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Cool As Air

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2019 12:27 am
by Oisin Ocasta
Evening - 19th of Hamis, 2719
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The morning sun had proven little more than a cruel joke, the promise of clearer skies ripped away by a damp reminder that they were still in the depths of the Rainy Season. Not that such things were cut-and-dry, of course, and Oisin understood that; worse, part of him was almost grateful for the rain, a part that felt satisfied and reassured that at least the season was living up to its name.

That thought lingered with him as he stood, eyes turned halfway to the sky, a stationary island amid the lazily flowing river of pedestrians that swept back and forth through the Painted Ladies. It was often the nature of names, for a thing to be named after what it was. Now was the season when it rained, and thus, Rainy Season. The Dry Season, was, on balance, dry. In Mugroba, the Rainy Season had an even more evocative and descriptive name, the Flood Season, an accurate omen of what was likely in store. It stretched beyond such deliberate terminology, into the very core of language. Oisin found himself standing outside a bakery, in which bakers baked bread, and pastries, and other savoury goods. Oisin had even met a baker named Baker, once; though he'd also met a man named Baker who wasn't a baker, and that was where language slowly began to unravel.

Oisin liked to think that words were his salvation. Words, woven into stories, had given him hope amid the bleakness of his childhood. Words and stories were what had connected him to the mona, and provided him with a small ember of value, both in Old Rose Harbor, and then in Mugroba as a mercenary. Words and stories were now his stock and trade, a commodity he traded in to stay alive. He should have understood them, should have been able to trust them, but there were times when words became as confusing as people. There were times when words didn't say what they meant. One might be correct to describe Oisin as sinister, but only if they meant that he was left-handed, not ominous. Left could mean to leave, or what remains. Countless words, with countless meanings, some even opposed and contradictory. How did people cope? How could you rely upon words, when a change of circumstance could transform them completely?

A wince tugged at the left side of Oisin's face, as a raindrop broke free from his brow, and deviated off course a little too close to the corner of his eye. It was foolish to stand out here in the rain, and the few stray glances Oisin was sure he was getting no doubt established that the locals of the Painted Ladies felt much the same. But he wasn't here without purpose, and what he was doing couldn't be done inside; though the rain wasn't helping. Another silent lament that the morning sun hadn't been the promise of something more.

Oisin's head cocked to the side slightly, partly to guide the raindrop away from his eye before it began to look too much like a teardrop, and partly to better regard the curtains now hanging in the window of his apartment. He supposed that with clear skies, and more sunlight, the blue might be more vibrant and eye-catching, but for now it was just subtle enough: rewarding to look at, but without insisting that you did. Left to his own devices, his windows would probably have been lined with a dull brown or a drab grey. Good advice could make a world of difference.

He considered the name for them. Curtains. He'd looked it up, in the desperate hope of focusing his mind towards work, on a day spent mostly distracted. A distant cousin of court, something enclosed, or something built to enclose, like the curtain wall around a fortification. It seemed apt enough, depending on the curtains in question. At windows and doorways, curtains enclosed the privacy that they created, a safe fortified space out of range of the volleys of stray glances, and the javelins of unwanted attention. But court could mean other things, all distantly related and derived. A courtyard. A court of law. A royal court. A racquet court. Courtship. Cohort. All from the same route, spread out like branches, different leaves and different expectations shading and concealing the fruit of definition that hung from each. Bite from the wrong apple, and your words turned to poison in your mouth. Choose unwisely, and your curtains became courtship.

Oisin's eyes narrowed, nose scrunching in disapproval of the linguistic betrayal that the curtains had led him down, as if somehow he could compel them into an apology, in substitute for the one he hadn't yet found the opportunity, or the words, to provide.

Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2019 4:48 pm
by Ava Weaver
Evening, 19th Hamis, 2719
Outside the Baker's Treat Bakery, The Painted Ladies
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There were days and there were days. But for Ava, at least, today had been simply a day. It had been almost a sunny morning; she had started off with a sale straight away, and it had felt like the whole of the Painted Ladies was out and about, bustling back and forth, running errands. Between purchases and greetings, Ava was kept busy the whole morning, but there was a wonderful ease to most of it, from making light, pleasant conversation, to showing fabric, from carefully cutting wool, all the way to making tea for a tailor who came by during the quiet hours of the afternoon discuss more serious business.

There had been plenty of smiles too – soft, polite ones that were businesslike and almost neutral – bright, friendly ones, maybe even accompanied by a laugh at some unexpected joke – strained ones meant to discourage some unpleasant hint of conversation, anything that strayed too far into the flirtatious especially – smiles that seemed to convey some secret truth shared between Ava and whomever received it, smiles that acknowledged worth and beauty and left whomever received them lighter in the heart than they had been. Some transactions required one smile, some two; some went all the way to four, or even beyond. Ava gave them all with a free and easy heart.

