Insulted was good. Insulted meant that hopefully the creature was as off balance as she felt.

But the problem was that it talked, earned a second, sharper look from her, and for the first time since she'd woken up she actually found herself speechless. And she studied the strange looking creature as if only just noticing it for the first time, through her disgust of it being there at all.

She never could stay silent for very long, though.

"I'm sorry," she sneered. "I'm not sure how I mistook a rat for a hound."