Skyrim Page 3 - "Either you're naked, or I'm drunk. Maybe both."

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If You Catch My Grift; (2/?)

[(Anonymous)]

"So I got to ask," Delvin begins, savoring the reactions of the other fellows in attendance; even Bryn, known womanizer (in his own words, "conoisseur"), seems to have stopped listening to whatever drivel Dirge considers an interesting story, which is fine, because even if that were something new and even if Dirge ever noticed losing his audience, right now he's too distracted to keep talking anyway. "What's with all the costumes?"

"Hmm?" Case casually peels the beaded and feathered headwrap off, and tugs out the leather thong that was holding her hair in a tight, high bun underneath. It falls in twisted waves about her neck and shoulders and weaves her usual scent of herbs in with the not-unpleasant aroma of earth and animal she's cultivated for her disguise. "Whatever do you mean?" she asks innocently. "I always dress like this."

"Think I'd have noticed you running around like an 'alf-naked tribal all this time."

Case puts on a surprised and embarrassed expression. "You mean I'm not wearing my guild armor? Oh dear, I wondered why it was so breezy..."

Delvin chuckles lecherously, admiring the interplay of soft skin and toned muscles as she sinks back in her chair and languidly props her ankles up in his lap. When Vekel arrives with her drink, Case casts him a heart-stopping smile and a lewd wink, "accidentally" tracing her fingers across his in a light touch as she accepts it. She looks expectantly to Delvin as Vekel walks away, and Delvin might just be jealous and possessive if he weren't in on the joke. "His ears turn red?" she asks in a conspiratorial whisper.

"As Mehrunes' shiny left buttock."

They snicker together, quietly, but afterward he presses on. "So really, about the get-up."

Case gives him that winning vixen-smile and tips her flagon at him. "It's for a study in greed."

"Ain't a thing new around here about greed, but you don't see me goin' about in my alltogether."

"You're right, I don't." She shrugs. "Of course we're greedy, we're thieves. I've just been cashing in on everyone else's greed." Case doesn't need to see the confusion that screws up his face to hear it in his silence. "By winning confidence," she elaborates, explaining nothing at all.

"You've lost me."

"Grifting, you big goon."

"What, you mean like what Bryn does up at market with his horseshit potions?" Delvin scrubs a hand over his bristly chin, wondering a little at the mental image of a Forsworn, or a Breton émigrée, or a haggard beggar hocking useless goods. He's seen Brynjolf's operation, the Nord all cleaned up spick and span in his finest duds and swapping forgeries or blatantly made-up pieces of junk. He can't figure how inventing characters each time would help.

"No, no, I mean real grifting. You know: salt mines, coin matching, seances."

Delvin shakes his head. "You're completely barmy. You're doin' the shit that takes actually, genuinely, walking up to a mark, making nice, and getting them to hand you their gold for nothin'?" He chuckles, a little taken aback.

Even Brynjolf actually sells things for the gold he reaps with his scams. Granted, what he's selling might be pig's blood mixed with a watered down potion made of charred skeever, wheat, and blue flowers, but at the very least that tiny rush of good feelings that follows the swill down is enough to make the buyer feel like maybe they got something for their money. Any lack of actual god-like powers afterward is explainable by reasoning - with the usual charm and diplomacy - that it's not Bryn's fault the customer has never experienced what it is to be a god before, and therefore didn't figure out how to use said powers in the time before the effects wore off. That little story alone is why the tart at the Bunkhouse always comes back for more.

What Case is doing, however, is the fundamental art of the confidence woman. Of course Delvin's heard of grifting, and there's always that appeal it has, but it's too easy to fail, and too dangerous to get caught. He tells her as much.