It required a handful of moments but comprehension eventually dawned in his hosts hazels eyes as she grasped the full extent of his words and paused. It was almost intriguing how swiftly the girls body language shifted from resigned unconcern to startled realization before rapidly settling into silent contemplation as she simply stared at him for a moment, causing the hessians features to develop a quizzical yet amused expression as he waited for Noel to reach a decision.

Her choice, when it finally did come, was announced by a rather abrupt exclamation which succeeded in eliciting a soft chuckle from the elemental as he watched the soubrette search herself in vain and then hunt through her chaotically cluttered apartment until she came across a usable scrap of paper and a pen with such an expression of triumph that the mercenary thought it best not to volunteer one of his business cards when she passed him both items with instructions to indite his contact details before the sheaf was then whisked away for additional notation on Noels part.

His interest piqued Zephyr made a less than subtle attempt to glance over his hosts shoulder as she wrote and his brow hitched upwards in surprise as he caught site of an untidy row of capitalized text. However before he managed to discern more than a single word the notepad was swept out of his vision as the brunette sent him a brief but pointed glare. "Hmm? oh don't mind me I was just... admiring, your writing style... a very, structured, script you have there."

His words were greeted with a droll glance and rolling eyes but no comment as Noel finished jotting down whatever notes she felt compelled to record before then switching her attention back to her guest and the elemental found himself bemusedly humoring his host as he was ushered through the apartment and out into the hallway where he fixed the soubrette a wry look before rolling his eyes.

"If you wanted me to leave you could have just-"

Zephyr paused, a look of confusion sweeping across his features as a sudden sense of disorientation ran through him and his train of thought vanished. Where on earth was he? Hadn't he just been at the park? The elemental blinked and glanced at a somewhat dazed brunette half hidden behind a door just in front of him. A momentary feeling of déjà vu stirred in his mind but it vanished rapidly and only served to increase his perplexity as the girl seemed to wake up and began to shut her door. On impulse Zephyr inserted his foot before it could fully close and leaned forward slightly, confusion clear on his features.

"Have we.. have we met?"

Blue eyes. It always started like looking through a papertowel tube. Narrow focus that gradually spread out from a point. And her point was always a set of eyes. These were a nice light shade of cerulean. And they were attached to a plain looking guy that was standing in the hall.

Gun at the small of her back, she was in her pajamas and standing in her doorway. Immediately the door started to swing shut. She hadn't even properly processed the situation, but she did know one thing. She'd wiped someone. Probably because they'd been in her apartment. She trusted them enough to see her apartment and enough to see her with her hair wet and in her PJs. But she was kicking them out now. And she had her gun on her.

The door slammed into a shoe and reverberated as it bounced back from the force. She caught it, mildly surprised that he didn't just let her shut the door on him.

> "Have we.. have we met?"

Alarmed, she didn't even bother to try to school her features. Her insides were clenching up with unbridled panic. How would he know her if she had just wiped them both?

"U-uh look—" She was good at playing things off, though. She'd had a lifetime of practice after all. Noel turned her surprise into a derisive look at the offending shoe that had caught the door. She hadn't been expecting that. And it deserved the glare she was shooting its way now. —I'm going to bed and I'd rather you not be here when I do." She raised her eyebrow at him as she recognized the smell of asian food behind her. Or maybe she was having dinner... either way she was in her PJs already. She obviously was not planning to leave the apartment any time soon.

His last recollection was of entering the park at dusk, when the night air had still been relatively tolerable, in order to collect payment for a prior assignment. Wherever he was now the ambient temperature had dropped to a notably less pleasant degree and though the slight bulge in his jacket indicated that he’d managed to procure his earnings, whether they were wholly accounted for was another matter entirely. This combined with a minor but insistent aching throughout his lower body and an odd aftertaste of Asian cuisine strongly suggested that things were not as they appeared.

