I had a pretty good idea of how to change the subject.
“Alright…” I let go of her. “I’ve got a lot of coin now. Want to see if we can find a nice place to go eat?”
“Ferrous said that he would have something brought to us.” Starna waved her hand. “And that money is supposed to be spent on our travel expenses. You’ll need to give whatever’s left over back to Lessa when we get back.”
I fished the coins out of my pocket and held five gold in each hand. “I’ve still got everything Alessa sent us with, plus my own.”
“Where did you..?” Starna glared at me. “Did you gamble with our travel money?!”
“No!” I winced. I technically had even though I hadn’t put down any bets. While I had been confident that the Naledzar wouldn’t be able to kill me, all the coins on me would have been lost if I’d died. “Let’s just say that the person who tried to collect the bounty on me had one on themselves.”
Starna closed the distance between us and stuck a finger through the hole on the left side of my pants. “What did you do?”
“I found the Naledzar and convinced them that it wouldn’t be in their best interests to try to collect the bounty on us.” I swatted her hand away from my leg. That didn’t stop her from looking me over to see if she could find any injuries. Thanks to my ability, she wouldn’t find any. My pants were a light brown and might have shown some of the little blood that got out, if they weren’t already stained from plenty of other fights. There was no easy way for her to tell what was old and what was fresh.
Stolen story; please report.
“I’m fine.” I pocketed the coins. “We’ve got one night before we have to be officials again, so why don’t we spend it enjoying ourselves?” I patted my pocket. “I’m sure you could think of plenty of things to spend five gold on.”
“Sectum…” The tanned Elf blushed, turning her cheeks a deep shade of blue. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“If you want to call it that, sure.” I smirked. “Though that insinuates a romantic ending to the evening.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s… You mean..?” She glanced at the stairs that led to the room where we were supposed to sleep.
“That would be skipping straight to the end.” I chuckled as her blush got even deeper. “Have you never been out with someone?”
Starna bit her lip as she played with the tips of her hair.
“I’ll take that as a no…” I wasn’t really surprised. If she’d been supposed to stay close to Alessa and the Elves had wanted to save my cousin to be a puppet, then there was no way that they would have been allowed to receive suitors.
“And you have?” The words came out too fast. Like she was looking for a reason not to feel uncomfortable.
I was smart enough to know that talking about past dates was very foolish. We had been all over the world and there was something romantic about sailors, even though we rarely spent more than a week anywhere. While my list of broken hearts was nothing compared to my brother’s, or most of the members of the crew, I had plenty of experience to draw on.
“Not with anyone like you.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the door before she could start overthinking it. “We’ve got money and time, so let’s go use both.”
Her blushing had subsided somewhat as she let me lead her outside. I should have done a little more research on things to do, but I had some ideas. That was really all I needed. I’d learned a long time ago that people tended to be very helpful when you had a little money you could spread. With how much I had, there would be no end of friendly people.