"Why not?" Alex said to the creatures sandwich. Alex looked the creature up and down. She looked excited and if Alex was going by Zora standards then she was young, though the thief didn't know how well those really applied. She could be several hundred for all Alex knew. She should try to figure out more. She should start with something small, get the girl comfortable talking. "You looking forward to the Carnival?" There nice simple no strings attached. The girl opened up her bag and undid several complex knots in order to get to her stuff. Alex was impressed. While it might make accessing her bag a little more difficult no thief was going to be getting in there. The sandwich that the... girl retrieved was tuna, sea salt and kelp. A good deal of people would have turned their noses up at it but Alex had grown up by the sea. She'd never eaten this specific mixture before but salty food involving fish prepared in some way or another weren't new to her and besides. It was best to get food were you could. You never knew where your next meal would come from. Alex took a bite of the sandwich. It wasn't half bad, extremely salty and slimy but all together edible. Alex knew of course that she was among a small number that would have said so. "What do you mean, looking forward to it? Is... Isn't it started already?" asked the girl confused. Alex smiled. That was just too cute, the little fish must indeed be young to be that naive. "Sure the festivities have started but a good portion of the major acts of the Carnival have yet to open, the Marshfall and Spectacle Rock Circuses, paid performers and bands, some of the Carnival's signature food that you can't get any other time of the year and of course at midnight on the last day of the Carnival they have fireworks and open the Clock Tower." It was a thief's dream, so many people doing so many different things that they didn't notice their wallets were missing. Of course the little fish beside her would only be interested in the awe of it all. "You must not be from around here. Is this your first visit to the Carnival of Time? Oh and what's your name by the way?" Alex sensed something strange. There was something wrong with this girl. Well apart from her physical appearance. Maybe it was Alex's distrustful upbringing but it seemed to her that no parent should be letting there little girl run around and even more so by the age that Alex assumed the girl was going by Zora standards perhaps thirteen or fourteen she should have been taught that going up to a stranger accepting food then starting a conversation involving personal details wasn't a good idea. Speaking of food Alex had offered her an apple hadn't she? The girl was looking at awe over the crowds before she responded to Alex's question. "Yep, I've never been out before, this is my first time!" The last bit of the sentence turned into a squeal of excitement. One piece of her statement caught Alex's attention, 'out'. Perhaps she meant Great Bay or Woodfall or wherever she was from but Alex had a very strange feeling that the girl was saying it the way that one in Alex's line of work would refer to a prison. She sounded like she was talking about a building, strange. Her name Rissie was definitely a Sea Zora name and a pretty one at that. There was a slight tap on the glass bottle next to Alex who turned to see what Iris wanted. The tiny fairy was pointing at the apple that lay next to Alex. She'd completely forgotten. "Oh sorry, I think I offered you an apple." She said passing the fruit over the roof to Rissie. Unavoidably the little fish wanted to know Alex's name. In all honest there wouldn't be any harm in telling the girl her real name but for the moment Alex felt like being anyone else. "People call me Mary." It was true enough. She'd had a dozen or so people that had called her that in her lifetime. Alex decided to pry a bit more, if Rissie was as cluelessly honest as Alex thought it wouldn't take much. "So you live in Clock Town? Your parents don't let you out much?" Being a thief Alex learned to read people, to know if a contact was about to give you a job or a knife in the back, to know if a mark was carefree or concerned about his wallet. It was all in their eyes and body language. Alex was picking up on a few things about this "Zora" girl. Rissie was excited with that see the world awe, she had stock piled food and safeguarded it against thieves, though she'd apparently lived in Clock Town for years this was her first Carnival of Time and from the sound if it her parents didn't seem to give a damn. Put together it spelled one very clear picture, Rissie was running away from home. Alex supposed that it took one to know one. Though if her parents didn't care then who had been keeping her sheltered all her life? Alex wasn't going to get anymore answers by tiptoeing are the issue. "I take it your guardians don't know you’re out?" Alex asked calmly. If it where her Alex would be running now but Rissie seemed more trusting. "And if it's not rude to ask, what are you? I've seen many of Termina's raises but never someone like you." Alex had pushed to hard she knew it but there was no turning back now. "Weeeeell... My guardians... might? know that I'm out?" Alex had stepped over a line. That was the sort of response given when you're looking for a way out. If she trusted Alex she would have said yes or no. If she didn't she would have said yes with enough details to make it believable. This was the kind of response a scared girl gave when