[ Root doesn't like soft things, so she adores Clea's resulting smile. She's drawn to anything she can't easily explain that's also sharp enough to cut her if she isn't careful. It's the danger, but also the intellectual wonder. Not just mysteries for the sake of being mysterious, but something tangible and real that she can play with yet can't quite control, not just something to be turned over in her mind.

Then Clea compliments her back, and it's a direct demonstration of how she manages to surprise her. Root is not naturally shy -- she doesn't exactly break eye contact -- but she deals with her resulting emotions by putting on a show under Clea's direct scrutiny. She straightens from where she was leaning against the table and reaches up, pulling the hair sticks out of her hair that keep her chignon in place. With a quick shake of her head, the waves of hair fall around her. Everything is done with the smoothness of someone who inhabits their body utterly, every inch possessed willfully.

Her dress is revealed to be two deceptive pieces when she reaches in at the waist to slyly draw out a tiny handgun she'd been concealing. She leans to the side and places it on the desk with a soft clink. ]

I bet you say that to all the girls.

[ She knows, of course, that she doesn't. ]

I found someone, [ she confesses. ] She can see everything in me, every potential. And she thought in there was something good.