[Open] Business is Pleasure

[Benton Borteillo]

15 Dentis 2719 - Late Afternoon

It was all going better than he expected, he'd admit. He had gotten a good smile from this woman at the comparison of their glowing foreign roots and threads beneath the drab grey sky. Of course, it was not enough to let his guard down, gods, no. He, if anyone, should know what smiles held beneath them. He practically smiled and lied for a living, afterall.

"I-it's okay," Pleasance sniffled from the carriage, and Benton nearly rolled his eyes at the ugly show of it all as she let her own eyes dampen and faked a few sniffles. Young, rich gollies, always with the show of crying and victimization. Woe is me! Benton thought to himself, yet, underneath the lie of who he truly was to Pleasance and who he was now pretending to be to their visitor, he leaned gently back into the carriage, eyes soft with some dug up pity.

"Do take all the time you need to compose yourself, Miss Pleasance." he called to her in a reassuring tone, making sure to identify her clearly. It was far less likely that a man forcing her into his carriage would ask her name, he assured himself. "I realize it is quite an emotional moment for you, but, if you're up to it, feel free to join us," he added, half to ease his urge to call out her fit of drama and tears. He left the door open wide and, without needing to step around his small new visitor, he eased his long legs from the top step to the ground in one fluid motion. The door's ajar state and the invitation to join were to, again, ease any idea that Pleasance was trapped there. The door was wide open, he had stepped away from it, and he had openly invited her out into a public space. He was simultaneously removing himself from the situation as he acted. thinking of what questions and qualms he would have if he had happened upon this. Is she free to leave? Yes.

"Tea salesman..." he allowed the word to sizzle on his tongue as he considered what the Mugrobi woman had identified him as. "It is not the words I would choose, but, yes, I am, in part, a tea salesman." On the ground, now, he stepped over to his display of bottles, tracing his fingers over the bottles thoughtfully as Benton chose Roderick's words. "As humans, we have no access to the high-class education or mystical conversation that allows galdori like you and Miss Pleasance to, perhaps, heal wounds, to cure sicknesses, to ease pains both through your powers otherworldly nature and books." At which, he turned to the Mugrobi woman. He was not lying, at least not as he spoke. The words came easy, naturally to him, without his third-person view of self questioning his words and motives. He learned young of herbal medicines and remedies- his own mother had studied plants and made home remedies more available to their friends and family members in Bastia as she travelled, collected, experimented to find something in her own power that could do what galdori medicine could.

"We live a hard life without superior medicine like yours. These teas, potions, oils- they help us to continue to work and live through headaches- eased by spearmint oil teas- stomach illness- by a brew of lemon balm and peppermint leaves- shaking coughs - that's licorice tea- and sleepless nights- lavender oil, you may know," he rattled off the home remedies he knew so well from childhood, some of them the oils and tea bags he sold, pulling a bottle of lavender oil, labeled for the aid of sleep to fussy babies. He placed it back on the shelf after carefully turning the label to face out.

"You must understand- I am just trying to help people live better. That's all." And perhaps Roderick Godfrey, the amalgamation of his mother's maiden name and his own surname by birth, the face made from what his parents had long ago wanted him to be, did want this. He wanted to sell medicine and help the humans that succumbed to pain and suppression and disease around him, but that was not Benton. He was too far gone in this business, instead choosing to sell addictive drugs among his oils and teas to ease pain and ease coins away from a wallet. He was here only to sell overstock, to find new contacts.

"Would you like to buy some tea then, Miss?" he asked, pulling himself gingerly from his moment of passion. He smiled, turning to look back over his shoulder at her. "I have a few wonderful summer blends that can warm you like a Mugrobi sunset if you'd like a sample- first cup free of charge."

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 15 Dentis, 2719
Kingsway Market, Vienda

The girl in the carriage was sniffling quietly into a handkerchief; Nkemi looked at her, wide-eyed, and then turned back to Ruderik. He called inside, telling her to take the time she needed to compose herself, and naming her Miss Plesans. Nkemi was not sure how this being an emotional moment fit with the discussion of business before, but she was starting to wonder how good her instincts had been. Perhaps she had misheard them? Perhaps there had been nothing strange about Ruderik helping Plesans into the back of the wagon after all.

Nkemi glanced curiously into the carriage at Plesans – there were, she noticed, quite a few boxes and bottles inside – and then followed Ruderik over to the display of brightly colored bottles. He ran his fingers over them, producing a soft chime; Nkemi could see a little bit of liquid swishing back and forth inside, very similar in each. She did not look back at the inside of the cart again; she wondered if the young girl with her sniffling handkerchief would come and join them.

“Gods-given,” Nkemi said with a polite smile, when Ruderik called the connection to the mona otherworldly. She smiled up at him, very far up. Her field was indectal in the air around them, soft clairvoyant mona mixed with more vivid, warmer static ones swirling softly within a few feet of her.