Then there was the decidedly apprehensive and strangely familiar gamine all but cowering behind the rather sturdy door. Her features had shot through confusion, shock and then fear at an almost indiscernible and but for the final emotion they would have been a mirror of the elementals own unsettled thoughts, leaving him at something of a loss as how to proceed. The discrepancy was there however and with little else to go on at the present moment the hessian focused on the girl’s trepidation and all that it implied.

An hour or more of his life had vanished and left him with a pusillanimous brunette who likely knew, or at least possessed some notion, of what had occurred during the purported period. In short; they were going to have words. Possibly they would be nice words but if not the hazel haired hessian was more than capable of being impolite should the situation warrant it.

"U-uh look —I'm going to bed and I'd rather you not be here when I do."[/color]

Azure argus eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as the elemental forced his features into faux smile. The woman was not getting off that easily. ”And why, precisely, was I here?” The mercenary shifted his weight to lean against the doorframe in an almost idle posture which nonetheless managed to emphasize his height advantage and afford the hessian a better glimpse into the apartment beyond.

The place was a tip.

What was going on?

"If you don't know why you are where you are maybe you should lay off the crack." Why? Why oh why was she having this conversation? She had just wiped him. He shouldn't be remembering anything.

"I don't want whatever you're selling and I certainly don't want you." She knew he wasn't selling anything... well, she thought she knew. He was some kind of mucous-y cancer of a late night caller, surely not someone she had entertained in her home. She didn't entertain, after all.

He eased himself into the doorframe. A malignant tumor? She had to excise him at once or else he would take over.

"Go. Away." And she tried to slam the door despite the fact that his flesh was in the way. Childish, but it seemed a more natural step than going for her gun at this early stage. He wasn't an obvious threat and she tried not to draw down on someone she wasn't ready to kill. Obnoxious as he was, she didn't yet have enough of a reason to shoot him.

Noel desperately needed more information. Her phone could probably tell her something, but of course it was on the counter.

Zephyr had never thought of himself as one obsessed with maintaining dominion over each and every aspect of his life. Indeed given the fact that a substantial portion of his earnings were amassed from the continual bartering of his services to various individuals and factions both within the city and without, the elemental did occasionally find himself in situations beyond his immediate control, if not his actual ability. Still, in spite of this the hessian harbored a rather ardent dislike of being cozened; it was one thing to accept an assignment with and know there was limited information before then find something unexpected, it was quite another to learn that you had been manipulated into performing and cheated of proper compensation.

In short Zephyr did not relish being deceived, he could understand that certain situations required a particular amount of duplicity, but provided he was paid well for his ignorance the mercenary generally didn't care. It was only when an artifice negatively affected the hessians lucre that he took offense and sought to rectify matters. Given then that he possessed no account of what had happened over the past few hours and that a subtle search of his inner pockets revealed that the envelope containing the payment for his most recent... undertaking, had clearly been unsealed, a suspicion of foul play was far from unreasonable.

The only issue at hand was to determine precisely how he conduct his investigations. The brunette before him was clearly unnerved for some reason and thus he'd endeavored to at least affect a polite mien. What little patience the elemental possessed however was swiftly deteriorating as the gamine became increasingly less amenable as she tried to lambaste him with poorly conceived insults and an imprudent effort to slam the door and crush the mercenary's foot. The latter action resulted in relatively little pain for the elemental due to his medication, however he was still caught somewhat off guard, causing an anathemic utterance to slip from his lips as he removed his foot on reflex thus permitting the ingénue to shut her door and slide numerous locks into place with audible clicks.

That was far from the end of the issue though.

After taking a few short moments to ensure his foot was little more than bruised and to confirm that his payment was indeed short of what he'd been promised, Zephyr returned his attention to the door which had been so rashly slammed in his face, and paused as a sense of déjà vu briefly overcame him. Something really wasn't right here. Almost hesitantly the hessian raised a hand and slowly ran it down the edge of the door compromising each of the little mechanisms securing it to the frame. He knew how to unlock the door, the knowledge was waiting restlessly at the corner of his thoughts he just had to...

