Perturabo was staring at the broken pen, the pressure around him so low it seemed about to condense into frost. The silent tension contained in his enormous frame had almost stopped the air in the room from moving.
"Click."
The clear, crisp sound of a door opening, accompanied by the precise engagement of a metal mechanism, abruptly cut into the oppressive silence.
The door was pushed open from outside.
The first to enter was Perturabo's Sister, Calliphone.
She carefully held a plain ceramic tea tray in both hands. On it sat a small pot and two equally simple cups.
Her movements were gentle, her footsteps almost soundless, as though she feared disturbing something fragile.
After entering, she did not speak immediately. Instead, she looked up, her gaze carrying its customary questioning blend of concern and tenderness, passing over the piles of documents and data screens to settle on the figure behind the desk, as still as a steel sculpture.
The instant he saw Calliphone, the gloomy tension surrounding Perturabo, almost tangible in its intensity, seemed to ease by an imperceptible fraction.
But that slight easing did not soften him. Instead, it seemed to trigger some defensive mechanism, making him speak in a voice even stiffer and colder than usual, like steel gears being forced to mesh:
"Calliphone. I recall explicitly ordering that I was not to be disturbed while attending to military affairs." His gaze shifted from the broken pen, swept over the tray in her hands, and his brow creased out of habit.
"This is not the time for such... inefficient leisure activities. Drinking tea, an activity that consumes time while producing virtually nothing, does not align with current priorities. It..."
His words, that severe lecture on efficiency, had barely begun before they abruptly caught in his throat.
For