Fighting Instinct, ~open~

[Dorian Stone]

Glinda was even more close-mouthed than ever. She tried to hide the lines of exhaustion beneath her lids, told him that she was going to bed but hiding extra files and reports beneath her pillow to work on while he thought she was resting, and he was fairly certain that he hadn't seen her eat and keep down a decent meal in days. He was proud of himself, though... he'd not exploded at her for it. At least, not yet. She was scaring the shit out of him and he couldn't do anything about it because he knew, intellectually, that on some level it was necessary. Dorian couldn't give her something else to worry about by not being the support that she needed.

Which was why he was here.

This was the practically the first night off he'd taken since he'd been appointed. He ran occasional errands in the evenings but never managed to stay away from Glinda's side for very long. Tonight... he wasn't planning on returning as soon as possible. It bothered him, but he just couldn't manage it without there being some form of violence as a result. His subordinates would take care of her. They were men who could guard Her Goodness as well as he could... but it took more of them and they were much less able to do so with the secrecy and precision that he managed. It was part of why he'd been chosen to have this position and, at the moment, a fair reason why he had his first brandy of the night curled in his hand, the liquid shifting in the sifter as he twirled his wrist very slightly. If he wasn't so damned observant, so damned capable, maybe he wouldn't want to throttle the woman he loved more than his own life. Maybe.

Dorian put down the snifter without having drunk much from it and sighed, one hand roughing through his hair like he usually did when he was tired. What exactly was he going to do with his little white witch?

[Bumblebee Haswell]

Dorian wasn't the only one that was worried about Glinda, being her assistant she tried to look after her, everyone that was close to her tried to look after her but it was hard. Bumble had hidden some of the paper work that didn't really need doing by Glinda and she had started to do it herself, she didn't want the older female to be stuck with so much paper work that she felt like she couldn't breathe and it was all that she should do all day as well as people coming in and out to see her about different things. Oz wasn't a safe place to be at the moment, no one could want to be there out of choice, Bumble loved her job but she wished she could be anywhere but Oz a lot of the time. She had people here, well not a lot of people but they were some people that she cared for, she worked hard to get where she could be and she wasn't going to let it go just because she didn't want to be within Oz anymore, and the boarders were worse than Oz was.

She had changed clothes in her office, from her shift dress she wore at work to a skirt that finished midway up her thigh and her top which showed off the best parts of her body. She had a leather coat pulled around her so she could stay as warm as she could from walking from the palace to the bar. She didn't like being out at night, even worse when she was by herself and people knew who she was and how close to Glinda she was as well. People seemed to think that she had power but she didn't, she had no say in it and even if she had studied politics, she didn't know a lot about it.

When she walked in, she noticed Dorian and she sat down next to him, pulling her coat off and placing it across her lap. "I managed to get her to eat." She told him before ordering herself a drink, he had to know who she was on about. She was trying her best to help, everyone was trying to help Glinda but she wasn't helping herself either.

[Dorian Stone]

Dorian turned his head to better watch Ms. Haswell as she made her way to sit beside him. He'd seen the young girl fairly often in Glinda's office but rarely spoke to her. It was a point of his not to ask where she came from or what her story was, but he knew that she wasn't just an assistant to Glinda. Aside from that, he didn't bother to pry. It wasn't his business, and he didn't want to know.

Glinda would have been amused to see him. Nothing discomforted Dorian... if people believed his expression and the way he behaved. If they didn't fall for it,there was so much more to the man. He just hid it well enough that even Glinda would only sometimes get glimpses of his awkwardness. He'd not expected to see anyone besides his own men here, and Ms. Haswell, while she was not a bother, was not particularly who he'd seek out to take companionship with.

Still, it couldn't hurt to chat. Perhaps she might even prove to be interesting, although he doubted it. Dorian was, apparently, the kind to focus completely on the person whom he loved and his work, others could get as emotionally twisted up as they chose to be and he really wouldn't give a damn. And he didn't have enough energy right now to fight that attitude.

"I'm glad. How much did you get down her?" He took a healthy drink of his brandy before raising the snifter and an eyebrow at the bartender and returning his attention to the girl. That was when he pinpointed why he was put off by her: her outfit. Something that revealing on Glinda would have been fine, but with his being taller and her shorter it made the whole situation off-putting for him to say the least. Dorian wasn't used to women being around him and was just a tad awkward when it came to associating with them.

