Malcolm, Part 2

This doesn't feel right to me. It's too... bare, or fast-paced perhaps? It feels like all the information to care about is there, it's just not presented well. Like it's speeding by so you can't get a good look. *sigh *
 -----------------------------

“Malcolm? Am I boring you?”

“Sorry, I’m just not used to it. Talking. I don’t talk much to people. Especially new ones.”

Esmeralda grinned. “You’re talking to me though.”

“Yeah. Although really, you’re talking to me,” Malcolm pointed out.

“Then you should talk. Tell me something.”

“Like what?”

“What’s the most exciting thing in the world to you?”

At this moment, the only thing he could think of to say was, “You,” but he felt utterly ridiculous about it.

“I think I like when you talk better,” he decided.

“Ok, what should I talk about?”

“What's Fishery like?" 

Esmeralda put herself as having come from the Middle Ward, trying to fit in with where she would imagine a Bergin relative would be. It was difficult to explain because although Penance had some semblance of social ranking, it was not nearly as cleanly divided as it was in Fishery. 

So, first she told him about the Middle Ward, where business owners, and civil servicemen, like policemen lived. It was also where the maids and servants’ families lived. Esmeralda knew quite a bit about the Middle Ward because Sarah lived there. Of course, she couldn’t tell Malcolm about that. The Middle Ward wasn't as nice as the Upper Ward, where the aristocrats lived, but it was certainly livable. Most of Penance was like the middle ward, with a few parts, from what she's heard, that are like the lower ward. Although that was because the equivalent of the aristocrats here did not actually live in Penance, and there were far fewer of them.

She wouldn't be able to stand living in the Lower Ward, where the working class lived. It was damp and dirty. It was as close as you got to the swamps without leaving Fishery, and she'd often heard about how dangerous it could be there. She told him about how the all the fishing was in the Docks Ward, and you could do all the shopping at the Fish Markets. She actually went on about Fishery, including the differences of living there versus in Penance, for awhile. She hadn't really noticed how much she had to say about it all until she had started talking. She had so much to say that she forgot about the customers, who were now in the starting stages of a brawl. Esmeralda looked, considered, and pulled Malcolm outside.

“You don’t think we should try to stop the brawl?”

“No, no, it’s better this way. If they don’t get it out now, they’ll just go home angry. It’s perfectly fine.” In reality, she didn’t know how to stop a bar fight. She could discourage an individual pretty well with a stab of her dagger, but she didn’t know how to handle this. “Sorry for dragging you out here,” she offered, but he was smiling anyway. A small smile, but most definitely a smile. The sort of smile where his pretty eyes smiled with him. A pretty smile for a pretty face. A rather enchanting face, out here in the moonlight. It was all the moonlight’s fault, of course.

If he had been braver or cleverer at that moment, he would have made an adorably charming comment about how nice the company was, or made some sort of joke. “That’s okay.” 

She smiled back at him, and asked what made him smile. 

He blushed. "Oh, nothing. Well, anyway, thanks for everything. I should be going now." 

With that, he left. Esmeralda wished she could've gotten him to say more, but at least he did not seem upset. She shouldn’t have been so talkative. Maybe next time.