Chapter 304: The Khan 2

She sat comfily into her throne, plush with red velvet. Staring down at him over her nose, haughtily, like a queen glaring down a peon. Either side of her were guards armed with long spears of red, black, and white, something Parc was quick to realize were likely inspired by the colour scheme of the Grimm. They wore primarily grey and various shades thereof, the only splash of colour being their skin peeking through beneath their eye covering masks, and the wine red overcoats they wore.

Though they didn't react to his presence in any way obvious, he could just feel the glares being sent his way from beneath those masks.

Parc stepped closer, pausing only when he noticed one of them clench the haft of their spear a little tighter. He glanced around, Fennec and Corsac were in the distance, sharp backs, eyes cold, not bothering to hide their faces like Sienna Khan wasn't.

Sienna was a beautiful, chocolate coloured woman, her face sharp, fierce, with eyes pointed and gold and lips as thin as arrows. Her short cut, black hair was swept to one side of her face, leaving one of her human-shaped ears to remain visible as well as the golden loop earing hanging from it. Another, smaller one claimed a place on the tiger ears jotting from her scalp. What stuck out most on her though was the red gemstone pressed into her forehead, like a bindi.

And while quite modest, her choice of dark, formfitting sleeveless top left quite the impression. Especially when he took the time to trail down those supple hips, lavishing in the way her white jeans hugged her contours, kissing all those delicate aspects with added accents of black boots and red rope and corset around her belly. Apart from all that, she also wore a long, revealing red cape that left her tiger stripe tattooed arms and barren shoulders open to be enjoyed.

She was wild, Parc could already tell that. A fierce beast not meant to be tamed or locked up. He was sure there were many a man around Remnant who wanted just that. The prison wardens, the 'zoo keepers' they liked to call themselves. Slave traders who flew under the radar. Sick bastards them, branding, flaying, torture. It was all there for them. All a sick stench of entitlement.

"I'd offer a bow in greeting, High Leader Khan, but with my hands tied up like this I'm afraid it just wouldn't look all that great." He didn't bow, instead tilted his head up, offering his upturned chin to meet with hers. Sienna narrowed her eyes halfway, eying him up and down, pyjama pants, no top. Scars. So many scars. They put her on end, battle, torture, she could see them all, comparing them to marks she'd seen on those rescued from slave camps or left abandoned in the collapsed mines of the Schnee Dust Company.

Around her, her guards scowled. How brazen for the guest to dare speak before the High Leader! Had he no sense of position? A welp was a welp to them. Meant to be stepped on, ordered around. Not left to its own devices.

Sienna gazed at the cuffs, waving to the boy, Rory—skin still red after what happened not far back—she ordered him in silence to uncuff him. When the boy came, pressed the key into the hole and twisted, Parc suddenly jerked. "Boo!" The boy belted and fell back as Parc raucously laughed at his misfortune.

"Alba did say you were quite flighty. Trying to be all macho and that." His lip quirked on one end, the boy flushing a deeper shade of crimson, this time a blend of humiliation and anger. "I'd say you're better off just taking a walk, Rory. Now is not the time to be looking to start a fight with me." Massaging his wrists, red with rings of the tightly set cuffs, he watched Sienna Khan's expression sink and narrow. "Get home quick enough and I'm sure mama'd be happy to turn your little onesided love into a two-sided affair." He whispered that doubtless, some had heard him though. The number of good ears was terrifying, to say the least. Some could likely hear the flapping of a flies wings from a few meters away.

As Rory rose and scuttled to the side, hesitating on what to do—and soon fading out of the room with an excitable and hopeful pep in his step—Parc crossed his right hand over his stomach and threw his left up and bowed at the waist. "Parc Evans, madame Khan. A pleasure to be finally making your acquaintance."

She didn't respond, not initially, instead, she rose a hand to one of her guards and they leaned down. She whispered something, he nodded a few times and when he rose, he returned to his staunch postured form.

"Bold of you to assume I'd want to become your acquaintance."

He snorted, hands falling to his side, gripping his hips, "little too personal I take it? I'd be happy to go for associate if that's more to your liking."

She took a second to respond, crossing her legs, she rested on her fist. "Associate would insinuate we are working together in some form of business. As equals, partners nonetheless."

"Fine then," he scoffed, offended, "strangers it is."

For a moment, the High Leader puffed through her nose. Rising a weak chortle that died just as quickly as her eyes turned cold. "Setting up this meeting is wasting plenty of my time, human," her nose flared and she sniffed, he didn't smell human, didn't smell like Faunus either, something else. Something pleasurable, but beneath that… sourness… Grimm?

