Ambitions

((In one of those timequakes where all the elders are murdered and being eaten by Kethuru, Ara's wandering around.))

With too many teeth and too sharp edges, Majestadt flashes you a wicked smile.

Your eyes sparkle with amusement at Majestadt.

In a decadently rich, low-pitched timbre, you ask Majestadt, "Behaving, are you?"

Majestadt splays his fingers over his heart as he pledges earnestly, "I always do." He
casts a sharp, impish look at you.

His voice rough with soot and ash, Majestadt, Clockwork Artificer asks, "Lost, or just
enjoying the view?"

Majestadt's eyes sparkle with amusement.

Aramaeus turns a clawed hand aside in a languid gesture, indicating the
landscape. "Strolling about and absorbing the unique environs. Quite striking, really."

Majestadt hums thoughtfully and then says with a shrug, "I suppose if you're into that
sort of thing."

Flashing Majestadt a quicksilver smile, Aramaeus's tone is pleasant as he
remarks, "It is knowledge, and possibility. Any that are not interested in either, are not
worth my time or attention."

Majestadt leans nearer to you from the back of his horse and answers with a sharp smile of
his own, "It looks more like idle suffering to me, but to each his own."

A soft, darkly rich laugh rolls forth from Aramaeus as he turns about,
studying the horror that abounds about them. "Suffering, certainly, but idle? No, I do not
think so. You can extract useful information from just about anything, if you have the
mind for it."

Majestadt silently observes you as he speaks. "I would rather find something else to
occupy my thoughts than," here he pauses, his left hand making motion towards the
landscape as well, "this. Bloated corpses don't exactly spark my imagination."

With his back to Majestadt, Aramaeus tilts his head to one side, the
gesture curious. "No? A pity. I suppose we cannot all find fertile ground in everything we
see before us." With a negligent flip of glittering, amethyst claws in Majestadt's general
direction, he asks, "What sparks your imagination, then?"

((Bailing out of TQ and resuming in the PRIVACY OF A MANSE because Elizabeth is a COWARD))

Majestadt looks at you in considerate thought before answering sincerely, "How things fit
together. Seeing how one cog turns against another. The shine on metal. Colour. Form." His
mouth quirking, he adds, "I suppose the potential of something."

Cupping his right elbow with his left hand, Aramaeus taps the foremost,
purple-hued talon of h is upraised right hand upon the pale curve of his lips, the gesture
contemplative. "A more physical interpretation of what interests me, in a way. All of
life, and all of its sundry pieces, in their infinite variables and interactions - That is
what catches my imagination." Tipping his finger towards Majestadt, tone level, he says,
"You are a piece - A cog, I suppose. Potential."

Majestadt tilts his head faintly, his gaze turning sharp as he continues to watch you. "I
suppose so," he admits after a time, his dark gaze tipping upwards at what follows. "We're
all cogs in the Engine," he replies lightly, a touch of mirth slipping into his expression
when he continues with, "And what will you do with the cog when you've found out your
variables? Shelve it and find another to examine?"

A soft, dismissive breath of amusement accompanies a flicker of scorn
passing over Aramaeus's flawless features, the expression doing nothing at all to diminish
the cold beauty of his visage. "Speak for yourself. I am not constrained by being a piece
in another's machine." A faint frown forms a sliver of shadow between the viscanti's brows
as he looks down at Majestadt, his tone faintly irritated, as if asked to explain
something painfully obvious. "Of course not. What would be the point? Resources are not
cultivated only to be left idle. You do not train a soldier, or a spy, and then send them
home to gather dust."

Majestadt laughs brightly in the face of your shifting expression, his eyes bright with
mirth. "My, that struck something," he giggles out. "You put art on display," he says with
a simple little shrug. "You admire it. Clockwork you maintain. Oil. Polish. Replace. I
don't think it would be so terrible, to be admired like that. Besides, soldiers and spies
tire and still must be replaced."

