Prologues! =D

[inspectorjavs]

[so, for those who missed my explanation: I've been writing this novel (medieval fantasy) since I was nine. I've had about eighteen versions of the first three chapters because I've never been able to be happy with them. xD my computer ate all of them when it died and now I'm starting over... and now I have three? four? possible prologues that I like but I can't decide on one. I'm going to post them and hopefully you'll tell me which one you like the best! =D note: I know they're all horrible and none of them have been edited at all and they're all VERY rough drafts... anyway. please read and pick and critique if you like. <3 THANKS DOVES]



PROLOGUE NUMERO UNO

Winter, 873

She had never been one to chance glances--that implied weakness, a quality that she neither posessed nor admired or even acknowledged--but now everything seemed to be a game of chance. She did not enjoy games, either. As a child, after her mother had died and her father expressed no interest in her, the servants had tried to engage her in play. They abandoned the attempt when her glares became white-hot and her sword hotter. She was barely nine.

Now, though, now she had no sword and no strength with which to focus her gaze into a glare, so she chanced a glance to her right. Her blurred vision suggested that the halberd was beyond her reach by mere inches. She could have leaned, and she did, and despite the pain she grit her teeth and rolled her eyes and reached and was dealt another blow to her head.

"A reward," the man purred somewhere to her immediate left, "for your stupidity."

"For my perserverance," she hissed in reply, and the words seemed to reverberate somewhere at her throat, a swarm of bees that stung eagerly. She made to summon some sort of moisture to her palate and failed, and the knowledge alone that she was failing brought a wrath to her fingertips that could not spread outward.

Another blow. Her eyes rolled back for a moment and she croaked a curse as the man laughed softly. "Isn't that what I said?" he murmured. "You refuse to surrender when you can barely move, when even the magic will not obey you?" She refused to open her eyes any more, but she heard the sizzle of flame at his fingertips, scant inches from her ear, taunting her. "If you are reaching for bravery, you have fallen. Perserverance in such odds is stupidity."

She did not bother listening to him; instead, she was wading through the fog of her mind, searching for the connection, for a connection, to the earth or to--

"Your ties have been severed," he said lazily, as if reading her mind, and she would not be surprised if he was now capable of such an activity. Mentally, she directed a four-letter word to him; another blow to her cranium rendered her momentarily blind.

"Searching for frayed ends," she grunted.

"Your search is futile," he said, and there was finally a suggestion of irascability in his tone. She would have also sensed power at one point, she knew, would have heard the magic upon his tongue that his kind were renowed for, would have felt the earth vibrating beneath her aching, broken fingers, but without a connection she had nothing. She was blind to her surroundings and blind and mute and deaf to the Cadence and to the only other person whose thoughts usually invaded her mind.

It was unusually quiet in there, now, except for the constant humming of her furor. Her perpetual headache flared and no magic was behind it.

"No search is futile," she said finally, "if there remains something to be searching for."

She imagined he was grinning, and she wanted to carve the sneer from his face but remained hopelessly, infuriatingly immobile. "You have nothing left to search for," he said, and his voice moved, echoing for a moment all around her--was it magic or mere ventriloquism?--before it settled directly before her. She opened her golden eyes and ignored the sunburst of pain as she glowered at his dark face directly before hers.

"I have everything," she said.

He was smirking. He shook his head. There was a rustle of movement--she did not look away from his eyes-- and there were suddenly cool fingertips upon her burning temples. She longed to jerk away, could not.

"You have nothing," he corrected, "but your past."

Her eyes were forced close.

She had spent a lifetime forgetting.

Now, she remembered.

[inspectorjavs]

PROLOGUE NUMERO DOS
(IhatethisoneIhateithatehatehatehaaaaateitsucksD:)

Winter, 861
Qin, capital city of desert-land Makhda

"Stop!"

The word was torn from her throat against her will, as if someone had manually seized it and hurled it to reverberate around the room. It was not a word she often said; usually, the word was go, and things ended of their own accord, without her having to implore them to end. She was the ending of most beginnings, and then she was onto another, always moving, always smiling, always laughing at the world, always.

She was neither laughing nor smiling now, but moving, even as she regretted saying the word (and unable to recall having her vocal chords form it), moving in long strides across the room, too small of a space to run but too large to arrive at her destination in one step. As she outstretched a hand, he was already whirling around, his dark eyes--several shades darker than her own amber gaze--wide before they narrowed in anger.

