Suspicious Activity

[Anonymous]

Margarette Aynkar was not pleased.  This wonderfully warlike nation of Connlaoth was a closed book to her, and the people were so mage fearing that she couldn't get a straight answer out of any of them.  When she asked about what their government was doing, their happy little response was they were hunting the vile magus.  Margarette was no mage, thankfully, so she had little to fear of this oddly demented little culture.

The would-be assassin leaned back in her chair, propping her legs up against the table in the lovely tavern.  It was named rather aptly, the Spicy Wench.  The wench was properly spicy, and she had been so busy being spicy that her disturbingly cheap wine was delayed.  Margarette observed the woman, then glanced over to the person sitting next to her.

"Well, my friend, if I had that sort of cleavage, I'd have made more in theater." The actress stated.  She brought her eyes back down to her own figure, where a prim and proper black dress accentuated her slight elven curves.  Her normally relaxed ears pinned themselves to her head in that stuck up elven manner.  The elongated, pointed ears had disappeared into her free flowing hair, and she sighed one last time.

"So what have you heard of royal gossip in Connlaoth of late?"  Margarette inquired to no one in particular.  This wasn't the first time the occupants of the bar had heard that statement escape from her lips.

[Anonymous]

For one reason or another, Liir found that when in Reajh there was always some one looking at him. He had spent the last few days in relative silence, doing nothing much but being looked at. He had woken up and had been viewed making his way to a tavern to waste some time before he left, where he had sat and been witnessed consuming his drink as slowly as possible by dipping one sharp-nailed finger into the glass and dabbing the drop on his lower lip to be carried away by an unnoticeable flick of the tongue. Liir was, in fact, so focused on pretending not to be looked at by the mousy-haired girl at the bar who had been rubbing raw with a dirty rag the farthest surface of the bar (pretending herself to be cleaning) for quite some time, that he was rightly disturbed when his droll routine was interrupted by a feminine voice which stood out among the low din of the rest of the room. His black, wolf-like ears perked a bit from their resigned position.

Liir gave a glance at the slender figure sitting at the table to his left. Then he gave another, brow raising slightly. And another with her second say.

"Anything royal is public, as far as this town is concerned. Military gossip, now that's where it is," he said with a carefully measured volume and a slight sidelong grin.

[Anonymous]

The elve's eyes drifted over to the only snag on her question she'd gotten all day.  The respondent in particular appeared to be part wolf, with cute little ears sticking out of his head.  She scooted closer to him, and contemplated her next question.  It'd have to be done cautiously, because she probably had already raised the suspicion of some citizen or another.  The course of action she hadn't realized yet, to act like a useless young lady who wanted to know who the king's eye was on.

"Well, what's going on in the military, then? Skirmishes?" Margarette inquired.  She leaned closer, and allowed a devilish smile to slip onto her pale face.  Her ears fell from their positions stuck to her head, allowing the top edge of both to be perpendicular from her skull.

"You can tell me, darling."  Margarette continued.  She leaned back, and took a sip of her terrible wine.  Her mind was not, however, clouded by the drink.  It was as sharp as the stiletto dagger hidden up her sleeve, and hurtling through all the possibilities of what she would learn.  If Connlauth wanted peace, she'd help them achieve that.  If they wanted war, she'd do all in her power to try and stop it.

[Anonymous]

Liir turned his chair halfway around, leaning back once more with one arm draped over the back rim. What light that managed to filter through the dirty windows on the opposite wall dimly illuminated the gold of his eyes as they drifted along the point of the elf's ear, then settling upon her face.

"I'm not exactly the chief authority on those matters," he continued in the same somewhat heavy tone, "but among the right company, it's a well known and publicly well denied fact that what's interesting about Connlaoth ain't its front-line, defensive workings."

She was a moon elf, he recognized from her various characteristic features. Among the vast human majority of the Reahj tavern patrons, they were an odd pair. Consequentially, they were receiving some fantastically nasty glances well within the peripheral scope of vision, purposeful or not. It wasn't that unusual when you were unusual.

"Where'd you come from, dollface?" Liir asked, his tone lightening significantly as he sat up a bit, then promptly assuming a bit of a slouch in a funnily transitional way. The diminutive sounded peculiarly natural in its place, casual and inquiring rather than insulting. A glimpse of black fur swayed across the seat of the chair before settling through the bars.

[Anonymous]

Sharp eyes followed the flash of black fur before she contemplated her answer.  Margarette was brought up in Adela, and that was barely important to what she did now.  A lie would be easy enough in that case, but the more truth she wove the less people could pick apart, and the more believable it was to even her.

"Oh, I was brought up in Adela.  I wander a bit now, and do a little bit of this and that."  Margarette explained.  She observed the men who were glaring at them, and picked up that just maybe this little part of the world didn't like non-humans.  The young elven adult contemplated her position, and realized that any action against Connlaoth would have to be very carefully planned indeed.

"But my name is Margarette, and what might be yours?" The moon elf inquired sweetly.  She assumed that this small talk was necessary to her garnering any sort of information that would be vital.  But as she thought more, she realized she'd need to know how to be a thief before she could be a real assassin.  Disguises were great, but they didn't always get you in the door.

[Anonymous]

"Liir," he answered simply. Perhaps the years had made him paranoid, but he was becoming more interested in her with each airy word. The tone seemed almost forcefully put forth, but not so much that the Wolf couldn't allow himself to consider that maybe he was just being overly sensitive.

"You don't sound very familiar with Connlaoth," he grinned.

"I'd give you the grand introduction, but what you end up knowing all depends on your reason for being here in the long run, as well as how long you stay. People in general that fit the population might not find me an altogether agreeable guide, but you don't exactly look native." He couldn't say much for himself either. Liir had some serious difficulty giving her the once-over again to give the standard on-person visual once-over for anything indicative of her travels and motives. Mostly.