"What shall we do with you?"
Lotus shifted slightly in her chair, shrugged and continued picking at her teeth. Her interlocutor stared hard, trying to pry words from her chapped lips but to no avail.
"Perhaps I should ask your captain, then?"
Unperturbed by the mention of her dead leader, or the notion that this man might actually have the power to temporarily raise him from Hades to squeeze answers from his undead throat, Lotus offered the even more ambiguous body language of a fake cough.
"Very well. I can see that you will not answer my questions, so I turn the game over to you, sailor. Ask what you will of me. I have nothing to hide."
Lotus went back to picking her teeth but this time seemed more earnest about it, as if there was truly something (perhaps a seed or the skin of an apple) stuck uncomfortably somewhere in her mouth. Either this action precluded her asking any questions or more likely, judging by the level of interest shown by her eyes, she didn't have any.
"This is the way it is then. I speak while you pretend to ignore me. Then I will speak of my interest in the Knot, how I know that you share this interest with me and how we can help each other."
Tooth picking continued, followed by examining of fingernails for the possible stuck culprit. Either nothing was found or nothing was there because things kept going in the same direction.
