Turtle & Canary, Thursday

[boneyard_girl]

Yes, Ada was skipping work -- again -- but this time for an even better cause.

She didn't particularly want to be doing it today, but, well, she'd made a promise last week, and she'd be damned b'fore she broke her word over one of Fandom's stupid weekends.

"So this place got a little bit of everything," she said, pushing open the door and beckoning Hya in after her. "You ain't probably gonna find the fanciest phones here, but they got a few options for somethin' cheap an' serviceable."

[OOC: For the one!]

Comments

[vrajna_kralis]

"I'm no wealthy scion of Elua to turn my nose up at cheap and serviceable," Hyacinthe said with a laugh. "Goes against my nature to pay full price for aught as it is. Did you know, most places on this island refuse to barter?" He sounded quite aggrieved by this. "They claim a price and then just expect us to pay without even an attempt to haggle!"

Who did that?

[boneyard_girl]

"Barbaric is what it is," Ada muttered, shaking her head. "But you can't expect Townies t' know the actual value of the stuff they're selling. They bought it from someone else, an' didn't barter with them, sos they aren't willing to lose a single penny when selling to us."

[vrajna_kralis]

"If I'd known that one of my trials here on the island was to have to pay because of the gadje's ignorance, I might have been less willing to take Messire Delaunay's offer," Hyacinthe sniffed. "Makes me think about lapsing back into bad habits of my youth to make up for it. Would pain me less to pay such prices for nonsense were it also covering several other items."

Though this island was much smaller than the city of Elua and he hadn't had time to either build up the petted indulgence that had let him get away with so much in his youth nor the idea of which shopkeeps could afford to lose merchandise and which could not. Also, which deserved to.

[boneyard_girl]

"That's what Baltimore is for," Ada promised. "--th' city that's normally parked at th' other end of our causeway."

"'S big an' anonymous an' has plenty of wallets in need of liberation."

[vrajna_kralis]

"As opposed to the current town with rodents up to my waist," Hyacinthe said, very dubious of the entire prospect. "The restaurant of boundless food was appreciated. This is...difficult to fathom."

[boneyard_girl]

"If we're lucky, it'll move again tomorrow. It seems t' like doing that so far," Ada pointed out. "You could do what I did, an' find somewhere in town that ain't terrible an' get a job."

Congratulations, Sparkle! You weren't terrible!

[vrajna_kralis]

"I do not know that I would be suited to any of the jobs this island offers," Hyacinthe said, making a face. "Back home, I ran a message ring--" which served as an information network, la "--and a livery. I did not work in a shop."

In part because who in their right mind would hire a Tsingani, or so popular thought ran.

[boneyard_girl]

"I didn't think I'd be suited neither, ain't many people willing to hire a carnie, usually," Ada said with a shrug. "At home I work as a barker, drawing in crowds, or scouting, shilling... selling pretty dreams and sunbeams. Townies are more likely t' throw rocks than give a girl like me a job that don't involve gettin' under my skirts."

"But I c'n sew up anything neat and nice, so Sparkle offered me a job at Demon Marcus. It was the middle of winter an' I didn't have a coat...I think he figured out I didn't got no money."

[vrajna_kralis]

"Why didn't you just do that, then?" Hyacinthe asked, voice genuinely curious. "You're lovely, rinkeni, and could easily choose your own clients, even if there are no Houses to offer you their patronage. Did you just not have the training?"

Cultures and mores worked very different in Terre D'Ange.

"Or do carnie women have laxta, like the Tsingani?"

[boneyard_girl]

"I got plenty of cousins who're dancing girls an' sometimes take men backstage for the money, it just don't appeal to me," Ada said with a shrug. "Not sure what you mean by Houses or training or laxta."

"An' if the things they'll say to a carnie girl are mean, stuff Townies say to a working girl are worse." There was a reason she enjoyed liberating wallets around strip clubs, and not just because Ada liked 'tithing to Andraste.'

[vrajna_kralis]

Yeah, Hyacinthe could get behind 'tithing to Andraste,' even if he'd end up calling her Naamah half the time anyway.

"Dancing girls?" he asked. "Like House Orchis? Not that I'd suppose you know what that means, if you know naught of Houses. You truly have nothing like the Night Court here? The Court of Night-Blooming Flowers, I mean?" He shook his head. "No Night Court, no Naamah, no wonder your Townies think they can speak ill of them. No one to show them the error of running their mouths."

