All right. Now I know. Xandra is the most irritating person I have had the displeasure to meet in a long, long time. Tactless. Patronising. Superior. If I wasn't trying to make a good impression I would have had a good try at punching her teeth down her throat long since, the dishonest cow.
I'm glad Rayner has been healed though. And grateful to Crystal for the new clothes. Gods, I needed them, and the bath.
And now I've had a chance to converse with Simon he seems quite a reasonable chap, with something of a sense of humour, too. Certainly enough to use it to try blunting some of the - well, banter isn't really the word I'd use - slanging perhaps - between me and Xandra.
Dammit, was she trying to be irritating, or is it just a natural talents of hers? Does it matter? Well, no, not really. I don't see any way I'll come to like her after this. Or that she'll come to like me after I knocked out her guest. Hooray!
I'm glad to see she has vulnerabilities though. It appears the way to get at her is though her friends. I shall bear this in mind...
Still, what did she expect. The mob of guests she arranged were bad enough, but when that one slapped my backside, what did she expect? Letting that sort of thing go unanswered is just asking for trouble later on!
So down he had to go. She should consider herself lucky I didn't just kill him with that punch.
And all her minions going for their weapons. I take it they don't have barroom brawls where steel isn't often drawn, let alone guns in whatever stupid place it is she comes from, just gunfights. Well, I can believe it - it's not like Xandra shows any restraint - why should where she comes from?!
Of course, I was fairly drunk at the time, but still. Hmmm. Maybe I just hit him because I didn't really want to hit Xandra.
Or maybe these days I just have an aversion to work-shy fops like Xandra's guests. Pretty little social butterflies. I don't think I liked them much when I was little, either. And I certainly don't like being mobbed by them now, when Xandra introduced us.
I suppose I should be ... miffed ... at Xandra's "more mature than an immortal" comment. But really, what does she know? I may not age and die, but right now? I am still only sixteen, after all!
And of course, normally I wouldn't have left a gathering even feeling as drunk and rough as I did. But by then it was really any excuse would do to get out of there for a while...