2023-10-26: Of Like Mind
- Log: 2023-10-26: Of Like Mind
- Cast: Cornelia li Britannia, Sayla Mass
- Where: Clovis Memorial Museum, Area 11
- OOC - IC Date: 25 October, 0097
- Summary: Following the incident in which Dr Murasame was captured, Dr Mass is summoned to speak with the Viceroy of Area 11- and Sayla immediately tells Cornelia she won't be getting everything. After a tense confrontation, the two come to an understanding- a favour owed, and perhaps a realization of some of their similarities.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
Clovis Memorial Museum. A lavish project swiftly put together in the wake of what some would view as the Third Prince's tragic and untimely passing, the museum - a dedication to a myriad style of Britannian art, including Clovis la Britannia's own - stands as both a dedication to a lost brother, and a symbol of Britannian superiority. The message it carries is simple but vindictive:
You can take their lives, but the Britannian royal legacy will continue to loom large over your lives. Inescapably.
Cornelia li Britannia doesn't much care for such passive-aggressive, backhanded messages. To her, this place is another slice of her often short-sighted and short-tempered brother, immortalized for an eternity -- a memorial in the truest sense of the word, like the gardens above the Viceroy's palatial estates. A reminder of what Zero - what these people - have taken from her.
A reminder to never let go of that vendetta until it has finally been satisfied.
In a more practical and immediate sense, though, the museum makes for the fine staging ground for a meeting between people who do not normally meet -- between people who may not wish to be seen publicly meeting. The museum is still new, barely past its own grand opening; there's hardly an eye to be bat if it were to, say, close for a day to reorganize its exhibits... especially when trustworthy personnel make sure that the area is safe and secure from prying eyes.
And that is why, today, Clovis Memorial Museum is closed. Staff will be here in time, to get to work on a new exhibit dedicated to some of the Third Prince's more recently discovered works. But for right now? For right now, save for a handful of the Glaston Knights kept around for security purposes, the museum is completely empty...
... save, right now, for a single person.
She stands in the antechamber of the museum, dressed in the wine red regalia of her station. White cape draped over her shoulder, her hands, lost within that cape's voluminous fabric, hold fast to a manilla envelope as she stares up at the long, red wall, decorated with a host of paintings. Still lifes, pointilism pieces, traditional portraits -- a host of styles and artists tell stories all their own across that wall. To her, it all seems so empty; she's never truly understood the value of art, not like Clovis.
Perhaps that's why, as she waits, Cornelia li Britannia's gaze focuses on a simple piece -- a still life, of a vase of flowers. One of Clovis' first pieces of art.
"..."
Britannia's Second Princess may not understand the value of this art -- but she at least understands the value behind a memory.
She understands it better than most might think.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
It's a black car that pulls up to the Clovis Memorial Museum, towards one of the side entrances. It's a model typically associated with Area 11's government, with discreet armour and tinted bulletproof windows.
A bodyguard steps out first, checking everything before waving through her employer- and Dr Sayla Mass steps out of the vehicle and is moved towards the door. She didn't spend much time in Areas- The Britannian Government had spent many years blockading any humanitarian action in the areas- and while Princess Euphemia had proven an ally, there were limits to what she could do alone.
The four years she had spent living on the Britannian Continent had been more than enough time for Sayla, and she had no enjoyment in coming to places like this- but this was a summons from the second princess and for better or worse, Sayla was in her debt for the moment. And so she came.
She's dressed in a green skirt suit, with a white blouse and a white waterfall-style cravat. Her bodyguard stays outside, as Sayla enters.
Sayla takes in the art as she walks through to the antechamber, assessing it quickly and moving on. She could feel that oppressive message in it, an ode to the late former Viceroy. But what it is to her compared to someone else...
"Good afternoon, Viceroy." Sayla says, announcing herself, but saying nothing more. She assumes Cornelia will bring up the topic soon enough. She's not a woman to beat around the bush.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
The museum is in many ways quintessentially Britannian: there's a certain beauty to the architectural design of the place and the richness of a royal budget, but that rigid, draconian commitment to a single and unyielding vision makes it feel still, lifeless. Stagnant. Like a moment frozen in time, refusing to move.
