#(( don't worry naesala she'll invest the monthly skill point in bow... just for you ))

[galercin]

There are plenty of reasons to come to a party like this. Free food, for one. To find those with the loosest lips and hear the local gossip, for another. And of course...

There are so many people here with expensive, valuable items on their person.

Now, Naesala is not about to shy away from a challenge of dexterity, especially one of such low stakes. When he sees that absolutely stunning and beautiful woman alone under the mistletoe, he knows that this is the opening he has been looking for.

Direct, to the point. He comes up to her and smiles. It's not a charming smile; the thing is wry, half baked, and a little mischievous. He looks up at the mistletoe above them and laughs.

"Well, I am a man of tradition. Who am I to say no?"

He leans in, kisses her forehead between her brows -- not so forward to kiss her lips, but wanting to make her feel flustered. It's oddly tender, and he hopes it will have the desired effect. He reaches down, and with feather-light fingers and incredible skill he slips the ring from her finger.

Oh, this will get him a pretty penny, won't it?

He pulls back, smiles at her, and bows a little. His hand slips into his jacket pocket to he does to hide the ring as he smiles. "Naesala of Kilvas, what an honor it is to make your acquaintance."

When he approaches her, he is confident in a vainglorious way. Rinea has no time to reject as she is caught by the sight of gigantic wings of ebony. She sees no fire nor ice around him to denote him fallen and even further from anything deemed holy. A bird then, swooping in for its prey.

She shuts her eyes when he moves closer, not quite rejecting the gesture, but to say she did not flinch slightly when he begins to approach her and not a less offensive part, like her hand, would be a lie.

She expects it to scratch her, in the same way that birds’ talons do when they find you as a perch. They leave red scrapes in the beginning and the points dig into skin, but once they leave, there is no true harm. The kiss to her head is like that, yet where she expects it to leave a mark, she finds none. It is gentler than she gives him credit for and if her heart were not trapped beneath a cage of sorrow and longing for someone else, she might have rewarded his action with a soft flush. 

Her eyes flutter open when he speaks again, that lopsided smile beaming back at her. 

“Rinea… of Rigel,” she lets him have that much. 

“Are all residents from Kilvas this forward,” she levels his own mischievous smile with her own small tilt of her lips, raising a brow slightly, “Or could that be just you?”

…

It is much later that she notices her finger much lighter, when she is packing up what is left of her tin that she brought. The lid clatters to the floor. 

Quickly she begins her search, but never does she suspect anyone but herself to blame for its loss and what’s left of her heart with it.