"That is your final answer?"
Nalia's cheeks flushed, her whole being aquiver. As her coppery braid shook with her, the man whose proposal was just spurned shook his head.
"The loss is yours." With that, he turned and after two long steps, a small smile creased his lips. "Perhaps Edwin will be more to your tastes, should the House of Odesseiron consent to an alliance."
Behind him, Nalia wretched, and a splutter and a long string of vocal mutterings could be heard from the skulking self-styled 'Red Wizard of Thay'.
A little later on, Alora jumped up and down an inch from on his boot. "What did she say?" The little halfling demanded, her blindingly pink locks, courtesy of Imoen, bobbing like a ball between his hip and elbow.
"She quite rightly said no," He confided, gently moving her instantly-crestfallen face away from him.
"But why!"
"Well," He swept his hand back through his hair, and led her to a tree stump. A conspiratorial glance revealed that Garrick was off near the striped pavilion tent, and Jaheira's elbow was about a foot or so away from the bard; that she wasn't hefting her club was probably a good sign. Montaron was off scurrying near the picket lines, probably looting the dead, and Faldorn just emerged from an equally distant bush. "The simple answer is she would be marrying beneath her station, and you know how stuffy and prideful both she and Edwin are about that sort of thing."
Alora's nose scrunched up. "Don't you love her?"
He shook his head. "I was only offering my help."
"Oh." She seemed to consider this for a moment. "It's nice of you, but I still don't understand why she'd say no."
Drawing a breath, he began, "Let me tell you a story."
At this, her ears perked up.