Her vexation knew no bounds. She’d been needled the whole walk over and before by this smiling man. She couldn’t say just how, but she knew, just knew she’d been mocked in many ways and that unsettled her. She put great stock in her knowledge, her information and to have it shown so clearly how little help that was unsettled her. Oh years before when she was young and foolish she’d had her innocence ripped from her, literally. But since then she’d learned, she’d grown worldly or so she thought. 

But just in a few moments company with this smiling man she began to doubt herself. She didn’t like it, not one bit and her instinct was to grow angry, to lash out and snap with the authority that was rightfully hers. But she didn’t because she sensed that somehow that would be weakness. To have been pushed, goaded to action by nothing but words, tossed her way in a tone she wasn’t certain of was failure. She would not deserve her post if she let her temper slip. So when she followed him into the Parakeet for this game of cards she had not wanted she felt the last few threads of her control begin to fray.

But not at him. Somehow she convinced herself that was ok, it wasn’t failure. He hadn’t goaded her. 

Even in her head her voice spoke its lies with honeyed tones. 

“I do not know where they are.” She said, her words thick with displeasure. “They commanded us to be here and here we are and yet they are not.” 

She looked around and spotted the table where the two had sat, a bottle and two wet rings where condensation had marked their mugs. She strode over and touched the wet sots, rubbing the water between her fingers, her lips pursed. 

“They were here and they have gone. The question is do we wait or go? They knew what we were about but perhaps they think the fixing of a finger is but a moment’s work. I do not know.” 

She huffed and strode over to the bar, peeved enough that she wanted a drink despite her better judgment. She strode around it confidently and pulled up a bottle of local rum, strong stuff and nearly as sweet as her voice. She didn’t bother with a mug, just pulled the cork, tossed it and took a long pull and then offered him the bottle.

“You wished rum, well there is plenty.”