[Infirmary] Lovely Weather We're Having (Minerva)

[Marcus Dymez]

And in that moment, Marcus' suspicions were confirmed. It was a long-shot initially, but Marcus found things making slightly more sense when he simply accepted his presumption as fact. He was quite comforted when Tock had retrieved only a piece of charcoal, and now a piece of steel, but that had not answered his questions. No, that came with one word; Corwin. Now there was a name to place to the whole affair, and judging by the way Tock spoke about him and the rest of his crew, things seemed especially peculiar. Not to mention her knowledge of their Sunberth origins, the gears were finally turning, and it all pivoted around the one name she spoke of. Marcus supposed she knew of this man before the incident, and perhaps went out of her way to track him down. Long lost love or vile fiend, Marcus couldn't say, but he honestly didn't care by any means. The only part that interested him was the name, and the man behind it; Tock could keep her past, for it was no concern of his. Marcus had his own demons, after all. However, things were not miraculously simple all of a sudden. Marcus knew well enough not to simply burst forth and accuse her of knowing this criminal, or hunting him down and such nonsense. It would only earn him a certain slap across the face, or with Tock's glare, a shiv in the gut. This situation called for subtlety, and Marcus chose his words carefully as his voice came up, politely calm and sincere, even if the content wasn't. "I'm not as worldly as I'd like to be, but you seem to know a bit about Sunberthans... Tell me, what's this Corwin fellow like? He the ring-leader of that rag-tag little group last night?" Marcus shrugs, seeming ambivalent on the subject of this man, despite his intense curiosity residing beneath the veil. It took a significant force of will to push the apathy to his expression, speaking with a subtle voice and taunting words. "They didn't seem like bad folks, just a bit misguided. Would've been easier to talk it over than to slice bodies. Maybe I'll go pay this Corwin guy a visit..." Marcus passed Tock an innocent smile, with eyes as sharp and green as expertly-cut emeralds. Your move, was the first thought that came to mind.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock wasn't nearly so savvy or smooth-talking as Marcus. She hadn't in the least realized that she was giving away more information than she intended to. It just wasn't how her mind worked. She wanted her past to remain secret, but she had no skill in protecting her secrets. She normally just told people it's none of yer business, and left it at that. So she remained unaware of the verbal traps Marcus was setting, and simply snapped, "What difference fer it makes what if'n I knows 'ey were Sunberthan. Weren't all o' 'em, anywho. What the guy done said fer the guards were what as some o' 'em were jus' local fools what done gots talked inta doin' somethin' stupid..." She didn't understand what Marcus's interest was, or why he wouldn't just drop it. She shook her writing utensil at him and added, "Guards done been lookin' fer 'em already, but if'n ya wanna go be a dang fool 'ero, ya goes right a'ead. Yer lookin' fer a bloke what's missin' an eye AN' an ear..." Of course, she wasn't about to mention how she'd taken both body parts; the ear she'd bitten off four years ago, and the eye was sitting right by her thigh in Boxy. She muttered under her breath, "Dang fool coward prolly done ran off, anywho. Never were one fer ta see a thing through..." It didn't surprise her that Corwin had managed to convince some people to do something violent and foolish. But she knew he didn't have the strength to maintain leadership over any group. Most of the ones who'd fled last night would likely never work together again, and Corwin would abandon all of them to save his own hide. He wasn't a true leader; at best, he was just enough of a smooth talker to sway the opinions of the feebleminded, angry folk who had wanted someone to lash out at. But once the moment was gone, Corwin didn't have the strength of character to hold people's loyalty.