Redsand Canyon Bid my blood to run.

The arrival of the matrona did nothing to ease the tension within the auxillary. He already knew of their familiarity from when he first got here, so the fact that Ruenna greeted the stranger as a friend didn't make him any less suspicious of her; it addressed none of his concerns. The joking was an unnecessary delay that he ignored completely. 

And Arsenio's words only fed his own distrust of the situation. He decided he would need to find the man later and ask him some questions. 

Towhee sounded fairly reasonable which, admittedly, made her more intriguing. Not enough that he trusted anything she said yet. 
 
The imperator was as impossible to read as always. Well, aside from the way he looked at the matrona and visibly relaxed in her presence. It was like she had put some kind of spell on him, and Kallik couldn't tell if made her more or less suspicious than before.

What finally pulled anything but a cold, blank expression from Kallik's face was the task Towhee was given to prove her skills. His jaw clenched and irritation flashed in his eyes for a few seconds before he could get himself under control. The imperator was going to base their promotions on the words of someone who didn't know them; someone who had no idea of their skills. Most important, she was someone who he didn't trust. He was not happy about this. But as he had learned many times over: it didn't matter what he did and didn't like. 

His surliness grew more intense and he suddenly wanted to be anywhere other than here. He would give no one the satisfaction of knowing how he truly felt, though, so he remained planted in place, gaze shifting down to the ground until the meeting was over.