Iris collapsed like she’d been made to do it. It should not have been surprising, with the poetry inherently written in wilting flowers. A cry, like he’d deceived her, and she reached for him as she tumbled back, fingers grasping at air. She hit the ground with the thud of a human body. “Master!” she had called for him to save her and been handed vacuum. On the floor she was still, hair splayed. Her blood raged with all his confusion and the things he wanted. Iris did not know the right answer. Rather, Iris did not know if he wanted the right answer, because Kedrick did not know it himself.<br/><br/>She flinched, cheek on the floor and her gaze cast on the wood whorls, when the plate shattered in front of her. He’d liked her taste. Loved it, even. A small happiness in the bewilderment of his rage. Even that pleasure was deeply tainted. He hated that he craved it. She felt that much, too. Iris wondered why he’d had her grown when he wanted none of what he’d whispered to her mother fruit. Nymphs were not meant to be grown for dishonest men.<br/><br/>He gave her a command. At first, she didn’t know what it meant. Iris did not have a room yet. The schematic had had guest rooms, and rooms for himself and his mother and his sister. Iris was none of those. But he called for his sister, and she could be Naella and go to Naella’s room. The hum of his blood suggested it was the stuff he desired, but his tone said he’d not even noticed the name that had crossed his lips. His blood had given her the sort of personality he would gravitate to, and in that there had been twined threads of sister Naella and mother Marinette. Iris did not know what of herself belonged to those women, but it was possible she’d dome something his family would have. It would have been a point of pride, hadn’t there been such venom soaking the syllables.<br/><br/>Kedrick had told her to bury the expressions he wanted, but he was angry now and she was compelled to address his present ire over his earlier whims. Iris did not know how closely to regard dishonest requests, anyway. When he looked to her from the shattered plate, he’d find his dearest blonde. Longer hair than he’d recall Iris had, but Naella hated to trim it. She was still a doll, a nymph, because sister had always been an angel, and her blue eyes were deeply apologetic when she met his stare. “Yes, Brother.” Iris said, because he’d commanded his sibling away and not her. She picked herself off the ground carefully, and she seemed sore from her fall. “I will go now.”<br/><br/>Iris started on the path to Naella’s room with the sure steps of his sister, head hung low like she’d been caught misbehaving by their mother.