It's a suffocating sensation of empty oppression that certainly isn't helped by the current emptiness of the museum: the resounding echo of Sayla's footfalls on marble announces her presence long before her words do, with not a sound or intervening presence in sight to keep each step from resounding so crisply.
Still -- the purple-haired princess of the Britannian Union doesn't say anything until Sayla officially makes her presence known; that indigo gaze of hers remains affixed to those paintings, gaze wandering from one of Clovis' works to the next.
She still isn't sure just what Clovis was working on in Area 11 that he felt he had to keep secret from all of his family. Bartley had never been forthcoming with details, even to her. By all accounts, it seemed like yet more grotesque human experimentation. More attempts to engineer soldiers, instead of forging them on the battlefield, as it should be in her eyes. And yet...
Good afternoon, Viceroy.
Indigo eyes slip shut when those three words reach her ears.
"Doctor Mass."
It's a distant, removed sort of greeting. Cornelia is in many ways the hardline opposition to Euphemia's kinder heart, and she does not go out of her way to disprove it here in the cool bite of her reception. But, then -- maybe that's just to be expected.
By the time that sharp gaze of the princess' reopens, it is fixed on Sayla instead of the paintings, as if to shut them entirely out of her mind. The smooth pivot of her heel has her facing her guest fully, as a gloved hand emerges from that rippling cape, holding that manilla envelope up high; sure enough, the stern-faced Viceroy wastes little time on small talk, as if even entertaining it might be weakness.
"So, then. It would seem you managed to fulfill your end of our agreement," she begins, the gesture of that envelope calling attention to its presence. "Is this everything that you had managed to procure from Murasame?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla's blue eyes meet Cornelia's indigo. She's had a surprising amount of encounters with Britannian Royalty in the past few years, and she is not one to be cowed by authority alone. The younger woman is clearly taller, stronger and more skilled in combat than Sayla, and has the weight of the Britannian Empire behind her. But Sayla still intends to meet her as an equal.
Still, she does not need to have her emotional walls up with Cornelia. She's not a newtype, and that means Sayla can more reliably use all her senses. It's harder with non-newtypes but all the same- Sayla has nearly two decades of experience with the edge that her powers have given her in negotiations.
"Everything you requested. The names of those who supported his research, who worked with him, who aided his release from prison." Sayla doesn't break eye contact, even though she has to look up at Cornelia. "He rolled over on them quite easily, when it came to his survival. So much so that I had my people double check he wasn't just naming names to spare his neck." She crosses her arms as she speaks. "Given he spent nearly a decade locked up, not all of them are relevant anymore."
But is it everything? "...His research, however, I intend to keep buried. Every additional copy that exists is one that can leak. Cathedra may now have a mandate to go after people like him, but BioNet and their ilk don't particularly care for what the law thinks, after all."
Sayla watches Cornelia's reaction carefully to this information. She can't imagine that Cornelia would think she wouldn't get those methods, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
"Worms will always writhe when prodded. It's the nature of the spineless."
Cornelia is not always an easy person to read. It's the consequence of a Britannian upbringing, but perhaps more importantly... Cornelia's own experiences. There's little sympathy in her voice to be spared for Murasame; only that cold, stiff-backed remove she has maintained from the beginning. It's the same, stern stare that looks down to meet Sayla's blue gaze, too.
But she has never been as good as Schneizel when it comes to masking her feelings -- and the truth is, the Second Princess feels things, -strongly-. That lack of sympathy and cold remove comes with an undercurrent of contempt that can't be denied; that stare has an intensity to it that betrays her own passions about all of this.
The reasons for them, however, is another question entirely, and -that- much those purple-painted lips remain sealed on.
She maintains that stare for some time, but eventually her gaze breaks briefly from Sayla's to open that manilla envelope. She looks through the contents -- smart paper dossiers on each of the names mentioned. As Sayla had said -- many of them are already dead or in prison or otherwise dead ends. Former Titans, disgraced politicians. But there are others there. More relevant. Members of the Vist Foundation -- unsurprising, but useful. Personnel from BioNet that could lead her to others, if the information is deployed smartly. And other names she recognizes, yet hasn't seen in action for some time.
"..."
Ultimately, she has looked over this list a dozen times already by now. And yet even still, there is a pique of frustration that can be sensed in her as she looks through them. Because of how many are simply outdated now? Or...
