[Closed] Nighttime Delivery

[Catriona Fraser]

on the 20th of Yaris, 2719 • sunset

Cat needed new fabric, this much was true. And if she had any hope of Ava keeping those stupid shears, then she would happily accept it. But she would not let it ruin her. Something told her that Ava thought the shears were worth far more than what they actually were. In truth, it had not set her back anything more than the original offer of two shills. Sapphires that small were hardly difficult to come by. And silvering tools was a common enough practice that she kept a small block of it for that purpose alone. It wasn’t as if they were solid silver, just dipped. But even knowing all that, Cat had a feeling it wouldn’t make Ava feel any better.

Cat’s face spoke of deal making. As though they were bargaining. But Cat didn’t really want to bargain or negotiate. “If you want to offer fabric in trade then that is, of course, just fine. And if you’d like a number I’d call it another shill’s worth. But if you still want to refuse them I’d understand. I wouldn’t want you to give away fabric that you could sell.”

Was it flaunting of her to imply that she, herself, at times, had money to burn? It all depended on who she’d most recently sold to and most recently she’d received a very, very, large sum of money from a worthless galdor woman who, Cat hoped, wouldn’t be a problem much longer. As large as the sum was, it wasn’t even all that had been agreed upon. And Cat hadn’t known at all, even after taxes and her Master’s percentage, how to spend that much money until Raynarus himself had mentioned making a shop where she could actually stock items and sell them properly. Of course the amount she had left wasn’t quite enough to cover something to that degree but the idea gave her something to work toward. And now that she was to build it herself, plans were already under way.

And just like someone striking a match, Cat’s eyes lit up. She had an idea that might benefit them both, and might not break the bank for Ava since she wouldn’t need it right away. But then her face darkened again, thinking of how this arrangement isn’t at all how she wanted this to go. Cat was not at all good at making or keeping friends. So perhaps it was immature of her to think that Ava would simply smile and thank her for doing such a good job on the commission.

Cat laughed a little, “Do you know that sword is not the first time anyone has threatened my livelihood? Galdori can be a most volatile group of people and untrusting of any human actively charging them money. They’ll say I’ve cheated them, that my work is subpar. I think this time hit me harder than the others because-“ she stopped herself. Because of what she knew. The things she said. She shook her head, though, as if to erase that moment from her mind.

She signed again, slowly as ever. “I’m not...I’m not stupid. I know what you must think of me. I am sensitive, I cry way too easily, and I don’t know how to have a normal conversation with anyone. Everything is...transactional. They give me coin, I make the thing. More coins, more thing. The galdori love my work, but they don’t appreciate it. And anyone else would rather not take the time to wait on me to write and write and so they have that transaction and leave. Even people who are kind to me talk at me, not to me. But you...didn’t do that. You were more than kind, you were friendly. That is not something anyone has been to me in a very long time. And maybe I- maybe I thought....well no one can deny that you are beautiful. So it only made sense that you would appreciate the beauty in them. Unlike so many others.”
Could hands blush? Because right now her hands were the same color as her face. She couldn’t help the smile creeping across her face.

“But this isn’t about me. Not really. This is about what you are able to do to ease your...conscience...about accepting these most troublesome shears!” Cat cracked a grin, wanting desperately to play it off as some sort of silly joke. Oops! They’re too pretty, whatever shall we do!?

Cat leaned forward to grab the tea, as an offended cat leaped off her lap to find a more stable setting. She took a sip, careful not to let it spill. Her taste for many things was dulled and difficult to enjoy but she could tell the tea was flavorful in some way. She placed the cup back on the table before signing again. “I’m building a shop onto the back of the forge. I want it to have some color, some life, so I would love to get some fabric from you to make things like curtains and I usually only have little bits of fabric for boxes like this, but I’d love to purchase silk to cushion display cases and the like, as well.” Cat paused, so as not to speed up in her excitement, and took a deep breath. “When the time comes that I need all this, because it will be far more than what you would need to offset those,” she gestured to the box on the table. “would you be willing to sell it to me at a discount?”

