When the old and strangely always knowing eyes of the physician met Aria's, out of instinct, she held them unblinkingly. As crystal blue held forest green, Aria, who had been moments before a young girl, now transfigured into marble. Guise, acted in the place of the old religion's 'Gorgon', Man turned Medusa. As he looked into her, he turned the once-girl into a cold and unfeeling statue. She was no coward, she refused to look away – she had too much of her father's pride in her to shrink under anybody's gaze. This was, perhaps, the only reason he could truly place her.
The child of such a father, no matter if separated or despised, could never completely sever the ties that mark them as kin.
As Aria stood with her joints of stone, there was more of her father in her than she ever could have realized, but Giuse saw it in her then, and would have been able to place her in even if her eyes had not already betrayed her. Giuse was the first to blink, as recognition set in them.
It was then when Aria understood that she had lost the battle, and Giuse had already, in only a moment, figured out who she was. This was when she looked away.
The nameless innkeeper was her salvation. "Did you need something?" He asked, voice gruff but subservient and almost kind, noticing his customer had approached his desk, seemingly in need of something from him. Aria wondered if he had caught any hint of the war of gazes she had lost, or if he could possibly guess the meaning of her defeat.
"I'd like a basin of water to be brought to my room, if that's possible." Aria said to him calmly, no hint of the content of her mind betrayed in her voice.
" 'Course." The innkeeper chuffed, nodding his large, meaty head.
Aria gave a thin-lipped smile and turned in an about face to head back to the salvation of her room, but she was captured by the voice of Guise, ensnaring her with a question.
"Has anyone ever told you, you have interesting eyes?" His tone rested in the realm of accusation, and not query. Aria knew she was found out.
"No." She told the truth, no one ever had, no one knew enough to think them strange. To the average observer, they were of average shape and size, and the dark green color was often overlooked to be a muck brown. Giuse knew better, Giuse was not an average onlooker, he not only looked, he saw. And he saw her for what she was, who she was.
"You have an irregularity in the iris of your right eye – just there-" He pointed to the splotch of brown that hid in the green of her eyes, a trait she knew she shared with her father, the only physical similarity they shared. Where his hair was dark, hers was light, where he was lofty and tall, she was hardly seen as more than a child due to her slight build. There had once been a time, brief as it was in her childhood, when she had prayed to one day grow into the same imposing visage of her father. She had wanted so desperately for him to finally accept her. That had been a very long time ago.
"It is a genetic characteristic, rare, as it is not always passed on. In fact, I myself have only seen it in one other person here in Camelot." Guise continued.
Aria knew he wouldn't simply drop the subject, she knew that the safety she sought in her rented room was too far away. It may have been her own stubborn pride that kept her from running, but it had already won over her fear, as her curiosity had won over her sense of self-preservation. Perhaps her inability to step away from the bear trap she had stepped into was what would one day lead her to her doom. Aria knew what game Guise was playing, she saw through him just as easily he had seen through her. The only difference was, Guise thought he would win the game. Aria had always been too much like her father, too prideful and temperamental. Neither of them liked to lose, and Aria had a long history of throwing the pieces into the fire before she had to admit she was wrong or weak. She could not lose the game she refused to play.
Aria looked again into the eyes of the mad old man who believed he could win this battle of wills with her. She held his eyes for a moment, and set the gameboard ablaze with the only two words that would end Guise's play.
"The King."
She let the fire of the end of their conversation burn in her eyes for the smallest of moments before she turned on her heel with a rod-straight back and fled from the damnation she had brought unto herself.
With every step up, Aria had to hold her breath and study the stairs. Every wooden panel stained with age and spilt ale or spilt blood of the drunken passerby too inebriated to properly climb them, she counted them, and bit her inside of her mouth. There had been sixteen. Three of them squeaked. Three of them had called out their discomfort, but no mere groan of the old wood could match the screams inside Aria. With every step away from the confrontation that forged her pride disguised as false courage Aria lost the warmth of the fires and the steel inside her that held her up. With all the steps conquered, the door closed and latched behind her, that steel was gone, and the last strength that kept her standing had abandoned her. The Princess of Camelot collapsed on the grimy floor of the Inn room and wept.
She had planned to say goodbye to her brother before her death. She supposed that was a lost hope. Guise had always been the King's most loyal and trusted adviser, anything Guise knew was not withheld for long. The length of Aria's life rested now rested upon the time it took the old man to travel from the inn back to the Castle.