But she gave a prim little sigh instead. Oratory was her specialty, and so Ofelia rose from her padded chair (they were plush, soft and comfortable, to encourage customers to sit for as long as possible and spill gil like lifeblood). She hopped up onto the chair with a twinge of pain, her leg quivering.
“You win more flies with honey, darling,” she said, looking down at Cian with a smile, before cupping her hands around her mouth and projecting across the room, summoning the milling patrons’ attention: “Everyone to the exits, please! Remain calm and proceed away from the debris! Everything will be fine!”
Her skills were rusty, but there was something about Fee’s trained voice regardless: it carried farther and louder than one might have expected, while simultaneously soothing the nerves.
And where his shouting hadn’t succeeded, her apparent calm did; they followed behind, trailing guests and employees alike. The casino manager was buzzing around; Cian had to trust that she’d keep things under control. No need to take over from a perfectly competent employee, was there? Still, he came up to her side, muttering as they walked about refunds (there would have to be some, damn it all) and telling her to see him before any major decisions were made in that regard before taking Fee’s elbow and pulling her to the open door.
The Red Light District was abuzz, people spilling from all the doors. His mood was foul but it brightened a little watching people in various states of undress streaming from the nearby Emerald House. Schadenfreude was a great thing in a crisis. “Well,” he said, shaking his head as one man ran by in nothing but briefs and a single boot, “at least we know we’re having a better night than he is. The hell is this?” He looked around suspiciously, as though the cause of this would be forthcoming (it wasn’t). “Lived here all my life, and this is the first time this has happened.”
Fee shook her head. “Same. I like to think I know a fair bit about history and unusual phenomena especially, but I’ve never heard of this either.”
She walked carefully down the street with mincing steps, almost as if expecting the ground to roil under their feet again. After a pause, she instinctively looped her arm through Cian’s—perhaps it was to help with balance on the now-uneven cobblestones (and the Red Light District wasn’t well-paved to begin with), but perhaps it wasn’t.
“Do you think it’s done?” Ofelia asked cautiously, looking out across the ominously still neighbourhood. “I have to admit to a certain amount of foreboding. It’s quiet, too quiet, etc.”
“Bite your tongue,” he said, though he was thinking the same. Panicked people aside, on a scale of Emillion Disasters, this ranked pretty low.
And what did that say about this Faram-damned city, exactly?
“Wouldn’t be surprised if we had another,” he said. “I think these things come in sets? Otherwise, no monsters reported so far, so yeah, we got off light.” But the mystery of it -- why an earthquake, why now -- didn’t sit well with him either.
“If you weren’t as tough as you are,” he told her, “I’d say it’s time to book the next airship for some Ordalian beach. At least that way if there’s an earthquake it’ll make some sort of sense.”