A base flirt. It wasn't ineffective. She'd respond with a modest lift to the brow shadowing the one eye she allotted to him from the throne of her hand, playing a finger in a curve beneath a high cheekbone. "My, you've caught me, 'old Kars.' Mystifying, am I? I do admit I enjoy hosting a ... secret or two. Enigmata, even ... perhaps. I'm not unknown to more ... enchanting qualities." Her words were smooth despite the lack of further reflection in them, offering almost nothing between these taut lines or under the emptiness of each hollow sound. It was a door that only allowed light through the slits of its bolts. Still, it rolled off her tongue in enough of a pleasing sound to entrance the mortal prey that oft fell at her immaculate feet. She'd shift ever so slow in place, mirroring the pace at which she spoke, and her legs would cross in the other direction. "You don't seem to be, either. Mm?"
He wasn't a dolt: maybe he preferred to appear like one? He was your typical rowdy dwarf, was he? She wouldn't undercut his lecherous intentions; yet, on each draw from their deck, she sought to gleam a little bit more. Peer with the lever turn of her head to draw both eyes into the molten pits of his own, chatoyant as if drawn to the flame - giving it oxygen on each heave, each breath, each coy smile and bounce she gave to keep him ... happy. "Forgive me. I sought to meet you in your space ... but I'm not as familiar with the terms. I'm grateful to your patience, Karstaag." She'd purr his name, quid pro quo. She wasn't a simple mark. They were both pacing the forest trees.
It was her arm that broke the brokered distance between them, extending it from under her jaw to offer itself palm-up to the strange dwarf. "Yes, you don't seem the ... type. You value your freedom, don't you, darling? I value that in a person. It shows ... oh, how would you say ...," and she'd snap the fingers on the hand she had stretched toward him, a spark lit in her honeyed gaze at the same moment. "Initiative."
"Or is it passion, my dear? Well; there's a certain kinship for either case. You'd clock me again. Two for two." The turn of her lips smoldered under her eyes, making way for her dulcet ploy. "I'm going to have to start learning more about you at this rate, lest our time together not come so ... fairly."
"An answer for an answer, it'll be. No. I don't take orders. I don't belong to anyone ... save myself, of course." An exhalation of humor, running her pointer finger up in a brush along his beard for the passing second of her pause. "You could say ... the way I align ... seeks to serve my whims, freefolk. Whom else's would measure up? You know as well as I ...," she hummed to him, "only the strong survive. The craftiest."
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