Vaeri had been observing the group idly when she heard Sana's yell for Hugh. She turned towards the source of the yell and spotted the mysterious woman being grabbed by a man and several men with weapons walking towards the human. She took off her hood for the first time since she had arrived in the village and smiled at her new companions. Well everyone would have to see sooner or later that she was an elf, and considering some of the other members of the party, she doubted anyone would really care. As for her disfigurement, well there were more important things to be worried about right now.

"It appears it is now time for me to serve my Lady." Calmly she turned away from the table and walked out into the street. Vaeri opened up her bag and from it began to pull out a handle. On her way out, she felt a hand grab her roughly on her upper arm. It was one of the armed men, he was a couple inches taller and maybe a stone heavier than Vaeri and clad in light armor. In his other hand was a dagger that he gestured with towards her threateningly. Most people expected bandits to be uglier than the common folk, but this man was unremarkable in appearance towards either end of the scale.

[hr]

"Hey, we've got ourselves an elf here!" he called to his associates before he took a second look at the woman he was grabbing. She was smiling at him, which was disconcerting enough. Most people would be resisting and yelling right now. And what were those scars all over her face. Instinctively, he recoiled from the cleric, letting go of her arm, that now that he though about it was a lot harder than most people's. He regained his composure quickly however, brandishing his dagger at the unarmed woman.

"Look here, elf. You're going to come with me quietly, or else I'm going to have to stick you with this. Got it?" The elf's eyes flicked from the dagger to the thief's face, but her expression didn't change.  The thief waved the knife around more, but the elf  just kept smiling that cocksure smile. Their encounter stayed at this state for several seconds before the woman spoke up.

"Are you going to attack me, or are you going to stand there waving around your weapon like a fool?" The elf looked and sounded like she was disappointed and confused why he hadn't been attacking. The thief took a few steps back. This elf was mad. He had never killed anyone before, and the thought of actually stabbing somebody made him feel a bit sick. Usually the threat of deadly force was sufficient enough to keep people in line, and if they got violent one of the bigger, more fight-oriented men would step in, but this, he didn't know how to handle this. Still, he couldn't just stand here and let everyone see him be intimidated by an unarmed elven woman of all things.

The thief rushed the woman, and stabbed at the woman. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see her go down. Out of nowhere, something hard hit him in the stomach, which took away his ability to breath and almost forced his eyelids open. There was a leg there, and it had its knee in his stomach. He looked up to see the elf, the morning sun directly behind her head, giving her an almost divine halo around her head. And a bit above that were her hands, clamped together into a single fist raised high into the air. Suddenly, the thief was on the ground and his vision was filled with dirt. It hurt to breath and  his head felt like it was full of mush, but he was still alive.

[hr]

Vaeri walked away from the man on the ground disappointed. She had been hoping for an actual fight, and instead she got an amateur. She could have easily killed him, but doing so would feel like killing a random insect you found on the road. It was beneath her. Vaeri pulled out the dagger stuck in her armor and some blood on the tip. Huh.