Ruderik’s explanation sent something tingling down Nkemi’s spine, all the same. She knew something of herbal medicines; many galdori, she might have told him, did. One did not rely on the mona to cure every minor ailment; there were many which they could not tackle. It was not respectful, to lean on them so. She had followed, she thought, as he explained the products he offered, all the way until he had suggested what it was he should understand.

What is it, Nkemi wondered, I might think you are doing instead?

“Such remedies are very helpful,” Nkemi agreed with a bright smile, nodding enthusiastically. “I would be very glad to try some tea. Thank you.” She paused, tilting her head a little to the side. “You mentioned lavender oil,” Nkemi said, looking back up at the bottles hanging from the side of the cart. “It is only – I have had some trouble sleeping of late.” It was not the noise, Nkemi thought, though the Seventen barracks were busy at night as people came in and out; it was the cold. She had three blankets, now, heaped on her small cot, but she still found herself woken during the night with her hand or nose very cold, or even shivering if one of the blankets had shifted too much.

“Do you think – perhaps – I would find the lavender helpful?” Nkemi asked, wide-eyed. “I know it has a very pleasant smell, but does it have much effect?”

[Pleasance Hedgethorne]

Pleasance nodded to Roderick, and began dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. Once he'd left the wagon, and led the Mugrobian woman to the front of the display, she dropped the act. Blinking and then dabbing away the fake tears, she rubbed her eyes a little to redden them, giving the impression of one who'd been crying. Then, smoothing her skirt, she rose from the bench, and headed out of the wagon, toward the front of the displays where the two were having words.

She wondered if she should add anything to the man's act, but decided against it. Her own ruse hadn't been of much use by all appearances, and Roderick seemed to be handling himself well enough so far. Pleasance decided to hold herself in reserve until such a time as her input was needed to salvage anything. But she was cultivating confidence in the Doctor's ability to run distractions.

So the young woman just leaned against the carriage, a slight pout on her features so as not to alarm the Mugrobian to her previous ruse. She was still upset about her nonexistent aunt, afterall.

When the huckster druggist went on about Galdori healing, she had to stifle a snort of derision, which she disguised as a hiccup. But really, she couldn't expect a human to know better. Magic was a vastly complex science. Even the common cold took massively intricate castings to treat, let alone cure. He made it sound as if their abilities were ubiquitous among her kind as if they were simple and commonplace. But let him think that if indeed he did. There were worse things to be than being overestimated.

She sighed as she leaned against the wagon, her arms crossed in a pensive posture. She'd merely wait for them to conclude their transaction until Roderick was ready to talk business again.

[Benton Borteillo]

15 Dentis 2719 - Late Afternoon

Benton tilted his head idly to Pleasance as she announced her emergence from the wagon with the separated clunking of her boots and the rhythmic sniffling of her acting nose as she descended the steps behind the Mugrobian woman, the skin around her pale eyes fading into an artificial rubicund of her played emotion. She was quite the actor, he thought, and, should she still be interested in business it could come in terribly handy as long as she kept that gods-damned sniffling and going on away from him. Yet, no business could be conducted until this business of tea and lavender oil was brushed away to send this kind woman on her way before she got wrapped up into the ugly something that was Benton’s business.

“Good of you to join us, Miss Pleasance,” he greeted the girl quietly, nearly choking on the sarcasm he so dearly needed to hold back. This is not Old Rose, he reminded himself. These gollies won’t just beat you up.

The Mubgrobian woman in question almost made him wish he was truly just a good businessman. She was patiently curious, far different from the customers he was used to his concerns attracting, whether skittish Viendan gollies afraid of Old Rose and its eyes, violently drunk humans who took joy in the pain of every other man spoke the tomes of only personal gods, a Bad Brother with a club’s spiked smack for a handshaking greeting, or, his least favorite, children roped into the business and addiction just as he and his brother had been so many years ago. It was a simple wish, to be a true salesman, but, unfortunately, it was not his reality.

“Lavender, lavender, lavender,” he tittered to himself as he tapped his fingers lightly on his chin, subconsciously longing for the comfortable bristling of yesterday’s stubble to cover up the lies that leaked from his skin like a summer sweat. “As an oil, it can be dropped over pillows and blankets, as a tea, sipped before bed time.” He motioned the squeezing of a dripping pipette in a sweep in front of his body as he spoke.

“Wonderful for calming stressed nerves and warding away sleeplessness, though, I will warn you, if it is a pesky streetlamp in your window or a noisy neighbor above your bed and room or an otherwise external distraction from sleep- eh, there is not a lot lavender will do for you. It is not strong enough to banish such from a sleepy head,” he added quickly, letting the quick knowledge of Roderick’s character spin out of his mouth and onto the square like a child’s top- utterly useless for anything but swirling time away.