Three minutes later the last chain fell free of its slot and with a short twist of the handle Zephyr deftly opened the door and stepped inside the aforementioned tip of an apartment.

He was not leaving without answers.

There was a reasonable, logical explanation. Noel knew that deep down inside. But after she'd wrangled to door shut and pressed her back against the solid piece of wood she had felt safe. For a minute or two.

Scriiiiiiiiitch.

Like a horror film, her eyes dragged slowly along with the noise to the moving dead bolt. She knew it wasn't impossible. Even humans could pick locks, but... the next started to turn and her 3 alarm heart beat went up to a five alarm full throbbing, adrenaline inducing panic-fest.

Ghosts. Had to be ghosts. No. Wait. More likely mutant. Information. She needed information.

Her mind worked in short bursts while her body went into action. Her gun was in her hand as if she had summoned it from another dimension. Skin warmed and solid, it did more to calm her than any plan of action could. She snatched up the taser and the rock'n'roll tees it had landed on. No time to discriminate on what she was grabbing. She had to get under cover.

Couch. It was heaped over with clothes, clean and dirty with no real organization to the mayhem. Noel went there, knelt behind the mass and steadied her hands on the mass. She angled herself so that the least amount of herself would be showing when the inevitable bastille storming would happen. What was this guy's problem?

She took a second to pat her pockets for her phone. A jingle got her attention and the agent honed all her scrutiny and ferocity toward the door.

The kitchen light reflected off the short chain as it waggled back and forth. He'd done it. Her breath went out and she held it. He walked in. The guy had to be pretty confident in his own abilities to just storm into someone else's home like that.

"I'd rather not discharge my weapon in such a crowded building." Kids lived here for goodness sake. "I'll give you to three to get out."

She should have dialed the cops, should have had 911. Why it was just occurring to her now? Well, she did have memory issues... plus where was that stupid phone?

The place really was quite deplorable. Different rooms led off from the left and right but the main sitting area which opened just after the short entry way was furnished in a fairly quotidian manner; couch, table, chairs etc. What detracted from this ordinary setting was the veritable flood of papers which had all but buried the furniture and a more than modest portion of the floor. Ranging from glossy magazines, carelessly strewn sheaves of note paper to diminutive yellow pieces of post it notes which seemed to have been applied to virtually everything with surprising avidity.

The overall effect was an space which resembled what one might imagine would result from introducing a fully stocked filing cabinet to some puissant explosives, less any residual scorch marks or flames, though in all honesty they would not have been entirely out of place. Possibly it would have mitigated the rather potent scent of bromidic Mexican fast food to some degree.

'K-chick'

It is, at times, surprising how quickly the mind can process, prioritize and react to the many and varied stimuli it constantly receives. Zephyr's idle observations on interior decorum came to an abrupt derailed as the elemental recognized the soft but distinct echo of a cocked firearm and his entire body paused, cool cobalt eyes shifting slightly, redirecting their focus as the elemental turned his head with a forced calm to glance at the timid brunette all but cowering behind the littered form of her couch. The ingénues face was a mixture of anxiety and determination as she aimed her weapon at him, arm braced against the back of the couch to steady her hand.

"I'd rather not discharge my weapon in such a crowded building. I'll give you to three to get out."[/color]

It was a sensible stance and in a more conventional confrontation it would have been quite effective, As things were however the gun was merely a nuisance, a rather large and pointed nuisance yes, but not an obstacle beyond the hessians abilities. It would be a small matter to remove the weapon from the girls grasp, however considering the possibility of an accidental discharge simply shattering the firing pin would be more advisable, though it would take somewhat more effort. Still it was a fairly fragile component, designed to take stress from only one direction, provided the girl kept her hands still and her attention on him he'd likely be able to negate the weapon without her notice.

