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 Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 12:16 pm
Natalia walked down the street eying shops as she passed. So far there was no luck in finding a new fabric store. She was really hoping that she could get the materials for her costume and still have enough time to make it before Halloween. About ready to give up she spotted a sign for an antique shop.
Curiosity peeked she walked toward the shop and pushed open the doors. Natalia hadn't been to an antique shop for a while, and the last time she was in one there was a small section of old clothing and a lot of Jewelry, if she wasn't able to get the materials to make her costume from scratch, then she would see if she could scrounge together one out of old clothes.
As she walked inside she glanced around, spotting a desk close the the front door.
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Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 9:01 pm
It was rare to catch Jett when he wasn't looking professional—and today was no exception. He'd finished his homework and even squeezed in some time for personal reading while waiting around the place. The floors were swept, windows cleaned, items neatly organized and on display.
Things were looking good, and while there had been a lot of business earlier in the day, things had settled down. He was just about to peel open a new box and fish through it, do some research and then list a few things on the online catalog. Recently his boss had been pushing for an online store to help sell some of the things that had been in storage for a while now, but Jett was hardly computer savvy enough to figure out how to do that, and with Jacoby's recent health issues he hadn't been able to hire anyone to do so.
Jett's hand was resting atop the cardboard box on the desk when Natalia stepped in, though since she was a priority, he was prompt in directing his attention towards her.
"Afternoon," he greeted, flashing a staple grin. When it came to charm, he'd just about perfected it, and always put a little extra effort in when dealing with the customers. She looked young, though, so he couldn’t quite figure out if she was an actual customer or just some girl who had gotten lost. "Can I help you find something specific or are you just here for the air conditioning?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 5:15 am
Natalia examined the blonde behind the counter, he seemed quite professional, and not to mention good looking, however the charming smile he flashed her was most like just part of his job so she didn't think too much about it. Offering a smile of her own she approached the counter after a quick glance down the shelves.
"I'm not here for the air conditioning... I was actually wondering what the store carried in old clothing and jewelry." Natalia responded as she looked up at him. "And it doesn't have to be in good shape, I was mainly interested in using it for parts to make a costume." She added hoping that might drop the price group from insanely expensive to relatively cheap.
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Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 12:24 am
"Old clothing and jewelry?" he prompted. "…You've certainly come to the right place."
While he wasn't sure how he felt about being told that she was going to be using pieces to construct a costume, but he supposed that money was money and as soon as an item left the shop, he didn't really need to care about what happened to it next. "We've got more than a few boxes of clothing and jewelry." Plenty of the stuff that came in was far from mint condition—or was just damn near unsellable. "Here, more towards the back."
He gestured towards a still very well lit part of the store where there were racks of clothes on display. Pushing himself from the counter he began to lead her. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"
He might have a vast array of items he could sift through for her, but if this girl was going to make him go dig around for clothes in the storage room out back, he'd at least like to have an idea on what to look for. Cheap, knock-off jewelry? Sure, there was plenty of that that they couldn't sell as antiques, but that didn't mean they didn't still have some lying around. Old clothes? It was hard to get people to by clothes—out of fashion, well worn and not of significant historical fashion. Hell, he was glad someone was just looking. He'd be lucky if she could clear out some of this s**t—especially if it meant less of a load for him to cart to the nearest thrift store.
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Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:33 pm
"Yeah, I'm making a gypsy costume, and since the gypsies by nature pretty much used anything they could get their hands on, I have a wide range of options." Natalia explained as she followed Jett, she was rather excited that she had found this store, it might make her work easier if she could simply alter clothing instead of recreating it from bolts of cloth.
" I don't know how far back your clothing selection ranges, but probably the older the better for authenticity, this being a hobby for me I like my garb to be accurate as possible." Natalia added with a small shrug.
"But as far as jewelry goes, anything cheap or broken would work because I can easily fix it." Natalia finished, though couldn't help but think that it would have to wait until she could replace her tools.
