Hrífa needed a moment to realize the girl was talking to him; he’d seen her face, pretty and just slightly plump, in his sharp peripherals, and as he turned to face her, he blinked. It took much too long to blink, as he squinted his eyes and pried them open again in jagged motions, as if coercing them from his own body.

“That’s nice!” said the Rat-eater, and she sensed no sarcasm in his enthusiastic reply; nor did he intend any. “Is that what the crowd is about?” He tried to gesture sweepingly around him but found he lacked the room. He only ended up bumping someone in the back, which thankfully this person appeared not to notice; for indeed, they were smashing themselves all up toward the throne like a longship dashed on the rocks jutting from the sea.