Another day, another Tavern [Bruma, Open]

He noticed the flash in her eyes, something strange. The assassin was tempted to attack, but he quickly suppressed it. Perhaps the girl was simply aligned with Sheogorath. Instead, he set the glass down on the table and looked to the waitress. "It's fine. I do not mean to be rude, but might I point out that you still have patrons to deal with?" He glanced towards the impatient people sitting around the tavern, all trying to catch the waitress' eye.

"Oh! Thanks Hunter. I'll be right back." With a sigh Arla stood up and finally began providing service to the other patrons.

Loaf of Bread and an Ale, Pheasant (Roasted) with a bowl of stew, More Mead, and a leg of lamb all made their way from the kitchen to Arla to their respective customers. Dodging a few pinches, Arla then grabbed the food the Dunmer had ordered and brought it over to him. The well cooked meal appeared in front of him and Arla back in her seat.

"Seriously overcooked by my tastes." The meat was done medium rare. "But yeah, you never gave me a name. OH! And how do you want your room done up? I'll be taking care of that for you. Any preference on how tight you wish the bed to be or anything like that?"

She leaned backwards in the chair, balancing on the back legs.

The dunmer disregarded the first sort-of question as he started to cut up the steak. Bit more well done than he usually had them. Oh well. "No. I have no preference." He replied simply before he started to eat, falling silent and hoping that the woman would just go away and leave him to his meal.

"Uh huh..." Arla kept up her balancing act. She looked him over. "You don't say much do you" she wobbled a bit, nearly falling over before catching herself. She laughed a little as she recovered. For a moment, one could smell a dog. As quick as it came though, the scent vanished.

The scent momentarily confused the assassin, who took a quick but discreet look around. He could see no animals; perhaps he simply imagined it. "I don't have much to say. I'm a very boring person." He replied before taking a few bites of the pinker parts of the steak.

"I doubt that. You are a hunter, you must have some things to talk about." She leaned back a bit further, stumbling a little before catching herself.

"Or are you just, completely annoyed by me asking you questions and stuff? Maybe you are a criminal or a hit man or something here to rob homes and murder people and you are thinking about killing me because I'm asking way too many things." She paused for a second before laughing. "I'm just joking around! Trying to get you to talk you know. All the dunmer in here tonight are pretty interesting. You see her over there?" She pointed to Alicia "I met her though some magical thing. Who would have guessed we would have ended up in here together."

As she spoke, she scratched her ear idly, looking over Nightshade from head to toe. Yeah... this guy had a story behind him.

Her rant about him being a criminal didn't phase him. He had been in the Brotherhood long enough to not be affected or worried about people's words. Instead, he raised an eyebrow at the mention of the other dunmer and a magical thing. Then again, Cyrodill did have the remnants of a mages guild; perhaps there were a few still alive that knew how to magically transport people or words. But his mind went to the ledgers, and he decided to test something. Keeping his tone mild as he continued to eat at his steak, he spoke simply "Unless you're interested in the finer points of hunting deer or fending off wolves, I'm afraid there isn't much to say. There was this one time back in Skyrim where I fell into a Falmer cave network near Winterhold or a time I ran into a tower full of undead just by the boarder between Morrowind and Cyrodill, but other than that, no, I don't have many stories. "

"Wolves! And ugh! Falmer!" Her eyes went wide. "I got a really nasty scar from a wolf attack a while back. Almost took off my arm." She pulls down a shoulder of her dress to show the still healing bite.

"And Falmer are just....eughhh." She shivers thinking about her ordeal. "Well, I wouldn't mind hearing about those hunting tips on wolves. I can't...I can't get over that night"

For the first time of the night, she goes silent for a bit.

"Wolves?" The dunmer asked with an eyebrow raised as he examined the bite. A frown formed on his face and he looked almost sympathetic.

"Well, for wolves, your best bet is to keep your ears open. They often howl when they find prey, so you'll be able to hear them, and if you're good enough, where they are. If you're good with a bow, try shooting them as they're approaching. If not, wait for them to lunge, dodge then counter." Nightshade replied, then he started on his stew.

"Simple as that? Dodge counter? Pretty detailed for just a hunter huh. Were you a soldier or maybe a lizard catcher or something? I don't judge. I'm laid back."

She pulls her dress back up, leaning back once more.

"And I'm not good with any weapons any"

A tight smile formed on Nightshade's face, before he shook his head as he set the empty bowl of stew down on the table. "No. I'm just someone who has had the misfortune of fighting many wolves over my life. When you're hunting in the wilderness, after all, you're in their territory.

"You should probably take a few lessons then; learn which weapon you'd be most comfortable with and learn to use it like it's a part of your own body."

"But weapons aren't part of my body." She looks at the serving platter and points "Is that part of me? Is this chair? I don't think it makes much sense. And I did take some. From my mom actually but I don't think it took."

She pulls over the larger pot of stew she set down nearby, filling his bowl up and replacing it in front of him. "Plus, I got attacked on a road. That isn't wolf territory"

The dunmer rubbed his forehead, sighing. "It's an expression, girl. It means that you know how to use the weapon well; well enough to not have to be constantly aware of how you're holding it, the weight and how it balances if it balances at all, how it's orientated, ecetera. If you use a bow, with enough training, you wouldn't have to consciously make sure you're aiming right, think about compensating for the wind, or making the string taut enough; You'd be practiced enough to just do it."

