Always the cautious one, she was. Mabel espied her goals from a distance, only closing the gap when she was certain to get what she wanted. Right now, she must have thought she had some leverage to pry MacNichols to bend her way. He looked at her above his glass with skeptical green eyes before finishing the glass and setting it down neatly to the side. While she wasn’t exactly a homely woman, the way she carried herself and seemed to be honed down to a razor’s edge from whatever steel there was before was more than a little biting. Even her eyes were the colour of metal, something that could be used as a tool or a deadly instrument, depending on the welder’s intent. Her hunched back didn’t do her favours. The Scotsman wondered what Mabel would have looked like with a regular straight posture, if something so seemingly inconsequential would have changed everything about her and how her life played out. That food for thought would continue at the bottom of the next glass. As of now, there was a more pressing issue to resolve.

“Way I figure it, if you’re speaking of what I think you are, I wouldn’t be in a position to owe you anything if I stayed my present heading and let you scheme with a more gullible lad who might fancy a tumble with you at the expense of being your conspiratorial plaything. A man does not extend his life or fortunes by pulling the captain’s head from the headman’s rope and taking his place, hedging a bet that the headsman wouldn’t kick the block out anyways.” Grabbing the large bottle, he topped up his glass and poured a half glass for the woman at the table. “Aye, I’d be a hell of a sight better than the turnip brains who are shouting their lungs out this moment about how they’d be so fancy in captain regalia and how they plan on taking the place of the man who took them in to begin with. You don’t earn loyalty if everyone sees you as an opportunistic cunt who would drive a blade into a man’s back just to get ahead, because you do that once and everyone wonders when the next time it will be when you unsheathe the blade, and it sure as hell won’t buy you clemency from a man who aims to do the same to you. So, tell me, what exactly makes you look at me like I’m your own personal Jesus and what do you get out of this little scheme of yours?” he asked.