"You weren't supposed to be here," he hissed, accusing, before his hand slashed through the space between them and a low, stacatto, forceful note issued from his lips. She was halted, then thrown backward; as this was a familiar situation for her, she managed to tuck herself into a ball to minimize the force of impact. It still hurt, though, jarred her to the bone, and she shuddered before leaping to her feet and running forward again.

"What are you doing?!" she cried, although the evidence was clear of just what he was doing--the knife in his hand, the man at his feet, dark scarlet liquid pooling into rivulets moving toward her. She grit her teeth and went to kick the knife from his hand before she was flying through the air again.

"Something I should have done long ago," he snapped, and burst through the door in an explosion of sound and light.

She staggered to her feet, nearly stumbled--she had to attend to the body at the door, she had to, she had to, but she could not, so with a half-strangled sob of anguish that she had never vocalized before she ran, too, from the house and into the scorching sunlight of the desert. She refused to look around her, loath as she was to percieve the surrounding destruction, but her traitorous ears heard screams and sobs and shouts. Her feet pounded the sand and she was a blur of violet clothing and golden skin and dark hair, but he was faster, unnaturally so, nearly flying, shifting at times from her vision--disappearing for half a second--before reappearing several yards in front of where he had been before.

She could not catch him, and neither could the handful of others who had joined the pursuit, but she tried anyway despite the stitches in her side and the relentlessly buffetting wind. Another corpse appeared in her field of vision and she vaulted over it, nearly retching in horror and disgust, but continued running, faster than she ever had before, but not fast enough, not nearly.

He suddenly whirled around. His dark hair formed an ebony halo around his head, and his eyes blazed, his chest heaving, the blade he had held long abandoned. Instead, he thrust out a palm and sang a run of notes that ended as severely as a thread being cut by a knife, and she suddenly could not run any further, as if a great, invisible wall had been constructed just before her.

"Ayaar!" she cried, and was immediately disgusted at her longing for him, her yearning, the love that still tethered her to him. He was revealing her fragility, showing the whole of the city how breakable she truly was, and she loathed it, and suddenly she loathed him, but wanted nothing more but for him to come running back.

His nostrils flared. "I don't know you," he said in a sharp exhalation of breath. As she slammed a furious fist against the invisible wall, reeling from his accusation, his voice became unnaturally magnified. "This is only the beginning! I am the only One who deserves survival!" he shouted, and from the opposite side of his wall, he reached sharply toward the sky, vocalizing a note that made the ground tremble beneath their feet, and was gone.

She could not resist the call of the sand, and she collapsed and bowed her forehead to its surface. "Shadi and Shira," she spat among her tears, and cursed her brother and the madness that had surfaced in his gaze.

Beneath her outstretched palms, the magic reached for her.

[inspectorjavs]

PROLOGUE NUMERO TRES
(lookit'shokuuuuuuuu!=DDDDDDDDDDD)

Winter, 862
Niuqan; Makhda

There was a knock upon the door.

Hoku Uchudom often had difficulties surfacing from the oceans of a book--as a scholar, he relished the tides pulling him in and floated contentedly among the fathoms for as long as he could. Tonight, though, the knock ensnared his attention, and he glanced upward. Knocks were not unusual; he was a well-liked and well-respected man, young as he was, and citizens of the town often came to him to chat or to plumb his mind with questions requiring his intelligence or wisdom for an answer. These visits were always welcome with open arms, but, privately, he wished tonight to remain buoyant in his book.

With some regret, he nevertheless set the book aside--gently, as if it were a priceless treasure--and rose. A large brown hand brushed a dark curl from his forehead that had a tendency of settling there. Allowing himself a moment to regain his balance--he had been seated for hours now; his candle had burnt low--he wove methodically among the stacks of books and furniture, calling, "It's open," as he did so. Most denizens of the city had been locking their doors lately at a sudden increase of crime in the area, but he had no concern for thieves or murderers. What business would they have with a twenty-eight-year-old scholar? His home, after all, contained little more than a plethora of books and only the most necessary furnishings, and nearly every citizen possessed his whole-hearted trust. He had been dubbed by many an overly-trusting man, had been ruefully told that that would be his downfall, but to this remark he would only shrug and smile. "Better than making an enemy of the world," he would respond.