Cat searched Ava for any sign, any hope that this might be acceptable, trying not to get lost in her eyes, or her hair...or her lips. She wondered what it would be like to kiss her. Nope. No that was not what she wondered. What? No. Nothing like that at all. Cat just decided that red was her new favorite color to be as her blush deepened even further.

[Ava Weaver]

Sunset, 20th Yaris, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

A shill’s worth of fabric. Ava watched Cat, trying to decide what she thought of the number; she didn’t think Cat was likely to exaggerate, not unless she had read everything that had happened this evening very wrongly indeed. To underestimate, though? That, Ava thought – that was a possibility, but she didn’t know. The other woman had seemed keen enough to bargain that day in the tea shop. What had changed?

Ava left the offer in silence a little while, calm and patient, thinking it over. She tried to imagine herself using the shears, the little sapphires glittering on the handles. All this, and she hadn’t really thought if she did want them.

There was a storm playing over Cat’s face; she had perked up, suddenly, and then sunk down again, her face dark and taught. She made that same noise of laughter she had before; Ava did not start or jerk, but watched her, as she began to sign once more. Cat came to the edge of it, Ava thought, of what was lying underneath all this, what was keeping her on end, and then she stopped – her hands went still – and she shook her head, as if she could dismiss it.

She was, Ava thought, signing more slowly now – carefully, and Ava could understand what she was saying, very well. Ava did not react to any of it, not aloud – did not make any effort to interrupt, although her gaze softened when Cat protested that she wasn’t stupid. Ava let her get it out, all this poison inside her – let it flow out into the open air, and she wondered how long it had been since Cat could say such things. And she wondered, too, what wounds lay beneath it all, because she did not think this was at the root of it.

Ava blinked, once, when Cat called her beautiful – when Cat said that, because of her beauty, she should be able to appreciate the beauty in other things. She could not quite bear to look at the other woman then, and she lowered her gaze to the box on the table. Nothing else on her face changed; she held it still, held that softness in her eyes, and that faint curve to her lips – not quite a smile, but something just a little warm.

Ava felt herself like the shears; a tool, taken and dipped in silver, dotted with sapphires – made beautiful. Was she more useful for it? She longed, suddenly, to go; to fling the box at Cat and shout at her and tell her to get out and leave her alone, to turn and go upstairs and scrub all the make up off her face. To curse – to scream.

Instead, she lifted her gaze back to Cat when she saw her hands begin to move again, and smiled back at her when she grinned – not quite a grin of her own, but something very close to it, as if to tell Cat that her joke had worked – that it had all worked –

The gray cat leapt from the smith’s lap, and Ava lowered her hand gently to the ground. He trotted over, and brushed his head against it, and she stroked the smooth fur of his head. Her hand did not tremble, and neither did she, and she was still smiling, watching Cat as she explained her plans for the forge. Ava’s smile softened a little – widened a little – and she nodded, encouragingly, as the smith described what she wanted for her shop.

“Not too much of one,” Ava said, eyes crinkling lightly at the corners. She felt remote, as if she were watching herself from a great distance, pulling her own strings. She straightened up, and her hands came together in her lap; the gray cat leapt up next to her and curled himself up comfortably on the upholstery. Ava let her gaze drift down to the box, then looked back up at Cat, at her blushing face.

“I can make that work,” Ava said, crisp, business-like. “We’ll have to see what sort of volume you want and which silk, when the time comes,” she let another little grin sweep over her face – the businesswomen, planning together. It was not so simple anymore; Ava felt tired, drained, and it seemed easier to compromise her principles than to keep arguing. She would pay for the shears in time; she would not let Cat burden her with the weight of this gift.