they feel trapped. Rissie thought that Alex was plotting something which was ironic considering this was one of the rare moments when she did just want to talk. Something seemed to calm Rissie down a bit though. Alex followed her glance to Iris's bottle. The fairy was silent which was not unusual in the presents of strangers. There must have been some story that said only good guys had fairies, it was a load of crap but it got the kids to sleep. The answer Rissie gave to Alex' second question Alex found just as perplexing as it appeared the girl had found the question itself. "I'm a Zora..." Not possible, no one had ever told her she was different. "I grew up in the vicinity of Great Bay. I've seen a lot of Zora's including the violent river ones but I've never seen a Zora that looks like you." Alex almost winced as she finished. It had sort of just come out and Alex couldn't think of a way she could have been more insensitive. As she spoke Alex saw the truth dawn on Rissie's face. Clearly her parents or whoever it was that looked after her had never spoken of it to her. She'd just assumed that she was a different strain of Zora and there were more like her in Great Bay. Alex needed to say something. She'd just shattered the girl's perception of the world with her curiosity. Alex had just assumed that Rissie knew she was different. There was a reason that Alex stuck to thievery and short cons. She didn't do people very well. A long con involved discovering a person's deepest desire and making them believe that you could give it to them. Alex could read people but she had a good deal of trouble interacting with them especially when it was important. She had to say something to Rissie, the girl wasn't grotesque or an abomination regardless of what Iris might say. "You're not grotesque Rissie, you're just different and that's not a bad thing. Maybe you're not all Zora, maybe your mother was a different race. Did you ever meet her?" Alex didn't know how the girl was going to react. She might go running back home demanding answers from her grandparents or she would fall apart. Anger and depression were the most likely responses to a game changing event. The girl seemed to crumble were she was sitting before she finished answering "No, I never met my mother. I'm sure she was..." Rissie sort of trailed off but Alex could guess what she was thinking, beautiful. Every motherless child wanted to imagine there mother's as a beautiful, sophisticated woman but the truth was often far more harsh. "Rissie, being different is something to be proud of. How many of those Zoras out there can show off glittering green scales like yours." She said nodding out at the crowd. Alex was scrambling to come up with some other helpful things to say but she never got the chance. From the ground in front of the Stock Pot Inn there came a voice. "Hey Firelocks, get down here." Alex sighed with exasperation. She'd hated that name ever since she was a little girl. Mathias Wraith was one of her most reliable contacts and she'd known him since she was ten years old. He'd helped get Alex and her sister out of Pirate's Landing when it all became to much. He still used the nickname that he'd given her when her hair still looked like flames. "I'm sorry Rissie, I've got to go. Bear in mind what I said, there's nothing wrong with you." Alex took one last look at the Zora child before she pushed her half eaten lunch and Iris's bottle into her bag and jumped from the roof. It was only about ten feet and the thief landed with grace. The man standing in front of her was a goof foot taller than her. Everything about him was big, his neck was thick, his head was large and he was muscled from years of wielding a long blade. "Uncle Matt what do you want?" She asked slowly. Mathias wasn't actually her uncle, that's just what Ali had called him and it sort of stuck. She wasn't entirely sure that his name was Mathias either but she didn't give that much thought. Most people didn't use there real names in her business. "I got a job for you. A family in Dawn Heights lost a Zora kid. The girl's supposed to look pretty strange too, green scales and stuff. They're pretty sure she ran away to see the Carnival. They found her professor knocked out in the study. Four hundred rupees to the one that brings her back safe and they want there name kept out of it. Hence why it came to me and not the official bounty circuit" Alex glanced at the rooftop where mercifully Rissie was invisible to the eyes down below. It was a decent price and it wasn't uncommon for thieves to take on the occasional bounty but she figured that the kid could look after herself and she deserved a couple days freedom. "Matt, as strange as it sounds I am actually here to enjoy the carnival. Let some other punk get the reward." Mathias grunted. "I'd have thought this one'd be right up your alley considering your rule." Alex sighed in frustration. "Matt when I do my job right no one has to get hurt, if I make a mistake then I'll do what I have to but that doesn't mean I run after every lost school girl." Mathias rolled his eyes. "Well if you change your mind or want a different job I'll be at my usual hide out." He turned and left her standing there. She knew what that meant, the Milk Bar. Alex turned back to the roof of the inn. "Hey Rissie, you're family's lookin' for you. If you ain't lookin' to get caught I'd get yourself a good cloak. I gotta go. Maybe I'll see you round." With that final word Alex disappeared into the crowd.