[I'm not going to mess around. Derelict Draught and I know what is happening here. We will both be able to keep up.
Let the torment commence!]
The Commander's Office was a magnificently bizarre place. Situated right at the back of HQ, as far as possible from anything else, it was usually shrouded in silence, making the walk down the long, desolate passageway seem doubly ominous. The door was of a dark, somber wood, which had a faint odour reminiscent of hazelnuts. The knob, on close inspection, was very slightly charred. By this point, the potential enterer would be feeling slightly nervous.
This would change to bewilderment as they entered the mayhem of her office.
Shaygrin's office fitted her personality perfectly. It was wild, exotic, and filled to the brim with stuff. Priceless vases shared roughly-hewn surfaces with rubber ducks and devices for pulling out fingernails. A stuffed crocodile, its tail sadly battered and its teeth yellow, hung from the ceiling. And, on top of everything, sat papers. Papers and papers, some new, some old. Some of the documents seemed to be written on parchment. One corner deviated from this norm, and in the middle of a fastidiously spotless square sat a neat little desk. This was where Bree often worked. However, the rest of the space was overflowing, as it were, with Shay, and in the middle, at an ancient, claw-footed, worn-velvet-topped desk, was the woman herself, writing away quite tranquilly, apparently oblivious to the madness around her.
Anyone entering the space would experience a moment of overwhelmed astonishment. This was how Shay liked things.
As she filled out a form for more explosives (Ty had been whining about a lack of supplies for some time, and she knew that he was nearing desperation), Shay waited to hear a familiar tread in the hallway. She had called Malberry to her office that morning. His appointment was drawing near. It would not have done for him to be late. She pushed a strand of hair out of her face, and could not help but notice that the grey strands in it were waging a war with the black ones. For some time, the black army had kept control, but the grey was invading. She was getting old. This made her meeting even more important.
She glanced at the clock mounted directly above the door, where she could see the time and her interrogatee could not. Two minutes to twelve. Malberry was running out of time. She hoped that he would not be late.
She would have to be firm with him if he was late.