Gently, Ava stretched her hand forward and slid the box towards her side of the table, accepting it. She picked up her cup of tea again, cradling it in her hands, and took a small, noiseless sip, without even the faintest of slurping sounds. She set it back down, gently, and began to move her strings once more. “Would you still like to look at some fabrics? Your clothing is an investment too, the same as your shop – it’s another way for you to bring color and life into it.”

[Catriona Fraser]

on the 20th of Yaris, 2719 • sunset

At her joking about the discount, Cat grinned. She could finally sigh with relief, as though a great weight had been lifted off of her and yet, there was a greater weight still upon her shoulders. Ava had given in but in reality they were at an impasse. Cat still believed she had only done her best and Ava still believed that she was somehow indebted by it.

Ava was back to her regular genial demeanor, talking of how Cat should invest in her wardrobe. But Cat could pay attention, could look past her own nose for a moment and see the weariness in her eyes. How easy it was to pretend that Ava Weaver had everything figured out and had no stress of her own! Was that what it meant to have it all figured out? To hide your woes behind smiles and sweet nothings and hope that nobody noticed how tired you were?

And now Cat wasn’t sure how to respond. Because part of her wanted to take Ava by the shoulders and let her know that she didn’t have to put on a face. She could be angry with her. It was her mistake after all. And the other part wanted to walk out of here and never return. And even still, another part wanted to wrap Ava in a hug and tell her she just wanted a friend. Funny enough, even if Ava hadn’t been the most beautiful thing in the world, just the thought that she might be a friend would have been enough to make her go overboard with her commission. Another friend she’d failed at making. It wasn’t a new experience. She was absolutely awful at making friends! She’d tried a few times before and no one had come out actually hating her so that was good, but Cat was often too wrapped up in her own sadness and anxiety to even begin to understand what it meant to have, much less be, a good friend. So here she was yet again.

Cat wanted to pretend that everything was fine and shop around Ava’s store for pretties to adorn herself with but she, too, was exhausted. Communicating was hard enough. Arguing was a much higher caliber of communicating and Cat had not been prepared to do so. She was smiling, to be sure, but she was also visibly slumped in her chair, having drunk all the tea in her cup and was now just considering the most polite way to take her leave.

She signed slowly again, “I would love to buy fabric for clothing. I need something light but durable, something comfortable I can work in outside in the heat.”

She was all smiles as she signed, certain that Ava could see right through her. She would take Isolda Greer slapping her a million times before facing this situation ever again.

[Ava Weaver]

Sunset, 20th Yaris, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

Cat’s hands were saying that she needed something light weight, something to work outside in. Her face said that she, too, was upset, tucked beneath the credible attempt at a smile. Her shoulders confirmed it, her posture against the chair not one of relaxation so much as hiding, of drawing back away.

Ava held as still as she could manage against the urge to tremble. She had tried, she told herself; she had done her best to come to an agreement with Cat that would leave them both happy and comfortable. She supposed she had not succeeded; she supposed it was not really the acceptance of the shears that Cat wanted from her.

Ava wanted to smooth it over; she wanted it to be fine. It felt like an odd sort of failure for Cat to leave upset, and yet she did not know if she had the strength to laugh and talk and make easy for such a purpose. If she had needed to - yes. She could have ground herself down against it, slowly, shaved away at her edges for another smile, another pleasant laugh. If she had needed to -

She was tired, Ava thought. Terribly tired, and a visit she had looked forward to had become something they were both dreading. She thought she had kept it entirely from her face, but Cat’s response made it clear that she had not, and Ava was sorry for it. It would, she thought, have been better if she had succeeded. She should have found a way. She would need to be more careful. She could not start to slip, not now, not when so much was at stake.

She could still smooth it over. She could smile and explain that she was tired - that it had been a long day. She could find a little corner of herself she did not mind bearing, and expose something deeper. She could offer Cat more reassurances, could extend an offer of friendship, could bluff and smile and laugh, and blink the tiredness from her eyes.