Once her day had started, Ava rarely took a break, and there was no such thing for her as a lunch hour. Some days, the afternoon was as busy as the morning; today, she had at least had a chance to sit, and the tailor had brought some fruits and biscuits to share alongside their conversation. There was plenty to discuss, but Ava had carefully chosen an orange and peeled it slowly with black-lacquered fingers, and she savored the soft faint scent of orange peel on her fingers for some time – at least, until she needed to touch her fabric again, and needed to wash them clean.

But the rain began to pick up, slowly but steadily, and foot traffic into the shop slowed, a few muddy footprints smeared across the floor.

“It’s going to pick up,” warned Rosie, a tall woman with straw-colored hair pulled severely back off her face, leaning on the edge of Ava’s counter and gazing out the door. “So Jones says anyway – big storm coming, he says. Maybe the biggest of the season.”

“Oh, dear,” Ava studied the windows, leaning forward against the counter herself. “Well,” she glanced around, rueful, at the empty shop. “It’s been a quiet few hours – perhaps I’d better close the shop and run my errands before we’re all swept away,” she grinned at Rosie.

“I’ll just send my husband out,” Rosie said, cheerfully. “It’d be much quieter at home if the flood gets him.”

Ava laughed, grinning at the older woman. Her small delicate hands stood in stark contrast to Rosie’s rough, red-chapped ones, but there was no hesitation or constraint for either of them when Ava reached out and squeezed her hand; Rosie’s turned, clasped Ava’s, and squeezed back.

Ava swept and mopped the floor once Rosie had gone, leaving the shop open a few minutes longer through her chores. Only once she’d finished and still no new customers had come in did Ava draw the curtains over the shop’s big picture window, setting its small sign to closed. She fetched her rainproof cloak, settling it over her tan-colored dress, adjusting the small turquoise ribbons at the sleeves to lie flat against her arms.

Ava locked the front of the shop behind her, waved politely at Mr. Brickman from across the street who rose as if to venture into the rain, then stopped and settled back down in his chair. Ava stepped out of the shop, checking once that her window above was shut tight to keep the rain out, and joined the crowds streaming down the street below, shifting seamlessly into the flow of people, a basket settled over one arm.

Ava had a mental list of what she needed, particularly if she were to be cooped up inside by the weather. Soap, first; she made her way to a small nearby store, buying a new bar of soap. She had, she thought, enough lotion to make do for now; there was no need to tempt fate by buying more. She took the small wrapped package from the shopkeeper with a smile, tucking it into her basket and continuing on.

Next, Ava bought half a dozen eggs, nestled neatly together in paper, and settled them in next to the soap. Milk would come the next morning, rain or shine, so there was no need to worry about that. Last, she thought, she would buy some bread; Ava usually bought her bread at the end of the day, preferring to a few saved coins to the freshest bread. She made her way back towards her shop, intending to stop at Baker’s Treat on the way.

From a distance, walking carefully amidst the crowd, Ava noticed something strange ahead, a spot where the crowd seemed to part and flow around some strange obstacle, no natural feature of the sidewalk. As she came closer, Ava realized – to her surprise – that it was Oisin Ocasta, standing there squinting up at the window above the bakery, where blue and white curtains could be seen even in the dimming evening light. Ava smiled a little to herself, this one secret and private and smoothed it off her face in the name of politeness.

“Good evening, Mr. Ocasta,” Ava greeted him politely as she stepped around him, turning to make her way into the bakery.

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Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 7:26 am
by Oisin Ocasta
Evening - 19th of Hamis, 2719
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The voice surprised him. Any voice would have, given the circumstances, he supposed: thus far, most on the residents of the Painted Ladies had simply walked on by, ignoring him as nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Certainly, none of them would have known his name, and of the handful of people in Vienda who did, Ms. Weaver was about the last on the list that he predicted might cross his path. Ironic, he supposed, given the nature of his distraction; but appropriate in a way, as well.

It took him a moment before he even began to react, and a moment more as his mind began to fumble through things he could possibly say. The polite thing would be to acknowledge Ms. Weaver's acknowledgement, and leave her to go about her business. She had things to do, Oisin presumed, and somehow he doubted that anything he might say would be in any way beneficial to that end. Yet, he felt an obligation to say something more - or was it merely a desire, disguising itself as an obligation? It felt like a should, most certainly; he should say something, be it an apology, explanation, or otherwise. But why? Why would he be doing it, and for whose benefit would it be? That was the complicated thing about apologies and things of that ilk: they were supposed to be for the sake of the one who received them, a salve for whatever harms or offence had been caused, proof of remorse and regret on the part of the offender; yet, more often than not, they were uttered only to ease that remorse and regret, a selfish motivation rather than a genuine one. Was that what was at play here? Oisin's mind was certain that he had caused offence, but to Ava Weaver he was a complete stranger, someone that she - passing encounters in the street notwithstanding - had no need or prospect of ever seeing again. If Oisin had caused offence, why would it matter to her? Oisin was no one. What he said or thought was nothing.

