Ask me no more questions.

[Dalia Donnus]

The short dark-haired young woman entered the pub without so much as a glance at the other patrons. Her face was buried in a weathered leather-bound notebook, her dark eyes feverously falling over the scribbled handwriting filling its parchment pages. As she knew the establishment quite well, it wasn’t difficult to navigate her way to a side table while engrossed in her reading. Once seated, a smiling server offered the girl her regular  pumpkin juice. Dalia quietly declined, requesting coffee instead. 

Setting the notebook down on the happy green table cloth, Dalia managed to continue to read as she draw a quill and small inkpot from the folds of her long, shapeless tope overcoat. Though she disliked the drab garment, it saved her from having to contend with the raised brows her casual clothes tucked beneath would undoubtedly draw. You couldn’t be too careful these days. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she had even forgone the comfort of casual canvas shoes for a healed leather pair. Her poor feet were paying the price.

Once the navy pot was placed on the table Dalia reached downward, messaging a swollen ankle. Her coffee has arrived – a welcomed distraction from the annoying throbbing pain. Pail fingers pressed her black-framed glasses back into place after taking a sip. Her spectacles had the annoying habit of drifting down the bridge of her nose when she tilted her head to drink. With the reenergizing warm liquid traveling down her throat, she took to writing, hurriedly scratching down nearly illegible questions.

Her quill stalled shortly after it began its hectic twitching. For the first time since entering the pub Dalia directed her gaze elsewhere then the notebook – to the window at her side where she had heard a gentle patter. Her face furrowed in a disappointed scowl. It was raining. Damn it all. The precipitation couple with the hour (shortly after four) would undoubtedly bring in an early dinner rush, and with patrons came distracting  chatter. 

[Rose Clemens]

Rose stolled along the city streets this afternoon in a bright robin's egg blue dress with an ivory pert hat with blue roses tilted jauntily to one side. It was her newest hat so currently her favorite. Her long dark hair was pinned up neatly beneath it as today she was out on business.

She had been earning more money in the last year acting as Damon Owen's bookkeeper. Oddly, Rose had an affinity for numbers. No one would have guessed such a thing, least of all her. Rose had quit school when she was seventeen and had worked at various jobs around the city for the last few years. She had been a part-time waitress at Damon's club the Dark Door Cantina. It was not a very women empowering place of employment depending on how one looked at it. Rose saw women making money and feeling content. No women worked there against her will, and Rose didn't think the nude dancing  was a place for the town to hinge their disapproval. Nakedness was never something Rose sound disturbing. She loved to look at bodies and to sketch.

Rose, however, did not work as a topless waitress. That unclothed state was a recent addition to the club. Rose was usually the one to sort out tip squabbles between the waitresses or the waitresses and bartenders. The numbers seemed to just come together in her head. The skill mostly developed from living on nearly no money for years.

When the bookkeeper retired, Damon approached Rose.  She had taken to the job instantly. Now, her responsibilities seemed to be spreading into new areas. Slowly, she seemed to be becoming Damon's private assistant.

He'd given her a message to take to a 'Mrs Lucretia Louise MacEnvoy' at Rory Fallon's Pub. She couldn't remember much of what Damon has said by description--her mind often wandered to more interesting thoughts like new hat designs.  She only remembered the words 'short' and 'glasses'.  She wasn't even sure of the age of the woman.

Rose pushed into the pub just as the rain through a few stray drops in her direction. With the letter clutched in her hand, she surveyed the pub and to her dismay saw several women with glasses. It was hard to determine size when they were all sitting down.

Moving from table to table, she'd asked at least three women already. One had given her an evil glare, as if she somehow new this MacEnvoy woman on some deep and hateful level.

Sighing, she looked around one more time. There was a very stout older woman in the back that had lifted her eyes and fixed Rose with a menacing gaze.

Couldn't be her, Rose assured herself as she made it over to the last table with a women with glasses. She was in the middle of writing something and appeared to be a scholar of some sort. That seemed more the type of person Damon would send a letter to.

"Mrs Lucretia Louise MacEnvoy," Rose smiled a pleasant smile and stood a little away from the woman to prevent any unforseen accident with the coffee pot on her table. Trouble like this seemed to follow Rose back in her own waitress days at this pub.

