Red leaned forward, clearly interested. “A Dragon Knight? Truly?”
Kre nodded and Red tapped at her chin. She looked over at Kitalia, “Did you know this?”
“It was in the court documents,” the younger woman replied. “The ones that I have offered to let you read at least three times now.” She raised her pack again as if offering one more time.
“You know I hate reading that legal garbage. All ‘henceforth’, ‘therefore’, ‘affidavit’, and nonsense like that. Who can understand that crap without getting a headache?”
“Well, me,” Kitalia replied bluntly. She shook her head, “You need to get over this issue you have with reading words. You blindly trust your ability to read people to such an extreme that you over rely on it. We could have jumped right to this part of the conversation had you simply read these papers or at least let me summarize it for you. Your stubbornness is quite possibly your worst trait.”
Red regarded her with narrowed eyes for a moment and Kre worried that she was going to explode in a fit of anger at how she was being spoken to. Finally, she smiled and spoke, “No. No, we needed all of that precursor chat. I had to know what kind of person this boy was. To know if he could be trusted at all.”
“It seems that my entire life is to be one verdict after another,” Kre muttered. “I suppose I am completely at the mercy of the court. Your judgement then?”
“The jury is still out,” Red laughed, “but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You have every appearance of being a decent person and trust me when I say that ‘decent’ is a pretty high compliment around here.
“Now,” she continued, “about this Dragon Knight of yours. You said his name was Terry Cootsman?”
“Yes… well, no.” Kre chewed on his lower lip. “I mean yes, we knew him as Terry Cootsman. That’s the name he went by in our town. I only found out later… I mean, I found out the same night as…”
“Take a deep breath,” Kitalia advised, placing a hand on his knee. “Deep, calming breaths.”
He followed her guidance, inhaling deeply through his nose and exhaling out of his mouth. “Thank you, Kitalia,” he said. His hand immediately flew to his mouth and he cursed. “I mean, Daisy. I don’t know why I said that other name. It makes no sense. I don’t… I mean, I don’t even know a Kitalia.”
Both Red and Kitalia regarded him with a slow, sad shake of their respective heads.
“That was…” Kitalia began.
“…pathetic,” Red finished.
“She knows,” Kitalia added. “She is the only one here who does.”
Red shrugged, “Besides, you blew her alias in the first thirty seconds of our meeting.” Kitalia closed her eyes and started her own cycle of deep breaths upon hearing that news. “We still use Daisy, even in private, just in case anyone is listening.”
Kre looked around, “Is that possible? Could someone be listening?”
“No, not here.” Red looked around the room and smiled. “We’re underground, which helps keep us safe from prying eyes, and none of the folk upstairs would dare come down here to listen at the door and they would tell me immediately if they saw anyone they didn’t recognize.”
“You put a lot of trust into a bunch of criminals,” the boy noted, leaning back into his chair.
“Criminals like you?” she retorted almost instantly. “Yes, I do. Unlike you, however, each of them has proven themselves time and time again.”
“That’s fair,” he admitted grumpily.
“But,” she added, “you can prove yourself a bit more to me if you go back to telling me about this Cootsman fellow.”
Kre nodded and took one more deep breath, to prepare himself for the memory. “As he lay dying, I learned that his real name was Ser Terync Sandiscoot, a Dragon Knight.”
Red leaned back and closed her eyes, “Sandiscoot you say.” There was a long pause during which time it always appeared as if she were about to say more. She finally did with a clearing of her throat, “Ser Sandiscoot is dead.”