“Then you may want to try a morphine solution, depending on what it is you need, or-” he looked up at her, smirking only a little, “Or maybe a little pest control for neighbors, streetlamps, and the rest, no? Perhaps, if I prove useless in medicine, I can take up such pest control.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 15 Dentis, 2719
Kingsway Market, Vienda

Plesans had come out of the back of the wagon, pouting. She leaned against the wall of it, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were just a little red at the edges, and her nose too; Nkemi did not doubt that she had been crying. She offered a friendly smile to the other, considerably taller galdor. The girl was, as Nkemi had thought, young; she was not sure if she was the age of a student or not. Nkemi was very good at telling the ages of other Mugrobi, but it was not so easy with Anaxi.

Ruderik had greeted the girl, and then he had gone back into the question of lavender and sleeplessness.

Nkemi looked up at the bottles clanking softly on the outside edge of the wagon, and then back to Ruderik with a bright smile. “A tea of lavender?” She repeated, wide-eyed. She had not heard of such a thing; lavender was popular in Thul Ka, but she knew it mostly as the flowers which her aunt tucked into little cloth satchets, and put into dark drawers, to keep clothing from growing musty in the damp seasons. The idea of dripping oil onto a pillow struck Nkemi as very odd, but she supposed it could be some strange Anaxi human custom with which she was unfamiliar.

Nkemi nodded ruefully along with Ruderik’s explanation, her eyes still wide. She giggled at his joke about pest control, smiling at him. “Oh, I see,” Nkemi nodded a little more. “I have tried morphine,” she said. She had; it was a sedative, and grown in the islands. It was available in Thul Ka, widely, and popular among galdori and even prefects; it was given even to students, if they became overexcited or needed rest or other distractions for whatever reason. That was not when Nkemi had taken it.

“But unfortunately, it did not work very well," Nkemi lowered her gaze, for a moment, chewing on her lip. She had not liked morphine. It had left her strange and floating; it had left her anxious. It had unlocked doors of memory she would have preferred shut; she had known the smell from childhood, from a bottle with a small dropper that her mother kept. She had taken it only the once, and, the next time, said quietly that she thought perhaps it was as well to be unsettled, and that she would do her best to rest.

“Perhaps – do you have any other suggestion?” Nkemi asked, hopefully. She lifted her bright gaze up to Ruderik, and smiled. There was only so far she could press, but she was hopeful still. Everything about his address to Miss Plesans and the demeanor of the young girl set her instincts alight; she was not willing to give up just yet, and leave with some tea. “I do not much care for being tired,” Nkemi confessed, smiling.

[Pleasance Hedgethorne]

"Good of you to join us, Miss Pleasance," The Candyman said, and Pleasance could've sworn she'd detected a hint of insincerity, but perhaps that was to be understood as nerves of having their business so rudely interrupted.

By then, she'd recovered from her fit of false tears, and was keeping her eyes open. The redness in her eyes was still evidenced, but she appeared to have calmed down. "Thank you, Doctor Roderick." She smiled, she could wait to see about her 'aunt's cure'.

As she listened to him continue to pitch other products, She couldn't suppress the impatience in her field, as close as she kept its radius mantled around her shoulders. She didn't want to give away her feelings to the Mugrobi Galor woman, whatever her purpose here might be.

It seemed he was complicating things, to Pleasance, yet as he continued to pitch a wider net, she thought she began to see what he was driving at. Although, that probably couldn't be it. Was he trying to overwhelm her with a multitude of options in order to drive her off? Purposefully botching a sale job? She wasn't sure, but she wouldn't have been convinced by the way he was skipping all over the place, were she in the Mugrobi woman's position.

Pleasance turned her smiling gaze to the Mugrobi as Roderick went about his work. After allowing for her field to contract a bit, she reached out with a sensation of calm hope and relief. Emotions she thought would crop up if a concerned niece really were looking for a cure for her aunt's illness (who was long dead, by the way).

Still, she said little else, letting Roderick take the lead in this. She knew little enough about the party favors he was offering, that she couldn't very well venture an opinion here, so she left it to his capable hands.

Instead, she took a moment to daydream about the things she could do with a shipment of pills, distributed to select classmates. Not only could they be used as party favors, but they could also winnow out those students with a more liberal mindset, setting them back academically if not ensuring their expulsion. The acquisition of drugs was key to Pleasance's intended approach to remove these troublesome classmates.

Pleasance calmed the jitters that made her want to tap her foot. Instead, she planted it firmly on the ground, refusing to let her impatience show, though it built with every moment they wasted with this customer.

Pleasance had some thoughts to what she should do, if Roderick didn't close the deal now, Perhaps he isn't the candyman I'm looking for. Doubtless there are suppliers within Brunnhold itself. But then, it's more useful to have someone with no connections to that school. The better not to trace their involvement back to me.