[Astraea Olath'barra]

She could feel her jaw clench and flex as she gazed at him, feeling a decidedly noticeable urge to use her bagh nakh to slash his throat. She had decided long ago that she would rule her emotions, however, not the other way around. This was just further exercise for such control, she told herself; a 'two birds, one stone' situation that the surface dwellers seemed fond of describing.

So rather then gut the insolent male where he stood--which took some doing in and of itself--she did a rare thing and closed her eyes. Every instinct told her not to, every sense she had screamed that the newly blind could be better described as the near-future dead, and so it would be stupid to lose the one sense that she, like most all other mortal races, relied on the most. She did it, however, and as every nerve ending in her body tingled with readiness to take action, she focused her mind on the words he'd spoken.

In her mind she envisioned a war drum beating a ponderously slow tune to rouse the troops. As the sluggish beat rang in her imagination, she began to slow her breaths, taking deeper ones, so that the inhale and exhale each started on the beat. Additionally, she willed stillness in her body, trying to focus not on being ready to fight or flee, but instead as though she were trying to will her own body into suspended animation and hopefully slow her heart and circulation in the process.

She was careful not to punctuate the beginning or ending of each inhale or exhale of each breath so that it wouldn't make noise, working instead on seamlessly switching between taking air in and letting it out. Ideally, the only clues would be the rise and fall of her chest as she took each deep breath. Other than that, she waited to hear what else the male had to say, hoping her actions had appeased his self-righteousness enough to progress to the lesson rather than teach her how to breath. She understood the significance of it, but still, the sheer imperiousness of this male made it so much more difficult...