Despite his assurance, the door did not open. Uchudom reached the threshold and pulled open the door. "Good evening," he said, and blinked into the warm evening air of the desert. His posture always respectfully straight-backed, he stood at six-foot-five, and to not find someone immediately at his eye level was common. Therefore, he directed his gaze downward several inches, and his stomach tightened.

The young woman's hand seemingly had been making to knock again, and her small fist had nearly collided with his abdomen as he opened the door; ruefully, she lowered her hand with half a grin in apology, but he noticed immediately the pain clouding her amber eyes. She was young--as was he, he knew, but even younger, perhaps nineteen--and unmistakably beautiful, with full lips and high cheekbones and a tip-tilted nose. Belatedly tearing his gaze from her visage, he suddenly noticed a gash upon her neck, and her left hand was clutching her side; scarlet liquid was pooling between her fingers.

Automatically, he bowed, and automatically he said, "Can I help you, mistress? Perhaps you could come inside, and I could tend to your--"

"Let me in," she snapped, her grin replaced by a scowl, and he blinked and offered her his arm. She declined it and pushed past him, surprisingly strong despite her slight stature and her apparent discomfort. Uchudom blinked again and closed the door before turning to address his guest.

"What can I do for you, mistress? I regret that my knowledge of healing is limited almost exclusively to books; I could call for a healer, or..."

He trailed off as he saw in alarm that she was hastily removing her jacket and unbuttoning her shirt, but she stopped just below her collarbone, where the long gash apparently stopped. Her movements were nimble and surprisingly graceful, almost feline. "Water," she said, and her gaze pierced him. He bowed again. "And please stop the bowing; it's making me rather uncomfortable," she demanded, but he detected what could have been an amused smirk upon her lips. He almost bowed again, but instead inclined his head and moved to the adjacent room.

Instantly, his mind became ablaze with questions. Who was this woman? How had she been so grievously (wahey, I can't spell!) injured? His thoughts consumed as they were, he hardly remembered drawing water from the basin; he was suddenly kneeling at her side, placing the bowl of water before her and offering her a cloth.

"Thank you," she said, and she seemed to mean it. He took that as apology enough for her rough entrance. She set to the wound on her neck and winced.

"I could attend to your side, my lady," Uchudom suggested hesitantly, but she shook her head. "I prefer to be independent, thanks," she replied, and that same half-amused smirk was on her lips. "But some sort of bandage would be appreciated..."

"Certainly," he said, and set off again, almost knocking over a precarious stack of books in his haste.

He returned several moments later. "Is there anything else that I could..." He stopped, and stared.

There had been a gash, too, at her hairline, it seemed, for she had doused it with water as well. Upon the cloth in her hand was not only the rich scarlet of blood but a dark brown that he could only assume to be dye. The hair upon the crown of her head was now revealed to be a brilliant white.

He blinked. She smiled.

"Mistress Iruqu?" offered Uchudom smoothly, although his eyes were wide.

Her laugh was low and halting but enchantingly musical. "The very same, Master Uchudom," she returned, and there was a hint of mocking amidst the pain in her tone.

She smiled. He blinked.

"A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance," said Uchudom, somewhat bewildered, and gingerly placed the bandage into her hand. He exhaled. "We've been expecting you."

[inspectorjavs]

PROLOGUE NUMERO QUATRO (and finito!)
(IHATETHISONETHEMOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Spring, 862
Qin, capital city of desert-land Makhda

Dancing upon the wind, the violet smoke was rendered opaque in the sunlight; hazy as it was, she still imagined it solid enough to grasp in her hand, to capture in the cage of her closed fist. A grin alighted upon her lips. It would serve as a perfect counterpart for the purpling bruises upon her knuckles.

The smoke lazily twined its way to her nose, and as she paused to inhale deeply, the scent was vaguely familiar, some memory that lay half-unearthed in the recesses of her mind, for she did not often fully forget. It was the scent of the future, of the fortune teller. The seer ventured to this portion of the desert rarely-- she was a vagabond, rumor had it, traversing the cities of the desert but avoiding the capital but for every ten years. Despite her able memory, ten years ago seemed like eons past. Had she visited the seer a decade ago or merely caught her scent?

