By Amber Michelle K.
myaru@etherealvoid.net

"Now, Raeger, are you paying attention?" Judas asked with a smile just turning the corners of his mouth. Her glare was felt, though he didn't look up to see it. Whether it was meant for his cheerful query or the ropes tying her to the chair was irrelevant; she hadn't wanted to stay put, and it was an easy solution to the problem.

"This /wasn't/ called for." It was almost a good imitation of Jelanda's hauteur, but when he looked up, her stare was more of the kicked puppy variety.

He clucked his tongue, still grinning. "We can't have you wandering around, dear. The tomb is a dangerous place. Why," and he looked up again, "Lawfer was nearly impaled three times on his way out - though I suppose that was my fault. Apologies."

She appeared to be wavering between tears and an angry outburst, though he didn't know why she'd cry over their former companion. They'd hardly known each other. It was very unlike her, really, and losing its entertainment value by the moment. Surely a bard should be a little more eloquent, or at the very least not moved so easily to tears. She'd been so cheerful on the road.

Judas shook his head and suppressed his smile, wiping his knife - newly retrieved from Aedvans, thank the gods - clean on a piece of linen. It had belonged to one of the wooden soldiers outside, though he didn't think the statue would miss it much. "Honestly, girl, one would think you've no sense of humor at all. What happened to the smiley faces, hm?"

"You /killed/ him," she said softly.

He nodded. "Yes, I did. Almost, anyway. I'd have liked to finish the job, but that nuisance intervened, and..."

"But he didn't /do/ any--"

"Trying to heave a spear through my gut isn't 'doing anything?'" he cut in sharply. "I suppose it would have been understandable if I acted against you, but I hadn't done anything yet."

"/Yet/." She repeated, seeming in a dark temper. "So why are you bothering with me then? Shouldn't you be drinking my blood, or something?"

Judas snorted and placed the knife in its proper place on the stone slab-turned-table, folding the linen over in his hands. He'd likely need it again to clean up the blood. "Be serious. If I wanted you, I'd have taken you by now."

Though another insult waited on the tip of his tongue, he held it back, choosing to focus instead on preparing the rest of his utensils. They were hopelessly mundane: a spoon, a hook, tongs. An iron pot, the one the knight dragged along on their journey, sat to one side. The slab had originally been carved for Akhetamen's embalming ceremony, but it was plain, servicable, and made to contain magic, so simple spell heated the small space beneath the pot without flaring out of control as such spells tended to do when left unchecked. There were interesting echoes of the spells that preserved the pharoah, to one sensitive to magic.

The water in the pot began to boil cheerfully. He looked up, and offered what he thought would be an obscenely cheerful smile. "Watch carefully." Raeger eyed him warily, and the smile became a grin as he reached into a sack and pulled out the first item on the menu. Humans had to eat, after all. "If you take your time, the frog won't even notice it's being boiled alive..."

Inspired by a prompt from the LJ community 400words. :P