Welcome to Gaia! ::

(Sorry about the lateness, Elflanders -- technical difficulties.)

To those at the instrument seller's table:

Everyone else had started listening to his song with horror. Everyone, that is, except the instrument seller -- the moment Scheelite had started singing he had eagerly whipped a glass jar from somewhere around his windy person, holding it out as though it could somehow capture the noise.

"No!"

Something black swooped down from the sky. It was a raven. As Schee reached she who holds her tongue! it squawked and flapped at the seller's face, but the windy personage hastily corked the bottle.

"You ruined my sale!" it said. "A full third of that leaked out!"

"You dolt," the raven snapped contemptuously at Scheelite. "Hasn't anyone told you never to sell anything that comes in or out of your body?" (Possibly not.) "The waste."

Despite a third having leaked, the seller ignored the other offers of Aphrodite's and Grendel's earrings and Grendel's collar in favour of handing Scheelite over the canterbury bells. Uninterested? "A bargain, of course," he said, "for you, sir -- I undersold terribly -- no returns, refunds, trades or take-backs." And at that he started to pack away the flutes and the bells and the pipes, rolling them up in the mouldering cloth before their very eyes. "That's me done for today. Goodbye and goodnight, fairless folk, and fare thee well on the hunt. I'll be gone before it ends, for horse's hooves are not my friends."

He seemed in a greedy, desperate hurry to go, but he looked up at Azzo one last time as he started packing his goods inside his body. "No, no," he said. "You have it all wrong. I am a genius, but the guard is no fool. The saboteur is not fit for what happens to the quarry at the end of the Hunt. Take it from me -- you should just leave with your ignorance and heart intact. So will I."

Everything was finally folded down into nothingness, whistling a merry tune before popping out of existence entirely. He seemed in a greedy, desperate hurry to go.

"Idiot," said the raven.

*

Scheelite has the Canterbury Bells.

Thankfully, the raven interrupted the full deal, but he is now cursed. His player must roll a 1-10 sided die before each post. 1-6 will mean Scheelite cannot speak except in an incoherent, discordant squawking. 7-10 means he can only communicate in song lyrics.

We're sorry. We're sorry to everyone else.

*


To Rosalind:

The guard had stared at her in confusion. For a moment, it seemed that she had given him the order which frazzled his logic circuits, that perhaps he might explode in fragments of indecision and bark, but then he promptly dug into one of his pouches until he came up with a piece of paper. "Durned if that don't makes sense to me," he said. "Here you go."



"Coins and a thing," rumbled the guard, "or two things and no coins. Rules is rules. You lost so much, this be my tax."

What does Rosalind take?

*

The windy seller has left the Mouth. The guard remains. Scheelite, Rosalind, Aphrodite and Grendel are at the Mouth. The guard is here.

The Straggling Marketplace consists of the mouth, the east stalls and the west stalls. You are at the Mouth. You may go in two directions.

*

For Eos:

The tailor perked up at the company. "Hi, sweet thing," he said, though previously it had been androgynously pretty and could have been either gender. It was also all disconcerting considering that he looked eight. He had delightful crisp, butternut-coloured curls and big blue eyes, and both of his cheeks had dimples in them. He was wearing a sort of belted robe made of cobwebby green stuff, soft and light as a feather.

"Oh, you're blind, aren't you? Well! Well! Maybe I'm the real fairy." He laughed, though it wasn't precisely clear what at. "Look, because you're cute, I'll give you a hint -- but how about a kiss, miss?"

Eos has been offered a kiss for a hint. She still might examine a stall, tell a seller something, give the seller something, buy if she has the wherewithal or ask a question.

*

Selenite and Eos are at the East side of the market.

It was...a boy. Could fairies be boys?

A tiny bit freaked when the small butterfly child began flirting with her, Eos masked her red cheeks by turning to the clothes on his stall, suddenly very interested. They were all beautiful, and so finely made. Glancing up to the boy she allowed him to have a smile, though that soon turned into a frown as he laughed. Was he laughing at her?

