[ His answer is smooth, molding around her ears and settling in the shells of them with weightless ease. So often these assignments spur monologues from the other side of the table, prattling tales and speeches that drain the well of her patience into arid bedrock, but not he.

He, unlike so many others, answers as he should: without filler, without filigree. It makes the plight of an interrogator harder, of course, this mincing of words, the clipped nature of his answer. If anything, Sui Feng would be best served if he did let his tongue run courageously free, gathering the words as ammunition for future bombardments.

But she is not, by nature, an interrogator. She is not prone to the softness and manipulation needed to excel in this arena, and so the script set in motion by their traded professionalism is not a detriment to her goals.

As ever, those goals are to go for the throat, and if not, to gently squeeze it enough to put the fear of the gods into him.

(All in due time.)

For now, she rewards his reply with the faint twist of her lips, the semblance of a serpentine smile ghosting across her face. Digits roam over the screen beneath them like wings of ivory butterflies, soft and purposeful with each dab of contact. Text files fly by, skidding away from view with each motion of twirling fingertips. ]

Further than that. Why did the son of a Leithian household choose a life in the Company? Surely you had other prospects. You might have made a fine.. farmhand, after all.