The Eagle and The Rat [Arno Victor Dorain]

VI - La Journée Commence

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Then, Maxime tipped it back, the warm coffee running across her taste buds.

She swallowed hard, instantly placing the cup down. "That's disgusting," Maxime muttered, her tongue stretched awkwardly inside of her mouth. Her eyebrows furrowed deeply, when she reached for her own glass and drank as quickly as possible, all while Arno watched her with an amused expression.

"Really?" he asked her, as she wiped her lip of any access liquid, "you don't like it?"

"That's so bitter," she protested, "how can anyone like that?"

"I suppose it is an acquired taste," he laughed, picking his cup back up and enjoying the rest of it, "I'd be happy to brew you something a little less... strong."

She raised an eyebrow, scanning his face. "I've told you once, and I'll tell you again-" She said, as she continued to drink her milk. "-Buttering me up will get you nowhere."

Arno frowned inwardly, his prior good mood now gone just as quickly as it had came. "Apologies for trying to be kind."

"Apologies accepted," she quipped back, not needed to look at Arno to know he was rolling his eyes.

Though she didn't particularly not enjoy keeping a wall between the two, she'd need to break it down if the affect she was trying to have on him was to work.

But there wasn't really anywhere to start. She didn't necessarily want to know anything about him. Asking about his adoptive father seemed... crude for the moment, bringing up any hobbies seemed a little bit of a desperate attempt, and talking about the weather would be counterintuitive.

There was only two things they had in common: being Assassins and knowing his father.

"You know," Maxime started, catching the trainee off guard, "your father used to make coffee very similar to that."

He nodded, the memory bringing him a gentle smile. "I would have never known. He didn't let me drink any, not even a taste."

"Neither did I, but it smells just like it," she reminisced, "my father would often drink his coffee black, but only whenever Master Dorian was around. He's really bad in the kitchen."

"And now?"

"Pardon?"

"You said would," Arno pointed out, putting his cup down for a moment, "has something changed."

"Well, I try my hardest to make breakfast, pull my weight around the house, and help whenever the maid isn't over. Gods know we rarely have time to properly sleep as it is, so I am limited," Maxime remarked, "but he's still as bad in the kitchen."

Arno let out a little chuckle at that. "Truth be told, I can't imagine him being good at anything but being an Assassin."

Bingo, Maxime thought, feeling Arno's happy mood bounce back almost instantly.

"That's far from it," she told him, motioning for him to begin to follow her out of the cafe. As they entered the bustling streets, they quickly turned into a back alley. "He's a talented man, my father, but his talents aren't as mundane as everyone else's."