A Poppy for Remembrance

[DragonSong]

@JaddWard



"Buy a violet, love? Just two bits for the bunch!"

It was always so difficult after so long without feeding to summon up the smile she knew that she needed to sell her wares. Still, Adrianna forced herself to smile and laugh and chat with anyone and everyone who passed by her little corner as the afternoon dipped toward evening and her chances of making that one last sale dropped ever lower.

It's not the end of the world, she reminded herself as the hand not holding her basket of blooms brushed back against her skirt and earning a very soft jingle of the coin she had already collected since morning. It's enough to buy a bit of dinner, and that's certainly better than nothing.

Better than nothing, yes; but not one person she'd sold to that day had deigned to touch her hand for more than a moment, and she was starving, cold and empty and aching with it.

If she didn't feed before nightfall, she didn't know if she'd even be able to make it back home--or at least the abandoned plot of land where she'd been sleeping the last few nights.

"A hyacinth, milady?" Forcing herself to fix that damned smile on her face and act like she wasn't desperate and withering, she called out to a well-dressed woman who started passed her corner at a brisk clip. She fished through her basket a moment before producing the bloom and holding it out to her. "The white ones are for loveliness," she told her with a slight tilt to her smile.

The woman, minor nobility by the look of her, barely spared Adrianna a bored look before continuing on her way. The flower seller's shoulders slumped forward a bit and she closed her eyes as he head hung forward, chin nearly touching her chest. She was heavy, every inch of her pulling toward the ground, it felt like lifting a mountain just to keep standing upright...

When she opened her eyes again, they lit on a stranger just across the way, a man with dark hair and eyes that she didn't recognize--which wasn't so odd, it was a big city and it wasn't as if she knew everyone. Still, she knew at least most folks who walked these streets, even just in passing, and a stranger was intriguing.

Or he would have been, on any other day. Adrianna looked him up and down quickly, then made a guess as she reached into her basket again and called out to him. "Poppy, sir?" She smiled and held up the bright red bloom, a flash of color in the ever-darkening evening. "A poppy for remembrance?"

[JaddWard]

To say that Elliot had been having a good day at the market was a bit of an understatement. Two solid gold mark sat in his pocket, surrounded by his fist should any of this city's many many pickpocket try their fortune in his pocket. And fortune they would have found too! A single gold mark could probably put someone up in an inn on the seedier side for maybe a month- with meals if someone was good at negotiation.

But these two golden marks could see him put in a very comfortable inn for the rest of the week he planned to spend in Selevea, not that he needed it. Being a Guild Merchant came with perks, including free room and board in major cities- and is currently where his wagon and ox were boarded. But, well, Selevea presented him with opportunity to challenge himself. See if he still had a touch for profiteering.

He'd left the Guild Inn early that morning only carrying two iron bits, bought something with some haggling in one part of the market, sold it elsewhere for a little more- with some haggling. Bought something at a different stall, traded it elsewhere, then sold what he traded for to make a little more money. Repeat the process of buying, trading, and selling all day across the many pop up markets all around the city, and now he's sitting pretty from his final sell of the day. A simple gold ring with a small ruby set it in, masculine in craft. It had probably been stolen at some point, but he bought it from someone about to pawn it. Pawn broker massively underbid bid, Elliot won.

Now, he intended to go and celebrate, go to a tavern/inn, get very drunk, buy a few rounds for anyone else nearby when something caught his attention. A barker? Elliot turned to face a pretty young thing, soft lavender hair, eyes like a rich chocolate lake. A quick glance to her clothing filled her in one some of her story. Secondhand homespun, starting to go a little threadbare in places, she had shadows under her eyes that were sullen and hungry. She was one of many of this cities homeless, who sold whatever they could find to make ends meet. The two gold marks in his pocket could buy her new clothes, actual new clothes that had never been worn by someone else before, and feed her for a month or more if she was frugal.

"I have no need for remembrance, my dear. I've just had a very lucrative day and I'm on my way to go celebrate." His hand pulled out one of the gold marks, and he held it out to her between his fingers. "But celebration alone is dreadfully boring; I'll buy all of your flowers if you agree to accompany me for the evening and let me treat you out. As a gentlemen. No expectation of anything you don't want to do at the end of the night. I swear it on my Guild Badge."