Lifting a well-muscled shoulder in an elegant gesture of indifference,
Aramaeus splays his crystalline-edged talons in a slow, sweeping arc. "Art on display is
still serving a purpose. It is not 'shelved'. It is an expression of one's wealth, taste,
or used to evoke emotion in others - Simply studying someone's reaction to a specific
piece can tell you volumes about them, or their current emotional state, and thus how they
may be better manipulated or pushed and pulled." Another soft breath of amusement as he
studies Majestadt, magenta eyes glittering. "Tired soldiers and spies are not rendered
useless when they retire. They simply shift to another form of asset. They have contacts,
social circles to draw upon, they can apply pressure or have pressure applied to them."

Majestadt remarks impishly, "Well, it very well can be 'shelved' when you put it on the
shelf. You can place it there to admire, or return to at a later date. And eventually, -
usually-, those bodies do die." With a little laugh he muses, "You do like your scenarios
though. It must be exhausting coming up with so many contingencies and considerations. I
would rather cultivate what's at my immediate grasp."

The remark wins Majestadt an overt rolling of Aramaeus's eyes,
accompanied by a quiet, long-suffering sigh. "How droll." Fluttering his fingers, as if
flicking the notion away, he affirms, "I do indeed. I find it quite invigorating, however,
not tiring. And indeed, which is why I shall go further than you. Your sights and
aspirations should ever extend into the infinite, not merely what lies at your
fingertips."

Majestadt's expression shifts into amusement as he observes you. "You haven't yet," he
points out simply. "And whether you like it or not, you are part of the Engine by being
here, and you are a cog ground against every other cogwheel. You can fight that, and break
yourself, or hope your alloy is made better than most. I'm sure I can guess which you'll
choose already." His expression curious, he then asks, "Is it truly so terrible to look at
the pieces before you and see how they can fit?"

Aramaeus flicks Majestadt a smile that is as sharp and fleeting as the
flash of a blade, his rich voice amiable as he replies, "Yet. I am patient." To the rest
of the statement, he lifts a sole shoulder, flicking his hand aside in a glimmer of
iridescent, polished scales. "I will not be broken, nor will I belittle myself by viewing
my entire being as some minor piece in a faceless gestalt. Magnagora is but a stepping
stone." Canting his head aside, snowy brow lifting a shade, his voice mirroring
Majestadt's curiosity, he says, "Not at all. It is the sole focus upon such, to the
exclusion of the grander or more far-reaching possibilities that is terrible."

Majestadt remarks in turn, "As am I." He snorts audibly at the following statement, his
gaze brittle and dark as he answers, "We never know what will break us and you are foolish
to believe yourself incapable, which are frankly words I never thought would fit yet here
we are." He then falls silent in thought, his teeth idly grazing his lower lip to pull
there. "I didn't mean to imply that," he eventually states. "Only that there is some
satisfaction to be had when you can take what you -do- have and make something with it."
His gaze lifting to your he concedes, "I spoke poorly."

Utterly unperturbed, Aramaeus allows Majestadt's statement to flow over
him with as much effect as an errant breeze streaming past a stone edifice, favouring
Majestadt with a bright, empty smile that does not even begin to reach his eyes. The
polished rubescent discs upon which his slitted pupils rest are devoid of warmth, or any
apparent feeling whatsoever as he remarks, lightly, "Think what you like, little cog.
Remember this when you lie broken and forgotten in the gutter. Perhaps the memory shall
warm you." A vague, uncaring shrug accompanies the running of his claws through his hair,
the silken tresses spilling in the lethal digits' wake like spun opulence, faint tinges of
violet and seafoam green shining amongst the white. "You often do. What, then, is your
grand ambition in life?"

Majestadt answers lightly, an almost manic gleam evident in his eyes as he smiles, "I
often do think what I like. That must be horrible for everyone around me." The smaller
viscanti's expression, however, stills somewhat that the following question, the minute
movements of his gaze as he search your expression evident as the light catches the motes
of rust-red in his eyes. His mouth opening and then abruptly closing, he asks with utmost
curiosity, "Do you truly want to know?"

