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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm here to help."

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

Same nose. Same dark eyes. Wildly different posture.

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

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

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

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

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

And Yana's favourite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The words pass through Goat Eyes' lie detector.

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

He doesn't quite buy it.

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

Oh yeah. He's catastrophically high.

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

He tries to conceal a grin, and fails.

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

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

Struck a nerve there.

He's mostly making it up.

He truly does not.

Microscopic waves of warmth radiate out from him.

Too quick. Practiced.

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

He masks it very well.

A look of vague terror spreads across his face.

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

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

Curious, not surprised.

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

Certain lies are so brazen they offend on professional grounds.

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

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

Underneath the cold and calculated exterior, rage boils.

811 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 11 of 17