She took a long drag from her cigarette, finishing it up as the Captain made her order to continue on foot. Jeremiah -- the name rolled around in Katerina's head. It felt familiar, like she should know it from somewhere, but as her muse dragged on with puffs of her smoke, everything to connect those dots of acquaintance called up short, and Katerina sighed it all out in a big puff of herbaceous tobacco fumes. The butt end of her little muse-maker had finally burnt itself out, the little orange nub burning itself to a charcoal ash-clump along her lips. As the mage flicked the burnt, exhausted tobacco paper out of her mouth, she reached into a pouch just to the back of her belt, and retrieved her cigarette case -- a small, unfurnished metal case, barely larger than a deck of playing cards, only decorated with an engraved vine-like patter that had long faded. She popped it open with a light [i]click.[/i] Three cigarettes left to get her through the evening, plus however long it would take to get back. [color=lightgreen][b]"Tch."[/b][/color] Katerina flipped the case closed, sliding it back to its nestled nook in the belt pouch. [color=lightgreen][b]"Awl'right cap'n, who dae you ken tae go about for the flanking party in the auld akelarre?"[/b][/color] No matter how hard she tried to the contrary, Katerina could never shake that Northern accent. Not that she usually tried very hard. [color=lightgreen][b]"You ken, if we're awl up in honour real proper-like about the occasion, I can think of'a few ways tae make this a wee bit more chivalrous. I think right about half of us could just about stae behind, make this a fair fight. Aye, infact -- I proper ken the lot of the scunners will take yin proper look at Hope and Tyae and run the fuck awae. Or, maybe -- should'ae go a wee bit up the road and blow some smoke signals up intae the air reading, 'Aye lads there's a four-and-ten strong posse up the way ready tae kill the whole lot of yae'?"[/b][/color] As she made her jesting remarks, Katerina held a wide-eyed gaze with her eyebrows raised and her cheeks posed -- this was the closest most people had ever seen to her "smiling".