He paused, taking a drink of his wine for a moment. "And as long as you're out of a safe town or outside guard eyes, you have to watch your eyes. Many things wander the roads; I once fought a nasty spriggan that had holed up in a derelict fort just outside of the Imperial City."[/i][/color]

In walked Kennek, sans one of his horns and full of jovial cheer.

Namely, in walked Kennek with a proper set steel plate armor, Nordic symbols on the armor and studded leather hanging down the front, protecting his full body (besides his tail). Nord variations may have been fine and all, but this was proper plate, no bare arms or anything like that. An Orcish battlehammer was at his back, lacking any serious enchantment - but the material itself was hard enough to make up for that. The Argonian grinned as he walked through the dusty tavern, heading to the barkeep and putting some gold pieces on the counter from a large sack of gold. "My friend, give me your finest mead! Struck it good in some dwemer ruins, and I feel like celebrating!"

He looked behind him to an Argonian woman, giving her one of his charming Chesire grins. "That means you too, Seeks, and I'll be having no objections this night! Tonight we make our ancestors envious!"

Seeks-Many-Secrets, wearing a shimmering robe and an amulet, followed behind him grumbling. "Do we really need to..."

Before she could finish, she caught a peripheral glimpse of Nightshade. Her pupils dilated a bit. "No. We should really go. As soon as possible." She lowered her voice, "One of them is here."

She then put her hood up and looked away. "I can hear him whispering."

Kennek looked at the barkeep. "Uh... one moment. Hey, we're gonna rent a room. Hundred gold right?" Kennek left a hundred Septims on the counter and took the key to the third room. He pulled Seeks aside and gets the woman inside quickly, setting her down on the small bed. He sat down next to her. "Hey. Look. I get you don't like Dunmer... but we just got here, Seeks. He wasn't talkin' 'bout you, alright? If... if it makes you comfortable, just stay here. Alright? I'll get ya some food and bring it to ya. Some drink too." Kennek put a strong hand on the woman's shoulder, looking quite a bit more serious than he was before. Than he was in days, really.

"Just... trust me. Alright? We'll talk when I get your food back to ya." Kennek squeezed her shoulder softly. "It'll be alright."

Seeks sighed, starting to calm down now that he was out of sight. "The dunmer wasn't... Never mind. I'll be fine. I know where he is now, so I can keep him out of sight. Let's go back in and celebrate our plunder."

She stood, putting her own arm around him and leaving her spear in the room.

"Wanna explain who 'he' is, Seeks?" Kennek knew a story when he heard one. He smiled a bit at the arm, glad the woman was finally warming up to him. "You can trust me with it if... you know, you wanna talk about it, yeah?" He tapped her shoulder idly with a claw.

The arrival of the lizards startled Arla. It wasn't often you got them here and never in such a rambunctious fashion.

"Excuse me a second hon." She gets up to go speak to them when they flew off into the bed room she had just cleaned this morning.

The owner and her exchanged glances and started fighting over the coins on the bar. He had the size and speed advantage but lets not forget Arla is a money grubbing Imperial. They ended up getting half each, making both happy enough.

She shrugged and made her way back to her new friend via quick stops to check on the other patrons

"Right, SO sorry about that. Where were we?"

"I'd rather not... At least not here. Let's just go back to the bar and have a good time. I'll be fine." She started pushing them to the door.

Well, he was never one to deny a lady a good time. "Alright, alright, quit shovin'." Kennek muttered, walking back out to the bar. He had his usual confident stride and went up to the barkeep. "Alright, now that that's settled, gimmie some of your finest mead and some good meat. It's time to celebrate!"

Once the barmaid left, Nightshade sighed in relief and returned to his meal. Hopefully the girl would leave him be and pester others for the rest of the night. He picked up the Dance in Fire v1 again, flipping it open to his bookmark and started to read quietly as he worked to finish his meal.

Of course, she returned only moments later to chat with him. Of course, because she couldn't strike up conversation with anyone else. Maybe he should just tell her to leave him be (with the optional threat of a knife to the throat). Instead, he merely shut the book again and looked at her. "I believe the last topic was the dangers of travel or something like that. I do believe I mentioned a Spriggan attack."

"Spriggan! Those are the tree things? How are those even close to a city?" She topped off their cups. "No charge on the wine" A friendly smile.

"Umm..have you been noticing lots of things around Bruma? Lately?" Later in Life Arla would develop what would be called a 'bad poker face'. She now demonstrated the prototype.

As they walked down, Seeks-Many-Secrets let slip a small smile. She didn't know why, but she enjoyed the feeling of his scales on hers. At the bottom, she noticed Arla speaking to the dunmer, whom she avoided looking at at all costs. "Hey, Kennek. Is that the girl from the cave?"

The strange, out of the blue question coupled with the nervous-like look made him frown minutely, but it disappeared behind the neutral mask he wore. "Can't say that I have. I'm not from around here. I just came in the area a few hours ago, and I couldn't see anything interesting on the road in." The mer replied as he shrugged his shoulder as he finished off the last of his steak.