"... But sometimes worms will writhe simply to writhe," she elects to say, pushing past those frustrations. "Are you certain this information is--" 'legitimate,' she is going to say, in so many words -- but Sayla beats her to it. The Princess blinks, looking back toward the older woman. Her brows furrow for a moment, before something else crosses her expression that is harder to immediately place, if only for how out of place it looks in a typically harsh expression. Her gaze drops, back toward the dossiers.
"... Good."
Acknowledgement; appreciation.
"Many of these names are useless, now. However, there is enough here to build from. One name leads to another, until all their vile web is exposed. This shall... eh?"
How quickly, then, does it all simply burn away when Sayla continues. If Cornelia is a woman of outsized feelings tightly contained within that stoic Britannian package, her confusion -- and then her anger -- are things of fire when Sayla makes known the fact that she has kept that research from her. Cornelia's stare becomes a glare, indigo eyes narrowing into indignant slits as she slaps closed those dossiers with the pinch of her gloved fingers. Purple lips twist into a scowl.
"What?"
She does not like being denied. But more to the point...
"Our deal was for all the intelligence you gathered from him. And now you seem to think this is the time to brazenly announce you know better than I what information I should and should not see?"
Gloved fingers clench tight around that envelop until it folds faintly around her thumbs.
"Or perhaps you think me on the level of some slathering BioNet craven."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
That intensity of emotion is loud and echoing. That's useful to know. Perhaps something Sayla can use to her advantage. Sayla's own face remains inexpressive, unemotional, for the purposes of speaking.
But it seems the two were of the same mind, on Murasame at least. That faint nod of appreciation is noted, along with how quickly it vanishes.
"Associates, names and locations. As promised." And that was, in Sayla's mind, what she promised. Even as Cornelia growls at her, Sayla stands firm. "But the specifics of what he did... I will not risk what was done to my daughter happening to anyone else."
Sayla shakes her head. "No. You, I believe, want to tear out this rot by any means. But can you say the same for every single person on your staff? Every single systems engineer that might have access to wherever you store it? I don't even trust my own people with this knowledge." Her voice is controlled, careful. Too much so, like she is trying to throttle down her own emotions. Because she is.
"All it takes is someone in the right place who is desperate, greedy or feels wronged. All it takes is one spender getting lucky once and putting the data where everyone can see it in the names of 'transparency'. One scientist thinking that they could defect with a bonus with something like this." There's only one other copy of that list in your hands, and it's mine."
It's paranoid, to some degree. Sayla knows it. But after how it went.
"Tell me, Princess. If you had to see a member of your family- badly underweight, dehydrated, her sense of self broken, made to think herself complicit in her own torture, unable to trust her own memories, her own judgment, what would you do?" It could be seen as a manipulative move, and it is. But even through Sayla's practiced facade, the emotion comes through. The raw pain.
"If you had to see them like that- if you had to face them, with the knowledge that the ones controlling her would inject her with a neurotoxin and make them fight against you to their last breath? To see every joy, every hope, torn from them because some wicked old man thought it made a better soldier- no, a better weapon, would you want that information in anyone's hands?"
Sayla's eyes are filled with steel as she speaks. "If you truly feel I have reneged on our deal, then I will agree to the terms of handing Murasame to you. But all that man wants is his research to keep being used, no matter what he has to do to do so." Sayla's eyes narrow. "I would deny him that, and stop him continuing to harm people from his cell. Does knowing how he did it aid you in hunting down his compatriots? Do the recordings of the way he tortured my daughter, tortured those other children, help you find them?" Sayla shakes her head. "Because it seems to me you have fire enough already- or you wouldn't have entertained this deal in the first place. Every researcher named in those files is there. Everyone who authorized it. Do yourself a favour and spare yourself the details of what that sick bastard did."
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
What Sayla says is rational. The logic behind it can't be denied, and deep in her heart, Cornelia knows it is true. She trusts the Glaston Knights, Darlton, Guilford with her life. She trusts many of the soldiers under her personal command nearly as much. She put in the work to prune her staff as Viceroy of all possible forms of corruption and complacency against her own rigid, often impossible standards.
But could she ever get all of them? Can she truly account for -every- member of her staff? Every aide, every engineer, every scientist, every politician?