"I'm sure it has. And I have no intention of wasting much of your precious time. I'm sure Lady has told you I'm looking to make a bit of a business connection. Correct? Earn an upgrade from stranger to associate?"

"She has. I must say. I was surprised to hear from her after so long. I was quite pleased actually. Only to learn it was for some boy wanting to set up a meeting with me. A boy I can't even tell is human or Faunus." The men looked at her in surprise, to them he smelt just like those foul humans. To the girls though, that was another story. "Lady did mention in her letter that you called yourself something else, a 'nephelim' was it? Across between a Valkyrie and a demon," mockingly she snorted, "what was it? A white dove and a bat, you compared it to?"

He nodded.

"Yet you have nothing on you. No feathers, no scales, no membrane between your arms and legs or fingers. You say you're like us, a subspecies of the Faunus. Ridiculous."

Rolling his shoulders, Parc chuffed, "I get it. I mean," his back bubbled, skin flaring out, snapping before from his right shoulders burst a large, upwards pointing wing of black feathers brushed with white tips. It rose easily twice his height. Drawing awestricken eyes and gaping mouths. Even Sienna's mouth dangled open, head raising just slightly from her fist rest, "just because I don't run around with my dick out doesn't mean I don't have one."

Sienna sat up in her chair, leaning forwards just slightly. Her gaze was more serious than before and her head not as highly tilted up. "You weren't lying?" She clenched her eyes, opened them and still saw it, looking at the others, she saw they were just as surprised. No, something was up, wings… a wing couldn't just spawn out of someones back out of free will. It had to be a semblance. Some type of illusion. Something physical. Or hypnosis. She leaned back, called her guards attention, the one on her left, and whispered to him. He left not moments later, step rapid as he disappeared down a hall.

"See, I don't get the point of lying about my birth. I get it. Halfbreeds aren't the prettiest things out there. Then again, neither are hatchling birds or naked molerats. It's a wing, honestly, not so special." Scoffing, Sienna leered down at him analytically. Scanning his every motion, every sway of his newfound wind. Faintly she heard the clack of her guard's return, bringing with them a man who upon seeing Parc and his wing, staggered and gaped. It was too large for any regular Faunus, too grand of a scale.

'Not a simple illusion then. Infects whoever sees him.' She couldn't rid herself of that what-if question niggling at the back of her mind. What if it's real? Where would it have come from then? It was too large to hide in his body or close to his chest. It just appeared like something from nothing. Like wind turned to stone.

Flapping it, a gust of harsh air raced through the floor, causing dresses to rise and lose fabric to sway. He flapped again, the women dipped their hands to their skirts, keeping them tucked down, hiding the essentials. "It's not even a good wing. Can't get any lift with it."

She had guessed as much. The lift a singular limb like that could give just wasn't enough. Two perhaps, but even then, she wasn't sure they were big enough and he was light enough.

"I must say…" Sienna composed herself, leg having long since dropped from a cross-legged position. "That is a first."

"Really?" Parc smirked up at her, "guess I can tick off 'take the first of a radical race-based organization' off my bucket list." His wing burst into a puff of feathers, disappearing from view in but a second as he crossed his hands behind his back.

The light was warm, firelight the walls, flickering light off his chest. Which, from his wings, sudden appearance and disappearance, had gained him some more positive looks. From both men and women alike, now believing him to not be some human scumbag, but a sort of Faunus. Whatever that may be.

Facing the High Leader, Parc crossed his arms behind his back, grasping his wrists and puffing his chest out, he said, "ready to take me a little more seriously now?"

Sienna went silent for a while, contemplating. "You have certainly caught my attention." Glancing to the crowd she'd allowed in for sheer intimidation force to this boy, hoping it might give him some form of reality check, she bellowed, "clear out! I want only the Leaders to remain."

Hesitant eyes purveyed but soon people started filtering out one by one until only a bare five heads remaining, not including her guards. Three men, two women. Parc inspected them each but didn't linger for long, especially not on the men, before focusing on the High Leader at hand. "I was hoping this could be a more personal conversation, High Leader."

"Privacy comes with trust. You, as an outsider, have not earned any sort of privilege like that. If these few ears are too much for you, then I advise you to just leave. Both this compound and Menagerie as a whole."

He stood stoically, accepting her words with short, acknowledging nods. "Fine then. But I have one request before we start, High Leader Khan."

"And that is?" body stiffening, her gaze turned sharp.

"Do you trust these few ears of yours?"