There was a reason that Jayati was relatively open about her past. She had been involved in a War, she had been married but her wife had died. Lying was more work than it was worth for one, and people didn't look so close if there wasn't a mystery.
So she had learned to speak of Lalita without it hurting. Too much. As long as she didn't dwell on the how's and the why's, as long as she worked to make up for it, maintained her collection. That was how she made it through every day. This? This she wasn't prepared for. Fury rose up in her as quickly as fire could bellow from her lungs in her true shape, and her hand snapped out to grab his collar as his words soaked in like acid.
The boy wasn't large and it was easy or her to haul him away from the line the short distance to the end of the building, shoving up against the wall beside the dumpster that only hid them from view coming from one direction, with a forearm to his chest. The faint smell of sulfur even though her scales only emerged for hardly a beat before fading back into her skin. Her self-control was better than that.
Mostly.
"Talk. You clearly enjoy running your mouth, let's hear it." There was a reason she preferred drinking alone, that her sparring partners were few and her engagements in debates were minimal. Because it felt good to give in, just a little, even though she really wasn't even dipping her toe in the surface. In Spanish even, because she may have been here for twenty years but she still retained the language and she recognized the accent when he said her last name. You want to reach someone, you speak their tongue. Ironically, Lalita had told her that. It also made it slightly less likely someone passing by would understand their conversation.