Kos’s eyes narrowed very slightly as Araia talked and almost visibly flinched as she mentioned having had no recommendations as to his efficiency as a teacher – his face darkening considerably, cheeks drawing in just a little as if he were sucking on a particularly sour sweet. For a moment all was silent – the trees around them no longer rustled as the light warm mid-summers breeze that had previously caressed their branches like a particularly considerate lover disappeared, the gentle chirping of the many unseen birds in the garden seeming to die in the little feathered creatures throats as if they were holding their breath for the girl. The sudden quiet was no doubt rather disconcerting – time seeming to have stopped dead in the area as thoughts only known to the Archmage himself slowly ticked through his razor sharp mind. ‘It would seem then that you haven’t talked to the right devils – I have had dealings with most of them at one point or another… Perhaps you conversed with one of their newly formed, or perhaps you mistook an imp for a devil – an amateur mistake, but one to be expected of course’ he finally said, each word carefully measured from a voice that whilst restrained and eloquent had become the verbal equivalent of a sledgehammer covered in silk.<br/><br/>For its part, the garden still sounded as if it were holding its breath – not so much as the rustle of a leaf falling from air to ground disturbing the perfect velvety silence that had surrounded them both. The Archmage’s gaze seemed penetrating now – as if he were peering through her eyes and into the depths of her brain, pushing his way deep into her thoughts, examining her from the inside out. For a moment he looked as if he might very much like to take her apart, disassemble her into her component pieces so that he might gain a better insight into her. ‘I would hazard a guess that there would be only so much of your incessant chirping that any one man or woman could take before they would be willing to give whatever they could in order to quieten you… While you might not find any devils to vouch for it, I’m quite certain I could turn your tongue into a rather elegant knot if you were to display such an irritating characteristic in my presence for too long’.<br/><br/>The gargoyles had indeed moved – having turned themselves to watch the exchange happening some short way before them, seeming to share knowing looks between each other as they hunched forwards expectantly. From the looks upon their wickedly carved faces, it seemed that they were awaiting the part of the show where the annoying visitor suddenly found that they were rather forcefully parted from one or more parts of their anatomy, an almost eager gleam in their eyes. She might have even been good enough of hearing to catch a snippet of dialogue pass between them – ‘any second now… my money is on a lightning bolt – he hasn’t done that one for a while…’ came the whispers, falling silent as his eyes raised towards them for the briefest of moments.<br/><br/>‘Very well… I offer you a compromise – I will school you in the magical arts until such a time as you begin to bore me, at which point I reserve the rights to evict you from my personal space by a means directly proportional to the amount in which have irritated me to that point. Well?’<br/>