...tell her a lie.

Her face is an arm’s reach from yours, her expression expectant and unhappy. You don’t fancy your odds with the truth and a lie will buy you as much time as silence, you hope. Here goes nothing.

“I’m...a thief. I-I don’t mean you any harm. Or your people. No harm to anyone. Er, please let me go. Um, no hard feelings?” You try to smile but your nerves kill your feeble attempt dead. Why did you have to say ‘hard feelings’? You’re suddenly very conscious of the two men beside you and the hands on your arms.

Captain Washkin looks into your eyes, squinting as she does. The corner of her mouth twitches, only for the briefest moment, before it returns to seriousness. She’s...amused? What does that mean?

“Your here for the sceptre?”

A lifeline, finally. What honest thief wouldn’t be here for a sceptre? Your about to say yes when you stop yourself suddenly. That smile…

“No.”

You don’t remember hearing about any sceptre being stolen. You can almost feel your arms spinning; trying to regain your balance and not to fall into the trap she just laid out. “Well, I mean, if you have one I-“ The smile returns to her as you stumble through your lies. “I was just going to grab what I could find...” you trail off rather weakly, your words fading as her smile grows wider. ‘Well done’, it seems to say. It’s anything but encouraging.

The twinkling between her breasts catches your eye. The amulet of Abyet dances with her steady breath, its centre stone somehow reflecting every candle in the room and then some. It catches the flickering lights, warping them in its blue tear stone prison. You try to look at it obviously but not ostentatiously, like a thief might. Even though you were doing that just a moment ago, it seems somehow harder now that you’re thinking about it. The necklaces owner brings your attention back to her.

“Is that so... And...what was your name?”

You reply instantly. “Tamy, miss.” Why that names comes to mind above any other you can’t say. Perhaps it was the woman with the same name you sent to prison some years ago. She even looked a bit like Captain Waskin, only far less controlled and far uglier. You decide to play into the differential role you’ve made for yourself. “Please miss, if you just let me go then I promise not to come back.” Perhaps if she sees you as no threat...

You feel yourself squirming under her eyes. Blue slabs of stone that press against you with the weight of flat doubt. Still, they twinkle with a hidden predatory mirth. Why? Maybe you could offer to steal something for her to sweeten the deal? She looks down at you, pinned between your two mountains, and takes a moment to decide what to say next, constructing her words carefully, as you wish you could.

“Lies are the great equalizer of this world, don’t you think? It can make poor men rich, weak men strong, bad men good... and everything they can do for you, they can do against you.” She chuckles quietly before muttering to herself “’Queens into whores and whores into queens.’” It has the sound of something said in remembrance; some old advice known only to her. As she stands, powerful and in control, yet indecent and bearing signs of favours freely given, you wonder which one she is. One thing’s for certain though: she clearly doesn’t believe you.

“Lies can take you many places and can make you many things. They can help you through the worst of times, as much as they can kick you when you’re down.” She walks over to the nearby table and leans against it, looking at you. “They’re old friends of mind.”

As she rests her rear on the wooden edge of the round surface, she looks about the room. The guards are sure to turn so they and you continue to face her. “I’ve had people lie to me at every turn in my life. ‘It’s a fair price’, ‘I didn’t do it’, ‘I can pay you’, ‘I love you’, ‘I’m sorry’...” Her eyes snap to yours at that last one, still hard yet still with the twinkle of something else. Could it be that your lies have her intrigued? How can you use that?

“‘I won’t cum inside’, that’s probably the one I’ve heard the most.” She continues with a smile, nodding to herself. “Lies have a place...and a price. When you’ve had nothing, truly nothing, you realise that everything has a price. That means everything has a worth. Try selling your cunt to strangers and you’ll soon figure that out. Sometimes the price you pay is worse than the one you don’t.” She looks at you as she says the last part, driving the meaning home.

She pushes off the table and walks over to you. “So, let’s try this again.” Her words spin about in your head. Why tell them to you? What is that look in her eyes? “Who are you really?”

She looks at you, standing were she was, reading your face like an open book. The words forming in your mind pause for a moment. She’s good; able to see through your lies with ease, but is it worth continuing with them anyway?

On the one hand, you could change to the truth: take a gamble it on a different tactic. It’s probably safer to do so, rather than risk goading her into action with further, evidently transparent, lies. Unfortunately, the reason you lied in the first place still stands; you don’t want to jump to the end that truth brings. ‘I’m here to kill you’ doesn’t have a happy ending for you. Further lies would be risky, yet stoking the amusement hidden in her gaze could pay off; if you’re not going to tell the truth then you can at least be entertaining. You could try to keep this going, and keep looking for opportunities.

Oh those eyes freeze you, like a hare under the shadow of a hawk. Playing games with her seems like playing with fire. You could lose everything.