Ryan stretched and let out a loud sigh. His head rolled around, a cracking sound as he made the full rotation. "Ahh... that's better..."
Clasping his fingers together and pushing them outwards to release tension from them as well, he sauntered forwards.
"You know, I really must say... I am truly hurt that it's been so long." Lips frowned like a pouting child, Ryan mimicked the emotional pain he lacked. His eyes were lit with a playful gleam.
"It's almost as if..." Casting his gaze down, soaking in the dramatic pause, Ryan knew his words would be heard. Someone was always listening... "You've forgotten about me?"
Immediately, her eyes narrowed. There was a shadow cast over her face for just a split second before Zoey let the smallest smirk grace her lips. "I mean, if you wanna see it that way? Take it and run with it."
She stood up and whipped out her Author's pen, allowing the firelight from the hearth to glint off it's brass and shiny wooden parts. "But this takes precedence over giving what little time I have to the likes of you."
She shrugged then, circling around Ryan, inspecting him. "Typical of your genre though.
Self-absorbed vampire trope." She sighed and looked back at him with a bored expression. "I got demoted to deal with your family? I really wish some other Author could deal with this."
Ryan feigned a gasp, clutching his heart. "And here I thought we could spend some quality time together..." He theatrically stumbled to the wall, bracing the mantle of the fireplace for support.
With a strained whisper, "My feelings."
Finding the attention he was receiving unsatisfactory, Ryan slowly approached Zoey.
"Fine, write in your little diary. I'll be here... Just hopelessly longing for some pleasant conversation after being left alone for so long... Don't mind me..."
Ryan pretended to observe the titles on a nearby bookshelf. After a moment, he started to hum to himself an impromptu arrangement of off-pitch keys. Aimlessly wandering around the room, dragging his hands on everything he went past, Ryan hummed louder as he approached where Zoey sat.
She couldn't roll her eyes hard enough. Zoey had seen some hams back in her day, in her world, but this one surely took the melodramatic cake. She sighed, feeling slightly defeated in that he'd managed to make her feel just the slightest bit guilty. She looked up at him and for a moment her eyes held some amount of pain and hurt. But she quickly covered it up with a later of sarcastic wit and apathy that she was quite known for in her circles. "Can you be just a bit more obvious that you're bored as shit? Maybe start doing a dance too?"
Zoey grabbed the book out of his hands and looked at it's title, frowning. "The Secret Life of Poisonous Plants?"
As soon as he had a reaction from Zoey, Ryan's eyes were on her, making note of every small detail of emotion on her face.
Feeling particularly triumphant in the response he obtained, even if she was quick to cover it up with sarcasm, Ryan's lips pulled into his familiar smirk.
"What? One can't admire the beauty of the rubus armeniacu? Or the heracleum mantegazzianum?"
Ryan left Zoey to hold the book, slowly making his way towards the book she was trying to write in. "And yes, to many peoples' surprise, I read." Continuing in his wounded voice, "It's all I can really do when I'm left alone here..." Stopping at the edge of the table, Ryan's mischievous gaze glanced down at the book, trying to understand its importance, if any.
Zoey was too absorbed in the pages of the book she'd stolen from him to notice that he was eyeballing her book. The one she kept with her at all times. The one that she'd been suckered with by the High Counsel.
Or maybe she did know that he was tiptoeing around it? Maybe she didn't care. He could read the pages and it wouldn't make a lick of difference unless he had the pen. And even then, unless he had the ability to wield it. Something that was more of a curse than a blessing by her standards.
