Half a minute with no one speaking is an awkward pause. A few whole minutes and anxiety starts to set in. The mind does not like uncertainty, and so that long wondering what someone else is thinking feels like an eternity. Mezmoriia was well aware of this, and took a long moment to open up some files on Red Leopard activity in the area. She only spoke after reading through them for nearly two minutes, and then it wasn't even to the prisoner.<br/><br/>"Haeftin, would you leave us for a moment? And if you would be so kind, could you have this attended to? It's rather dirty." She held out her shortsword - still stained with Fossil's blood underneath the scabbard - towards him. Subtleties of the positioning of her fingers - a secret language, useful for hiding things from those being interrogated - indicated what she actually had in mind. Psychometry was a subtle talent, and terrifyingly powerful when used properly - the ability to track something based on the traces it left on other things. Bleeding on a blade would certainly leave sufficient traces, and this outpost happened to count among its number one trained in the art.<br/><br/>And then Mezmoriia resumed her silent treatment. She used that time to look over her files on this particular rebel group in more detail. (Specifics were, by and large, sadly lacking, but the prisoner didn't need to know this - and would be a chance to rectify that.) It would be a full ten minutes before she'd speak.<br/><br/>But she had to start actually interrogating sometime. Taking time to make the prisoner feel alienated and alone was time well spent, but it was time to move on with the proceedings. (Besides, she was running out of things she could convincingly read. Looking well-informed was useful, whether or not you actually were, but it could be taken to an unbelievable extent.) And so she closed up the the notebook with pointed deliberateness, and for the first time in ten minutes looked at her prisoner.<br/><br/>"Well, miss Nadya. It seems we're both in a position to help each other. You have information on a certain resistance fighter. I'd like to know it."<br/><br/>She withdrew a knife - razor-sharp, to the point of reflecting candlelight into Nadya's eye for a moment. (Accidental? Of course not.) She reached forward across the intervening space, holding the blade up to her face - angling it right into the same eye.<br/><br/>"I suggest you don't blink."<br/><br/>Several seconds passed.<br/><br/>"I could offer an exchange. Tell me where she is, and you get to keep your anatomy in its present configuration. I assure you, I can make you hurt in ways your nightmares wouldn't dream possible." She brought the blade forward, almost touching Nadya's eye.<br/><br/>But then she withdrew. The threat was made - that was enough for now.<br/><br/>"But I know you lover types. I'd have to drag it out of you vein by vein, and what a waste of time that would be! No, the deal I have in mind is quite different. Help me find her, and the worst that will happen to you is house arrest. And you'll be given the chance to move elsewhere instead if you'd like, and receive full amnesty along with it. I can make records disappear. It's in both of our interests..."<br/><br/>She suddenly picked up the knife again and returned it to its previous position. "Or you can rot here, and when we find your dear love, she'll suffer the same. More, if I know anything about elf biology. And it'll be your fault."<br/><br/>And she relaxed again. "It's your call. Choose well."