[Dalia Donnus]

Inaudible murmurings tumbled quietly from Dalia’s lips as she was pulled from her thoughts. Her hand slowed then sat still against her page. She seemed caught off guard, even puzzled as to the interruption to her work. Her dark eyes, still clouded in thought, lifted and narrowed, settling first on the cluster of blue roses adorning the girl’s hat. The woman - whoever she was - certainly had a sense of style. There was an air of familiarity about her and the Asian shape of her eyes. She was a local, her gut told her as much, but she failed to place her as a fellow Whisper student or acquaintance. Her efforts certainly weren’t helped by the error she had made in mistaking the girl’s query as an introduction. Try as she may, she couldn’t pair the name with the face.

Lucretia. That was an odd title – Mythological. Roman. The fashionable girl was most likely pure. The fact she was already married at such a young age would support this assumption. As her trail of thought winded onward, Dalia became suddenly aware of the length of time she had been observing the smiling woman.

She cleared her throat with a dry, uneasy cough and adjusted her glasses. “Yes? How may I help you?” She asked, her gaze dipping down to the letter and back to the smiling eyes. The question seemed to be the appropriate response.

The last time a smiling someone had introduced themselves to Dalia out of the blue in such a forward manner, the stranger subsequently broke into a sales’ pitch for the latest broom model. The memory was still fresh in Dalia’s mind, and as she had absolutely no desire whatsoever to listen to the details concerning the latest developments in tail streamlining, her tone may have been a little curter then she would have normally taken with an unfamiliar person. Aware of the slight edge in her tone, she mustered a small, polite smile.       

[Rose Clemens]

"Oh, finally," Rose pulled out the chair opposite the woman and sat down without being invited. Rose often overlooked the formalities. "Mrs MacEnvoy, I thought I would never find you. Do you realize just how many women in this pub are wearing glasses today. It was nearly impossible to find the right one. I was told you were short, but who can really tell a person's height when they are sitting. It's nearly impossible to guage it correctly."

Rose rarely took time to breath between rambling thoughts and then she heard a crack of thunder outside and the sky let go with a downpour it seemed to have been holding onto just to darken her spirits.

"Oh great," she sighed, having forgotten entirely to hand the letter off to Mrs MacEnvoy. A waitress was making her way the table, having seen her sit down and inquired as to her order. "I think I'll have the lamb stew, a basket of bread and a tea."

The waitress quickly disappeared and Rose smiled at the young Mrs MacEnvoy. "You look so young to be married. I am never getting married. It seems like a conspirousy of old people to saddle you into the life they couldn't escape from. I want nothing of it. Oh, not that I think you are being saddled of course. You seem too..." she glanced at the books and parchment. "Well, too smart to have any man saddling you."

Rose wasn't sure if the last part sounded sort of funny but she'd meant no harm in it. She sighed now and listened to the downpour outside.

[Dalia Donnus]

Dalia shifted somewhat uncomfortably when the dapper girl joined her without invitation, her unblinking eyes trailing her movements. It did not take long to realize the error she had made moments earlier. Unfortunately, her guest failed to provide the slightest chance for her to get a word in edge wise. The raven haired young woman struggled pathetically to find the appropriate pause to interject, but due to a lack of assertiveness on her part, failed miserably, merely opening and closing her lips several times without producing the faintest of sounds.

Eventually Dalia gave up, slinking back into her seat with a faint sigh. She watched helplessly as the order for stew and tea was placed. Her features twisted with a slight twinge of guilt. She didn’t mean for the stranger to get comfortable only to have to leave. All feelings of fault were annihilated by the rather scandalous sounding compliment. Men. Saddles. Men saddling her. The suggestive wordplay sent a whirl of uncomfortable images whizzing through Dalia’s busy mind. Her pale cheeks flushed, and her breath logged in her throat for a moment. An awkward cough brought air back to her lungs, which she was quick to put to use.

“So sorry. I think there’s been a mistake. You see, I’m not Mrs MacEnvoy. I believed you were.” Dalia laughed nervously, pushing herself from the table. Folding over slightly, she clapped her notebook shut and pocketed her quill and inkpot.