No, Ava thought; no. If Cat wanted something else from her - whether it was to talk more about the shears or permission to leave or something else entirely - she would need to ask. The question she had responded to had been one on fabric; for once, Ava did not let herself look lower, look deeper, but answered what she had been given.

“Linen, I think,” Ava said, looking at Cat. “Cotton doesn’t breathe quite as well. It would be more versatile, but I think you should prioritize staying cool in the hotter seasons, and you can always wear something which you can use year after year.” She lifted the cup again, took another small sip, and set it down.

Colors, she thought, absently. Light would be best for the heat, but she imagined it was sooty work, even with an apron. But, then, if Cat thought she would swear - darker fabrics showed it less. Better to discuss it frankly. She thought Cat the sort to favor utility over fashion; lighter colors would be more comfortable while still being nicer to wear. Ava would have chosen darker, of course, but she tried not to impose on others that way. There was nothing wrong with wanting to be comfortable. A lighter brown might be a nice compromise - not too warm in the heat, not too liable to show stains from door or sweat. Or would Cat simply be both messier and warmer than needed?

Sometimes, Ava thought, one could compromise. Sometimes it seemed to her merely the worst of both choices combined.

[Catriona Fraser]

on the 20th of Yaris, 2719 • sunset

Cat nodded agreeably at the advice given her. “Linen sounds perfect.” She signed brightly. “I’ll let you pick colors, lighter colors are probably best. I’m not so concerned about looks as I am comfort, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate color!”

She stood with a smile, and then something inside her broke. How long had she held up her little facade? A few minutes at best? See, the thing was, Cat didn’t know what was best. Was it maturity that allowed someone to hide all their worst parts? Was it childish to simply be out in the open with it? There was the issue. This was probably more conversation than she’d had in years. So which to do? Smile and walk out of here, both of them knowing full well that it was all fake? Or throw herself out there with the possibility of being run over? She pursed her lips and sighed heavily, signing again.

“I really am sorry. I think that...I have some learning to do when it comes to the lines between business and friendship. I really did...want to be your friend. And to be honest I’m not even really sure what that means?“

Cat stepped closer to her, trying to make herself more easily understood with the precision of her signs and in her facial expressions.

“I know that business smile. The one we wear to get through a day’s work, to sell to the customer because that is how one makes a sale.”

Now she was standing directly in front of Ava, looking at her with a pained expression. “Forgive me for being myself. I do not have the mask. I must have left it at the forge.” She cracked a small smile at her joke but the pain was still there. “Please do not feel like you need to put on one for me. You don’t have to sell me. I am not important. I am...” she paused but her hands sort of flowed into the next word without consideration, “...nothing.” And there it was. Ava could be angry with her, could be hurt by her and could let her know as much. Cat would take it. If she knew anything it was that she was nothing more than an extension of the forge. A conduit of creativity perhaps but nothing more. And when she tried to be, people got hurt. She got hurt.

She smoothed out her dress nervously. She’d been without friends for her most of her life in Vienda. If that didn’t change she was certain she’d survive. The eagerness was gone now, the desperation replaced by something much more comfortable: resignation.

“Perhaps this meeting should have been better prepared for. We are both exhausted and I should have sent word before popping up at your door. As I said, I have much to learn.”

She was getting closer to the door as she signed, preparing to take her leave of the shop but of course having at least enough manners not to just throw words at Ava and walk out.

[Ava Weaver]

Sunset, 20th Yaris, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

Cat had responded to the question about colors, and Ava nodded. Lighter colors, then, she thought, tiredly. A range, perhaps; pale grays and browns would be comfortable and easy to work in, but she thought it best to offer Cat one or two suggestions of something more vivid. A more russet brown, perhaps; something with a little red in it. Or else more of an olive green, one of the ones closer to gray than a true green; something which would not show the soot too much, but which would be pleasing against her skin, which would liven her up with a little color.