Even if he succeeded though he still had to deal with brunette; initially he had thought a simple act of intimidation would be enough to persuade the gamine to answer his questions. Judging from her grim determination however body language and threats would only get him so far and this wasn't really the setting for physical violence. No, better to try and diffuse the situation and convince the girl it would be easier to work with him then against him; less effort all round with a good chance of getting the answers he needed in short order. He did have things to do in the morning after all.

First things first though; the elemental narrowed his azure gaze and focused on the pistol centered on his chest. It took but a moment to spread his influence out to the surrounding air, bringing it to bear on the stygian weapon as he swiftly searched and found the firing pin nestled in the back of guns barrel before then wrapping the thin spine of metal in a sharpened ribbon of air and shattering its center, rending the gun useless.

With the more immediate nuisance dealt with Zephyr allowed his gaze to flicker back to the girls own hazel orbs, a contemplative expression on his features as he considered how best to react to the gamines poorly worded threat before responding in a wry and resigned tone. "And then what? You'll lock the door? Bar it perhaps? You just said you don't want to shoot, yet you cannot keep me out and I have no desire to leave. Even if I did there would be nothing to stop me from coming back."

The hessian sighed, turning slightly and resting his back against the wall as he raised a hand to the bridge of his nose in an aggravated gesture which was only partially feigned while keeping the brunette in the corner of his vision. "Perhaps we should start again, my name is Dio and as you've likely deduced I'm a mutant. I'm currently suffering from an odd bout of amnesia and I believe you can help me in resolving it."

"If you would also lower your gun that would be greatly appreciated."

Her gun dipped with a slight, but fierce jerk. She... didn't... do that.

> "my name is Dio and as you've likely deduced I'm a mutant."

If she were the cursing kind, she would likely be cursing now. Dirty mutant, invading her space, messing with her gun. Screw the neighbors. She pulled the trigger while he was still talking. Her gun made the saddest, sickest little click.

> "If you would also lower your gun that would be greatly appreciated."

She stood and looked at the weapon, looked at the mutant, looked at the gun. It was useless and she had a serious problem standing in her entryway.

She did the first thing that occurred to her.

Noel threw the gun at him.

She threw it at him like all the bad guys threw the gun at superman after they ran out of bullets, except she was aiming for his head.

The analogy wasn't too far off. He could open locked doors and break a gun from across the room. What she could do seemed so much less dangerous. She was just so absolutely furious that this schmuck had the gaul to invade the sanctity of her home that the chucked it at him. "GET. OUT." She bellowed the words loud enough that the neighbors likely heard. It was as good as dialing 911 herself.

The agent stormed around the couch in a complete rage. The only things she had left to throw at him now were her fists.

The moral of the story? A locked door means go away.

As a rule, events rarely, if ever, go according to plan. This is largely due to what is known as Murphey's, aka sods, law which explicitly that whatever can go amiss shall almost always do so at the most inopportune time. Zephyr was therefore only marginally annoyed rather than surprised when the impotent click of the brunettes gun demonstrated that his words had failed to have their intended pacifying affect, though in hindsight a part of the elemental realized that conventional logic was rarely ever effective with women; they tended to treat any kind of rational thought as some kind of anathema.

In fact said line of thought was swiftly given a good deal of credence when the girl, instead of attempting to talk and cease hostilities upon realizing her only weapon had been rendered useless, chose to launch it at the source of her frustration in an over arm throw which could likely have put the Yankees to shame. The gun flew end over end through the short distance between the hallway and living room before catching the vexed elemental in the side of the head as he tried vainly attempted to duck and was rewarded with a dull thud just above his ear.