Yet, the motivation that Oisin felt did not seem like selfish ego, at least not to him. There was a discomfort, certainly, a sense of abject horror that his actions had caused the effect that he presumed they had. He had portrayed himself in a certain way, and it pained him that such a portrayal existed. But it ran deeper than that. However slight, Oisin had caused harm. That wasn't him. That was the antithesis of him. What Ms. Weaver did or did not understand Oisin to be, that was secondary to Oisin actually being who he was, and who he wanted to be. To consider himself a healer was an overstatement: he was no Living Conversationalist, nor trained physician, merely an amateur with a fledgeling ability and pathological need to fix things. His actions, Ava's reactions, his words, the offence, the encounter itself: they merged and mixed like fluids in a wound, and to do nothing was to leave them to fester, perhaps even to leave the limb to rot and amputate it entirely. That didn't sit right. For better or worse, selfless or selfish, that was not a way in which Oisin Ocasta could function.

"I'm bad at people."

The words escaped from him suddenly, yet matter of fact, as if he were commenting upon something as innocuous as the rain. He wondered if perhaps he should have prepared for this - for situations like this - in advance, drafting and redrafting the kind of things he might say in order to more naturally sound like a living being. It was difficult, communicating in the moment, knowing that every word you uttered was scribed into the air with ink, permanent and unchanging, correction possible only through later amendments. Perhaps he should have written a note, something where mistaken attempts could be discarded and rewritten, until the words finally meant what he meant.

He forced his eyes to detach from the window above, and settle on Ms. Weaver instead. "Writing is easy: I can take my time, and correct my mistakes before anyone knows about them. Face to face, words escape me before I can be sure they sound the way I mean them to. I feel as if my words may have fumbled across some lines today that I did not intend to cross. If they did, I am sorry."

The corner of Oisin's eyes pinched, a faint frown cast inwards, disapproval at the words his lips had chosen yet again. But those were the words written in the air, and to try and change them now would only smudge the ink. He turned to the next sentence instead, a footnote that he hoped might steer his words in a better direction. A soft laugh escaped at his own expense, his eyes falling away for a moment, the exhalation dislodging the stiffness and formality in his stance and tone. His hands dug themselves into his pocket, and by the time he glanced to Ms. Weaver once more, a little more of the young Oisin Ocasta from Old Rose Harbor had been scavenged from the archives of his mind, and draped across his demeanour.

"Mercenary work doesn't involve a lot of conversations, and most of the new people you meet would rather stab you than talk to you. I'm a little out of practise."

Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 12:44 pm
by Ava Weaver
Evening, 19th Hamis, 2719
Outside the Baker's Treat Bakery, The Painted Ladies
Ava stepped around Oisin Ocasta, and made her way towards the door into the bakery. He didn’t respond, and Ava smiled a little to herself again, not offended, assuming he was either deeply lost in thought or too busy admiring the curtains. She didn’t take it personally; she hadn’t been sure she should greet him at all, but it had seemed too strange to walk past him without at least an acknowledgement.

Except – then he did respond.

Ava paused a few steps away, holding just far enough from Oisin that traffic couldn’t flow easily between them. The effect was to make a little island in the flow of traffic, centered around the two of them, pulling and stretching people to the edges of the sidewalk, with Ava on one end and Oisin on the other.

Ava turned back to look at him, taking a step closer once more. The expression on her face was polite, neutral almost, a faint soft smile, meant more to convey to those around them that nothing here was wrong, there was nothing to be alarmed about – that those who brushed past the wick and noticed him talking to the shopkeeper wouldn’t see any reason to worry. It was, also, not too friendly – not the sort of smile that someone who walked past might see and interpret as more than merely polite. It was, as always, carefully gauged, and genuine too, starting from her lips and filling her eyes, echoed in the soft relaxed lines of her body, the easy draping of the basket over her arm – slightly off to the side, not in front of her body defensively between them.

Ava waited, and watched, as Oisin lowered his gaze from the window above and looked at her. She was patient and still as he found his way to what he wanted to say, letting him come to the apology in his own time. She wasn’t, in truth, entirely sure what he was apologizing for, or rather what he thought he was apologizing for. Ava had signaled that his compliment – a rose like yourself content living down here among the weeds – was unwelcome, subtly. She didn’t think he could possibly understand why it had offended her so.

The most obvious explanation, the one that Ava hoped was true, was that he was apologizing for flirting with her, or apologizing that she might have taken his words as flirtatious. Either way, Ava supposed, she ought to accept.

It didn’t hurt that something about the way he was standing – the faint hunch to his shoulders, perhaps, the hands in his pocket, something about the defensive look in his eyes – reminded her with a visceral shock of the boy in the graveyard all those years ago.

Ava let her smile soften – just a little, not so much warmth that anyone passing would see more than two people in the same neighborhood talking – but it softened, and it warmed, into something more genuine than what was required by mere politeness. It wasn’t hard; those long ago memories of Nellie, crying at her grandmother’s funeral, of the handsome boy who’d comforted her – they were closer at hand than Ava might have liked. Despite how painful the funeral had been, Oisin, with his kind, friendly words, had made parts of the memory into something happy, something she’d cherished for almost two years afterwards.

