Of Thugs & Thieves [open!]

[goldilocks]

The 3rd Kingdom wasn't exactly Goldi's favorite place in all the nine kingdoms, but it was a place she didn't need to worry too much about being recognized and arrested. Law enforcement here was lackadaisical at best, as long as you didn't piss off the wrong people, so it was an ideal place to meet up with less than savory folk, which happened to constitute the majority of Goldi's clientele. Most decent folk didn't want to purchase stolen goods, after all, something about morality and ethics? Silly things that kept people from having fun, she'd always thought.

And that was just the reason she was waiting inside a rather objectionable establishment called the Fried Fingers Inn, poking at a bowl of something grey that they had called stew, but that Goldi wasn't sure deserved the title. She was sitting at a table near the hearth, although even the roaring fire did little to kill the chill that hung about the tavern, and she kept her thick woolen cloak tied securely around her shoulders for warmth.

She appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be absorbed with shredding the rock hard dinner roll that had come along with her dubious bowl of stew, although that was far from the truth. Her eyes and ears were wide open and well tuned into the goings-on around her, particularly when anyone got too close to her, or more specifically, to the plain, cloth-wrapped bundle sitting in her lap. She was here to deliver the product of her hard work, and it simply wouldn't do to have it stolen by another thief at this stage of the game. That would be humiliating, not to mention an absolute disaster for her reputation.

[cheshire]

It could well become a shame, then, that Goldilocks had caught the attention of a cat. Cheshire didn't know that she carried stolen belongings. He didn't even know who she was. No, what drew him to her would have been her hair, perhaps. Or it could well have been that she carried the odd bundle in the first place. The cat had never been quite so certain of his own actions, or the often cloudy motivations behind them. Why should this instance mark a difference?

He wove his way about furniture and feet, keeping low to the shoddy floorboards. A pair of broad blue eyes peered up at the thief, just above an even broader smirk. He watched as she attempted to eat what could only laughingly be called food. Something about the cat was overwhelmingly amusing, or so thought the one who subsisted primarily on a diet of dormice and straying birds. One compartment of his mind weighed the notion of showing her such delicacies, while the other pondered how best to approach her. Another still wondered what was in her curious wrapped bundle.

Ah, but he was thinking too much. There was no need to be so creative. He would use the direct approach, yes - that would perhaps yield the most positive response. The Cheshire Cat leaped atop the table before Goldilocks, abandoning what might have been called stealth by the clumsy. In a smooth, melodic and undeniably amused voice, the grinning cat began to speak. "A curious thing, I find it, that such a girl would be eating in such a place. Surely you prefer the silverware of towers? Or, like myself, do you find the company alluring?"

[bearskin]

bear walked into the tavern and over to the bar he saw several people in it and just pulled the shabby bearskin around his dirty body this was his defense that he would be left alone for now. He took his food and sat down at a table near the fire the warmth making him feel like he was at home. His eyes scanned the room as he ate the semi hot passable stew.

Finishing he pushed the bowl to one side and looked around again seeing a woman sat eating and a cat watching the woman closely he shook his head and let his eyes fall to the bar where the owner of the establishment was cleaning it. He could not help feel this was a place he would get to know well.