[DragonSong]

The glint of gold caught the fading evening light and Adrianna's eyes widened. No one, not even nobles and other well-to-dos, traveled these side streets with gold. Most with that kind of money knew better, and those without, well...they were on the streets for the same reasons she was.

The flower seller flicked her eyes up to the stranger's face. Buy...all her flowers. With a gold mark? That--that was more than she made in a month, maybe two! Even on her best days!

Still... The words too good to be true rang clearly through her mind, and her eyes narrowed just a bit, suspicious. Despite what the man said, no one just...just did something like this, no strings attached.

"...All of them?" Adrianna repeated slowly, carefully. Her bright smile and easy manner was gone, replaced with sharp eyes and the cold, aching hunger that gnawed at the pit of her belly. "You'll buy them all, with that, and you just...want me to what? Go out to some tavern with ya, make merry for the evening, then bid me farewell?"

She raised an eyebrow, highlighting without words just how suspicious that sounded, especially to someone like her, someone who'd lived the life she had.

And yet--and yet she was just so damn hungry. This might be her last chance to eat for the day, for longer than that if she was unlucky, as sometimes happened. Eyes narrowed and glinting sharply, she straightened her shoulders and said briskly, "Your Guild Badge don't mean anything to me, ser. But you swear on something that matters, and I'll take you up on that deal."

He held her hand out, her gaze almost challenging as it met his.

[JaddWard]

"I'll be in Selevea for a week all told, and while I'd love to have some pleasant company all week, I understand a street vendor's time is very valuable. So just this evening, but if you'd like to spend the week with me, I certainly won't refuse you." He put on his most charming smile as the coin began to deftly flip and roll between his fingers. True, he wanted to help the lass- and if she refused him, he'd simply give her the two gold marks and walk away. That'd be dangerous in of itself, especially on the streets- but someone who seemed to be surviving selling flowers would probably be okay.

But he did want to kill the time he would be spending in Selevea getting his wagon worked on spending it with someone- anyone really. The road was quite lonely at times- sometimes the cities even more so, it had been a good long while since he'd just taken the time to get to know someone for no other reason than because he could.

"Swear it on something that matters.." Elliot's face shifted a touch pensive, eyes looking up and to the side, thinking. "That might be a touch difficult, as I've just met you- I don't know what you find important. If you're the religious sort- which I don't think you are -I could swear on the name of Kira. But as I'm not very religious myself, that's hardly a solid swear."

The coin rolled to his thumb and he flicked it up into the air, his hand following it and catching the heavy gold piece on the back of his hand at the crest of it's flight, "I don't suppose you take much stock in spirituality? I could swear on my own immortal soul, or the spirit of the road- being a man that makes his livelihood on the road, there's a swear that I'd be risking much of an ill future to break."

His other hand dipped into his pocket, scooping up the second gold coin, and holding it bold faced between the sides of his middle and index fingers, popping the first coin off the back of his hand with a quick motion and catching it the same way in that hand, the charming smile returning to his face. "But you're a merchant in your own right, so I bet you put a lot of stock in practicality, so how about I just give you the first coin, and swear on the second?"

[DragonSong]

Adrianna's smile matched his own, and a hint of a sparkle came into her eyes. "Now that is a deal I'll take, Master Guildsman."

With the quick fingers of a practiced pickpocket, she snatched the first mark from between his fingers. Her smile slanted to the side and she twisted her hand, flashing the bit of gold caught between her middle and index fingers in a mimicry of what he was doing. Then her hand flickered again and the coin disappeared into the purse at her hip.

"Much obliged to ya, ser." She held the basket out to him with one quirked eyebrow. "There's a pretty hefty sum of blossoms in there y'know--your ladylove gettin' a bouquet or somethin' in the near future?"

Her grip on the handle of the basket shifted slightly as she offered it to him; it was subtle, but with the way she held it now he'd pretty much have to at least brush her fingers to take what he'd paid for. She figured it was a sort of insurance policy--she ended the day with more money than she'd normally make in a week, and hopefully a full belly, even if he did pull something suspicious and she had to duck out before his little evening with "pleasant company" was over.