“I understand,” Ava said, gently. She wasn’t sure she did – understanding would require a lot more information than she actually had, but she did hope she understood well enough. “Please don’t worry about it, Mr. Ocasta. It’s not necessary for you to apologize.”

The rain fell a little harder now, and Ava shifted, covering her basket a little better with her arm, adjusting her hair so none of the black curls escaped from her waterproof hood. The pace of traffic increased, but the flow of people seemed to thin slightly as well, just those few who took shelter enough to produce a noticeable change.

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Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:43 am
by Oisin Ocasta
Evening - 19th of Hamis, 2719
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Not necessary.

There was a phrase that irked Oisin Ocasta, a notion of a simple apology. In his experience, nothing about apologies was simple. There were the apologies that the lower races offered to their betters: sorry for my mistake, sorry for being in your way, sorry for forcing you to knock me aside in the mud by existing beyond the scope of your attention. It was a simple transaction - an apology you had to utter, and that galdori egos needed to hear - but they rarely held any value or meaning, especially when the one apologising had not been the one at fault. There were other lies of apology, too. Sorry to bother you. Sorry for being late. Sorry, I didn't see you there. Were they? Was anyone ever sorry in those situations? Did people feel the same weight of emotion in those situations as when their apology was sincere?

The ambiguity of apology was compounded by the familiar words that Ms. Weaver had uttered: the assertion that his apology was not necessary. She was right, of course. Save for happenstance moments such as now, there was no reason to expect that Ava Weaver and Oisin Ocasta would cross paths more than once in their entire lives. Even if they did, what did it matter to Ms. Weaver if her impression of him was a negative one? The desire not to be seen the way that Oisin feared his words had portrayed was a selfish one, and any reparations in that regard would have a negligible impact upon her. Apologies were often selfish, often more an act of absolution for the guilty than a benefit to the aggrieved. That was often what not necessary meant: part of an unspoken social contract, an agreement of the guilty's innocence.

Not always, though. There were times when not necessary meant something else entirely. At times it was a deflection, to shield the aggrieved from attention they did not want, or to steer away from a topic they would rather not revisit. Other times, it was an act of deference, the assertion that one's feelings were not worth the effort or inconvenience of an apology. Worse, sometimes, the sentiment behind the statement was genuine: an apology was unnecessary, because the perceived grievance or slight did not exist, or was not as severe as the guilty party believed it to be. Oisin hated that, the ambiguity of it all. Worse, he hated that even a fraction of his mind chose to dwell on it, a selfish impulse given that he wasn't the one he believed had been wronged.

"There are some apologies that should be offered whether they're necessary or not," Oisin countered. His voice was warm, but undercut by a soft, solemn note, one that was echoed in his eyes during the brief moments of success amid their ongoing struggle with the unfamiliar art of eye contact. The same solemnity and subtle concern tugged at his features in momentary bursts, pinching at the corners of his eyes, and kneeding an occasional furrow between his brows. "And besides -" There was a subtle shift, a faint flicker of a smile at his own expense, a whisper of humour creeping into his words. "My capacity for worry is quite extensive. It wasn't very far out of my way."

The smile and humour faded quickly, a frown rising to dominance on his features, outward signs of contemplation as if he'd just been presented with a complex riddle. In a way he had, though the presentation was hardly recent: it was a riddle he had wrestled with all day, analysed and obsessed in every spare moment, dismantling and dissecting each moment of the morning's conversation, as if he could somehow reverse engineer a better understanding from the component parts, but it had proven to be a problematic endeavour. It was like trying to build a crossbow from the dismantled pieces of a crossbow, with a passing familiarity with crossbows in general, but no specific notion of how they functioned: you might end up with something that looked like a crossbow, but that was no guarantee it would actually fire.

"You were kind." It was the underlying structure of his understanding, the crossbow's rigid, wooden stock, an unassailable fact that had served as a foundation and starting point. From there, things rapidly became less simple. Every component had been considered and assessed - to the best of his memory, at least - but which one should be attached next was more guesswork than deductive reasoning. "Showing kindness to your customers is part of your job, of course, but I am unaccustomed to that. It isn't -"

He stopped himself, before his words carried him away. It felt like a relevant thing to explain, that as a reporter for the Post, a mercenary in Mugroba, or an orphan on the streets of the Old Rose, kindness was a luxury, and one he could seldom afford and was seldom afforded. True or not, however, there was a fine line between explanation and excuse, and too often apologies transformed into the latter.

"It isn't something I have much practice reacting to," he simplified, burying the potential excuses as far from his thoughts as he could get them, "And as you may have noticed, I don't always do well in unfamiliar situations."

He fell silent for a moment, brow still puzzling over the vaguely crossbow-shaped construction of words that still didn't quite look or feel the way that it was supposed to. "You were kind," he said again, reaching back to the familiarity of that structural concept. "I have spent my life weeding through the very worst that the world and society has to offer, and Vienda thus far has been no exception. Your kindness? Obligated or not, it was a rare and welcome reprieve." He offered a small shrug. "A rose in the weeds."

