[@Jay Kalton]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/FjVCFoQ.png[/img][/center]
[center][color=cyan][h2]Etoile[/h2]
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Etoile started, swearing loudly and colorfully and only barely managing to restrain herself, as a young Thlecian lady—perhaps her own age, perhaps a few years younger—noticed her, and began to address her. For all her care to not be seen, it appeared that she'd been unable to completely disappear from anybody's awareness. Despite all her best interests, she was still subject to the weaknesses of bodily function, and unwilling to stoop down to the point of taking a piss while hanging off the railing of a barge, she'd taken her heavy white mantle out to cover her mechanical arm and slowly crept through the barge, doing her level best—which wasn't quite well, as she'd never been all that adept at stealth—to keep out of the line of sight. Evidently and unsurprisingly, she'd failed miserably, and now she was wound tighter than a spring, ready at any moment to slash wind across the woman's neck.

[i][color=cyan]Damn. I suppose I had to have been seen sooner or later.[/color][/i]

She affected total disinterest and perhaps a bit of disdain as she replied in as flat a voice as she could. "[color=cyan]Yes, because I'm sure the [i]Eoldysseus[/i] was always this old and rickety. It was built that way, I suppose. I have more important things to worry about than the naming conventions used by fools.[/color]" With any luck, the outright apathy in her voice would dissuade any further attempts at conversation. But knowing her luck? There would be a confrontation.

While it was unlikely somebody wearing robes like that would be an Inquisitor or otherwise a member of the Ecclesiae, what with the distinctive uniform they tended to wear—Etoile shifted uncomfortably as she realized she was wearing one herself, and made a note to be less prideful and more careful in the future—one could never tell. If she had learned one thing from the recent past, it was that danger could come from anywhere, at anytime. Perhaps outside, she'd be able to bail. But inside? If there were Inquisitors here that noticed her, it would be a nightmare to escape back up to the deck to make the jump down to the stones below. Her right hand unconsciously crossed her body and took a reassuring squeeze from the sabre hilt at her waist, and only then did she realize that she'd just shown off a magitech arm emblazoned prominently with the crest of a noble house in the middle of a run-down rickety railway barge approximately [i]all the miles[/i] away from anywhere that mattered.

[color=cyan][i]Damnation. This is why I wanted to stay outside. I'm not good at this.[/i][/color]

She fixed her stormy-gray eyes into the dark ones of the woman across from her, her voice dropping all pretense and becoming low and intense. "[color=cyan]If you bring any attention to me from the Inquisitors, this ride is going to become much less pleasant for all of us. Move along, for everyone's sake.[/color]"