Personal Duties

17

His sharp eyebrow bent upwards like the string of a bow, and he drew in the corner of his bottom-lip; seeming to take interest in the other's daring gesture. As he rose to his feet, his cheek turned towards the window momentarily, concealing the tones of red that now sprinkled his white face.
"I think that we're in agreement, then."
Curling one arm back around the wooden rod protruding from a corner of his bed, and resting back upon it, Leonan lifted his cup to lips, drawing in a deep breath of steam through his nose; his shoulders seeming to relax in response. "You're generous, upstanding, and very agreeable. - Surprising you're unmarried, though."
With a brief glance to the side, and light nod of his temple, the young woman pivoted towards them, and stepped up to Leonan's side, giving him her shoulder to lean on. "I'm glad you're alive, Lord Archon," she muttered softly, with her chin pointed to the floor.

"I'm not ready to die yet," he retorted, a statement relatively optimistic for Leonan to ever make. A gentle warmth threatened to seethe from his stiff expression, with lips turned upward in one corner, while his eyes dimmed sheepishly.

Again, the woman raised her voice, and she too looked Mateo eye-to-eye. "You've spent far too long without a woman; a warm bed, and someone to fix every knot and kink in your poor, overworked body."

"She's very good," Leonan now situated himself on the bed, sitting with his legs crossed, and both hands holding his hot mug. He eyed them from behind his mug as he took a drink, and then wiped his lips with the back of his forearm.

The woman approached Mateo now, her leg gracefully protruding up against his figure, with her warm palm placed on his mid-section. Leonan watched inquisitively for Mateo's arousal, or at least some interest in her aid as a masseuse.
A lack of a spouse, the years perhaps spent in the accompaniment of other men, Mateo's graceful demeanor all felt like... signs to Leonan that they might be aligned. - Such things certainly weren't a taboo in this place, or anywhere that the Romarich cult was adhered to.
If Leonan's... assumptions were incorrect, he was confident that she might fill that role, and do so just as capably as Leonan. Her raven hair, cut just above the shoulders, and wide green eyes were the keystone to a very alluring face, leading the eyes down a trail of her figure.
- She was as close as a friend as he could hope for. Trained by the faith to heal, she had helped Leonan fight the withering away of his body since childhood. With Leonan not... particularly interested in the other sex, they had a platonic, but lovely relationship.
"I'm still so lightheaded," Leonan sighed, hunched forwards slightly, wearing a tired smile. "Negotiations can certainly wait. Let's relax, mm?" He flashed a light grin, finishing the cup of steaming hot tea oddly unphased.