The impact served to knock the hessian off balance briefly, causing him to stumble along the wall, but the pain of the blow was quickly stifled by the high grade painkillers already coursing through his system and as his shoulder collided with the front door it had already faded to little more than a dull ache which was hardly greater than his usual migraine. His patience however had suffered considerably more damage and as the soubrettes words broke through the mild haze of disorientation the elemental abandoned his earlier hesitancy and rapidly drew upon the surrounding air.

The first course of action was damage control; he could sense the thickness of the walls and they were far from sufficient, the last thing he wanted was the attention of the other residents and so the azure eyed mercenary focused, and in motion born of long practice, deftly separated the air at the rooms perimeters thereby creating a thin vacuum which essentially insulated the apartment against any sound attempting to enter or leave.

The downside of this practical maneuver however was that it gave the hessians 'charming' host enough time to stalk around the couch which had previously served as a crude bulwark and stomp her way towards him with a rather incensed expression accompanied by a raised fist which carried a promise of rather ardent discomfort should she get within range.

The upside of the situation was that the girl was so preoccupied with her indignant outrage that she wasn't moving much faster than a brisk walk. While she admittedly didn't have much space to cover her pace was such that she'd barely entered the hallway when Zephyr met her gaze with narrowed eyes and responded with a short and simple "No." before giving a curt gesture with his hand and delivering a slice of dulled wind across the brunettes shoulders which all but took the girls feet out from under her as she stumbled backwards until she fell somewhat roughly across the couch she'd hidden behind not 30 seconds ago causing various papers and magazines to scatter.

No sooner had the woman landed then Zephyr followed up his initial retaliation, lifting his arm towards the briefly dazed brunette and swiftly clenching his hand into a fist as he rapidly condensed the air surrounding her lower half. Only after he had managed to essentially immobilize everything below the brunettes hips did the elemental allow himself a measure of repose before he lowered his arm and carefully regained his feet.

Walking with slow deliberate steps the hessian paused briefly at the end of the hallway and glanced down at a small side table which was cluttered with mail, grasping several with an idle air the elemental began striding forward again as he cycled through the envelops until he found one with a suitable mailing address and came to a stop a short distance away from his host; far enough to making throwing magazines or other stationary ineffective but close enough to be clearly heard.

"I would like to apologize Ms... Gage, I seem to have been unclear and so you do not properly appreciate your situation. I quite understand you do not want me here and I would like nothing more than to leave, however as I already mentioned a significant portion of my memory is missing and I take exception to having my mind altered without my consent."

"That being said the sooner you answer my questions the sooner I will leave and we can both get on with our lives. If instead you continue this petulant behavior I have alternative methods I can use which are not quite so polite. Now, are we going to help each other or are you going to continue to be difficult?"

The moral of the story? A woman should know her place.

Noel was all geared up to slug a man and then she was wholly derailed by a force across her shoulders that sent her weight backward and redirected her force from forward and angry to backward and toppling. "Hu—?" Then it kind of felt like hands or a whole lot of rope was closing around her lower legs. Her legs snapped together and all hopes of smashing that look off his face went up with a poof of displaced papers and trash.

This was at first simply unexpected, next it was infuriating. How freaking versatile was his power? He's opening doors and pushing her around, now holding her there? She wriggled and thrashed a little more wildly than was proper in polite company. Not that a home invader counted as polite company, but Noel did not make a habit of acting like a trapped animal.

And you know what? Her arms weren't pegged down (yet) so she was making what little use of them that she could. A hoodie went flying over the back of the couch toward his face, next a half empty coffee mug from the coffee table, a magazine, she would have upended the whole coffee table if she could have gotten the leverage for it, but the angles weren't right.

So her answer was yes. Yes, she was going to make this as difficult for him as possible.

A weary sigh escaped Zephyr lips as he stared down at his inept host, an expression of resigned lassitude quickly replacing his polite facade as he watched the girls features rapidly shift from shock and to surprise to fury and indignation. It might have been amusing if the reaction hadn't been so depressingly predictable, in truth he wouldn't have minded being wrong for once if it meant the bloody woman would act rationally. Admittedly his actions had not endeared him to the brunette but the girl hadn't left him with many options. She had blatantly avoided offering any kind of information, declining to even give him something as simple as 'I don't know.' Instead she had become sullen, evasive and then violent, none of which did much to remove her from the elementals suspicion.