“Truly sorry. Silly mistake. No need to get up. Please, take my table. I was just about to leave.”

More nervous laughter with a crooked smile. Dalia cast a glance out the window at the dreary weather and quickly decided she’d rather be damp then forced to contend with the raw embarrassment of her mistake much longer. She offered the young talkative woman a brief nod and turned to make a quiet exit with her dignity still relatively well intact.

Unfortunately, gravity had other plans. The healed shoes that brought her so much discomfort twisted beneath her. Her swollen ankle folded and with a wobble she lost her footing. Her notebook went shooting across the pub, landing out of sight. Her palms impacted the ground first, followed shortly by her knees. It was commonly excepted that Rory Fallon's Pub was a difficult place in which to feel bad. Apparently, Dalia was breaking new ground.

[Rose Clemens]

When Mrs MacEnvoy suddenly changed her mind and said she was not who she had just said she was, Rose titled her head to one side and gave her a quizzical stare. As the young woman tried to make her escape, she somehow lost her footing and hit the floor of Rory Fallon's pub. The view from the floor was one Rose had seen many times before. Rose crawled down there with her, pushing her hat back on her head.

"The cobblestones outside our much harder on the body, don't you think? The floors here hardly hurt a bit." Rose was hoping to offer some sort of comfort and let her know she was not alone on the floor. If people were snickering, she'd keep the girl distracted. It was the least she could do.

Rose took a look at the length of the girl and saw the very high boots and she gave the young woman a concerned look. She lowered her voice and put her head closer to the young woman. "Mrs MacEnvoy, it seems you were trying to hide your height as well as your name. I don't know what sort of trouble you might be in. And of course it is really none of my business. Whatever you and Damon Owens are doing is really no one's concern. Believe me, if your marriage is a mess and you and Damon..." She stopped and gave the girl a smile of camaraderie.  "Well, I just want you to know that I would never pass judgment. I think if it were anyone but Damon, I'd actually be envious of the wicked deceit."

Rose suddenly stopped and clapped her hand over her mouth. It was so hard to stop once one got started. "Oh, I mean no offense. It's just that Damon is my boss and he is so very old and kind of bald and out of shape and..." She furrowed a little. "Well, not that that has anything at all with why people like having sex with one another..." She now grimaced at that image.

The waitress, who had not seen the first woman fall, bustled to the table only to trip completely over both women.  It was a spectacular fall by anyone's standards. The food seem to spray in a 360 degree angle that splotched across tables, curtains and light fixtures.

[Dalia Donnus]

It was appropriate that Dalia had landed on all fours - as she felt very much like an ass at the moment. She half expacted to sprout a tail and a pair of ears right there and then. It took a moment for the entirety of the horror to sink in: The many eyes affixed to her toppled self, the profuse apologies tumbling from the tripped waitress, the hearty chunks of strew sliding down her hair, and of course the seemingly endless stream of sexual innuendo flowing from the chattering girl at the table - most of which was far too overt to considered innuendo at all.

Sex. Saddles. Straddleling. Incognito. Infidelity. All topped with a healthy helping of public humiliation. Dalia could see the gossip buzzards circling, ready to drop from the skies and satiate their scandalous appetites by shredding this morsel to the bone. While she was never one to care all that much about what others thought of her, Dalia was in no rush to offer the scavengers a free meal either. 

Time to leave. The powerful impulse pushed itself to the front of her mind. Dalia righted herself with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. Once on her feet, a rush of blood flooded to her head, further pinkining her flushed face. She planted a fistfull of money on the pub table and made for the the door without bothering with another attempt to reason with the flowered hat-wearing woman, as she didn't seem at all as interested in listening as she did speaking.

The stew spattered woman had only made it a few paces before she realized her notebook was no longer on her person. She spun around midstride, a hint of dispersion in her dark eyes as she scanned the room for its battered leather cover. She spotted it planted in an white bearded elderly gentleman's basket of chips. His saggy wrinkled jowls twisted in disapproval as Dalia snatched the tome from its deep fried nest and shook it free of greasy potato shards.

With an apoligetic half smile, Dalia was hobbling her way to the door once more.