Richer Blood: Kirsten Passes Comment

Kirsten didn't blame him. She didn't want to be in this room either, but she knew an excuse when she saw one. And here I thought elves were supposed to be immune to disease, regardless? She was beginning to wonder what else she'd heard about elves that hadn't been true. She turned to watch Malmir leave the room, surreptitiously eyeing his lithe elven butt as he left. Nope, no sign of a tail there, she realised.

After a moment, she flushed. Now that was stupid. Especially given the way he looks at me. Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she spoke to Werner in a wry, somewhat amused tone of voice. Deliberately just audible enough that the departing elf could not fail to hear:

"Observe: our fearless leader departs."

She knew she wasn't (strictly speaking) being very fair to the elf. He had been in front -or very near to it- throughout all their explorations so far. But then, so had she. And although every inch of her body quivered with the need to flee this room, she was still here.

She smiled at Werner, and held the torch out to him.

"Hold this for one second please, while I follow your example."

Smiling gratefully, she used the opportunity to pull her black neck-scarf over her face and mouth, as she would have done on one of her late night "expeditions" and pulled tight at her gloves, ensuring the fit was sufficiently tight to limit the risk that she might drop her sword.

Taking the torch back from Werner with a grateful smile, she was careful not to step into the blood or touch the body, and used a precious throwing knife to lift or move items on the table and to open drawers, all the while holding the torch high in her other hand to illuminate their efforts.

"Be careful Werner. My palms are itching, and I'm not sure if it's just the state of that corpse or something else."