Theo didn't miss the brief moment it took the woman to evaluate him; in it, he did some evaluation of his own. If this woman made a habit of checking out everyone who approached her as if they were potential threats, she was probably a bit sharper than Theo's preferred mark. Not that he had intended to try to scam or steal from her right now -- he was more interested in the tree. But just as Aurelia automatically assessed people as threats, Theo automatically assessed them as targets.
"Must have grown pretty fast to get this big overnight," Theo said. That, or someone had brought it here and planted it -- though the soil didn't look disturbed enough for that. But he was still considering the theory that this was a trick -- though Caido had enough strange flora and fauna that it shouldn't have been hard to take this one at face value. Maybe that was why Theo doubted it, though. He'd told plenty of people extravagant lies about creatures that didn't exist, too.
The pinecone popping out, though -- that was beyond telekinesis, though it could still be an illusion. Nodding to the woman's question, he reached out to touch it.
"Must have grown pretty fast to get this big overnight," Theo said. That, or someone had brought it here and planted it -- though the soil didn't look disturbed enough for that. But he was still considering the theory that this was a trick -- though Caido had enough strange flora and fauna that it shouldn't have been hard to take this one at face value. Maybe that was why Theo doubted it, though. He'd told plenty of people extravagant lies about creatures that didn't exist, too.
The pinecone popping out, though -- that was beyond telekinesis, though it could still be an illusion. Nodding to the woman's question, he reached out to touch it.
Theo
"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
