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“Quite excellent.”
“…sir?”
Behind her thin veneer of feigned curiosity was a look that the Fuhrer had studied well since the day he had ensnared her services.
“The tea, Lieutenant Hawkeye.” He, too, donned a mask. A carefully laid smile, the epitome of warmth, fooling nearly anyone. In that sense, at least, he knew they were kindred souls. “How do you manage to brew a flavorful cup every time?”
“You honor me with such a compliment, your excellency.” Her head lowered in nearly perfect deference. The steady tone of her voice betrayed nothing.
It charmed him, confused him, infuriated him.
His rough hands replaced the saucer and cup upon the polished silver tray before folding pleasantly behind his back. “It takes a skilled hand to temper such a flavor. There is a fine line between suffocating under the boldness, and smothering the aroma that makes it so pleasing to begin with.”
Smoothly, she straightened her posture, and eyed him silently. Ah yes, those eyes. Humans thought themselves so clever, with their mouths unafraid to speak their minds, make their demands. Yet the eyes never lied; the truth was never quite as hidden as they proudly believed. They betrayed their soul’s true nature.
Wrath had pondered on it, once; if what lie beneath his own gaze was the remnant of the soul he had once possessed, or merely the essence of Father’s fury marking his existence for eternity. The pull of it was a nuisance to him. He was no longer a number, a nameless human. There lingered, still, a piqued interest in the glimmer of truth he glimpsed within the eyes of his prey.
“You surely have had a bit of practice,” he concluded airily. “Colonel Mustang must be quite the fan of tea.”
“He wasn’t always.”
“Ah.” Wrath was amused by her candor. A deliberately arranged grin lit up his countenance. “Well, a man’s tastes do change as he matures.”
She stirred at his remark, a smile of her own daring to touch her lips. “Is that so, sir?” Those incredulous eyes of hers already formulated an answer to her polite query.
“Indeed.” Having seen enough, Wrath turned away from her. “Such is the nature of men, it pains me to say,” he offered in mock apology. “Yet a woman has always known her own nature. Unlike that tea, her essence insists on lingering despite the efforts to smother it.”
He paused. Without even needing to look at her, he felt her become tense. He could almost see that amber gaze burning into him. “She’s tempered those flames, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant Hawkeye?”
There was no doubt. He had mistaken it that first day, but now he knew. It was akin to seeing oneself so often in the mirror that one becomes blind to their own likeness. But there was no mistaking the telltale wrath that lay still beneath the surface of her cool expression, threatening to melt the ice yet docile under its master’s iron will.
“They never cease to burn, your excellency.”
He had known that all along, of course. Since the moment he became the embodiment of his creator’s sin, that truth ruled his core. To think that a human could match him at the root of his inherited peculiarity. No, go even farther than that, matching, surpassing herself.
Yes, a woman who had tamed her own ire was an impressively frightening creature.