He cleared his throat and arched a brow very slightly at her. "Can I get you something to drink?" It was said impersonally, so not a pick-up line but very much an invitation to stay and continue talking. He wouldn't punish her and send her away if she was just here to talk simply because she confused him by her very existance.

[Bumblebee Haswell]

Bumble was mentally kicking herself for what she was wearing, she was slightly hoping that if she was going to meet a guard from work, it would have been some of the others who would let their hair down and she could have a fun time. With the few minutes that she had spent around Dorian she knew that he wasn't one of those type of people, she wasn't complaining because it would be nice to spend time with a guy who didn't want her for sex or so they could try and get information about Glinda and what was going on with Oz off her. She knew a lot but not as much as everyone else thought she knew, she didn't know the deepest things and she didn't really care for them either.

"Some chicken and potatoes, I'm going to try more tomorrow. I might bring her in some pancakes tomorrow." Okay, she never brought anything in, Bumble had no idea how to cook but he didn't know that. Only Glinda knew how she made food, she used to get take aways before she knew about the magical power that she held. Most of her life she knew she had it but she knew how to control it, and she never used it but she was learning how to use it so she would use it when she was in private, never in public, unless their was a way to easily hide it.

"You can buy me the next drink." She pointed out to him as the bar tender put down the drink on the bar she had just ordered. Taking a quick sip, she looked over at him, she knew that she wasn't making him feel comfortable. "One minute, excuse me." She said, grabbing her bag which was almost bigger than her 5'4'' size. Rushing into the bathroom and into the stall that was further away, she tried not to touch anything. With a click of her fingers, she changed back into the shift dress that she had warn to work, which was longer and didn't show off as much skin. Running her hands through her hair, making the curls of her hair longer. For all he knew, the dress had been in her bag it was big enough. And with another click of her fingers, her heels had changed from red to black.

Walking back out of the bathroom, she took her place back onto the stool next to Dorian. "I just felt cheap in that." She pointed out, taking another sip of her drink hoping that he would just leave it at that. It was dangerous for people to know that you had a magical power. In this land you didn't want anyone to know that you can do things like that. She didn't want everyone to turn against her, she didn't want to be hated and she was a good person.

[Dorian Stone]

"Pancakes? I wouldn't think that those would travel well. We don't get that kind of fare in the mess hall." His lips turned upwards at the corners very slightly in a ghost of a teasing smirk. "I never thought about what Oz would offer those not doing grunt work in terms of food. Mayhaps I need to have a word with the chefs and see if I can get some morale boosters for the Gale." This was the kind of banter he could deal with. Anything work related was much easier, and so long as it stayed somewhat professional he was content.

He relaxed imperceptibly as she accepted his peace offering and went back to nursing his brandy. It wasn't as ideal as slugging the shots might have been in terms of blocking out the world, but it helped dull his growing panic whenever he thought about Glinda, his irritation with Oz for threatening her happiness and her life. He wasn't the kind that got happy and stupid when he drank. Actually, it helped him to focus and to forget that he had emotions which could affect the situation he was in.

Odd how he could remember to drink when it took his sister's letters to remind him to feed himself. Just one of the odd ways in which the Captain operated, what made him so lethal and partially inhuman. Most were intimidated by his manner and brusqueness, which was part of why he reacted as he had when Ms. Haswell approached him. He just didn't know what to do when people were nonplussed by him. He started to speak before the woman next to him excused herself, so he nodded a bit and returned to his own thoughts until she returned. The bag she was carrying was huge and he had to suppress his instinct as a guard to want to know just what was big enough that she felt she needed something that large to hold it. Paranoid much? Hell yes. Was he a good man? He didn't think so. But he was, however, a very observant man and did his job with all of his being. Glinda trusted the girl, though, so he would try not to speculate further on what kind of weapons might be concealed in a bag like the one she had.

When she returned he arched a brow at her and simply stared for several long moments. Her attitude, the self-conscious drop of the head, told him clearly that she didn't want to be pressed. Reading body language was not hard for him. Finally, he let it be and pretended as though it wasn't a big deal. He'd remember to ask Glinda more about this little one later. For now, he was having enough trouble suppressing the side of him that rose in a business situation which reminded him of his instinct to protect Glinda, guilt that he wasn't by her side right now riding him hard. His fingers clenched very slightly around the snifter and he took a long breath.

"Do you come here after every shift, Ms. Haswell? I confess to not truly following the social scene." There was amusement in his gaze, almost an invitation for her to join in to his joke. She had been around him enough (hell, people he'd only seen for a few minutes had been around him enough) to know that his job was his life. Dorian was mocking that to a point by pointing out where he was, hoping to put her further at ease and to draw attention away from her odd change in dress so the one evening he was taking off wouldn't be fraught with awkwardness.