All it takes is one. And she knows, from deeply personal experience, how some things are simply outside of her control.
... But that is exactly why all she can see in Sayla's explanation is someone telling her she is too limited, too weak. That she can't handle even this.
That inevitably, she will fail.
Manilla crumples into ugly wrinkles around gloved fingers.
Sayla's voice is tight, controlled, in a way that she knows all too well -- and that, too, irritates her, to see herself reflected in the older woman, makes her muscles coil taut until the tension is all but hissing from her lips as she speaks:
"Don't dare malign my soldiers, Mass. They have walked through hell with me, and it is a hell I would sooner walk into than let this research continue to propagate more reckless abominations like that -thing- of Murasame's! My people know the price for transgression, so perhaps the problem is simply that you do not have the steel needed to know you can trust yours. I will not be withheld by your weakness!"
It's unreasonable. Cornelia knows it. But after all she's lost, to be told she will lose again--
Tell me, Princess.
She is intent on wading deeper into her reproach when Sayla continues. Indigo eyes flutter in a brief blink. She isn't sure, exactly, where Sayla is going with this, if the consternated furrow of magenta brows is any indication; her kneejerk reaction is to see those initial words as some sort of threat, a response drilled into her through years of cultural strongarming and having it hammered into her that there is no one she can truly trust. Offense twists at her painted lips once more.
... But there is something about Sayla's words. Not what she says, necessarily, but the -way- she says it, that brings Cornelia to pause. Brings her to actually listen to the words, instead of dismiss them outright. Sayla frames her own experience in the lens of one of Cornelia's family, and Cornelia, paranoid and overprotective as she is, cannot help but immediately insert Euphemia's face into this deeply personal hypothetical that Sayla weaves.
She cannot help but see Euphemia, controlled, manipulated, tortured -- forced to turn against her--
"How dare you." Gloved fingers rise, pinching the bridge of Cornelia's nose as she utters those trembling words, as if she could banish those thoughts from her mind. "How dare you try to exploit sympathy from me like that, in so underhanded a--!"
Cornelia knows exactly what she would do in that situation. She doesn't want to consider how it could happen. She doesn't want to even -think- about the possibility. But she -knows-.
And that's why the anger in her is all too similar to the steel in Sayla's stare, for however misdirected it is; why, as Sayla continues, her reaction is immediate and vehement. Does knowing how he did it aid you in hunting down his compatriots?, Sayla asks.
"It gives me ANSWERS!"
Cornelia's shout, a culmination of all her building frustration, echoes through the empty halls of Clovis' memorial; it reverberates with the slap of paper on drywall as the Viceroy tosses that envelope against the wall in frustration. It ricochets off and falls to the ground, its contents spilling into a field of smartpapers stretching between her and Sayla. The princess draws in a sharp breath, expression livid.
"It gives me -answers- to questions that have had NO point lingering! Answers I refuse to let -you- deny me! It--" might tell her exactly what Clovis was doing here. She cuts herself off at the pass just before those words can spill from her lips. As if she can't bring herself to divulge something so personal in front of someone else, to risk showing weakness, even as Sayla so completely shows her own personal reasons for denying her. But even moreso...
... she knows. None of the names on that list looked familiar. None of them had any connection to Clovis. It's just an excuse... a platitude. And that she can't abide in herself.
She is silent for a long time, after that. Those indigo eyes never leave Sayla's blues as the quiet of the memorial museum settles in between them. The draw of her breath is a sharp thing as she reins herself in -- as that tight, taut composure draws back up once more.
Sayla's words hit too close to home. She can imagine too vividly what the other woman must be feeling now. And acknowledging that similarity... is just...
Cornelia's right hand falls to her hip. Her left raises to her forehead, pressing there when she finally looks aside.
"... Murasame is still alive, then," she exhales, her voice a tightly controlled thing. It would seem, for all the world, like a lead in to demand he be surrendered to her.
But there's something else there, in that expression of hers.
"Somewhere secure?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The sheer power of the emotions coming across from Cornelia is intense. That hurt, that rage that loss. It's enough to make even Sayla Mass hesitate- but she doesn't look away. Not once. It's steel clashing with steel now, and the similarities are hard not to notice. There's so much there, rising to the surface, underneath the anger.