The tent had been set up overnight. The rich fabrics were primarily as purple as the smoke that emitted from the top--the color of royalty and of secrets; often, she mused wryly, the two went hand-in-hand--and littered with golden specks that she assumed at first to be stars and proved, as she drew closer, to be runes of some anonymous ancient language. She stared; they blurred and wove before her amber gaze until she blinked and pulled back.

She considered hesitating at the doorway, reminded herself that she was not one to hesitate, and drew back the draping folds of the fabric that served as a doorway. Enclosed in purple smoke, the crone offered her a toothless grin and beckoned her closer with a curl of an abnormally long forefinger.

The amber-eyed young woman's own elegant hand went to the full purse at her waist, but the seer shook her head and merely gestured to the seat before her. The young woman arced a brow and sat. Normally, she would have propped her boots upon the table, but the seer commanded respect that the woman would not hesitate to give.

"Your palm," said the crone after a moment's pause, "would be far too complex to read, hambra. I can see it in your eyes.

The previously arced brow ascended. "What else can you see?" inquired the girl.

The crone smiled again, pulled her shawl closer to her frail shoulders, and leaned forward slightly, slowly, deliberately. "A woman."

"I certainly hope so, unless my gender has suddenly changed," immediately quipped the young woman with half a grin, but the crone shook her head and she quieted.

"Not you," said the seer, "nor I, nor anyone of this land." She seemed to be staring at some distant horizon over the younger woman's shoulder, before the girl abruptly realized that she was not staring at anything at all--or at something that she, the girl, was unable to see.

"I see..." The seer's voice had descended both an octave in tone and several notches in volume. The younger woman's eyes were beginning to burn from the enigmatic violet smoke but she did not move. "No woman. A hawk. A scarlet hawk... or... a woman? It is difficult to determine..."

"Perhaps both," suggested the younger woman, half in jest, but the crone suddenly blinked and nodded. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes. She will alter the course of your life, and you, hers. The shadow of her wings will block some sunlight. Her beak shall be swift to strike."

An uncharacteristic furrow appeared upon the young woman's smooth brow, but she remained quiet as the seer continued, "In her talons she will hold half of her own soul, and half of yours, and they will become one...And her talons will rake the earth and uncover its rhythm..." Her gaze suddenly focused and locked with surprising intensity upon the woman's. Her tone sharpened. "I see danger. For you. For her. I see death. I see life. I see you doing great things, and terrible things, and things of unspeakable power, and someone you love will betray us all..." The smoke distorted everything, but she could see the seer trembling violently, and she reached out a hand that was promptly smacked away with surprising force.

"Who...?" she began, but she could not decide after whom she was inquiring, and the seer suddenly smiled.

"The hawk-woman will come in time," she said, and, prompted by a long silence, the young woman clawed the smoke from her field of vision, and the seer was gone.

[Yuki]

I LIKE THE FIRST ONE
A LOT
PLEASE USE THAT KTHKS =D

[inspectorjavs]

AND FOR YOU SILLY POTC FANS:
(:

STUPID FANFICTION HOORAY!

"A nd just when I thought things couldn't get any worse."

Captain Jack Sparrow, scourge of the seven seas (and any lakes, ponds, rivers, or other substantial bodies of water), proud inebriate, womanizer, and thief, molded his lips into the most dazzling smile in his repetoire. He had entered the establishment scarcely ten minutes ago and already had downed an entire bottle of rum. Reflecting his gradual decline into drunkenness, his chair was tipped back onto two legs, allowing his own legs to rest, ankles crossed, upon the tabletop, despite the increasingly vehement glares from the barkeep. Given the current state of things, his only wish was to drink as much rum as was humanly possible, enter unconsciousness, and remain there until the elusive Lady Fortuna decided to favor him once again. Some may have called this cowardice; he dubbed it absolutely necessary.

With the newest arrival to the tavern, he guessed, correctly, that his plan was going to be revised-- not by his own hand, but hers.

The woman--tall and dark, lithe with a kind of wiry, feline strength--made to scowl at him before her own full lips quirked into an equally fictitious grin. "Happy to see me, are you, Sparrow?" Neera Iron inquired, blase, as she strutted to his table.

"Captain," he muttered automatically, saw at an arc of her brow that she had won the first round, cursed internally, and straightened the hat perched upon his ebony mane. "If you are patiently waiting for an invitation to join my table, my dear, you certainly shall be waiting for quite some time."