Ava hadn’t realized she was looking down, but she looked up again when Cat began to sign once more. She felt so terribly tired; it was hard to keep herself from trembling when Cat began to sign about business and friendship, when she drew closer once more – almost repeating herself, finding new words to say the same things with her hands, expression tightening steadily. There was a moment, before Cat called herself nothing, when Ava could see the pain aching through every inch of her thin, scarred face.

On that word, Cat began to draw away; she had been coming closer to Ava, and then she was edging back away towards the door. Nothing, Cat called herself, and she began to leave.

“Wait,” Ava said, softly. Her mask was intact – her face had stayed smooth and unchanging throughout Cat’s words. She felt tired; she felt so tired she could have screamed. She wondered if Cat understood that it was worse for her without the mask; she wondered if Cat understood what it was that she was asking. It wasn’t so simple, after all these years; there was no Ava left beneath, waiting behind the smiles. It had grown into her, that mask, and Ava had accepted it.

“Just…” Ava closed her eyes for a long moment, and then opened them again, because she didn’t want to miss Cat’s signing. She didn’t know what to say; she had liked Cat, when they first met a few days ago. She had worried about her, and wanted her to come visit; but the weight of what Cat wanted from her was a heavy one to bear, and Ava felt herself creaking beneath the strain.

She had born worse, Ava reminded herself, and would again. Cat meant well; there was no harm in her, that was obvious enough. She was eager, and more than a little awkward, but what she wanted was a friend.

“It was a long day,” Ava said, finding a smile. This one was wry, and a little crooked – not shopkeeper smooth, but friendly and warm all the same. She would not – could not – apologize for how she had responded to the shears Cat had worked so hard on. But she didn’t think she needed to, not to make things right between them.

“I’d like to be your friend, Cat,” Ava said, gently. You’re not nothing, she didn’t say, but it was in her – in every inch of her, in the way she leaned forward again – rose, then, standing at the couch and looking at the other woman – took one step forward, finally, just a little closer to her. “Maybe I’m not sure what that means either, but I don’t mind trying to find out together. Would that be all right?”

Ava meant it; she meant every word. She knew already it might not be easy; she had a sense of some of what there was to overcome between them, and she had known it from the first spot of red on Cat’s cheeks. But she liked her, this strange, awkward, vulnerable girl, strong in some places and terribly soft in others, bending beneath the weight of all those galdori, proud of her forge and her work and oddly ashamed of herself. Tiring though it might be, she didn’t want to drive Cat away. It was, Ava thought, worth a little effort; she was worth a little strain.

[Catriona Fraser]

on the 20th of Yaris, 2719 • sunset

Cat’s face was hard, and as Ava stepped closer, bade her to wait, she kept her eyes on the ground, becoming fascinated with the minuscule threads on the floor, perhaps dropped from freshly cut fabrics. She tried hard to focus on them, unable to bring herself to look at Ava any further.

At her question, Cat nodded, once, briefly. Yes that would have to be alright. Because Cat could not take back the last hour if she tried. She could not pretend she hadn’t made a perfect fool of herself and she also could not tell Ava to just forget it. By now she was clinging to the handle of the door for dear life, as though she knew it was her escape from this egregious error she’d made.

She couldn’t let go of the door to sign anything and frankly she couldn’t think of anything more to say that she hadn’t said already ten different ways. Thankfully, both greetings and farewells used the same one handed wave sign, which Cat employed in a very small manner. One wave and then she was out of the door, making her way to the main door and pushing through it out onto the street. After all, running away was what she was best at.

The sky was dark now and for a moment, Cat could breathe. She took a direct route, wasting no time in escaping the dives. She passed the alleys, now looking far more sinister than they had even during sunset, without so much as lifting her head. Once she reached another intersection, Cat looked around, determinedly. If she kept going straight in this main road it would take her back into Uptown and back to her forge. She didn’t want to go back to the forge, to lay in her cot and lie awake knowing she’d never get to sleep. And with nothing more than a few shills and tallies on her person, she knew exactly what to do instead. She turned left.