Still, since he knew what to expect he could at least take it in stride so to speak; subtly shifting his weight onto his back foot and nonchalantly slipping the collection of letters into a coat pocket to free his hands the hessian kept the majority of his attention on the ingénues form and thus had little difficulty dealing with the girls tantrum when it finally peaked.

The poorly thrown hoodie was easily snatched out of the air with one hand and swiftly used as a crude catcher's mitt to soften the force of the coffee mug and absorb what was left of the cups contents. The magazine unfurled quickly in mid throw and fell harmlessly at his feet while a tv remote was discreetly avoided with a simply side step. After that point the girl appeared to run out of suitable missiles and resorted to cushion and balled pieces of paper which were steadfastly ignored; if the soubrette insisted on acting like a child he would treat her like one.

Sparing a handful of moments to walk past the couch and drag the coffee table and its contents beyond the brunettes reach Zephyr spent a short time leafing through the less crumpled documents scattered throughout the room whilst pointedly turning a deaf ear and blind eye to his hosts actions. A cursory scan of the various papers revealed nothing which seemed immensely fascinating, but after brief consideration the mercenary selected a small but varied combination of documents and made a short show of flipping through them before deigning to turn his attention to his immobile companion.

"As you insist on being puerile I will see what information I can get from these, if when I'm done, you feel like being civil we can try and discuss this like adults."

With that being said the hessian turned away from the jejune soubrette and idly wandered towards the kitchen which looked to have the only table in the apartment.

"How can we discuss like adults when you've pinned me?" She muttered to herself more than to her intruder. Where the heck was her phone? She needed to dial 911. She needed the neighbors to get the guts to dial 911. Unfortunately, he had caught the cup. Nothing had made enough ruckus to alert anyone.

Noel folded her arms tight across her chest. So far he was only nosing around for information. He hadn't actually harmed her in anyway. He had mostly just annoyed her and damaged her pride.

"Look me in the eye like an actual human being and I'll tell you what you want to know." Her words came out through gritted teeth. Noel would tell him what she knew. Or at least she intended to. She would have had to grimace around the words' flavor if she hadn't meant every syllable.

Having wiped herself as well as him, she could only tell him what she had observed unless there were notes somewhere. It would incriminate herself. Noel just wanted the chance to free herself and her eyes were her only weapon. If information was the price then so be it. She would not be held against her will.

When she got her hands on him...

The kitchen bore a similar state of disarray as the rest of the apartment, plates and glasses were piled high in the sink seemingly untouched by soap or water. The trash can was all but obscured from view by a veritable fortress of pizza boxes and takeaway containers which occupied a notable portion of the tiled floor and filled the air with a mixture of scents ranging from Mexican, Chinese and the aforementioned pizza. All in all it rather reminded the elemental of the dorms he'd viewed when he had last toured the Yale campus some months ago.

In short, the place was far from pristine but he'd seen a good deal worse.

Paying little mind to his hosts puerile mutterings Zephyr did not even spare the brunette a glance as he took a seat at the small kitchen island and swept the various clutter atop it to one side. The various letters and other documents he'd selected were then set down in the relatively small clean space and summarily skimmed over.

The odds of actually finding anything particularly enlightening were rather low, akin to that of needles and haystacks given the state of girls apartment, however as it was only a delaying tactic such things hardly mattered. Taking into account the soubrettes rather poor temperament her immobility would likely drive her to distraction long before the hessians own patience wore out. Hopefully she'd see sense and become compliant but if not well, a good deal could be done with just a few minor pieces of personal information.

