Best she give him no reason to bite back at her, for the time being. Academically, Pela might have been interested to know how her own warding would naturally protect her in such an instance, but in a crowded room with people already on edge, she could foresee it being a spark to dry tinder. It was a good thing that she didn't feel pressed to rise so easily to the acerbic bait this stranger kept handing her.
"If I see any enfeebled boys and girls," she returned. "I shall be sure to tell them of your deep disapproval. Coming here was not my first choice either, but it wasn't... let's say, it wasn't phrased as a request."
Her sunny demeanor finally dims a little when he mentions the possibility of a war. It was a thought that had crossed her mind on the sail to Somerset as well, despite there being no real evidence yet of it. But to recall so many outlying magicfolk when seemingly nothing else had precipitated it? It wasn't completely implausible.
"Well," she says finally, looking back at the throng of waiting bodies in the room. "That would be disagreeable news, if it were true."
And here, at last, some spark gleams in the man's black eye. It's as if that dimming of her disposition had by some arcane transitive quality passed that slaked enthusiasm into him instead, as if he is pleased to have taken a chip out of her.
"Don't say that too loudly here, girl. Someone will overhear and call you a treasonous dissenter." The stick remains exactly where it is, but the man leans over by a half degree as if to relay a secret to her in confidence despite the assembly in the hall about them: "They still hang people for that charge, you know."
"It would be a frightening rope indeed which could noose any ward-witch," Pela says impishly. "But since your attitude seems predisposed to the worst of everyone and everything, I don't think I need to be concerned about that being the cause without evidence of it."
The clerk returns and "Cintri, Pela!" is among the calle out. Thus named, she slides back a few inches in order to clear his cane tip, the fabric of her shirt still minutely concaved where he'd had it pressed.
"Thank you for the diverting company. Perhaps we'll run into one another again."
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no subject
"If I see any enfeebled boys and girls," she returned. "I shall be sure to tell them of your deep disapproval. Coming here was not my first choice either, but it wasn't... let's say, it wasn't phrased as a request."
Her sunny demeanor finally dims a little when he mentions the possibility of a war. It was a thought that had crossed her mind on the sail to Somerset as well, despite there being no real evidence yet of it. But to recall so many outlying magicfolk when seemingly nothing else had precipitated it? It wasn't completely implausible.
"Well," she says finally, looking back at the throng of waiting bodies in the room. "That would be disagreeable news, if it were true."
no subject
"Don't say that too loudly here, girl. Someone will overhear and call you a treasonous dissenter." The stick remains exactly where it is, but the man leans over by a half degree as if to relay a secret to her in confidence despite the assembly in the hall about them: "They still hang people for that charge, you know."
no subject
The clerk returns and "Cintri, Pela!" is among the calle out. Thus named, she slides back a few inches in order to clear his cane tip, the fabric of her shirt still minutely concaved where he'd had it pressed.
"Thank you for the diverting company. Perhaps we'll run into one another again."