Stavanger Bay You ask me to enter

Thinking that he had made himself quite clear, her reaction upon turning and spotting him was met with a brief blankness, and then the knitting of his brow as he assumed the expression for confused and worried, which was on his list of masks he had learned to wear. In truth, Tetsubo was neither concerned nor worried, but it was how others often reacted in these instances, so he'd observed. And now he watched the odd gray woman while she sputtered and lost her nerve, which he knew could never happen to himself. There was a line of yellow gunk on the side of her face that he watched, like a mustard stain, which must have come out of the rock she had cracked, and he waited until she had more control over her body - and mental processes - before he intoned his question.

Did you eat a rock? He asked swiftly. Tetsubo's tone was bland indeed, not even holding the inflection of a question, and he thought afterwards that he should have put some sort of guise upon his words as he had his face, because that might have brought a better response out of this odd woman upon the shore. Maybe then she would have been more co-operative, instead of melting in to hysterics, as people so often did around him. Next he dipped his head and observed the stones around his feet, even probed a few with his nose, and while they clattered across one another, none looked to be remotely edible.