@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?"