 

And she smiles like a cat.

[Emotional Support: [b]10[/b]]