Private Tales Ghost Of A Rose

[Garrod Arlette]

He eyed her over, and stabbed at the food on his plate. "We don't have to take the job, you know," he assured her, and put a morsel of potato in his mouth and chewed. "I have enough coin to get us to the next town, and there is bound to be some sort of business or the other there," he glanced around. "Could stay here for a few days too but," he watched the fluttering cape of the merchant twinkle away in the distance. "A scorned employer as wealthy as Merchant Lenault, well, its not good for business, and could be bad for our health," he smirked, then looked to her softly.

"What would you have us do?" he stabbed for another potato and stuffed it in his mouth. Chewed, and swallowed it down. "We can talk about... whatever I just witnessed, after we decide on our course of action," he looked up at her, and smiled again. "Partner,"

 

[Aineflynn]

She turned her attention back to the untouched victims on her plate. Aine wanted to try and ignore the heat that was coming from Garrod's look. A sinking feeling he knew something, or at least he thought he knew. Maybe if she just played it dumb, he would ignore it.

He was right, if they turned down the job from such a vile troll as Lenault, it wouldn't be good, but she didn't want to deal with a foul creature. Aine turned her head back to look at Garrod and his offered hand. Partner, hmmm.

If the magic hadn't come back, he was safe, but there was a chance he wasn't, he had been so kind to her, and she didn't want anything to happen to him. She thought of a plan; leaning over, Aine swiftly picked up her drink, pulled it back to herself, and took a long sip allowing a little to spill on her hand accidentally.

Once satisfied that enough liquid spilled on said hand, she reached over and grabbed the cloth napkin, wiped her hand, kept it there, and quickly shook Garrod's hand with a napkin in it.
"Keep the contract, Partner." A quick shake and swiftly pulled her hand away, not leaving time for any chance the napkin would move.

It was a desperate act but having had a lot of practice pulling off such tactics like this, and it began to be as easy as breathing. Only a few who had heightened senses had ever noticed anything was off.

"I only ask one thing, I sit with you and nowhere near Mr. Lenault. The sweet melody flowed from heart-shaped lips."

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod went to stab for another morsel, but found his fork scratch hard against the plate. When he glanced down, there was no food left to be found.

Aine's answer came soon after. And he would be lying if he said he wasn't surprised by her response. He put his utensils down, wiped his own hand down on the side of his pants and took hers for a firm shake. He found it a little odd that there was a napkin between their grasps, but, what difference did it make.

"Ok," he said with a small smile. "Sounds like we have a plan then," he said, and he went back to his little journal and quill. "Let me just take a quick note down," he said as he scribbled some words into the loosely bound book. "We can definitely work around Mr. Grabbyhands, no need to worry about that," he said absent mindedly. "But," he stopped and his eye settled back on the young woman. "If we are going to work together... you gotta tell me what happened back there," he pointed at his nose with the feather of his pen.

"You know some magic?" he smiled. "Skill like transmogrification could come quite in handy," he added with a nod.