( The easy friendliness doesn't - go anywhere, exactly, but Petrana's thoughtful look has a measuring quality about it. Nothing is free. What does she have that this woman might want?

(The diamond on her ring presses painfully against the palm of her hand where she'd discreetly spun it underneath her finger as she divested herself of her wet things.)

She wonders, a moment, after her age. If she's younger than Petrana or older; in that liminal space between woman and awkward youth, there's a keen sense of kinship, for all that she so often sets her own aside. It was hard to think of herself as so young with a babe in arms -

Harder, still, without. )

Well,

( eventually, )

I am a stranger with nothing to my name but your Inquisition's obligation. What would you wish to know, in my place?