There was a satisfying peace in being alone, physically alone for the first time. In his newfound solitude, Albigence Fitz had found the motivation to simply do. He had thoroughly cleaned the four apartments for the first time perhaps ever. He had thrown out the moldy furniture and pried up the rotted floorboards. He had sewn new curtains for the naked windows. He had fixed the leak in the second floor apartment that dripped every night into his own, and had replaced the lock his master had taken off of his apartment. He was far from lonely without Bjorn and the old tenant who had left when she realized she would be 'indefinitely' giving her rent to him as he had told her after Bjorn had died. He was finally able to hear his own thoughts and sort through them. He could run on his own schedule, focus on little successes in his own mind. Silly, perhaps, but there was a freedom in setting his own small goals and not being punished or rewarded for whether or not they were completed or abandoned. For once, he was back in charge of his own life.
He had crafted more glass in the month since Bjorn's death than he had perhaps blown in the last three years combined. He was reinvigorated to create without someone telling him to do it, and create he did. Where Bjorn had never wanted to display more than a few pieces for fear of wasting pieces and losing money, Albi had covered the once dull wooden front room of the shop in beautiful glass. It was a simple room- a small rectangular with a counter on one side and a door shouldered by two large windows on the other. Stairs crawled up into the apartments behind the desk. In the windows, Albi had strung up glass birds and fish to hang before shelves that alternated between day to day items like vases and pitchers to his art- dancers and animals and shoes. On the walls, he hung simple glass flowers of a multitude of colors, the first simple thing Bjorn had taught him. He was proud of himself. Perhaps he didn't have the eye for interior design, but, on days like this when the sun smiled down on Old Rose Harbor, the room glowed with a warm, prismacolor life of color that made his heart swell with a happy pride in his own creations. This pride and the warmth of being happily alone, too, let him feel at ease in the rolled up white sleeves that exposed the dark passive tattoo on his forearm. He could be himself, unashamed, when he created.
Albi was sitting behind the counter carefully painting a delicate garden of white daisies onto a clear pitcher when the door opened and, instinctively, he pulled his sleeve down to cover his tattoo before gingerly setting his work to the side and looking over the visitor. The visitor- possibly a customer, he reminded himself- spoke before he could greet him. He looked at the man who had entered before he spoke- he had told almost everyone else who had inquired about rooms that the rooms were filled when they brought bottles of alcohol into his building, crushed cigarettes into his floor, and even nearly knocked over one of his shelves in a drunken stumble. This one seemed okay, so far.
"All still available," he answered shortly, then, internally, he grimaced. He was still under the training that he wasn't to talk to customers excessively but let Bjorn take care of business.
You'll scare off the customers, passive!
He stepped out from behind the counter, brushing himself off unnecessarily. He wore a simple white canvas shirt and black pants and shoes under an apron much too big for him and tied around his torso twice. His dark hair was braided over his shoulder. He was not good at the customer side of business, but he approached the man, bowed slightly, and he leaned against his counter as casually as he could muster.
"I'd like to think they're a good quality for the price," he started, crossing his arms as he attempted to ease himself into a conversation.
"S'pose I'll start by telling you now that my price is four shills a month," he paused, watching for the man's reaction. Seeing no immediate qualms, he pushed himself off the counter. "If you're still interested knowing the price, then you may as well follow me up to a room." He motioned towards the stairs behind the counter, watching his guest carefully to ensure that no filthy, thieving hands of Old Rose stole from him. As they ascended the stairs to the second floor, Albi reached into his pocket for the key. The stairs landed in a short hallway with a door on either side and a window at the end. Albigence stepped into the hallway and moved to unlock the door on the left.
"The rooms are all about the same, don't matter much which one we go to," he explained, if only to justify why this specific room. He swung the wooden door into a small apartment. A cheerful, pale green wallpaper brightened the room as two windows on the right wall with faded lace curtains let in shafts of fall sunlight that trickled across the wooden floor of the sitting room. A wooden fireplace squatted with an open mouth squatted empty against the left wall, two well-used but nonetheless clean, pink, plush chairs contentedly chatting before the hearth, Stretched between the windows was a simple wooden table and two chairs, and, beyond the patterned rug on the floor and on the far wall, a wall clock perched on the left side of an open doorway, and a shelf containing only a few sets of dinnerware and plates stood guard on the right. Through the open doorway, the corner of a freshly made bed could be spotted.
"It's not a lot, but it's clean and warm," he summarized, standing off to the side and allowing his visitor time to look around.