Gabriel's perplexed expression was reflected in those silvery eyes. This was the person who was supposed to move in with him? His gaze traveled down towards the hands and rested there for a quick second.
A person's hands revealed so much about them. Farmers' were large, roughened and sun-tanned from heavy labor, while the fingers of tailors were slender, nimble things. Bakers were confident with every gesture, artists' touches laid delicately on the skin, and every hoodlum hid their chipped nails and dirty fingers where nobody would pay attention to.
This person had... Pale hands. They were large was a proper man's should yet had no strength to them. Long, slender fingers lacked the callouses of a craftsman. Francian immigrants were just the run of the mill peasant displaced by internal strife. Revolutions threw its surroundings into anarchy regardless of the end goal, and everyone who could not prosper in it's path should shy far, far away. Gabriel was very familiar with such things in the grueling world of the southern desert. Kill or be killed, and if you could not kill, run and never look back.
Francian immigrants were always the helpless kind of folk who settled in small, isolated communities. They were conservative in their very nature and found the tumultuous life back at home too much of a change to bear. Many settled here with plans to stay for good; after all, with fields razed and houses plundered, what good was rebuilding a modest life in a country that burned brighter than wildfire? That was the mentality of every Francian Gabriel had ever known.
And the other sort would have left the slums long ago. Rich families could always afford to move into nicer places, and minor noble titles were likely to have chipped into Delyrian land. This is a country of liberal nature, after all. Those who had any sort of sense could exploit it to it's very core. At least, if Gabriel had a penny to his name, he would do exactly the same in order to escape these rat-infested sewers.
Money was low. People hated paying children fair wages, so even in a cramped room such as this, Gabriel had to cut his losses and accept another pair of hands. He just never expected them to be do privileged in nature.
Those silver eyes, once he raised his head up again, seemed like they were a little too distant to be focused on him. "Who are you?"
Gabriel could catch how the man's lips curled upwards into a well-practiced, tight-lipped smile.
"Maria. Your name is... Jibril? I shall be your roommate starting from today. Pleased to meet you."
He was very much Francian yet spoke with no hint of an accent. Or at least he spoke with very little; Gabriel wasn't fluent enough in Delyrian to pick up minute differences. What did did understand, however, was that this person in front of him was a little too well-spoken to be a typical peasant. Maria was also a very strange name for a man. An alias, of sorts? Or Francians found calling boys the names of their mothers to be quite endearing.
Well, Gabriel couldn't care less. You never questioned another person's circumstances.
"Gabriel. My name is Gabriel, not Jibril." Though he couldn't blame the man for assuming so. After all, 'Jibril' was only proper for a boy from Allelyn. People always judged others by where they're from and who they belong to, rather than what was truly in front of their eyes.
The silver-eyed man nodded once, almost hesitantly, before shifting his eyes over to the modest background. A single window, cracked along its top half. There was a wooden bucket on the floor to catch rainwater leaking from the ceiling. One well-made bed, a lantern for light, and quite simply nothing else but their own bodies.
Gabriel knew that look from anywhere. He'd seen it many times from the jinn.
Ah, well. They were here because their goals had aligned, even if it was just for a temporary moment. Gabriel needed somebody to pay the bills, and...
Maria needed to snuff himself away from the prying eyes of society.
How could a nobleman ever willingly step foot in this muck if he wasn't a fugitive? Gabriel wasn't stupid. Those silvery eyes were a little too distracted to ever be as sickeningly sweet as that smile.