"Waiting my arse," said Neera cheerfully, seized a chair, and deftly lowered herself into it. In one swift movement, she tipped her chair back and settled her legs upon the tabletop, crossing them quite purposefully over his own.

Jack met her gaze, vexed. She smiled angelically.

Round two: Iron.

The barkeep chose this moment to meander up to the table, and before he could open his mouth, Jack demanded rum as Neera simultaneously ordered whiskey. "From the jar," she added, as Jack mouthed the words with an eyeroll. Some things never changed.

"So, darling milady Iron, what brings you to this"--Jack gestured grandly around the rotting, reeking, racous tavern--"illustrious establishment? Business or pleasure?"

She snorted. "This is about as pleasurable as a keelhaul," she said, casting a disdainful eye around the room.

"Ah, but you haven't tried the whiskey yet," he admonished.

Neera shrugged and cast a hand through her tangles of mahogany hair. Jack allowed himself a moment to peruse the familiar planes of her face. Eight years of piracy had failed to diminish her beauty-- he thought, and later, he would be certain that the thought had been elicited purely by becoming drunk, that the sun only enhanced her features, coaxing golden glimmers to the tan of her skin, accentuating her full lips and the light of her eyes and her impish charm. Mostly her lips, though. He had always enjoyed those. Looking at them, he meant. Right.

His was definitely not a one-track mind at the moment.

As if summoned by the mere mention of alcohol, the barkeep tottered over, slammed Jack's rum down a bit more forcefully than was necessary, and shoved Neera's whiskey into her outstretched hand. She winked at him; he scowled and retreated back to the fathoms of his bar. Jack had also scowled involuntarily at this, yet blinked several times and disguised his gesture behind his tankard. Thankfully, Neera appeared not to have noticed, and Jack raised his gaze to the ceiling in silent thanks to the glimpse of Lady Fortuna he had just caught.

Neera took somewhere between a gulp and a quaff of her whiskey before smirking. "Tolerable," she decreed it, yet from the large amount she drank, Jack assumed that it was at least several notches above her declaration.

"You avoided my earlier question," he observed between another sip of rum. His head was beginning to become blessedly blurred around the edges, yet his voice remained steady. Usually, his velvet tone would remain even at the brink of inanimation--only the words he spoke would change. Although many wholeheartedly considered the Captain to be mad even whilst sober, insanity was putting it kindly when he had enough rum in him to fuel a navy brigantine.

"Nay, merely sidestepped it," disagreed Neera with another shrug.

"Synonymous," said Jack with a smirk.

Neera rolled her eyes, and with that gesture Jack proclaimed himself proud victor of round three or six or nineteen or whatever round they were currently on; he was finding it difficult to keep count. "We stopped to careen," she said, and despite Jack's brows ascending a millimeter, she continued, "Most of the crew went to The Faithful Bride, but I can't stand being near them anymore." She rolled her eyes. "Idiots, the lot of them. Still gawk and taunt even though I bested one of their own in a duel." Her smile was smug. Jack wished fervently that he could have witnessed that duel; he had fought against Neera once and had barely escaped with all of his limbs intact. Or was it twice? Three times? How many times had he upset her?

He took another gulp of rum to steady his mind. "Careen? In Tortuga? Please do not interpret this as an insult against the soundness of your mind, darling, but careening here is not the most intelligent of moves." He glanced pointedly at the window over her head. "There's probably some chipper little mongrel scurrying up the ratlines of the Fox now."

Neera's lips curved into a grin that he had witnessed many a time and did not particularly like. "You're assuming I'm sailing with the Fox?"

Jack arced a single brow. "A captain tends to sail with his--" She glared; he backed up. "Sail with her ship, dearheart, unless I am sorely mistaken." He had known Neera for six years, and for the last two of them, she had captained The Silver Fox, a considerably small ship that, while lacking in strength, had speed that could rival the Pearl's on a good day. A very good day, thought Jack with some arrogance. He still considered The Black Pearl to be his, and considered it his child upon which he doted and bragged about consistently.

A rough laugh escaped Neera's vocal chords. "You also assume I'm still captaining." Jack's previously raised brow ascended half a millimeter. "Nay, I gave up both the Fox and captaining when a bigger fish came along. The Fox is somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific now, bless her soul. I'm first mate now."

This was news that had escaped his radar. "For whom?" inquired Jack.

