Friendship was an abstract when it came to worlds that opened and closed onto hotels. Pepper did not have many who had not already left, the ether absorbing them as completely as if they had never existed at all. Thomas had somehow surfaced in amidst the slurry of confused connections, the hotel's gamble rattling everyone together like a handful of die. Thomas was a friend and an unqualified one even if newer than most.
"That's somehow less reassuring than if you didn't feel the need to say it." The corner of her mouth moved upward, but the soft concerned look was not obliterated. It strengthened instead. He was worried or he was disturbed and it was sharply clear this was not an ordinary meeting over lunch.
Pepper had no idea that the ability clung to her like an expensive perfume. She could feel on the periphery of her senses, much like looking at the edge of her field of vision, the abundance of metal within the place. It had somehow become calming: to discern and to take strength from. There would never be another slave-ship, now. She could fight back.
She sat neatly and her fingers were still tangled up in his over the top of the table. "Do you want to start from the beginning?" The tip of her head: listening.