[Astraea Olath'barra]

As the other Vysstichi met her gaze fearlessly, a mild chord of approval ran through the other woman's mind, though she was careful to leave it out of her expression. Any female worth her salt could control her expression and at least offer up false bravado when necessary. All her current expression did was denote that she was not an immediate outcast by her people. It proved nothing of her worth aside from the fact that she wasn't openly despised by all. When she heard her speak, Strae's full, thick lips curved upwards into a half-smirk.

"No one has to say it, your eyes say it for you." Her hands slowly tightened then loosened on the Bagh Nakh in her grip, repeating that pattern over and over It was a way of flexing the muscles to keep them sharp and ready on a moments notice. It had become habit by now.

"And 'it' can be a 'who'...I meant 'it' in the more universal sense...but you haven't found it yet. At least, not definitively. If you had, your eyes wouldn't look the way they do...searching for something greater." She shook her head slowly, her unpigmented ponytail swaying slightly as she did. The surface was soft...too soft. If she--if anyone--spent too much time up here in the comfort of a city, they would lose their edge. That defining edge that made one a true Vysstichi, versus a dark-skinned elf. Oh yes, there was a difference. When she'd been up here last, she'd been a dark-skinned ef. Now she was Vysstichi. This she understood with certainty.

This girl...she was just a dark-skinned elf. At least at the moment she was. She was soft, even if she herself didn't recognize it. Anyone who bore that look that made it clear they hadn't found 'it' was soft. At the moment, she was hardly fit to be a stepping stone. When one is ascending a pillar and they have already surpassed ground level, one does not purposefully descend again. Using this girl, at the moment, would be a descent. Perhaps she'd been mistaken...perhaps this girl was not fit to be used after all.

She would need to either undergo a revelation of self or at least show signs of stepping down the proper path before Strae would consider her even worth grooming to be a stepping stone. Even were that to happen, to the Vysstichi woman this girl would still a long way off of being someone worthy of ascending with. She hoped to find someone worthy, and she hoped to find it soon. After her brother--the weak male that he was--had vanished, she understood the worth of having someone who would watch her back. That didn't mean she wouldn't continue to watch it herself, it just meant she could relax and only worry about the other person slipping a knife into it rather then the entire rest of telath. A situation of mutual need would probably be best, as much as she hated to admit it. In that form, one would be resistant to killing the other, which meant that they could be trusted out of necessity. It was the only kind of trust that Strae believed in.

"Either way, if you don't find it soon, you will be swallowed whole by someone else's ambition."

Not mine...not yet...you're not yet worth it...but that doesn't mean there aren't others beneath myself who wouldn't hesitate to use your corpse as a ladder.