Re: The Fortune Teller/ The Soldier
"The bastard didn't need to charge you for water," the soldier growled, flattening one palm on the table. His hands were clean, the knuckles white. No jewelry to be seen. He didn't take the glass, somehow resenting its existence now for three reasons, and instead started to unscrew the flask again.
Snort of derision for the comment about her people. "You accused me of theft too," he slurred back. He wasn't winding the cap off in the right direction and reversed it, twisting with his elbow flapping. When he looked up, she was looking at the window, and he snapped his gaze toward the thick-glassed frame with a combination of fear and fascination.
A lot of the boys went mad, coming home. He'd been rather waiting for it, and it was both a terror and a relief to have it happening. Seeing things, voices...
The reflection he saw was a face too. Thinner than his own. The eyes were darker, more intent. The other man in the snowy glass had a hand up near his ear, watching with sharp eyes, and the reflection's fingers were twisting something around. The reflection spoke too, not that anyone else could hear, and the soldier's attention was taken with what was said so much that he didn't look back to the fortune teller until she was already leaning and speaking with a strange accent.
He stared at her with his flask in the air. "Why, you sly snake, you said it was stolen."