Swamped

"Why does it even matter if you get assigned more work? I have a hard time seeing why Squib would particularly care about orders from anyone."

"Now hang on a sec," the bearded knight says, sounding annoyed. "We may have a bad rep, and we may talk back a lot. But we're still Bogknights, and we take that seriously. When we got a job, we do it, even if we gripe a lot. I ain't a quitter, not like Clancy."

Hmm. Interesting. Not really what you were looking for.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest anything about you in particular. I just meant Squib didn't strike me as the type. Maybe I'm wrong."

"Okay, yeah, that's fair," he says with a shrug. "Squib probably wouldn't stick around if he wasn't in charge of the squad. As it is, I'm pretty sure he likes having a squad to boss around more than he hates working."

And now this is going in an interesting direction.

"So why is Squib in charge, then? He doesn't seem particularly well-suited for it."

"No kiddin'. The hell was Ash thinkin'..."

He stops suddenly. He realizes he's said too much.

"Ash picked him for squad leader?" you ask, pretending not to notice his nervousness. "I wonder why."

"I mean, I'm just guessin'," he says, visibly panicking. "Ash was talkin' to all of us before he formed the squad. So I figure that was about picking the leader. Can't say for sure, though."

His sudden fear is more than a little strange. There's nothing unusual about an officer picking out a squad leader, after all, and it's not as if the other officers wouldn't already know about it. So why would it be so worrisome to admit to Ash picking Squib?

Because maybe this fellow knows the reason why, and he almost let that slip.

You'll have to tread carefully here. He's frightened right now, but if you make the wrong move, he might get violent. On the other hand, he's also not thinking clearly, which means he might forget to hide something if he's focused too much on hiding something else.

How do you approach this?