[Bumblebee Haswell]

Shit, she knew that she should have picked something other than pancakes but it was the first breakfast food to come into her head. She should have picked something like fruit, they travel easy and pancakes would probably be cold by the time that she got to the palace. Well, she wasn't going to be carrying them but he didn't know that and she wanted to keep it that way. She couldn't let anyone know until Glinda made it safe to have magical powers without getting burned at the stake by people who didn't understand that she didn't want to use this power for bad. She wanted to help people but she guessed that Elphaba had the same view as her and she didn't want things to end up like that.

She had noticed the way he was looking at her when she came back, maybe the massive bag looked weird but she had everything that she needed in there. She knew that he was probably suspicious about what was in the bag but she had loads of paperwork that was safe enough to take home as long as no one else got to see them but she was private when it came to things in her bag. Well, all of her stuff she was suspicious about, someone touched anything that belonged to her and she hated that feeling that people were searching for things from her. Even if she was never careful about sexual relations, she normally played them more than they thought. They didn't think that she was just as smart as them.

Looking at him when he spoke, she shook her head, she didn't come here after every shift, most of the time she was just too tired. She had fallen asleep at her desk several times, which had ended up with ink all over her cheek. She was surprised how comfortable her desk had been and she had only woken up the next day when her door had been knocked on by someone, she couldn't remember who but it was by someone. She had been embarrassed about it but she was sure everyone had fallen asleep at their desk at some point.

"No, only once or twice a week. Most of the time I just go straight home, sleep and then go straight back to work. It depends on what time I finish." She explained, most of the time she would be working until midnight or later so she would just go straight home. She only went out when she had the time to, which wasn't that often and she didn't mind about that because she loved her work and she wasn't a person who had a lot of friends.

[Dorian Stone]

Something about her expression when he tried teasing her about the pancakes made him on edge. What it was, exactly, he didn't really know. Things often happened that way for him, amd it didn't usually take long for him to get to the bottom of things. He was the one in charge of Glinda's safety, yes, but also the safety of anyone in her proximity. The Gale wasn't just concerned with Her Goodness, after all. The safety of all of Oz was in their hands whether Oz wanted their help or not (in the case of those who were trying to kill Glinda). So it put him on edge that this girl didn't seem to realize this, didn't think that her behaviour might make someone who took his job very very seriously rather annoyed.

Dorian, though, was a master of keeping his thoughts hidden. Ms. Haswell would not know she was on dangerous ground until he pounced. He still managed to surprise Glinda when he let himself act on his emotions sometimes, and that woman was truly getting to know him too well for that sort of thing. Her response to his light inquiry was an expected one; he knew who was in the workspace with Glinda at all times if he was around, and his time for being there was in the early evening to the late morning. He'd know better than anyone she worked with whether she went home at night or not.

"Ah, well. Glinda's not the only one stretching herself thinly." He gave her another unreadable look before returning his attention to his drink. "Perhaps I have been a bit rude. I know very little about you, Ms. Haswell." Which wasn't entirely the truth. He made a point to do background checks on every member of the court, anyone that came in did so under Glinda's approval, but they stayed and stayed safe because of his. "What is your job, exactly?" He had a vague idea, but it would be interesting to see how she responded, what she saw fit to tell him. And what she didn't.

[Bumblebee Haswell]

Bumble needed to learn how to lie or hide things better, she was normally really good but it seemed like nothing could get past Dorian. And she was starting to feel more nervous, she wasn't even dangerous, she wasn't stupid enough to do something because she knew about the fragile state that Oz was in the moment and she didn't want to add to it. She also didn't want everyone within the land of Oz going after her because they thought she was going to turn people into tin men and scarecrows. She didn't even have any idea how to do things like that, she could make things appear, change things and make them disappear again and she didn't have time at the moment to learn anything else. Even if she would love to learn how to fly, that could probably be one of the most risky things she could ever do within Oz.

She knew that she was spreading herself thinly but she made sure that she ate something every few hours and she would at least sleep for 4 hours every night with loads of coffee for the next day. "Yeah, but at least I'm looking after myself. I feel like I'm always checking on her to see if she's eating or drinking enough. She thinks that she won't pass out in public but I can see it happening, and soon unless she sorts this out." She explained, she knew that things were hard, she saw the people coming in that were desperate for help but it wasn't that easy. She couldn't just give everyone what they wanted, it wasn't that easy, you couldn't just click your fingers and everything would be better within seconds.

