An errant success -- the probabilities leaning in her favor -- had led to this: the seamstress, with her heels wedged into the age-grayed floorboards, holding Phor against the bare wall by her twisted collar. Gloria's knuckles bulged out through the gnarled fabric, her wrapped fist just underneath the horned girl's throat. Her other arm was back, angled at the elbow, the stump cocked and ready to bludgeon if it must.
But it didn't. Not yet. The memory of her fingers -- phantom appendages that her nerves had stubbornly refused to surrender to the truth of her crippling -- wrapped themselves into a fist. This close, Gloria reeked of stale sweat. Her breath was an acrid force. Her gray eyes flicked left, right, trying to take in every angle of Phor's face.
A droplet of sweat as black as tar dangled like an opal from the tip of the seamstress' nose.
"Ailova and I are -- are both women who appreciate truth over bull's shit, and I'd rather know what you honestly think when I look at you. But be wary," the young woman hissed, lowering her voice until it was a rapid, excitable tangle of sounds rattling out from her throat, "because the advantage to being crazy is that I can smell it when you lie, and -- and I wouldn't hesitate to drive your nose up into your brain for wasting our time with distortions or misdirections.
"Go on. Say what's on your mind, Phor."