Having no inclination to stop, Flake continued to motionlessly lie on his bedding, pretending to sleep. He peeked over to see Raine take half of the food back to her bed, then resumed his act. One would say that it was a waste of time, but the bounty hunter had a child-like curiosity to see what Raine would do provided he was still sleeping. He couldn’t hear her doing anything beside crunching on stale bread and quietly drinking soup, so he decided to keep his eyes closed and practice visualizing the room some more.

After a few minutes, he noticed that her eating sounds had stopped and that she was silent. Instead of peeking over at her immediately, he waited a few seconds, then slowly opened his left eye just a crack to see the lady crawling over to the food tray. He closed his eye once more, fighting the urge to grin as he thought of something witty to say, but halted himself as he heard the door which slammed earlier open up once again, fairly noisily as well.

From the door came a guard who looked quite heavily hung-over, with dark rings around his eyes, a slumped figure, and a steady groan emitted from his person. The guard looked over as he passed to see the traitor girl reaching for food, then looked over to see an empty bowl on her own bedding. His expression turned angry, his voice loud and ferocious as he shouted, “you conniving gundygut! I’ll teach ye’ a lesson ‘r two about stealin!” as he energetically fumbled through his keys.

“Stealing?” Flake questioned, keeping his eyes closed as he spoke, “she was just bringing me my food.” The guard, unable to think clearly, stopped for a moment to look over at the other guy in the cell. His anger turned to confusion over a few seconds, then he rattled out curses and continued on his way towards the stairs, mentioning “thieves” and “mudlark bitches” as he dizzily stumbled up the steps. 

The bounty hunter remained silent and motionless until the guard was long gone, then looked over at Raine with a wry expression and probingly asked, “so? Are you going to eat that or not?”