The same tavern she’d passed before was bustling now, and the doors stood open letting a lively glow spill out onto the cobblestone street. This was her destination. It looked like the upper story might house a few rooms for rent and Cat had no intention of going home tonight. She’d maybe visited a bar a few times in the past years and she certainly wasn’t a hardened consumer of spirits, but nonetheless, she made her way inside, weaving through the drunks and the gamblers and the waitresses to find herself a seat at the bar. A quickly written note to the barkeep who nodded his understanding, and she was well on her way to forgetting this ever happened.

[Ava Weaver]

Sunset, 20th Yaris, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

Cat nodded. Ava didn’t step any closer, holding still in the middle of the room, watching her. Cat waved, then, and fled – tore open the door and rushing over the shop outside. Ava heard the bell tinkle and the door to the main shop close behind her, and she was alone.

The gray cat had shifted promptly onto the warmth that Ava had left behind on the couch, curled up where she had been sitting; his head lifted to regard the open door to the shop, and that was enough to spur Ava forward. She stepped out into the main shop and closed the door to the back room behind her, and sank back against it, shaking.

Blue linen still sat on the counter, half-cut. Ava looked at it, and then away, and crossed the shop to the front door and locked it shut behind Cat. She was breathing unevenly, raggedly, and she sniffled, softly. She paused at the counter again, and then left it behind, all those fabrics and orders still unprocessed, and fled back into the back room, shutting the door behind herself against the probing sniff of the little gray cat.

Ava left the cups behind too, the dregs of tea still in them, the white ceramic teapot no longer steaming into the night air. She left the shears behind, sitting in the little box with the smithy logo emblazoned on the top, sitting on the table in the back room. The only thing she took with her was the little gray cat; she scooped him against his protestations, and cradled him against herself and carried him up the stairs in a terrible affront to his dignity, and set him down inside the little bedroom.

Ava shut the hatch behind them both, and locked away the shop and the back room and all the rest of it – drew a line between herself and everything she had worked so hard for, at least for the night. She could not manage any more of it, not just now; it was not the mask, as Cat had called it, but how much that mask meant.

Ava didn’t try to fight the tears; they rolled steadily down her cheeks, and she sat carefully at her mirror, and took off her makeup with a warm, wet cloth and soap, carefully washing her face clean in the mirror. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she worked, and she blinked them away, feeling the sting of soap threatening at her eyes. She undressed, loosening the brown band at the waist of the dress and folding it carefully away, reaching back in all the necessary contortions to undo a dress herself that should have needed a maid’s help.

Ava did not bother with a dressing gown over her nightgown – it was hot, anyway – and, finally, face clean, with no interest in food, with the light still lingering outside through the window – she crawled into bed between her sheets and let herself weep. She cried until she was worn and wrung out, twisted and drained dry, and she thought, then, that she might sleep, or at least try to.

But there was a small warm body tucked into the curve of her own, and a gentle purring that echoed through her stomach and all the rest of her. Ava reached for the gray cat, and stroked his fur with one hand, lightly. He purred all the more enthusiastically, twisting around to wash her hand with his little rough tongue. Ava laughed, weakly and wetly, and sighed, and sat up, slowly. She sighed again, and let herself rest there a little while, petting his fur with one hand.

And then she rose, and she set a cold washcloth on her face a few moments, to ease the puffiness in her eyes – and she made herself a piece of toasted bread and an egg, and ate it while the gray cat lapped at his milk, and she felt better. And Ava pulled on the lovely silk robe that the cat had long since ruined with the prickle of his claws, and tucked her hair over the collar, and made her way back downstairs to finish her work – to clean up the leftover tea things – to bring herself back together, slowly and steadily, one more time.