Genny's cautious smile falls apart beneath slowly encroaching horror.
This is not unfamiliar ground. A swordswoman who plays the pragmatist when she must - and often just because she can; who is sometimes a guard, and just as often a murderous last resort, cold with her words and cold with her willingness ... Oh, she finds nothing unfamiliar here. The difference between then and now is these features are Genevieve Tolleson's, and that she hadn't anticipated one piece of this.
The swordswoman would have liked to imagine herself immune to the sight of this - and isn't. Isn't at all.
"Genevieve." Quietly; quietly now, and she keeps her distance but makes a quick and silent examination of the other woman's eyes. "If you'd forgotten," and she has no reason at all to reckon the Inquisitor's shock an act; the very idea of that makes so little sense, unless the girl were a fool. And she's not, she never has been. "Then this is - so much, to receive all at once. I know," and it is something like an obliquely-worded apology, one that sees her straightening soon afterwards.
A clear-filled pitcher; a quick splash of water into one of its cups. That, she can do. And she does not reach to guide Genevieve's hand towards the glass - what might have happened then? but only sets it upon this nearby table, convenient to her reach. "Something cold," she adds, by way of explanation. "Helpful, sometimes. Sometimes not," and after a moment's quiet consideration of the Inquisitor's face, of the fragile shock of her eyes, ventures into the corridor to return with a small bucket; its destination is the floor by Genevieve's ankles.
But that exhausts her small list of practical ministrations, and leaves a very straightforward swordswoman at something of a loss. Near the woman's side she hesitates; murmurs the beginnings of a farewell; is almost to the door again when she turns, fingertips drumming some soft, restless thing against her own leg. "There'll be questions." And how she hates to say the words; hates and must, and: "There's no avoiding that, if this is - if this thing has happened," and this is a statement so carefully phrased. "Nor should there be. Glour'eya reckons herself - "
compromised
" - still ... effected, and perhaps this is so; perhaps it is not. It's a question better resolved sooner than later, I think. But you will tell me, mn? if there is anything I might do to .. simplify this. If you would have them withhold their questions a day or two."
A day; two; which is hardly anything at all.
Which is also the most that she can give.