You look out the window from whence Kai threw herself moments earlier. You’re not sure why Constance seems so grim about everything, Kai looks like a lot of fun. If you could toss yourself out of third floor windows without breaking your neck, you would too.
“Kai doesn’t seem very sore or sorry,” you point out mischievously.
Constance gives you a dark look. “Those without conscience very rarely seem sorry about anything until it is too late.”
You’re not sure how to respond to that, so you shrug. Constance needs to lighten up.
She looks at you a moment or two longer and folds her arms across her chest. You have the unsettling experience of feeling like a mouse examined by a cat as her gaze pierces you.
“What do you do?”
“What do I do?” You repeat the question as if dumbfounded.
“Yes. Are you a wife? A seamstress? A teacher? What?”
Obviously you appear to her a homely type, which is irritating. You could be a ninja or a pirate or anything as far as she knows. “I do a bit of this and a bit of that,” you reply vaguely.
One of her brows raises with glacial intensity. “A bit of this and a bit of that?”
“I’m in between jobs,” you explain.
“I see.” Her expression has settled into firm disapproval now. She probably thinks you’re a vagrant or something.
“I have a degree in accounting,” you defend yourself against her silent accusation.
“And what is a degree in accounting?”
“It’s a qualification… for counting money,” you explain in simple terms.
If anything, her expression takes on a deeper level of disgust. “You are a money lender?”
“No, I help people count their money. Like the song of sixpence?”
Constance’s expression grows more blank still, so you do her the honor of reciting the rhyme.
“Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.”
Her lips quirk as she looks at you with an incredulous expression. You don’t blame her for her incredulity, you’re feeling rather incredulous yourself. You’d expected to wake up in your sloppy flat and spend the day surfing the Internet for free titillation. Instead, you’re standing before a heavily armed Amazon reciting a children’s nursery rhyme.
“When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.”
You finish your little performance by miming the nose pecking action and Constance bursts out laughing. “You are a bard!”
“No,” you shake your head. “I am not a bard. I am an unemployed accountant.”
“You are a bard,” she says decisively.
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In a world where good girls grow up to be lovely ladies, Rogue is an anomaly. Born under the powerful Totem of the Serpent, she is feared by her family and grows up wild and undisciplined.
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