"Blind? Why?" she asked the child, confused. Was she missing something here? He started joking that he was the real fairy, but Eos wasn't so sure, beginning to feel a little like the butt of a joke. She was honestly flattered when he called her cute, and began to smile at mention of a hint - but the kiss brought her frown back again.

He seemed sweet enough - almost identical to her younger cousins, who were the same age as he looked. They were always wanting kisses from her, and she was fairly sure one of them fancied her. Azzo's warnings played in her head - but this was only a child, surely he couldn't be that bad? But pillows seemed like the safest thing of all, and she'd already learnt that wasn't the case.

"I'll tell you what," she began to tell the child, "You can have a kiss on the cheek, and my tiara if you tell me everything you know."

It seemed a fair deal - she reached up to gently remove her delicate tiara, the stars swinging merrily as she showed it to him. Small children liked stars, right?

Selenite was out of hearing when Scheelite's bargain was struck and partially denied. She missed the warning, though she was already wary. That wasn't what she was thinking about, however, as she looked over the stalls here with a slightly arched eyebrow. This was like a Ren Faire, but real. Or as real as anything was, here; that was certainly up for debate.

Her blue eyes wandered over the stalls, making note of the sellers and their wares. Eos was talking to what appeared to be a fairy, selling clothes. Was that the quote un quote real fairy? What did this real fairy look like, anyway? Maybe someone around here would know. The senshi had the tailor covered, so Selenite looked around again before stalking over to the alchemy sellers, looking their wares over curiously. She wouldn't ask them anything about the real fairy just yet, wanting to wait and see what they would offer her first.

Scheelite simply gave her a wide grin for a moment. HE had done awesome! HE had earned these flowers (which had to be important right? They just had to be!) all by himself and she couldn't make any claim on them. Which mean they were his and his alone and as if to prove this he carefully hooked them off the loop on his side that usually contained a string of brightly glowing glowsticks. Now it contained one dead glowstick and the flowers which rang softly at his movements.

Now, to tell her why he was here! The boy opened his mouth to inform her of just how awesome he was and how they would be going to the east as soon as she was done with the guard and...

...Well all that came out was a squawk. And then another right after that, this time a rather startled one.

God damnit.

Azzo was completely amused by this. He was snickering by now while waiting on the tree. "I'm sorry..."

"This is just too funny, I'm sorry Schee. Rosalind, he's trying to tell you, I think, he got the bells from the windy seller." Azzo grinned, he was thoroughly amaused "Isn't that right Schee?"

He paused and debated on telling Rosalind that the raven had to stop the seller from taking it ALL the way.

Rosalind stared at Scheelite as if she had seen him naked. It was that awkward. There was silence on her part for the better half of a minute, to which she finally said, "... what are you talking about?" She sighed and faced her back to Scheelite. She would be darned to take his hand.

"Need I remind you that the last time I trusted, as much as I could have, the likes of the Negaverse, I was dropped in a pile of mud?" She couldn't let it go. She was such a woman. "No, no, take your hand and... And just, just get it away. I've seen enough." Rosalind really wanted to say 'and shove it' (that hot mess kept on getting closer to escaping) but felt her tongue would have been tainted if she would have.

"I am collecting some things I lost," she told Scheelite, "so if you would politely go stand next to your best friend, that would be wonderful and a cup of tea." She waved her hand in the direction of Azzo and continued to have her back facing him. Rosalind didn't even turn her head once.

"He seems to make some sense out of your nonsense, so why don't you go talk to him? When you feel the need to talk like a human being, maybe I'll listen."

Despite the previous bickering between the two of them, Aphrodite couldn't have agreed more with Grendel's decision and made her way towards the east stalls as well.

She'd pitied Scheelite, as the seller had stolen his voice, but the pity had soon replaced itself with loathing as the boy continued to try to talk - or squawk - instead of being a good little Negaverser and shutting the hell up.

Perhaps the raven saving his voice hadn't been such a noble gesture, after all.