He'd known her reaction the moment the words had left his tongue. The method in which she absorbed the information was the same way he had when his three children stared into his eyes: denial, but somehow an unspoken acknowledgment of truth underneath. The Patriarch, solemn and collected, did not flinch when she jumped to her feet and denied it. Skylar barely took the time to let the concept breeze through her mind before launching into some overdramatic tears and misery of a grandmother she'd only known so much about, but the one-eye remained silent and bowed his head in a still patience.
She tried to cut to his core, tried to get him riled up, but her attempts failed. Jefferson had seen far too much tragedy and confusion and been mixed up in too much shit in the recent past to be even slightly fazed by her childish, youthful remarks and accusations. Though Jefferson made no effort to look her in the eye, he felt her sharp gaze and recognized her words as that of a young, inexperienced child; it seemed all that she had bragged of her adventures at sea had only taught her so much, and not enough about death and dying. Even if he was a miserable creature, he was a far-seeing one: everyone was miserable on different levels. There were no possibilities of living a full, happy life without stumbling and scraping your knees a few times along the way. "Believe what you want of me," the cyclops said quietly as she stormed away. "...but Iskata is dead because you happy fools rule world."