He winced a little, still disapproving of his words. Had they been written, the page would have been torn away from the desk, crumpled into an orb, and hurled across the room, hopefully taking all of the faulty words and notions along with it. Sadly, the spoken word did not offer such opportunities: yet another reason why Oisin had so little fondness for it.

"Thank you, is what I meant, and mean to say. A little procedural kindness with a customer may seem like nothing to you, but it means a great deal to me."

Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 9:02 am
by Ava Weaver
Evening, 19th Hamis, 2719
Outside the Baker's Treat Bakery, The Painted Ladies
Oisin shifted and refused to allow Ava the polite courtesy she had offered. He argued - as if her words were the beginning of a negotiation, as if please don’t worry about it, it’s fine was her opening position and he could somehow bargain her down. Worry flickered over his face and through the subtle shifts of his body, deeper than Ava might have expected.

She offered a slightly warmer smile at his self-deprecating humor.

It was raining a little harder, now. Ava wanted very much to turn and go inside the bakery, to get her bread while perhaps she still had a chance of making it home. Instead she held patient and still while Oisin Ocasta struggled with something inside his head, tried to find words, perhaps, or tried to make them come out right. Ava felt oddly voyeuristic, as if this was something she shouldn’t be watching.

Your job to be kind, he said, in more words but no difference, really. Ava held utterly still and kept the sudden hurt off her face. It was her job, she told herself. Wasn’t that what she wanted everyone to think? Kind, friendly Ava Weaver - but not so kind it would be taken as an invitation, not so friendly that it had to be more than neighborly, more than what any shopkeeper might do.

And she was good at it, and Oisin believed her. She would have done the same for any customer; he was right. Her job to be kind. Why did that hurt?

Oisin hadn’t meant it to be about her, she thought. He had wanted to express something about him, to explain that people weren’t often kind. No, she thought, they weren’t. He found his way back to the compliment that had so insulted her before, digging in, grabbing it with both hands and explaining better. The rest of the world was weeds and she a rose. He hadn’t meant anything flirtatious by it.

Ava tasted bile somewhere in the back of her mouth. She lowered her gaze and smiled a little more, softly flattered. Wasn’t she? Shouldn’t she be? He thought he had offended her by his overfamiliarity. Well, that was what she had wanted him to think. He had agonized over it, agonized over this apology he was now offering, the one that kept her trapped in this wet street in the pouring rain.

The flow of people around them now had slowed to nearly a trickle; those still passing were doing so hurriedly, a hand held up over their head to ward off the increasing rain. All the same Ava was conscious of a little bubble of space around them, no one intruding, no one interrupting. She was conscious, too, of the glance that a man with hunched shoulders and a wide-brimmed hat shot Oisin as he passed, as the wick’s glamour brushed him.

“Kindness is never nothing,” Ava agreed, smiling at Oisin just a little more warmly.“You’re welcome. The curtains look lovely.” Hard to see them now, in the rain, but she had noticed earlier. Perhaps he hadn’t been staring up at them after all, but it didn’t really matter. She had seen them. She hoped he wouldn’t argue with those platitudes as well.

Her chest ached; her stomach curled up beneath her ribs. A rose in the weeds. Couldn’t he see that she was a weed too? She had been ripped out of the bed where she belonged and cast into this shape. She made the best of it - of course she did - but didn’t he understand that courtesies and politenesses and easy smiles could be learned, the same as all the rest of it?

No. Of course he didn’t. Ava had to hope he couldn’t, because she didn’t want him to. That meant she had to be perfect - word-perfect, note-perfect, in her tone, her expression, every bit of it. The overfamiliarity of his compliment had worried her before because it was too much of a focus on the physical. Now, of course, that she understood he had only meant her kindness - now he had smoothed things over, now any lingering trace of constraint had to be gone.

“I really should finish my errands before the rain gets worse,” Ava let a little grimace wrinkle her face, as if they were friends and she was sharing a secret with him. “And you ought to get inside too, Mr. Ocasta, you’re nearly soaked already.”

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Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 7:51 pm
by Oisin Ocasta
Evening - 19th of Hamis, 2719
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"Oh!"

It was as if he had forgotten the rain was there. Perhaps he had. It was a skill you learned, a tolerance you developed. It was all well and good, being averse to the rain, and trying your utmost to avoid it: but what did you do when you couldn't? What did you do, when the only way of earning a shill or two to feed yourself was to lug barrels off the docks in the rain? What did you do when the town started to flood, and the only half-way dry place had a leak in the roof that kept you damp throughout the night? What did you do when the Flood Season came to Mugroba, and the sky opened over you with such intensity that you might as well have been walking on the bottom of the ocean? You learned to adapt, you learned to ignore it, you learned how to deal with it quickly in the aftermath. It was the same with heat, or cold; the same with noise; the same with hunger; the same with sickness or pain. You learned to adapt so that what was bothering you wasn't there anymore. It was the only way to keep on living.

