“’If’, ‘If’. I didn’t know such highly trained professionals needed to make excuses” Liaena remarked mockingly at the satchel. Whether or not Astrid might have a point about the Night Elves consistently bailing her out of confrontations with the assassins, she conveniently chose to ignore. In her mind at least, she was victor over both. 

Kathlin pulled a weak grimace at Doins words, before looking over at the other girl pointedly. “Yeah….you’d have to be really stupid to do something like [b]that[/b]. Liaena.”

Distracted by her satchel, Liaena spared her a brief glance. “What? I do trust you”

“…Anyway. I guess I’m sticking around for a while too, if that’s okay with you guys” Kathlin mumbled after a pause. Looking over at Doin and Fran, she gave them a shrug and a faint smile. As always, it was drastically unlike any facial expression Liaena would pull. “At least ‘til I find out whether I’m on Stormwinds Most Wanted yet –“

“—Good idea. You should go and sort out our rooms. Go on, shoo” Liaena butted in loudly and cheerfully. Pushing Kathlin stubbornly towards the door, she steered the two dwarfs that way as well by virtue of positioning herself to slowly shift them back and plenty of smiles and good cheer. “Could you give me a few minutes? There’s something I need to sort out. I’ll come down and join you when I’m done, if that’s okay with you guys. Let me know if any more elves show up”

-SLAM-

With that, Kathlin found herself very succinctly on the opposite side of the heavy wooden door, along with a somewhat bemused Doin and Fran. 

*

Inside the room, Liaena’s smile had melted away the moment she was left alone. Turning the table –dwarven height, so closer to a coffee table by any human standards – the right way, she pulled a chair up to it. Sitting down and placing her satchel on her lap, she opened it to feel around inside until she found the cloth bag that was alive. Untying the top, she yanked out Astrid and set her on the tabletop before tying a tight knot in the top again and throwing it back into her satchel with Donald still inside. 

“Hi again.”

Leaning forward, one of her arms encircled the satchel possessively as she smiled at the little woman. It was not at all a nice smile, with a distinct tinge of malice to it. “…So, are you two dating, or something? You seem very close”