But his stomach clenches unpleasantly as he realises that a good number of his assumptions about her life must be terribly wrong. Given all he’s kept from her he’d be a raging hypocrite to feel at all betrayed by her revelation.

So he doesn’t scowl, he doesn’t pin her down and demand her to fill him in, he firmly shoves the rage at wasting his Geass on her out of the way. Life and necessity had taught him how to be an excellent actor and he pills on all that experience to keep changing into his pyjamas and then slipping behind her gently.

He strokes the scales on back of her neck with soft fingers. It’s vital not to scare her into hiding more information from her.

“I know about the stigma against witchcraft.” He murmurs. “You’re right to fear that. C.C has been burnt at the stake in the past by those who misunderstood her immortality as the devil’s gift.”

Gently he unzips her. Traitor, he should have guessed from all her transformations she was hiding a well of evil- but no, no, she had just as much right to hide her past as he, especially as he told her that was what he was doing back when he first soberly propositioned her.

“How old were you when you were pulled into that realm?” He’d assumed she’d already finished high school before coming here - but had she?