He opened his mouth to start talking, then closed it again, giving her an almost bashful look. "Would you care to hear of these things?" he asked. "I don't wish to be a boor, prattling endlessly about the way things are done in his world when no one cares a fig."

[boneyard_girl]

"I will pay for your phone myself if'n you pay me back with stories," Ada said without hesitation "I love hearin' about other people's worlds."

[vrajna_kralis]

"And I would tell you stories for free," Hyacinthe said, giving her a smile. "Or in exchange for some of yours. Were I not one day going to be the tseroman of one of the baro kumpai, I would be a Mendicant--a wandering storyteller with a cloak as colorful as my tales, collecting stories wherever I traveled and making them my own."

[boneyard_girl]

"I love m' home, but there's no magic, there, no miracles," Ada said fondly. "Except for what we make through hard work. It probably don't make for very interesting stories for anyone except me."

[vrajna_kralis]

"You think this world with marvels that would have driven Shemhazai into fits of jealousy does not seem to me much like magic?" Hyacinthe asked with a disbelieving laugh. "You, chavi, come from the closest thing I've ever heard to a Tsingani kumpania, and you still think I would be uninterested?"

His grin turned teasing. "Of course, do you simply worry about matching my flair for words and stories, how can I argue that?"

[boneyard_girl]

"Of course I worry about matching your flair," Ada said sweetly, sauntering towards the phones. "I don't know if I can limit myself that much."

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe burst out laughing with that. "Ah, so you're saying that I should stop holding myself back in order for you to keep up with me? 'Tis a relief to hear. It's been difficult, but I didn't wish to awe you terribly."

[boneyard_girl]

"If you think you can awe me, you're welcome to try," she retorted slyly. "Assumin' you can rise to th' occassion."

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe was still chuckling, but a new light lit in his eyes at that. "Oh, believe me, rinkeni," he said, running those eyes over her in appreciation, "I've never had difficulty doing that."

Then he was tilting his head and regarding her with something akin to seriousness. "Though, unless I miss my guess, it will take a great deal to awe one Ada Miller. Too much spirit for a mere mortal like me to try." And then that grin was back again, all irrepressible mischief. "Though you ever wish me to try..."

[boneyard_girl]

"See, all 'm hearing right now? Excuses excuses excuses," Ada sighed, shaking her head. "'M thinkin' you're all bluster an' no flair."

[vrajna_kralis]

"Beautiful but cruel," Hyacinthe said, clasping his heart. "I'll have you know, chavi, I am all flair and no substance! To say otherwise is cruel!"

[boneyard_girl]

"Can't have flair with nothin' of substance to back it up. Fire needs fuel," Ada pointed out impishly. But there was something at the back of her smile that was evaluating him, testing. Seeing what happened.

She was remembering less and less of last weekend as it got further away, swallowed up by those damn holes in her brain, but Ada did remember that Haycinthe had known what she was, and she wanted to know if he still remembered.

Having one more friend that she didn't have to worry about having her glitter in-place for would be... nice.

"'M practical, not cruel," she laughed, shaking her head. "If you burn out an' fade away b'cause there's nothin' to fuel your flair, who'm I gonna get stories from?"

[vrajna_kralis]

"There's always my devastating good looks, my rakish charm, and my ability to sweet-talk gadje coin into my own pockets," Hyacinthe suggested. "Surely those shall keep the fires burning long enough for you to steal all my stories, rinkeni. As I've no doubt 'tis your evil plan, leaving me bereft of my wits in the process."

He remembered a great deal of the weekend, especially the parts that had to do with her. The things they spoke of, her anger at Phèdre for...something..., her beauty shining in the sun. Ah yes, he remembered it well.

It was the things that they'd known, but hadn't spoken of that he was swiftly forgetting, like why he was living with her kumpania and not his own and when, exactly, he'd fallen for her against her will and his own common sense.

[boneyard_girl]

"You say 'steal' like I ain't offered to trade you fair," she retorted, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "I ain't some vampire from th' tales to drain you dry of all heart, an' leave you witless."

[vrajna_kralis]

"What is a vampire?" Hyacinthe asked, intruigued. "From the description, it sounds like you mean the most fascinating and exciting ladies of my acquaintance."