A.Journal

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811 checks

Medium

His fingers go to her hair, reflexive. Blunt nails scratching gently against her scalp.

Trivial

Strands of her long, dark hair falling through his fingers as he pulls his hand away from her.

Medium

And beneath that is the part that desperately wants to hear the whole sordid tale.

Easy

Catching the look in your eye, Septimus shifts his stance, weight on the back foot.

Easy

He bounces a little on the balls of his feet, considering combat.

Medium

Not the first time he's taken a hit like this. Not even close.

Challenging

"I'm here to help."

Easy

Something about him has relaxed at this information, a performance partly abandoned.

Medium

Same nose. Same dark eyes. Wildly different posture.

Medium

It's hard to see any resemblance to the proud, mustachioed leader behind the coloured hair, the spindly pale legs, and the permanent sneer.

Medium

Other people's distaste is a warm blanket, familiar in its itchiness.

Easy

His tone changes as your identity dawns on him -- wary, curious, teetering on the edge of hostile.

Medium

He's much more comfortable with this line of inquiry.

Medium

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

Challenging

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

Easy

And Yana's favourite.

Easy

A metric tonne of silence falls between the two of you.

Easy

A metric tonne of silence falls between the three of you.

Easy

The smile of a girl visiting her grandmother on the dementia ward.

Challenging

He really doesn't want to be doing business with Gonza, or you, for that matter.

Medium

Ramses may be high, but this guy is somewhere in low-orbit.

Medium

Somewhere behind his bloodshot eyes, a slow, yet impeccable calculation emerges.

Challenging

The words pass through Goat Eyes' lie detector.

Medium

A childishly stylised gesture, practiced for countless hours in front of a mirror.

Challenging

He doesn't quite buy it.

Medium

This man isn't just high. He's on a dirigible coasting stratospheric over the Noscorrentes Sea.

Medium

Oh yeah. He's catastrophically high.

Medium

If Ramses is high, this guy's on a zeppelin coasting over the Noscorrentes Sea.

Easy

He tries to conceal a grin, and fails.

Medium

The jovial words are accompanied by a shaky voice as if from some kind of wounded animal.

Easy

Mathematical and yet crude, the lines display a profoundly un-sober competence.

Medium

Struck a nerve there.

Challenging

He's mostly making it up.

Challenging

He truly does not.

Challenging

Challenging

Microscopic waves of warmth radiate out from him.

Medium

Medium

Medium

Too quick. Practiced.

Medium

He shakes his head slightly, as if having forgotten the concept of business matters entirely.

Formidable

He masks it very well.

Easy

A look of vague terror spreads across his face.

Medium

He smooths back his hair, temporarily revealing the creaselines of stress beneath.

Formidable

Unsmiling and unblinking, the man in front of you has sunk into what looks to be deep contemplation. That, or...

Medium

Curious, not surprised.

Medium

He wants you to be gone when he opens them again.

Medium

Certain lies are so brazen they offend on professional grounds.

Easy

A lump that immediately recedes into the background wherever he stands.

Challenging

He's lost far pricier things in terms of market value but this one makes the very marrow of his bones ache with worry.

Medium

Underneath the cold and calculated exterior, rage boils.