Fish vending was not a glamorous job.
There was the smell, of course, and the scales that dusted everything: the table, the knives, your clothes and hair and skin. And the product wasn't only distasteful, it was downright depressing—Pigeon was sure her mental health was suffering from staring at bulbous dead eyes all day long. It was enough to put her off seafood in general, which was especially unfortunate given that she was mostly compensated with the day's leftovers.
The slippery bodies were heavy and wet in her hands as she handed them over the counter to an endless parade of unfamiliar people. The girl was obviously not a native; her peach-pale complexion and auburn curls spoke of colder climes, and the southern sun had left its mark in spiral galaxies of freckles on her rosy cheeks. She was young, but her clothing made her precise age hard to discern; the brown shift she wore was overlarge and muffled her figure, shapeless and cinched at the waist with a grease-mired apron. "Fish," Pigeon called in an unenthusiastic voice that did not carry over the general uproar of the market, causing her new employer to frown from his position behind the cleaning table. The burly man put his hands on his hips and whistled to get the girl's attention.
"Ey," he grunted as her head came round, "Not paying you to mope, girly."
She didn't deign to answer him, though whether from pride or because she only knew a few words in his tongue—most of them fish-related—none could say.
"FISH," she called grudgingly, a little louder this time.