The accusation that she lacks the steel to trust, however... That strikes true. It's subtle, but there's a reaction in Sayla's eyes. The slightest flicker of doubt. Her weakness, huh.
Maybe it is.
But Sayla can't even fully trust Cornelia, here.
"Because you understand it." Sayla says, firmly. "Underhanded or not, you understand why. Why if that information leaked, those new victims blood would be on my hands. Why I can't allow even the slightest risk of this happening to anyone else- or happening to Leina again." She doesn't soften her tone, simply standing firm.
The shout echoes, though. The sound of the paper slamming against the wall, the papers falling on the floor.
They both lack the steel, it seems. Though that is not a rock that Sayla feels like upturning.
But she understands that need all too well. It drove her to go to war, all those years ago. How the unanswered questions four years ago nearly destroyed her.
There's sympathy in Sayla, too, though showing it might simply insult the other woman. "...I can give you Murasame's reasoning easily enough. He was happy enough to espouse that." She shakes her head. "But the only things his methods reveal are the depths of his cruelty and how to replicate his work."
Sayla tenses again, as Cornelia mentions it. "...Yes. It's not what I'd prefer- but it was what his victims asked. Until they were in a place to make a choice themselves." Cornelia has perhaps earned some frankness, from the parts of her Sayla has seen. "...Yes. Under constant guard, and secure." And with a pair of GPS transmitters surgically inserted, just in case he catches one of them.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
They both lack the steel.
It's truer than Cornelia would ever bring herself to admit.
It is -also- true that sympathy now would just fan the flames of Cornelia's indignation. She's still very much a product of Britannia, and that means a sense of pride that would see a sympathetic hand as an accusation of weakness, an insult. In the grand scheme of things, more tinder might not mean especially much -- the Second Princess of Britannia is already livid, the firebrand of her ire rising to the fore without hesitation or obfuscation as she bites out an irritable "tt!" to Sayla's claims she understands.
"... That arrogance of yours is audacious at best, Mass," is Cornelia's hissed thoughts on the matter -- and if a tendency to unilaterally take on responsibility, especially in what she feels are the best interests of those most dear to her, is a part of Sayla that reflects in Cornelia too, well.
She's hardly going to admit to the audacity of her own arrogance.
Still -- Sayla's steady hand eventually brings Cornelia to assert control over her own anger, too. She listens, as Sayla makes her initial offer; a gloved hand abandons the hip it was perched on to wave dismissively through the air.
"I have no interest in the rationale of recreants," she states coldly. "I'd sooner see their tongues removed before they could flick further poison off it."
Which brings them, fittingly, to Murasame's fate. Cornelia's brows knit inward as Sayla mentions that the victims asked that he be spared -- and that Sayla obliged them. It draws a frown of disapproval to the princess' lips, but she says nothing immediately, watching the shorter woman as she explains the man's current status.
For a while, she remains silent. The uncertainty of whether she will demand Murasame be given to her lingers in the air for an uncomfortable period, before:
"Monsters thrive in the grace of weak-willed sentiment like mercy, Mass. It would be better that you kill him regardless of their wishes, than let the stain of his existence continue. Console them with the knowledge that the act would make the fact he could harm them no further an absolute certainty."
It's a harsh indictment, and perhaps says much about Cornelia's views on how to best protect the people important in her life. But in the moment, perhaps what might stand out the most is the fact of how she frames those words -- advising, even if in that commanding way of hers, rather than claiming personal intention.
Like, perhaps...
"... But that is still your choice to make."
Cornelia's hand falls from her forehead. She straightens, magenta hair rustling with the motion as she turns that piercing attention fully back on Sayla once again.
"Regardless of your reasons, you kept information from me," continues the princess, intent, it seems, on sticking to that claim. "And I have very little tolerance for being denied what is mine by right. I am... willing, however, to allow Murasame to remain with you. But do not mistake me: doing so would be a... favor... to you and your people."
'Favor'. She practically grinds that word out between her teeth. She hates favors. Insubstantial things that can only be valued by the air of someone's word. But...
"... A favor I would expect to be repaid, eventually."
Indigo eyes narrow. Cornelia steps forward with an echoing click, her heel grinding into paper beneath it as she extends one gloved hand.
"Swear that to me, and he is yours to keep in whatever foolhardy way you see fit."
