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Still's Still Moving (open by request)

Started by Cobalt, June 24, 2015, 02:19:10 AM

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Cobalt

As highly-trafficked as it was by people from every imaginable corner of the world, it was shockingly easy to find tranquil crowds even in the midst of the ubiquitous traders, couriers, sight-seers, and family reunions. Sleeping through the day surely helped.

The days at the Meeting Place felt very much the same as everywhere else, both in the places which were busy and those which were quiet. It was the nights that felt different, sounded different, moved differently. At night in the Meeting Place, people knew whether they were safe or whether they weren't. People gravitated away from the nervous ones and toward those who walked with the ease of some forgotten innocence, the way children walked who'd never learned to fear a stranger. People who were safe for others were safe themselves, and they found each other.

It was the loners no local wanted. They skulked where they did everywhere else, knowing that for them the Meeting Place was no different. They'd keep to their own kind, prey on their own kind, and all who were armed and protected only with peaceful hearts flowed around and over and beyond and away from them.

At night everywhere else, skulking was a warning. Here it was a signal to those natives or nearly-natives that here was a traveler made vulnerable; here was a traveler who didn't know. Even Elhadron, indifferent to such opportunities as he was, could still see them.

He took a deep breath, leaning back into the smell of woodsmoke and horses. Insects buzzed but never bit, not him anyway. He was looking for someone, someone he'd know only by scent. Elhadron, he smelled like the pine sap which oozed in lazy sticky trails down the inside of his lean-to. This person? They would smell like manure--cow, not horse--and tobacco and... strawberries? He remembered little else from his dream, but the scent had been distinctive enough. If he were meant to find them, he would.

Elhadron, he walked with the calm ease of the habitual peacemaker, until he found a blanket spread over a bench. There was half a strawberry laying neatly on it, cut side up to avoid staining the fabric. Someone else had the other half, and that meant it was time to stop walking. He took a seat next to the cut fruit, giving it as much space as he'd give a person. He had a warning to deliver and hopefully its intended recipient would know what it meant better than he would.

Lilbluebox

She'd always enjoyed the Meeting Place, both for the opportunity and the peace it offered. It was as easy to sell her wares as it was to find an audience for her stories as it was to just sit and watch and wait for something to happen. It was the latter that Ifithn'ka was indulging in today; she'd had precious little time to just laze about as of late. Popping another fresh strawberry into her mouth, Ifithn'ka leaned back on her elbows and kicked one leg up over the other, letting her head thunk against the edge of the bench behind her.

The people were the most fascinating part of the Meeting Place. She'd seen folk of all shape, size, color, and intent today, and should she bother to keep looking, she knew she'd see more. Leather armor frayed at the edges, a skulking skitter with twitchy fingers – thief, she noted lazily as the miscreant oozed by her peripheral vision. She wasn't particularly worried. Her wagon might not have been within reach, but Asba was a better guard horse than he appeared.

"Owe him apples," the shaman muttered, and twisted to get another berry. "Brat. Betting me like that."

Three strawberries snagged between her fingers, Ifithn'ka pulled herself upright again and propped her chin on her hand as she chewed. Lazing might be what she was indulging in, but waiting was the real reason she was here, and she'd be damned is she was particularly happy about it. "Sar'ith'na oracles," she muttered, twisting the crown from a strawberry neatly and depositing it in the steadily growing pile next to her thigh. "Putting their nose in everyone's business, convinced they know what's best, arash ye sa'maki ka'veth..."

At least this one had sent her to a pleasant place, even if it was far too close to a cow-seller for her comfort. The aroma of cow manure was hardly pleasant, even if it the nose did deaden the scent in time. It didn't matter. She'd still stink for hours, unless she could find a decent bath.

Ifithn'ka's grumbles trailed off as she resumed people-watching. A bard here, a merchant there. A group of little ones running about in an intense game of tag. A fine pair of desert horses and their turbaned owner. Dark, smoky eyes in a painted face. Velvet black skin dressed in earth, short of stature.

This last halted at her bench and eased himself next to the halved strawberry she'd left behind her head, giving it a respectable amount of space. Ifithn'ka chuckled and leaned back against the bench. "Sal'mash yevinth," she said. Well met, stranger. "Want to go talk somewhere else? You'll stink for hours elsewise."

She wrinkled her nose pointedly.

Cobalt

Elhadron twisted around on the bench, anchoring himself with an elbow over the top of the bench's back. This was where the strawberry smell came from, a little ribbon of sweetness skimming over the other earthy scents of the street. He was glad that this was the person he'd evidently come to meet. Humans were not usually quite so stark in their resemblance of a polearm, nor did they often have disorienting scrollwork crawling about their eyes. Still. It was difficult to name a more wholesomely simple and sweet fragrance.

"It's a normal animal smell," he replied. "A tannery would be worse." He huffed a little through his nose, banishing even the thought of the sour foulness in the air around those hellish professional scavengers. "I've no objection to moving, though, if there's somewhere else you need to be."

Hopefully a place away from still water. Elhadron suspected his usefulness ended at delivering warnings, far short of guarding against the hazards they foretold.

Lilbluebox

That pulled the corner of Ifithn'ka's mouth into an amused grin. She hadn't a problem with tanneries, despite some less than stellar incidents with them in the past – she wore leathers too, after all. Especially boots. Felt just wasn't the same, and the dead weren't using their skins anymore, after all. Maybe someday that would be her. A pair of boots. Several pairs, most like.

So long as she didn't end up ladies purses or coin holders. Boots were best, really.

Realizing she'd not only been woolgathering, but musing aloud, Ifithn'ka twisted her thoughts back to the point and let the words die on her tongue. In any case, the elf was right. Far worse to stink of leather-making than of cow dung. She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. "Eh. Nose's already dead. If you're comfy, I'm easy."

She lifted the bowl of berries from her side to place them on the bench. With the silent offer to share standing, she popped another one in her mouth. "So," Ifithn'ka started when she'd finished, twisting for a better look at the oracle, "what's the deal?"

Cobalt

Some people told Elhadron that he had a wandering mind, and part of him wanted to introduce them to this person. He caught on things and followed them, yes, but this was a level of mental meandering that he would have found difficult to match.

Eventually those thoughts found him again, though, and settled back where the people were here and now. He waited on the berries, trying to figure out what sort of person this even was. Friendly enough to a stranger, but the Meeting Place could bring that out in almost anyone.

"Well," he began, startled into a brief smile. "If you're the one I'm meant to relay this to, and I think you are? Then I wanted to let you know to take some care around still salt water, especially if there's nobody with you to remind you who you are." He shrugged one shoulder self-consciously. "And I know that's hideously vague. Sorry."

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