mall-caps;letter-spacing:4px;">THE SPARK OF DAWNShe could read his discomfort in his eyes, and she recognized as well as any other that she was the cause and that Pandemic preferred his blood family to those who claimed kinship in other ways. It didn't matter to her what he preferred -- he was her nephew regardless, in the same way Salvia was her niece and Eris her sister-cousin and Larkspur...well, Larkspur was a force she was only starting to recognize as something other than useless.
He greeted her, as was tradition, but her returning kisses were stiff and without affection as they always were to all but the Auxiliary and Boss who kept them with iron hands. There was no smile on her features. Instead, she turned her eyes to the distance briefly before returning them to his dark coat. "You ahre almost ay mahn, hm, Pahndemik?" Perhaps the inquiry was rude, but she desired to know the truth and she was blunt and didn't cover her words with pretty sugared phrases. There was a method to her workings, of course, but they were often hidden.
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