Ava, of course, did not deserve to be forced to suffer such things. No one did, frankly, and Oisin had no desire to proliferate that kind of suffering. "Yes, of course, sorry."

As Oisin took a step aside to clear Ava's path, it was a step of surrender. It wasn't how conversations were supposed to work. Or rather, it was how conversations usually worked, just not how Oisin had wanted things to go. When most people spoke to Oisin Ocasta, they had an agenda. It was orders, it was instructions, it was curt and necessary, it was insults, it was transactional - it was as brief and efficient as it could possibly be. Oisin knew those conversations; he had lived them for thirty years, with almost no exceptions. Oisin hadn't wanted that. After all, he was a different man now. The urchin was gone. The mercenary was gone. He was a journalist now, and while people didn't have to be happy to speak to him, per se, they were supposed to say something. With Ava, he wasn't even trying to be that: he'd been the man underneath, himself and not the job, and yet her brief but polite words had hit him with all the force and sting of a no comment.

Oisin had explained himself, at least. Ms. Weaver understood - or had at least heard - what he had wanted to say. Perhaps the brevity of her responses meant that she really didn't mind or care, that her not necessary really was to be taken at face value. Perhaps it meant that she didn't care because the offhand words of a random stranger simply didn't matter enough to make the effort. Perhaps it was something else. Ultimately, Oisin supposed, it didn't matter. As he stepped aside, he was prepared to retreat, prepared to write off the conversation as a lost cause: right up until that awkward moment of realisation that though their conversation had ended, and the intention to part ways had been expressed, the two of them intended to depart in the same direction: towards Baker's Treat.

The wick thought, and thought fast, suddenly far more conscious of the increasingly heavy rain. He could leave, of course, pretend to be headed somewhere else to spare Ms. Weaver the continued discomfort of his company. He doubted such an effort would fool Ms. Weaver, of course, but whether it was welcome or not was likely to be independent of his intentions. He could continue on his own way, that was certainly an option: after all, it was his home that he was headed towards, and Ms. Weaver could hardly be surprised or opposed that he would travel in that direction. Such a thing could breed awkwardness though, an awkwardness that would terminate in front of the audience of the Baker's Treat and its occupants. Hardly preferable, either.

There was a third option, of course: a gamble, but an effective compromise if it succeeded. Often, the easiest way to defeat the abnormal was to make it normal; to act as if it was normal until it began to feel normal. It was a lesson that Oisin had learned most acutely in Mugroba, a chrove's choice between being seen shirtless in public, and enduring the banded discolouration of his skin that spending time clothed beneath the sun could create. Despite his discomfort, he'd forced himself to normalise it, to endure the feeling of being exposed until the sun burned the sedimentary bands of colouration away from his arms. He hadn't enjoyed it, but he'd endured it, and over time it had become progressively easier. While he doubted that getting shirtless was a wise course of action in this particular situation, perhaps there was a similar premise that could apply.

"Do you like pastries?" he suddenly asked. Mere moments had passed for the outside world between these words and the last, despite the eternity of thought and deliberation that had transpired inside Oisin's mind. He was quick to clarify, to deescalate any potential misunderstandings before they had the opportunity to form. "Purely platonic, and hardly the freshest at this time of the day, but still. Gratitude pastries, a kindness for a kindness?"

Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 8:30 am
by Ava Weaver
Evening, 19th Hamis, 2719
Outside the Baker's Treat Bakery, The Painted Ladies
Oisin seemed genuinely surprised when Ava pointed out that it was raining, and promptly began to step aside. He made it about halfway through the motion, paused, lost in thought for a flicker of a moment, looked up at Ava with eyes that reminded her of a small sad puppy begging not to be kicked again, and asked if he could buy her a pastry.

Platonically, he promised. In gratitude for her kindness.

Ava’s eyes widened a little. “Mr. Ocasta...” her voice trailed off, slowly. Her gaze dropped, a fraction.

There were a thousand things she wanted to say. She had sold him fabric for curtains; that was all. She would have done the same for any customer. She hadn’t been kind - it was a business transaction. Hadn’t he just said that himself, a few minutes earlier?

And yet it wasn’t as if Ava had never been given gifts before. She had treasured those precious times. She thought of Ms. Franklin, who had come back with bread she had baked herself to thank Ava for her care in helping her choose a fabric for her dress, gleeful because the man she liked had asked her out while she wore it. She thought of Mr. Worth, who had been so worried about the extravagance of the fabrics he had bought his wife as a surprise for their new home, how they had both come in to thank her and his wife had cried in the shop, standing there, the gift they had given her of a few eggs from their backyard.

Why was this different, Ava asked herself.

Because, she answered a moment later, Oisin was offering her a gift for her kindness, not her services. He wasn’t offering her a gift because he loved the curtains, or at least he hadn’t said he was. He was offering her a gift because she had been nice to him.

One heartbeat passed, another. Ava couldn’t accept. She couldn’t. She didn’t deserve that. She looked up again.

