Vai had moved onto weaving a rope after exhausting their little basket of decorative shells, keeping one end pinched between two toes as they worked on the other, thickly cording the sections of twine into something more durable. Weaving rope would certainly be a more time-eating task, but maybe that's what they needed right now—something to consume their time, make the day go faster. Not a lot of people seemed to be hungry for clothing or jewelry right now, anyway; they could at least make something useful and sturdy while the sun made its journey across the sky, right?
Conversation around them seemed to pick up, however, after some sort of rumored 'commotion' from somewhere a little farther away. None of the words seemed to squarely stand in either the negative or positive, making whatever happened there seemingly neutral; maybe a crate full of ruined supplies washed ashore? Maybe a bottle with a message in a language no one knew, or a locket with a picture of a non-islander? The gossip faintly filtered down the market, both in their language and foreigners' own, and they quietly listened in on the chatter as they put themself to work.
"A walking suit of bones," one woman said to her friend, munching on a piece of ripe fruit in her hand. "The warriors say that it walked out of the sea."
"Out of the sea?" her friend remarked dryly, sounding disbelieving as xe pulled xer hair back over xer shoulder. "What, did it have fins?"
"Fins, 'e?!" the woman lightly smacked her friend on the arm, some of the sticky juice from her snack sticking to xer skin. "It was wearing armor! How would we know?"
"Auî!" her friend exclaimed, not really hurt but wanting to play along. Xe titted xer tongue, wiping the juice off xer skin with a light sigh. "Okay, okay, calm down."
Vai giggled to themself under their breath, pulling the rope taught as they started to tie the end closed. Though it wasn't especially long, it was strong, and they were proud of their work. Reaching for the knife at their belt, they intended on cutting the extra wispy strands of twine off the end—
"Good afternoon," a masculine voice sounded from somewhere in the front-above him. "Might I peruse the cloaks offered here?"
Vai jolted in his seat a bit, quickly pulling his knife-grabbing hand back to his chest with an empty palm so that he didn't accidentally stab the person at his stall, though his eyes stayed on the ground. This person spoke with the Trader's Tongue—an outsider, then, and wildly unfamiliar. He fidgeted, releasing the bottom end of the rope from his toes and digging the appendages into the sand, instead, warm and dry. He cleared his throat, slowly looking up. "Ah, um, good af—auê!"
He let out a high-pitched yelp as he almost fell back out of his seat, his black-brown eyes meeting empty sockets rather than another set of organs. His wings fanning out and ruffling in shock, his look of surprise quickly crumbled into one of intense pain, dropping the rope from his grip as one of his hands grabbed the stool to stabilize himself and the other went to his back, carefully pressing against where his feathers attached to his skin. He stifled a tight groan, instead looking back to the stranger with confusion in his eyes, the blatant, one-word question of How? clear in his gaze.
He looked on in silence for a moment before hurriedly remembering his manners, clearing his throat again (more out of awkwardness than actual need to clear his throat) and standing with an intense heat on his face, his rope laying in the sand rather uselessly. Smoothing out his sarong, he nervously looked back to the foreigner's face, now looking down instead of up. "Sor-Sorry—" he inwardly cringed at his inability to truly form those rhotic 'r's, "—You want... a cloaks... mister?"