It is not a deal she would make, normally. Cornelia does not -make- deals, normally. If she does, they give her something of concrete value. People. Things. Nations. She is loathe to trade on future vagaries. She can rationalize the value of it afterward. Having someone as resourceful and influential as Sayla Mass in her debt is a net boon that she is sure Schneizel would be proud of, even if she can hardly see the value of a thing she cannot grasp.
... But maybe there's just something in Sayla that resonates with her more than she would care to admit.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla's eyes narrow a touch, as Cornelia speaks of arrogance. But she doesn't refute it, either. Livid as the woman may be, it's always best not to add fuel to a fire in negotiations such as this.
"Understood," Sayla responds. She honestly thinks it's for the best that Cornelia is uninterested in the why in this case. Maybe not in every case, but in this one...
"Perhaps so," Sayla admits to Cornelia's advice. Murasame escaping execution once had caused all this. "It would be cleaner and more certain. It may yet come to that solution." But would it be justice without mercy? Even mercy for a monster like Murasame?
She's rather poisoned the well on that topic, though.
Cornelia sticks to her line, but again Sayla does not argue it. She could refute it further, and spit in the face of any further cooperation- or take the deal that is being offered.
Or she could hand Murasame to Cornelia and let her execute him, and claim her hands were tied.
But she could never look Leina, Akane or Rikka in the face again if she did.
"...An undefined favour is a powerful thing to hold over someone." Sayla says, quietly. As much as Cornelia does not put stock in the vagaries of a undefined deal, Sayla perhaps puts too much stock in what such a thing could represent. She takes a few moments, before speaking again.
"...very well. I, Sayla Mass, swear a favour to you, Cornelia li Britannia, to be collected at a later date of your choosing. Will that suffice, Viceroy?"
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
To let Cornelia just have the man would, perhaps, be easy.
If the shoe was on the other foot, Cornelia would doubtless send the man to a more certain doom, even if it went against Euphemia's wishes.
And maybe that is the clearest distinction between the two.
Cornelia might expect something like that from anyone else -- especially when her own offer is something she puts so little stock in herself. But from Sayla, even as briefly as she has known the woman?
She is surprised at her lack of surprise when Sayla ultimately agrees to her offer.
"It's a powerful thing only for those who value their integrity," is Cornelia's first response, on the heel of Sayla's quiet words. The implication is clear enough, even if she isn't one to say praise for someone who has been and could be an enemy out loud: to her, Sayla is a woman of her word.
So when she agrees -- Cornelia doesn't cast doubt on it, nor does she belabor it with nettling questions. She just considers Sayla for a long, quiet moment, that once-fiery expression lapsing into something more subdued and difficult to read...
... before she scoffs once, quietly, and looks away.
"... It will suffice, Mass. You're free to do with Murasame what you will."
And that, it seems, is that. Gradually, Cornelia turns, facing those paintings once more, as if the conversation was simply over. The matter resolved; nothing more to be said. She stares at the still life of the flowers. Her eyes narrow, as she lifts a hand, tucking stray locks of magenta behind one ear.
"I would burn it," Cornelia li Britannia suddenly says, a sudden tangent seemingly from nowhere and devoid of context. And yet--
... what would you do? If you had to see them like that... To see every joy, every hope, torn from them because some wicked old man thought it made a better soldier- no, a better weapon, would you want that information in anyone's hands?
"I would burn that vile old man's research until not even the memory of it remained. I would burn down the thing he treasured so dearly and make sure his place, his accomplishments, in history was devoured by obscurity."
Her gaze remains fixed on that painting, staring at it like she could capture the memory of it if she stared long enough as she offers that simple, violent olive branch of understanding.
"I would burn down his world."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
There's a slight, mirthless chuckle from Sayla as Cornelia says her piece. "That's true, I suppose." But she too is not going to belabor the point. She can read between the lines well enough.
Sayla nods once, in confirmation, as Cornelia turns away. She starts to walk away herself, heading towards the door she entered through-
Only to stop still when the princess speaks up again.
Sayla doesn't turn back, but she is silent for a few moments when Cornelia has finished.
"Then we are of like mind." Sayla says, just loud enough for Cornelia to hear, before she starts walking again. "If it were solely my choice, I would have it be the last thing he sees."
And with that, Sayla is gone.