A Princess, a Knight, and an Assassin Walk Into a Tavern...

Tollie

What with the dim lighting casting shadows over everyone's faces, Tollie quickly realized her current attempt at identifying the Captain from the doorway was futile.
She would have to enter the premises.
She would have to talk to someone...

Not an activity she had much practice with, not beyond siblings and servants anyways.
Not two steps in, she saw the Royal Insignia shining in the last rays of the sun, coming in through the one window not covered in the whole place.
Ducking her head, Tollie made her way instead over to the counter where the barkeep stood, completely absorbed in his current task of wiping out a mug.

He didn't so much as glance her direction.
After an eternity, or so it felt, she risked a glance back over her shoulder to the soldier.
Not just a soldier, but a Commander! Not just a Commander, but Duhningham!
Holy dung-heap! What were the odds?

No seriously, what were the odds?
For just a moment, she was impressed. Wow, General Duhningham, not a stone's throw from where she stood.
Not a stone's throw from where she stood...Oh no! What would a royal servant do if they saw her?

Drag her arse back to her father, that's what.
Whelp. Tollie would just have to make sure that didn't happen.
Leaning across the counter, she cleared her throat tentatively. When the barkeep still didn't acknowledge her presence, she stammered, keeping her voice down.

"Greetings loyal...uh...barkeep. I wonder if you could enlighten me as to whether or not Captain West is currently inhabiting your...erm...establishment?"

"You see, his ship is in port, and I was informed at the docks that he occasionally frequents your...inn...due obviously to something other than its atmosphere..."

"Though possibly it has a hard to pick-up-on rustic charm...that I have simply missed...perhaps?"
About halfway through her little speech, the barkeep did look up at her, though his eyes remained glossed over, his expression empty.
After smiling at him expectantly for an awkward length of time, her smile faltered just a bit, and trying again she asked, "Captain West?"
Sighing, in barely contained irritation, he nodded his head further down the way to a table where sat three gentlemen playing some sort of game with cups and dice, the one closest to the aisle of the same height and coloring she knew Captain West to be.
"Many thanks to you barkeep." She said, turning and taking a deep breath before walking towards the indicated table.
A pathway which, unfortunately, would take her directly past Duningham!

As said table came near, she pretended something to her left drew her eye so completely, that she just had to look that way.
Once beyond it, she let out an audible sigh, turning her mind now to the task at hand: assessing the man before her as she closed in.
He had not aged well.
The figure she had once thought to be the epitome of male perfection, long and lean and topped with the strong upper back and shoulders only a sailor can maintain; now slumped before her, beefy and portly, those dreamy shoulders now curving in a limp upside down 'U', instead of the delicious 'T' from before.
The long, wildly tangled locks, and carefully trimmed facial hair, now seemed to have flip-flopped; the top of his head so thin and balding it would take quite the Captain's hat to cover it, his beard instead now full and fuzzy.
His eyes? Well, she'd have to wait on that one.
"Pardon the intrusion good sir, but am I correct in assuming I address Captain West, terror of the East seas?...Well formerly, until more recently when he began working for the King and..."
The Captain finally turned his blood-shot, bug-eyes her direction, her disappointment stopping her mid-sentence.
How many years had she wondered, dreamed, and imagined what color those intelligent, deviant, laughing eyes possessed?