They meet in the middle of a battlefield while a war all around them lays waste to the place he once called home. The place she still calls home. He loves it, loves how her mouth is curled into a tight frown.
"Where are they?!" she asks, and her voice is made of acid. He laughs, unbidden. He laughs because she is trying to mask her fear in a facade of confidence, of dominance, of control. She really is obsessed with her precious control, isn't she? The laugh only causes her glare to intensify.
He morphs his face into a cruel mockery of confusion and innocently asks, "A bit more specific, please?" He's been accused of being a ham by multiple people, and he supposes he can see why. He does have a tendency to delve into the archetypal 'villain speech' at inopportune moments, a tendency to give out more information then needed. "Are you asking about the sibling who's still in his cage, or the less obedient one?"
He revels in the horror that crosses her face. He lives for those rare moments of honest emotion. So much so that he doesn't even think to regret lying. He wouldn't kill them, not when they were still leverage.
"You monster!" she shrieks, and suddenly she rushes forward without strategy. She runs quickly, and it would have probably caught him off guard. Would have, if she had bothered to avoid the tripwire at her feet.
And that's why he allows himself to be a bit cocky, a bit arrogant, a bit of 'a ham.' Because, above all else, he is prepared.
The tripwire reacts, and, before she has time to think about reacting, it wraps around her, restraining her entire body other than her face.
She tries to get up, to right herself, to bite her way through the rope. "Not a chance," he says, his voice calm. He bends so that their faces are close. She thrashes more intensely, moving her mouth as if trying to bite him, trying to inflict some sort of damage, however ineffective. He doesn't flinch, and instead plucks her sunglasses from her face. He looks with mock-longing into her naked, uncovered, eyes, which have begun to tear up. He moves his hand toward her face and casually spins her sunglasses on his other hand's index finger.
"You know, without these things, you look," he pauses for a moment while caressing her cheek, his face contorted as if he is searching for the right word. After a few moments, he grins.
"Smaller."