Mordred smiled. The warmth in his eyes retreated and dropped away as they narrowed a fraction, his brow following suit. The adjustment was subtle, but the difference marked. He knew how to use his face. The wide-eyed boy had gone, replaced with something colder, something a great deal more cunning. It was like replacing a rabbit with a fox. The rest of his body followed suit; his limbs became looser and his stance less tense. “As you wish, Saba’iqer,” he said smoothly, caressing each sound with a silver tongue as he nodded his head in a fluid bow, his hand accompanying the gesture with an stylish flick of the wrist. His gaze however, did not leave Gwythr’s face, and the smile remained in place on his own, stretching his mouth. A powerplay was not unexpected, in fact it was predictable. Mordred was content to play along if that was what it took to get what he wanted. There was no shame in playing a role if it got you where you needed to be, and so he stepped willing into the one he was offered. He had not surrendered his mask completely, he had no desire to lay his soul bare to anyone, but he believed it was enough to give Gwythr what he expected to see.
How much did he really know? As far as Mordred was aware, Gwythr had never paid him any kind of attention. He had left him to rot in Pandora’s hovel. He was sceptical of the idea that the deity had watched him grow up, had seen him form before he learned how to construct his masks and disguises, and hidden away his twisted heart. The claim laid at his door then, raised a question. If he truly did know (and there was a real chance that it had been nothing more than a bluff) then did that mean that Mordred’s most precious, most elusive persona, was not of his own making? If Gwythr had the power to create a child without any aid from nature, then surely he had possessed the power to manipulate the product? Did Mordred think the way he thought, did he yearn for what he wanted because of Gwythr?
“I do,” he replied with certainty, the smile finally dropping away. The reasons were numerous, some of them too complex to list. First and foremost he was there to learn of his ren. He had no intention of allowing his magic to get stuck at less than its potential. He was there to see Gwythr, to interact with him, to learn of him. He had been a child when the war had ended and the opportunity had not presented itself before. In truth, he would have liked to find answers too, to find out more about how and why he had come to be, but he was realistic in his expectations. Gwythr was not going to hand over information for nothing. “But then, Creator, you know me, you knew that already.” He paused, waiting for the pendant to finish glowing, and then watched as Gwythr retrieved more paper. “What is there that you want from me, that will induce you to give me what I want?” Mordred wondered out-loud. Any answer, no matter what it was, would be informative and useful. The man before him was an unknown, and new to Mordred. The boy needed to see reactions in order to understand and everything he said was designed to try and get the ones he needed most. It made the interaction clumsier and less certain than the ones he usually enjoyed, but there was something exhilarating in that.
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