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 Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 3:34 pm
 Palisade wasn’t Lytka’s favorite place by a long shot, but the gypsy girl had to make money somehow. Her absentminded mother certainly didn’t do much to keep them in food and clothing besides knit her perpetually half-finished and hole-ridden projects, which Lyt did her best to patch and finish before dragging to market, along with various other items of interest she had managed to scrounge up – aided now by the blue-eyed yearling deer that trotted beside her. ”This seems as good a place as any,” the blonde-haired gypsy child remarked to her beast, stopping in front of one of the small corners of the marketplace that hadn’t already been claimed by some other vendor. The yearling, already in its youth larger than a pony, snorted as if in response. Lytka whipped a many-colored blanket off of the beast’s back and laid it on the ground in front of them. The deer promptly walked over to a corner of the blanket and lay down, closing its uncannily blue eyes. ”Lazy-bones,” the girl snorted, rolling her eyes and settling down on her knees beside the creature to remove her wares from the many sacs slung across its back. The deer twitched an ear and ignored her.
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Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:32 pm
Dr. Hart had been walking for a while, visiting some of his favorite neighborhoods of Palisade, watching the people and goings on, and trying to forget about the wretched day he'd had. Really, how had he gone from being one of the foremost names in medicine to tending to the minor complaints of the rich and idle? It was all that damn reporter's fault...
But that was neither here nor now, because Jonas was coming upon one of his favorite things in Palisade--the market. It was one of the first things he saw when he got off his uncle's small rickety river boat and entered the city for the first time, leaving his home for a valuable apprenticeship in the city. And the hustle and bustle was still the same; all sorts mixed in the market, rich, poor, performers, sellers, there was shouting, laughter and song here. He scanned the crowd, deciding where to start. Certainly not the fish-monger to his left, the man had once sold him eel unfit for the mangiest stray. Perhaps the weaver, he needed new cloth for bandages... But just as he was about to visit the old woman something else caught his eye.
In one of the less busy corners of the market, a young girl sat on a blanket, some animal with curious markings curled beside her. She dressed and behaved as a gypsy, but had blond hair and freckles. There were no others with her, and her wares were meager and random, a pocket watch here, a sow's-ear purse there, and many, many, knitted...things. His heart softened for the girl, left to her own resources, perhaps an orphan, her face was dirty and her outrageous poof of hair was littered with twigs and other debris. He would start here. Perhaps he could help her by purchasing something...
"Good day Miss," Jonas greeted the urchin as he approached, "what have you for sale today?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:13 am
For a few moments, Lytka just stared at the man who had approached her, eyes slightly narrowed, as if she could learn something important about him the longer she looked. She tried not to snort at his incongruous use of the word 'miss' -- she hadn't been called something so...polite...more than a handful of times in her entire life. Usually she got "brat", "girl", "gypsy", or simply "hey you".
Still, this man's kindness seemed genuine enough, although he was clearly misinformed about her status. Her voice, when she spoke, was only mildly as biting as it usually was -- though of course, the man had no way of knowing that. "You've got eyes, don't you?" Her dirty arms spread wide over the trinket-covered blanket. "See for yourself."
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Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:21 am
The Doctor was a little startled by the girl's harsh tone, but remained determined to help.
"Yes well..." He mumbled, "What about that little gadget over here? May I?" he asked, stooping over to move away the knitted thing that was covering the exquisite brass and glass syringe. "This is quite a specialized tool miss, wherever did you find it?" He supposed he already knew the answer. Stolen. But who could blame the child, it was beautiful, worth quite a bit, used in very precise and minor surgeries.
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Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:28 am
The strange deer lying at the back of the blanket gave a snort of what, from a human, might have sounded like sarcastic amusement. Lytka elbowed him in the ribs and narrowed her eyes at the man. "Pawn shop," she lied, in a tone that meant she would tell no more. "Why, what's it to ya?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:36 am
Jonas looked at the deer on the blanket. An odd creature, and his snort was humorously timed. Definitely a deer, but that patterning, and he noticed a gold hoof on the leg curled beside the lounging animal. Did gypsies usually paint their beasts? How did this abrasive girl tame the thing?
"Just--wondering if you knew it's maker, it shows great craftsmanship." He finally spoke. How was he the one on the defensive? This girl was certainly not the battered sould he'd first imagined. "How much?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 1:49 pm
Lytka shrugged noncommittally and spat on the ground next to her blanket, a few inches away from the man's feet. It didn't seem like a hostile action, really -- it was more as if she simply didn't understand that it could be taken rudely.
"Damned if I know," she commented, the swear sounding awfully familiar on her tongue for such a young thing. "Don' even know what the thing is." She eyed the man up and down for a moment, taking in his style of dress and how clean he was as if to figure out how much money she could try and wheedle out of him. She chewed her lip for a moment before pronouncing "Twelve shillings."
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Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:57 am
Jonas tried not to let his surprise show. Clearly the girl thought this was a great deal of money. It wasn't. The brass alone was quite pricey, and the detailed work... "No, no, that'd be the same as robbing you! This is a finely made item, I'll give you a crown." He reached to his pocket, smiling benevolently, happy that he could help this poor thing.
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Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:30 pm
Lytka, seemingly unfazed by the man's apparent generosity, promptly took the coin and popped it between her teeth, testing the metal. When it passed her examination, she spat the coin into her hand, nodding approval. "'sall yours," she proclaimed, nodding at the contraption and slipping the gold coin away into some secret pocket unseen. "Whatever it is." She looked up at him, more interested in the man and not the money now that she had his gold in her pocket. "Whatchu want the thing for?" She smirked. "Gonna chop off some poor ragamuffin's fingers with it?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:22 pm
"oh, hah! No not at all..." Jonas laughed awkwardly, trying not to think what experiences had put the idea into the girl's head. "I'm a physician. I don't perform surgery usually but this piece would come in handy from time to time. You see," he leaned forward to show the girl the tool, "this needle is hollow. You can pierce a persons skin and use this plunger to draw blood and other fluids out. You can also fill it with medicines and use it to put them into a person's very veins! I never thought I'd be able to afford one so well crafted!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:27 pm
The gypsy girl had begun packing away her wares, apparently satisfied with her profits for the day -- that one gold coin would be enough to feed her and her mother for quite a long time. When the doctor explained the use of the contraption she had just sold him, however, she stopped and looked at him, her expression incredulous. "Yeh use it for what?" her eyes slid to the needle and then down to the veins visible in her wrists and she shivered. "How in the name of the wardwood is that s'posed to aid a person?" Her strangely patterned deer had stood behind her, and now his bright blue eyes were staring piercingly at the doctor. One of his ears flicked, pensively.
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:36 pm
Jonas was taken aback at the girl's scorn for such a miraculous device. But of course, he thought there was a time when I would have thought the same thing. She's probably used to country remedies as I once was.
"Well medicines can act faster if you inject them directly into a person's body. And sometimes it can be helpful to draw infected blood and bile from an ailing person. All of the most advanced modern doctors use syringes to deliver medicine. It's much more efficient than the poultices and other old methods."
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