Sabine held an incredulous smile throughout the story. If it was not already obvious by the height of one of her eyebrows, she did not believe Colours in the slightest. Stros M'kai was a hard enough place to get to without the career of a smuggler keeping you close to Tamriel. Sabine did not have to be a sailor to deduce that much. The conclusion had Sabine laughing and shaking her head. She laughed for perhaps longer than was required, though it was not just her tipsy mind. She felt that two could play at Colours' game and allowed herself enough time to 'recall' a tale of her own.

Sabine eventually settled down, letting out the last few laughs through her nose as she lifted the wine to her lips. She scrunched her face as she swallowed -- Colours' claim to its strength was not a lie, at least.

"Well..." she grinned, looking at the table and holding the heel of one hand against it. A silly image was in her head, she could work from that. "I have not...spent quality time with a count or anything like that, but..." She stopped to release a single laugh and lowered her volume. She couldn't let go of her grin. "There was one time. We went to a clan between Kvatch and Anvil. This one boy, an Imperial my age at the time, wanted to learn some magic from me. He was trying to..." Sabine's uncharacteristic pause to make up detail threatened her bluff, but it could be passed off as embarrassment. "He was trying to master telekinesis. Moving things without touching them. What I used to do to practice was climb up a tree and lift things from the ground, so we found a tree above the entrance of the clanhome and lifted rocks from there." Sabine turned her wrist. "It was mostly doing the same thing over and again, so we talked. We talked about private things. And he said that he had not mated before. And, after a while, he said he liked me. And..."

Sabine's blush returned and she held her forehead against the table, stifling laughter. She could not believe she was even lying about this, let alone suggesting that she would do something like it. No doubt it was at least entertaining to Colours to see her so abashed.

"We did it on the tree branch," she said with her hair obscuring her laughing mouth. "Above the clanhome entrance. I had to practice my muffling spells and...when people were walking underneath, my own telekinesis to keep things falling. No one looked up."

Whether Colours believed her or not, such an anxious lie justified a deep drink of Sabine's wine. She did just that and revealed a beetroot red face.