It was with such a thought in mind that Zephyr restrained a yawn as he grasped the nearest letter, idly slicing its top open to inspect the contents.

Twenty minutes later the elemental had learned a good deal about his ungracious hostess. He knew, for instance, that it was unlikely she owned a computer as she did not pay for any internet connection. She was somewhat forgetful or simply negligent when it came to turning off various appliances if her electrical bill was any indication. That however was only a minor issue as her bank balance was more than adequate, which was somewhat surprising since the majority of the deposits suggested she was government employee.

Perhaps the most fascinating piece of information though was a few short lines of barely legible writing scrawled out across a notepad which had been resting at the edge of the kitchen island but now lay loosely in the elementals grasp as he stared blankly at the kitchen wall with various thoughts threading through his mind. Tired as he was it was becoming difficult to concentrate properly but at the very least he was aware that he had somehow missed a significant piece of the puzzle and it irked him.

"Look me in the eye like an actual human being and I'll tell you what you want to know."[/color]

Drawn from his contemplations Zephyr took a moment to replay Noels words and realize that she was now willing to talk. A further few seconds were then taken to debate the pros and cons of actually conversing with the brunette in light of what he'd found before he ultimately rose from his seat and made his way towards the brunette before setting setting himself into a seat across from her and tossing the notepad face up on the coffee table for her to see.

'Medium height, brunette, air mutant, blue eyes, suit jacket, mercenary. Met in central park after incident. Known alias is Dio. He bought you dinner and then you kicked him out... cute butt.'[/color]

Staring at the ingénue with a carefully blank expression the elemental spoke in a low tone which only hinted at the weariness he was feeling. "Perhaps you can begin with this, it seems an odd choice for diary."

She frowned and then scowled so deeply that the pink in her cheeks could almost be explained away as anger. Almost. "That is not a diary. That is a notation to either jog my memory or fill in a gap. I wipe memories and there is always backlash. I wiped your memory of our time together and sent you packing." Her cheeks reddened in ernest now. "I was apparently watching you go."

How was that for honesty? She still wanted to make him hurt for making her helpless and invading her personal space, but now she was curious too. Whatever the "incident" was, it had to be rather embarrassing for her to be willing to forget what seemed like a successful date. Under normal circumstances she would never have let a man into her home in her pajamas or with wet hair. Of course, under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have imagined both of those to be true while her legs were pinned to her couch.

Noel folded her arms over her chest and did not even bother to try and remember what the incident was. She didn't want to. He couldn't make her.

"I wipe memories...[/color]

Sitting back silently in his chair as Noel gave her short response a small part of Zephyr recognized that, under different circumstances, he might have quite enjoyed Noels current embarrassment, maybe even use it to his advantage. Even with the scar she was still fairly attractive and evidently she'd already seen fit to allow him in her home and share a meal.

Under different circumstances, the remainder of the night might have proved quite enjoyable.

As it was though the elemental found himself exercising considerable will power simply to keep his posture relaxed and his intangible grasp on the brunettes legs stable as she calmly admitted to violating his mind and censoring his memories without any apparent regret. As though the reminder she'd written herself was the sole cause of concern, as if his own thoughts were nothing more than clutter to be discarded at the earliest f***ing convenience.

Zephyr well knew that the human body was a fragile thing, he'd had ample opportunity over the years to both learn and demonstrate this simple fact. Despite his experience though violence had never been something he'd enjoyed, it had merely been something he was good at and Noel was exceedingly fortunate that this was case. Under different circumstances she might not have been so lucky.

Anger is never easy to dispel, however it can be fairly simply to hide with sufficient practice and this Zephyr did, forcing himself to take a handful of gradual breaths as he closed his eyes and grasped the bridge of his nose as he collected his thoughts to put his priorities in order. The first question came surprisingly quickly, though it took more effort than he'd care to admit to keep his voice deceptively calm.

"Quite, now how precisely did you manage this? I can't imagine I gave my consent."