A small upward curve of the edge of Aramaeus's lips is the sole response
to the statement, his regard calm and untroubled by the manic light in the other man's
eyes. He bears Majestadt's scrutiny with the poise and grace of one that knows they are
meant to be admired, a smooth equanimity to his sculpted features as he studies Majestadt
in turn. In the patient manner of a man dealing with a particularly excitable cat, he
sweeps his right hand across in a graceful, languid motion, stating, "I would not ask if I
did not wish to know."

Majestadt hums a low noise from his chest at the remark, his gaze yet rapidly searching
your features. "I want to make beautiful things," he answers ruefully. "I want to fit
gears and sprockets and springs together until something new is made. I want to create my
own automaton, like that little dragon, but with my own hands and without help - to make
every turn of its head and thought that courses through its circuits. I want to be
remembered as someone who's work was exquisite, and peerless. Then I'll be worthy of my
name."

The constant hints of private amusement that typically play about the
splendid planes and curves of Aramaeus's visage are noticeably absent as he affords
Majestadt his attention, his countenance and regard equally sober. He makes not a sound as
the other man speaks, absorbing every word like a vast, endless void of patient,
implacable appetite. Once the smaller viscanti finishes, he tilts his chin up and aside,
his features remote, the inviting curves of his lips still as lovingly carved marble. He
takes a step towards Majestadt and places the tips of his right hand's claws upon
Majestadt's cheek, the touch almost tender as he looks into the rust-flecked eyes of his
companion. The hedonistic, deep tone of his voice is unusually sincere, approval warming
his words. "That is a very fine ambition, Majestadt. The creation of beautiful things is
laudable. I look forward to witnessing the art that your hands gives life to."

Majestadt looks up silently to you, his expression somewhat uncertain for a bare moment
before the other's fingertips rest upon his pale cheek. The smaller viscanti's dark eyes
then close, a minute shift of his stature evident in the subtle press of his cheek against
the offered touch, a decided restraint present in the action. "Thank you," he answers
softly, his voice momentarily tight, before the pallid man allows his eyes to open again
and look once more to you. "What is your ambition," he asks in turn as he looks up through
ash-dusted lashes.

The tiniest sliver of a smile is delineated upon Aramaeus's lips more by
the subtle shifting of shadows about the soft flesh where they meet, than any truly
discernible motion of the mouth itself, as he watches Majestadt's reaction with a
peculiar, almost feline curiosity. In response to the question, the minute, nascent smile
unfurls like the blossoming of a pale, deadly flower as he leans down to bring his lips to
the other man's ear. Warm breath upon Majestadt, the bass of his voice vibrating the scant
air between his lips and Majestadt's skin, there is an intense, unbridled hunger in the
pallid viscanti's voice as he purrs, "~I want everything.~" He draws away abruptly, a
bright, glittering smile shining Majestadt's way as he steps back, hands folded behind his
back.

As Majestadt observes you a subtle, and then wildly evident, blush colours the smaller
man's face. His breath hitching audibly when you speaks, a soft, strangled noise sounds
from the back of his throat, his eyes wide with confusion and unspoken fantasies at the
action. A certain wretchedness creeps into his fragile expression for the barest of
moments at the loss of contact, his face a brilliant scarlet now as he stares up at the
taller viscanti. "I have to go," he says abruptly, appearing thoroughly embarrassed with
himself, and turns sharply on his heel to leave.

The smile that spreads across Aramaeus's face is as smug and indulgent as
a cat in a creamery, a knowing cast to the curve of his lips as he lofts a brow at
Majestadt. He says nothing in response, merely lifting a hand from behind him to flutter
his claws at the other viscanti in farewell - Though the soft, heady sound of his darkly
amused laughter follows Majestadt's fleeing form.