(
"Dear Lord, she's good! Maybe if she's not some sort of soul-sucking monster I could recruit her for this job... or have her around. Either is fine. She's a lovely woman. Could almost BELIEVE what she says.")
Ocellus smiled slightly, rubbing his scraggly beard as he stared at the board. Nothing in particular stood out to him aside from the largest, most central post, whereupon a decree by the Lord High Tax Collector was posted raising the monthly tithe from some obscene number to an even more obscene number. He wasn't sure that this elf was a thief, but he knew a self-made woman when he saw one, and she seemed like she had seen her fair share of intrigue. Only one way to test that...
(
"Mmmm... wait... what if she's an assassin come for me? Bah! Look at her, then! I bet that body could conceal... nary but two knives at most. And this must be true, for those folds on her legs..." Ocellus coughed, his face contorted into something of worry,
"She is armed, and she doesn't want anyone to know she's armed. Dangerous, dangerous. What a game I play, eh?")
"Well... these all look all fine and good to me, but there's nothing up there that's quite as interesting as what's down--are you all right?" The woman was having conniptions! No, wait--she's not. But he saw... those were eyes that couldn't be humanoid. No elf, no human could have had those... and for a moment at least she almost seemed animalian. Ocellus pressed on regardless of his trepidation of the woman, because after all it wouldn't matter much anyways whether she killed him or not. It was bound to be some woman eventually (though he suspected that woman from Hyre would have done him in, with all that drama and whatnot).
He proffered a canteen of water and handed it to the elf, his brows knit with calculated concern:
"You all right, darlin'?" These words are spoken lightheartedly and with a smile, but they lack the seductive, arrogant tone of before.