He hadn't been rude, she had known people who didn't even bother to get to know her name or anything like that. When he asked what her job was, she took a sip of her drink. "I'm Glinda's personal secretary, I used to be like the receptionist at the front door but she promoted me not that long ago." She explained to him, she had been to Shiz for about a year and a half. She couldn't say that she had been kicked out but she also didn't leave. The school had told her unless she stopped taking magic lessons they would force her to go, just because of what had happened with Elphaba, they didn't want her to come to some sort of power with magic. And because of her parents murder, she just didn't want to go back to Shiz, she wanted to stay at home and she loved her job.

[Dorian Stone]

Dorian could see that he was making her nervous and it wasn't doing much to calm his fraying nerves. He'd come here to get a drink and not try to hurt someone, and she wasn't being conducive to that goal. Especially since his brain was now racing with possibilities for her to be acting as she was, questions he was going to ask Glinda, which led to thoughts about Glinda and the latest bout of her meetings, her neglect of herself, and his inability to do anything to help.

At her next comment his fingers tightened around the snifter even further and he shut his eyes, angling his head away from her. "Her Goodness knows her duty to Oz. Trying to waylay her from that is fruitless and ineffective, both to her and to those she serves. Her decisions about what she does with her life are not made lightly, and nagging her for them in unfair." His voice was quiet, not so much lecturing or trying to keep his temper but simply mild. He'd had this argument with Glinda many times before, and this was his truth.

"Your concern is noted, but as the man responsible for her safety I must ask that you direct it to something more constructive. Leave her snacks that are easy to munch on while she works, make sure she has water on hand. Hell, leave pillows where her head is likely to fall if she goes to sleep at her desk. But don't break her concentration while she's working to fight her about eating. It will take up her time, make her more stressed, and then she'll take even less care of herself."

That said, he fell silent. Small talk was something he could be good at if he were in the mood, but he wasn't anymore. If she had a reason for sitting by him besides so she could go on about Glinda's eating habits then she was more than welcome to say her piece. He wasn't sure why she'd bothered to sit with him in the first place, given his reputation, and he was not sure how to respond to her previous statements since she kept acting so odd. Changing clothes, telling him something and then tensing up, then bringing it up in another way... he was confused and not really willing to confront her about it just yet, in case she really was innocuous here rather than trying to screw up his brain. So he drank, and watched her, waiting to see what she'd do now that he'd strung more words together out loud about a topic that wasn't military than he had to anyone besides Glinda or his family in a long time.

[Bumblebee Haswell]

He was making her uncomfortable, she wasn't feeling so nervous anymore but she was starting to feel really uncomfortable. See, this, men like this was the reason why she never went into a relationship, this was the reason why she just had one night stands because most of the men within Oz were massive jerks and didn't notice that they're just trying to help people out. It isn't like she's bugging Glinda to eat every hour, she normally only brings it up when she needs to see her with paper work. She doesn't even bug her most of the time, she's just worried about her health. Yes, she checks on her but it's normally with the fact that it's part of her job to check on her and to see if she wants anything bringing to her or to get in contact with people that she wants to talk to.

Running her hands through her long brown curls, she looked down at her drink and was really tempted to knock it back. Looking down the bar, she spotted a guy who was looking at her, she would much rather have a drink with him and then end up with a bed buddy for the night, well at his place not her own, she wasn't that stupid. "I leave her snacks, I know she's busy because I get the paper work for it. I'm trying to help her as much as possible when it comes to paper work and things that she doesn't need to be doing. I'm doing my job. And I've been running around the palace since I could walk. I'm doing the job that my mother used to do, except that was for The Wizard." She explained to him, she probably knew the workings of the palace a lot better than he thought he did. He probably didn't know that she had been running around the palace for as long as she could remember, yes she was a handful but no one seemed to care because she knew when to shut up and smile sweetly.

Grabbing the glass, she knocked back the rest of the alcohol, wincing as it went down her throat, slightly regretting it because she had a feeling that if she didn't end up going home with that guy, she would end up going home alone. Not a good thing at the moment but she would take the risk. It wasn't like anyone would miss her if she was gone. "And now, I'm going to get myself some fun." She pointed out, placing the glass down on the bar, before she walked towards the guy that had been looking at her. Not knowing that he was the enemy and someone that would more than likely kill her tonight rather than sleep with her.