Alfred was still feeling quite at a loss as to how to proceed — both in what to actually say and do, and in how to try and still his thoughts enough to get stock of what was actually going on, if anything even was going on — but was saved from having to figure it all out by her next question. A change of topic was a welcome relief, and a chance of topic to something so familiar doubly so.

"Not as soon as I'd like," he answered, tipping his pint glass up and eying the foam at the edge of his beer critically. "I was supposed to be somewhere off the west coast of Africa by now, en route to India, but this thing with the chest's got us locked up in port waiting on the Ministry," he explained, realizing as he spoke that he should probably elaborate on what this thing with the chest was. Shaking his head slightly, he continued, "Someone — I'm not sure who exactly, though I've suspicions — tried to smuggle this chest onboard before we left, and it turned out to be some sort of... I don't know. Something the Ministry wanted to deal with. It, uh... wasn't particularly friendly," he said with a loose shrug. "And they asked us not to leave until they've got it... resolved, I guess. I don't know what that's supposed to look like."

All of that, though, didn't really answer the question that she'd asked, because India was hardly an expedition.

"We're just meant to escort these two other ships to India," he explained, leaning in on the table slightly in his eagerness to talk about something he was really passionate about. "For security, anti-piracy, that sort of thing. It's not an expedition. I've been doing a lot of these kinds of things lately — not anything terribly exciting, but honest work." And honest pay, which was the important part — the whole point had been that he'd been trying to save up capital for a house somewhere, and a comfortable lifestyle that could support a girl from a nice family — so that Zelda's father would deign to give him so much as a second glance, if he came asking to court her again — but since that didn't seem to be in the cards anymore, he supposed he wasn't saving money towards much of anything, at this point. The point of India, really, had been to get away for a while (and maybe take some time to move on from the idea of moving things forward with Zelda), which made it twice as unfortunate that this trip had started off the way it did — with him and his whole crew stuck in London indefinitely.

"But I'd love — if I can work up to it — to do what we were trying to do with the Sycorax. Chart all the magical islands in the South Sea," he said enthusiastically. "With a whole team of people there to document everything — magizoologists, herbologists, all of that. Archaeologists, too," he added with a grin. "I don't know if they've got ruins on any of the undiscovered islands in the South Sea, but... I don't know that they don't," he joked, raising his glass in something of a mock toast before taking a drink.