Elias smiled to herself as she flipped through the contracts she'd worked through. True, the Red House would need to actually fulfill the deals she'd been working, but she was confidant that if they could be afforded they would be. If not? Well, "Times are Tough", and it wouldn't be on her head.

With the Red House currently closed while internal business was taken care of, Elias was doing her part to get the economy recirculating once again. After two months, the markets were just starting to pick up, and then it was only the necessities. Gone were caviar and sausage stalls along the streets: now they were replaced by bread. Bread. Simple bread.

She shook her head as she rolled up the scrolls to place them within the scroll case she carried with her. Over the last twenty-odd years, Elias has made quite the name for herself for having little to no morals, and no qualms about working for any side of any war or tussle. She just didn't fight, was all. She'd proved many, many times she was no coward, but she was just too anxious to figure out which end of a sword went into her opponent.

'Ah,' she thought, as she eyed the other kind of merchant one found: snake-oil salesmen; confidence artists; her kind of people.

Pulling out a few little trinkets, she slid towards a line of people. "Tokens? Pookahs? Charms, guranteed to ward off disease?" No, she was no better than some of the worst, and found nothing but delight in adding to the chaos. True, the re-worked garbage she'd bought for pennies from orphans sold for silvers, but really - anyone who actually bought her tales really deserved everything they got. Fools.

She was by the Souphouse now, having just left Beggar's Market. She eyed her countrymen around her and couldn't stop herself from spitting in disgust. Utter fools, thinking that God would help them. They believed the words of the warlocks, the witches who lie and sacrifice to maintain their Bargain. Priests, liars all, would only tell them what they wanted to hear.

She couldn't help but chuckle at the thought, since that was -precisely- what she was doing to the schmucks. Oh well. Maybe'll they'll learn in Heaven?

"Ahh, ma'am. I see you and your... son? Daughter! Ahh, my apologies, madam. The dirt, you see. But I digress; have you seen how badly managed the repairs are?" And, while giving some trail rations to the young mother, probably widowed and orphaned herself, and her small child. "The Doge," she said with a sneer. "He's got a deal with the Bishop, see if he doesn't."

The woman didn't much care for Elias' heresy, and told her so in no uncertain terms. "Ahh, but I can prove my words!" And then, she went on a long, round-about conspiracy theory involving the Doge, the Bishop, a host of tutu-wearing priests, and a whole host of 'undesirables' - homosexuals, prostitutes, the unclean. Considering she was PERSONALLY all three herself, she was able to give a VERY in-depth view of the life of heretical swine.

The woman just stared, with her mouth agape. "Mama," the little girl asked, rather confused. There'd been a lot of big words spouted. "What does 'Pentecostal penile inversion therapy' mean?"

Well, she didn't manage to actually pronounce that, but that's what she TRIED to say. In any case, Elias left the now confused and mildly terrified mother to her bread - and she'd somehow managed to slide a few extra silver into the poor dear's coinpurse for her trouble.

Sometime later, Elias was in her room. It wasn't much, but it was hers. So long as she was able to keep it, that is. She no longer wore her famous blue and black hat with gold trim - she now wore a silk turban with pins just so, so it would hold it's form like a fez. Fifteen years was a long time.

She took over her vest, hanging it up on the rack and looked at herself in the mirror. Damn. Even she had to admit, the time had been GOOD to her. She'd completely filled out, going from almost a boy to a full figured woman. Well, almost at any rate.

"Not bad for someone in their forties," she said as she turned her body one way, then another, to admire just how hot she'd gotten. She didn't look a day over nineteen. She might just make a profit off her misery after all. As she climbed into her luxurious sheets and linens of her bed, she laughed. Yeah, today was a good day, and they were only getting sweeter!

Her last thought before succumbing to sleep, as she hugged a plushy manticore to herself, was "I miss you."