Dynamite with a laser beam

"Edy..." It was his turn to plead, anxious worry for her as his friend, and for what she might want to do to him as a Launceleyn, coiling and conflicting painfully like fighting serpents in his gut. To trust, or to run? And in running, crack a friendship that had already taken one harsh blow. The consequences to that choice were clear and terrible. For all that she had threatened Rory, he thought he knew her well enough to think that it hadn't been personal; Edy was, in many ways, a weapon that could be pointed and loosed like a crossbow bolt by those she saw as authority figures. While her own choices had consequences, he knew he was far more forgiving and lenient of her than he was of strangers like Ashetta. It was biased and unfair and emotional, but he was only kitsune human, after all, and his flaws were legion.

Remi, he hoped, would approve of him taking a page from the alchemist's book as he let his arms fall with a sigh. "Alright," he agreed quietly. "But under one condition: wipe your hands off, first, please. I know where they've been." He smiled wryly at her as he stepped forward and turned around as instructed, tossing a glance back over his shoulder at the young Queen as nervousness twisted fresh adrenaline through his blood. He might be making the conscious decision to trust her, but he was still tense at the unknown - and unhappy that she was't being upfront with him. "This is the part where I say 'be gentle, it's my first time' with whatever this is, right?"