But in the same instant she made up her mind to refuse, somehow, she saw the hopeful, sad look on his face, and felt a squirming twist of guilt. It would hurt his feelings to refuse, she thought. Did her discomfort really matter more than his? She could wrap the no in the kindest, fanciest words she could find, but she was lying to herself if she said he wouldn’t know it was a no. She was lying to herself if she said he wouldn’t be hurt by it.

“Thank you,” Ava said instead, slowly, looking at him still. She knew none of the turmoil had showed on her face but she also knew the response had taken a few moments to long, like his step aside before it. She brightened the faint smile that had been on her face throughout, and if she didn’t feel genuinely happy about accepting, she could at least find genuine warmth for Oisin - even if she was still more than a little hurt. “I do like pastries. That would be very nice.”

Oisin had stepped aside, but now he turned and they both made their way into Baker’s Treat - not far, just few steps in the pouring rain. The sidewalk was slick with it already, and Ava lifted the hem of her skirt with one hand, careful to keep it from dragging in the puddles already forming on the poorly maintained road. She walked through them with care, navigating between one pitfall and then another, always doing her best to stay as graceful as possible.

Something else, Ava thought, as she stepped into the bakery. She needed to say something else, to give him more than platitudes.

There was water on the floor inside already, but the two of them weren’t helping in the slightest. Ava resigned herself to it, well aware of what a chore it was to mop up after customers again and again on a rainy day.

“I don’t mind if they’re not the freshest,” Ava said suddenly, quietly - not loud enough for anyone but Oisin to hear, and certainly not loud enough for anyone behind the bakery’s counter to hear. She smiled at him, warm, and continued. “I can’t think of the last time I actually had one.”

It was true; of course it was true. Lying outright was terribly hard. Pastures were an indulgence, and Ava scraped and saved every coin. For the cost of a pastry she could buy a loaf of bread, substantial and filling. Ava thought of pastries - not the ones she had had in Vienda, but the ones she had enjoyed as a little girl in The Rose, remembered begging her mother for a treat and the very occasional indulgences that had followed. She remembered the sheer joy of the sweetness of it, and the times her mother had made something for her at home too, even more precious. Her eleventh and twelfth birthdays in Cantile, after Uncle’s business began to fail, when flour and eggs and milk and sugar and butter too had been scraped from the housekeeping, scrimped and saved, so that Ava might have a cake.

“Thank you,” Ava said again, quietly, and there was something different to it now, some undertone that wasn’t just soft, but maybe even a little sad. She let go of her dress, so that the points of its hem lowered to brush her shoes once more. Perhaps, she thought, one didn’t need to deserve a gift freely given and well meant.

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Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:18 pm
by Oisin Ocasta
Evening - 19th of Hamis, 2719
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There was something Ava wasn't saying. Oisin felt that way about everyone, at all times, but this was one of the rare times when there was something tangible for him to latch onto, something actually resembling truth and evidence. Something about that last thank you, something about how the normal warmth of her voice slipped just a little, like a cloud passing in front of the sun, something about that faint hint of sadness that he thought he'd seen for only a moment. He couldn't interpret it, couldn't translate it into a miraculous insight that would unravel all of Ms. Weaver's secrets, but he did understand it. He knew what it was like, hiding sadness like that, knowing that even in your happiest moments there could be something that would somehow bring that sadness to the fore. Traumatic memories you couldn't quite escape, or fond ones, turned bittersweet by what had transpired since.

Oisin could have tried to unravel it, attempt to decipher Ms. Weaver like she was some story he was trying to break for the paper, or some novel he was attempting to decode the ending of before he'd finished reading all the pages. But that had been his mistake earlier, hadn't it? Ms. Weaver had just been doing her job, and Oisin had made a game out of it, a contest that she didn't even realise they'd been playing. That game, that desire to discern more than he revealed was what had led him astray, his attempts at concealment obscuring the proper intention of his words and meaning. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

Besides, Ms. Weaver wasn't at work now. Her mandatory kindness was no longer necessary, and if it continued, Oisin would need to ensure that it was earned in kind. Hopefully, Ms. Weaver understood that as well.

"I wish I couldn't remember the last time I'd had one," Oisin replied, matching Ava's quiet volume and soft tone as he danced past the emotions her statement of gratitude had revealed. "The aroma of baking, and the generosity of my landlords, can make for something of a torment of temptation at times."

The sentence completed, and while it did not persist for more than a fraction of a second, Oisin immediately comprehended the handicap that he had placed on himself. Not wishing to probe and pry was respectful, he was certain of that, especially if there were things that Ms. Weaver would not want noticed or noted during a passing encounter such as this. Yet, social encounters were seldom silent, instead filled with casual curiosity that was supposed to make the other feel as if you were engaged and interested in them. The divide between conversation and interrogation was a subtle one, however, and not one that Oisin had much of a grasp over. To him, if you were interested and engaged, that meant questions, eagerly asked and in abundant number: but this was something that others insisted was impolite. Conversations were like rafts on a river, someone had once explained: you might need to paddle every once in a while to avoid the rocks or steer through the rapids, but for the most part it was best if you just let the currents of the conversation do most of the work, rather than trying to row against the flow. It was a fine analogy in principle, Oisin was willing to admit, assuming one knew how to actually row and steer a conversational raft. For Oisin, he'd seen it done, but any attempts of his own usually involved a lot of flailing, splashing, and not very much constructive progress.

