“Bravo, bravo, Little Spritling:” comes the Demoness' pronouncement, words spelled out with the rattling clap of her icy hands. “Bravo indeed! You should take a cue from this one, Nestor Dear – really, you should!” Here she changes position, bending down – snakelike, almost, in the way she contorts her form around my back, one hand found unaccountably on my left shoulder, the other draped casually over my right. I fought off the urge to shudder; the creeping cold seeping from her presence, so close.. not cold, so much as a thousand little pinpricks of burning ice. I curled my lip, but she beat me to the chase – leaning back, giving a little pout of her lips, tilting her condescending stare in my direction – “Tush now! I am the one speaking, not you!” 

One forefinger raises slowly, hovering above his face in menace; he glares at her briefly, then simply grunts out (quietly, barely beneath his breath): “Suit yourself!” But she is already gone, springing from the high back of the chair; she rushes toward Daisy, form nothing more than an ice-shrouded blur. She comes to an abrupt halt a few paces away from the Reaper, laces her hands behind her back and begins to pace in a wide semi-circle, announcing as she does so – muttering, half to herself, half perhaps to anyone who happens to be near enough her to hear: 

“First one, maybe... in this uptight bunch of... absurdity... soul-searching... and look at him!” She pauses for a moment, turns and points accusingly at Nestor, free hand gesticulating wildly in an overly dramatic attempt to emphasize her words: “And look at him, sitting there – dull and smug as ever! He and Mister Whighty-Tighty: two peas out of the same pod; and a shame they're both mute, or maybe now they'd actually have someone else... to talk to...” The cold seems to draw in from around – the empty cold of the festering death hovering around the Wight; the strangely arcane keening of the aura hovering around the Reaper; the burning depths of ice she felt clutching her at the very core...

I raised my hand with an irritated wave, pushed from my seat and strode toward her – it had been enough... as it was of late. (And just how I hated the way she looked at me then...) and after a moment I managed to speak, offering one final glare in her direction before beginning.

“I cannot say I do not understand your sentiments, Miss Reaper,” Nestor comes to a pause here, having positioned himself squarely between she and the Demoness: “And I applaud your honesty... yet, if you are to hate Master Semyon – you had better make certain to hate me too. Loud and clear now! Size me up, eye for eye and tooth for tooth, and perhaps you'd have to hate me even worse than him.” His words are spoken brusquely – though his seriousness, to some degree remains in doubt: it might be as if he very much meant the words he spoke, but in the same moment gives them in the lighthearted banter of a known acquaintance: 

“I will admit – we're bad for business, the both of us. Your business, leastways. But in the same way we understand the line that separates business from the reality of the world around us, you must pause for a moment to see the world as more than a single, shallow lake. Look in the water! There is a reflection! Your faults are hidden there too, if you choose to gaze deeply enough to find them."