Neera grinned wolfishly. "Does de la Bien ring any bells?"

Jack had been taking another urgent mouthful of rum, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to allow the rum to eject from his mouth and spew across the table. As it was, he choked on it for a moment, pounded fervently on his chest, swallowed, and regained his composure. "A few," he admitted guardedly, and then held up index finger and thumb spaced about an inch from each other. "Small ones. Far from cathedral sized."

In truth, bells the size of those that reverberate ominously in Notre Dame were sounding between his ears. Raphael de la Bien, who was either a Spaniard or Italian (he could not currently recall), was notorious from his sculpted, Greek-God visage to his immaculately shined boots. His ship, Cerberus, was renowned for both cannonpower, speed, and crew; Neera's opinion of de la Bien's crew must have been solely her own, for Jack was positive that de la Bien would hire no idiots to man his Cerberus. That Neera, obviously female, was his first mate was a miracle in itself--her skills in pirating must have increased since Jack last saw her. (And how long ago was that, anyway?)

As if Neera could hear those solemn bells in his cranium, she gave him a little sneer and disappeared behind her bottle for a moment. Jack took the opportunity to mutter incredulously to the ceiling, "de la Bien!" No wonder careening in Tortuga would not be cause for worry--no sane man would attempt to take advantage of the situation by trying to pillage Cerberus.

But a plan was swiftly formulating at the forefront of Jack's mind, and who was to say that he was quite sane?

Before Neera surfaced from her whiskey, Jack saluted the golden visage of Lady Fortuna, whom had just appeared in front of him. Perhaps things were looking up.

This just-hatched idea, preparing now to molt, had only served to further discombobulate Jack, who, after a long silence shared by them both, was now entering the realms of thorough intoxication. "Neera, darling," said Jack suddenly as one of his ring-laden fingers twined around his bejeweled beard, "have I told you lately how beautiful you are?"

"Not lately," she replied hazily. Jack grinned. That whiskey was strong stuff.

"Forgive me, dear madame," he replied histronically, abruptly seizing one of her hands and brushing his lips against it. "Surely I should be telling you every day-- Nay! Every minute of your blessed existence. Your beauty is unsurpassed."

"Scarlett?" suggested Neera, referring to one of his most frequent affairs.

"Swine compared to you," scoffed Jack. He quirked a finger, and Neera's legs descended from the table, then, staggering slightly, rearranged her chair so that it was beside his. As she dropped into it, Jack draped a careful arm around her shoulders, knowing even in his insobriety that if he irked her he might not escape with each appendage this time.

"Annamaria?"

"Unmentionable." This was going quite well.

"Rebecca, Helena, Charlisse?"

He shook his head.

Neera arced a brow, turning her face to his. "Swann?"

"Elizabeth?" Jack shook his head more fervently, then shrugged. "Her beauty is undeniable"--Neera's eyes narrowed into a glare, and he continued more hastily--"yet nothing compared to yours." Her hand had settled upon the hilt of her cutlass. "Absolutely nothing," he reassured her. "Like comparing a comet to the sun."

"The Pearl to Cerberus," Neera concurred to her whiskey after a pause.

Jack winced inwardly yet nodded. "Foolhardiness at its prime, darling."

A brawl had started in the opposite corner of the tavern, and although both Jack and Neera had been known to eagerly participate in several, Jack ignored it and assumed that Neera did, too, for she put her head on his shoulder.

Quite well indeed.

"Might I offer a proposition?" Jack murmured into her ear at length.

Neera stiffened. "Don't push your luck, Sparrow," she hissed.

"Not that proposition!" said Jack quickly, watching as Lady Fortuna flickered out of his field of vision for one frightening moment. She remained tense beneath his arm. He sighed inaudibly and leaned closer to whisper, "How devoted are you to your captain?"

Neera's expression was the epitome of suspicion, flavored, too, with ample amounts of confusion. "Raphael's a good man," she said. "A good captain. Handsome, too." Jack pursed his lips as she laughed and nudged him with an elbow. Her brows furrowed slightly. "Why?"

Jack's gaze flickered surreptitiously to the door, halfway expecting de la Bien to be standing there with pistol loaded. As no dark shadow clouded the threshold, he murmured, "Well, that's all fine and dandy, but does your loyalty to him overshadow your loyalty to me?" She blinked. He continued, "We've known each other for a while, now, yes, darling?