Best to start in the calm, open water, Oisin supposed. There were questions that he had heard people ask themselves, and occasionally had been asked himself, in those rare instances where people felt like talking to him was preferable to pretending he wasn't there until he wasn't. He thought back to the morning's conversation, to the vague and inconsequential things that had been left unanswered.

"So, how did you come to be in the fabric business?" That seemed harmless enough, general enough of a question that there shouldn't be any unseen rocks or obstacles for his raft to snag or crash against. The sort of question that Ms. Weaver was asked all the time, no doubt. "Something that runs in your family? You certainly have the name for it."

Re: Cool As Air

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:42 pm
by Ava Weaver
Evening, 19th Hamis, 2719
The Baker's Treat, The Painted Ladies
Ava glanced around the shop, thinking of the aromas that wafted out in the morning, the lovely bread she bought there even at the end of the day - the tempting pastries that, so far, she had managed to hold back from. She thought, too, of Ms. Bloom, and it was easy to smile.

“Yes, I can see how it would be difficult,” Ava said with a smile - stronger again, no hint of sadness anymore. If Oisin had noticed the hint of sadness she had heard in her own voice, he had been courteous enough not to dwell on it. She wondered, briefly, what he had thought of it - wondered what impulse she had yielded to not to hide it.

“I grew up surrounded by fabrics,” Ava explained, in response to his question; there was no hesitation, no reluctance, nothing but one stranger happy to yield to the curious impulses of another. “I never could have wanted to do anything else, even after all the difficulties my family faced. They aren’t here anymore,” a soft lowering of the eyes, lips pressed taut for just a moment - well-practiced sadness, but it read as real as what he had heard in her voice before.

“But I hope they would be proud of what I’ve built,” Ava brought her gaze up and smiled again at Oisin, soft then a little stronger, as if she were drawing from some deep well of strength. “Or...” she let her face wrinkle, ever so slightly, “what I’m trying to build,” the faintest hint of self-deprecation - not enough to require any listener to compliment the shop, but it almost inevitably led that way.

It was a story Ava had built nearly as carefully as her fledgling business. It had been one of the first things she had thought about, when she had claimed the last name Weaver for herself and set out to transform her odd inheritance into a fabric shop. It was carefully calibrated - true, almost every word, not too secretive. Only the most determined would probe into the secret wounds she mentioned: the difficulties, the lack of family in her life now. If they did, Ava was ready with backstop against backstop - even papers. It was truly amazing what could be forged, if one knew the right people.

But it usually didn’t fail. Almost every time, the listener wanted to talk about the shop - to rush to assure her that it was lovely, that she was doing a wonderful job. Often that was tinged with a faint hint of ‘especially for a woman on her own.’ Sometimes not. Occasionally it was coupled with advice: thoughts on how she could make the place better, more popular. She should cater more to galdori; she should cater less to galdori. She should display fewer fabrics. She should rearrange. She should have a man behind the counter. Always, Ava smiled and listened and nodded and promised to take it into consideration.

Sometimes they were determined; they wanted to know. They wanted to pry from her chest the failures of the family she had mentioned, whether to revel in them or to sympathize. They wanted to know, with gossipy fervor, what had happened to her mentioned family. The story itself never changed, and Ava couldn’t let herself be too different in different circumstances; the people of the Painted Ladies talked to one another. But a trembling lip and tear-filled eyes could be very useful, so long as Ava was careful not to smudge her eyeliner.

Sometimes they took it another direction entirely; Ava collected them, curiously, the unusual reactions she received. Some wanted to tell her of their childhoods or their dreams, of the loved ones they’d lost, of what they were proud of. In truth those were the conversations Ava enjoyed most, the ones that turned away from her and shone on the other person.

Ava didn’t let Oisin choose his own route. It had occurred to her, and not only just now, that one didn’t become a journalist without a certain love for asking questions, for tearing down the silken swathes that people used to cover themselves, their truths and lies. That, ideally, a journalist not only liked to ask questions, but knew the right ones to ask. Her story was well-practiced and easy and by now she anticipated all but the rarest of questions, but she had no desire to put it against him, not more than superficially.

“And you?” Ava asked. “Even when you were exploring Mugroba, did you always want to be a... writer?” Ava offered the less offensive word tentatively. She wouldn’t have minded calling him a journalist, but she’d nearly had to drag it out of him earlier. “To tell stories,” she amended, with a friendly smile, hoping he might find the euphemism more pleasant.

Ava didn’t press forward towards the counter and the pastries behind it; it seemed presumptuous. She waited for Oisin, let him take the lead - in his gift, if not in conversation.

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