Once Morgan had left, Maalech had been meditating. Time had passed, but he had paid no attention to it. There were more important things than his surroundings, especially since he had such a hard tome to cleanse his mind.

He was no longer a calm pond, he was an upset stream, thoughts weaving in and out leaving him confused. he needed to recapture his stillness or be lost.

If he wasn't already.

On the verge of Morgana tapping the door--as if Maalech had any choice to let her in or not--the guard gently caught her hand and threw back the bolt for her. She threw the young man a look, amused, annoyed. "I could have done that myself," she told him, and then stepped inside.

She had been told he was old, but somewhere in the back of her mind had assumed that he was younger than this, when she wasn't much good with human ages to begin with. In spite of herself, she was taken aback, pressing herself subtly backwards toward the door. Then she passed a hand over her face, and smiled. "You're not what I expected," she said.

"I did not expect to see you here at all" he replied, shifting his weight slightly though he remained seated on the floor with his legs crossed. "It seems that that the Puck is intent to cause enough mischief to rid even you of your privacy." He sounded almost annoyed as he said that, as if the fact that she had to come here was somehow the worst of the issues of the day. His tuatha was better than it had been, though his accent remained there.

"This could have waited until the morning."

She shook her head. "No one told me to come. I just did." She looked around the cheeseroom with faint irritation. "This was not necessary. I don't know where she picked up this habit of putting people in the cheeseroom but I wish she would put it back down."

"I do not mind" he said, quite honestly. "I needed time to think, and I suspect she feels more at ease with me out of the way." There was the faintest of smiles which creased his face further. "Truly, it does not smell worse down here than up there."

The whole place was musty to say the least.

"It is partly my fault... no" he corrected himself. "It is my fault. I suspect I provoked her to this point."

Morgana arched a brow. "You provoked her?" She settled down on the floor next to the door, her knees drawn up to her chest. Very likely the guard meant to be watching this conversation was having fits over what to do in the event that she must be dragged out in a hurry. "How . . . how are you feeling?"

"She spoke harsh words. I retorted. She placed me under guard." It all seemed so simple when you laid it out like that, but Maalech looked troubled.

"I am not sure how I am feeling" he confessed, looking directly at her for the first time. "Save for the fact that I -am- feeling, and that is disconcerting enough. I behaved like a child, lashed back because my feelings were hurt." He sounded so annoyed when he said that, like an old cat who had to put up with a kitten playing catch with his tail.

"Harsh words are meant to get a reaction out of other people," she told him. "You needn't look so dark about it."

"I am not given to react to tauntings like that. It should not matter." Maalech sighed and let his eyes go to the roof a moment before looking back at her. "I deserve to be called far worse than she did, but it has never bothered me before. Inssult and rejection did not matter, because I expected nothing else. This time it took me by surprise. But even then I should not have lost control and retaliated. Words..." he scoffed a little at his own folly. "Words should not be used in anger."

That made them far less precise instruments.

"So then I take it things are not so good," she said quietly. "They tried to warn me about you, you know."