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Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:08 pm
"Oh?" Jett prompted, half interested and half out of courtesy. He wasn't sure how making a costume was exactly a legitimate reason for her to want authentic pieces—though he could at least (hypothetically) understand her reasoning. He lead the girl to a few racks of clothes in the back. "You might be able to find something. We don't keep anything really old here. Mostly we've got some vintage styles. We have uniforms, but I don't think that'll help with what you're looking for. You're more likely to find something down here, though," he said, toeing a trunk that was resting on the floor.
He knelt, peeling it back out of the little niche it was tucked into. "This is where I've been stashing the ones not pretty enough to hang up—most of them have stains or holes or are just too weird."
He unlatched the trunk and stepped away after prying it open, revealing a rather large assortment of interesting pieces of attire. Some were outright obnoxious, and others far more attractive—however he wasn't lying when he said that they weren't worth selling. Some stains were small, some holes were large; it was clear that each piece on display had gone under close scrutiny, and even those with small blemishes hadn't been awarded a space on the rack.
"You can tell me if you find something interesting, we can discuss prices then. Don't think the boss'll be too picky when it comes to these. You fix jewelry?" he prompted, interested with her previous statement.
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Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:28 pm
"Well I appreciate you letting me look through these, this will probably be a lot cheaper, a lot of fabric stores make you pay ridiculous prices for fabric and it's a lot of work to make the costumes from scratch." Natalia responded as she examined some of the clothing on the rack, then when he mentioned the trunk she knelt down next to it and started riffling through the box. "The holes and stains doesn't really bother me much, I guess it can be kind of fitting." She pulled out a couple of skirts she liked along with a ruffly whitish shirt and set them on the ground beside her. When he spoke again Natalia glanced up at him and smiled slightly. "Yeah its been a hobby of mine for a while, I started off just stringing beads together, but now I can repair most anything, I've even reset stones in rings and necklaces." She responded trying not to brag too much.
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Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:51 pm
"Very impressive," he noted; they had a guy to go to when they needed jewelry repaired, however that didn't mean he couldn't at least make conversation about it. Talking to Natalia gave him the time he needed to try and figure out where it was he'd seen her before. It had been tugging at the back of his mind since she'd walked in. Jett didn't like to think that some pivotal fact could elude him, so he was straining to figure out just why the girl looked so familiar.
She wasn't a customer here—and he hadn't met her at some fast food restaurant. Maybe he'd gone to school with her? Maybe.
But it seemed like more than that. He just couldn't put his finger on it, until—
He leaned backwards in thought, shoulder popping loudly. It wasn't as though the action was surprising to him; a side effect of punching, being punched, and dislocating his shoulder twice—
Ah, there it was.
Vague images of the girl flashed through his mind, and while the memories were a year old, it was hard to forget someone you took a magical six-week journey into space with. Unless that was just his imagination playing tricks on him to try and give him the satisfaction of solving the riddle.
"We've met before, haven't we? …Unofficially. You look familiar. Where were you—what, a year ago?"
God, had it been so long? Things had changed so much since then, but now, he couldn't imagine a life any different than this one. Before the Surrounding, life seemed so bland. Now? Now, everything seemed to be so much more worthwhile.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:59 am
"Oh it's not that impressive really, anyone with a steady hand and enough time to practice can get into it." Natalia responded with a happy smile before going back to the box, unaware of his silent deliberation. She was humming quietly to herself as she examined all the clothing on the rack and box placing them into two piles, ones she really liked and would most likely try to buy regardless of the price and the other of ones that would need work or she didn't like as much and it would depend on the price.
However when he spoke again it seemed rather off topic, Met before? She didn't really think so, she hadn't been much of a social person for the last year between being thrown into a new school and losing most of her friends she hadn't had much opportunity to go out and meet new people... But then the second part of his question caught her by surprise, and her face nearly drained of all color.
Natalia definitely remembered where she was a year ago, dreaded it every time she thought back on it so mostly she just tried to suppress it so she could move on with her life. And here it was again, brought up in casual conversation... unless he was talking about something else.
"Ahh... a year ago? I went to Meadowview high school, I was on a debate team..." She stuttered, hoping that he wasn't talking about the thing that happened after that ruined her life for a time, and had a really hard time getting over.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:39 am
Jett was not completely interested in Meadowview or the debate team, though for the briefest instance, he wondered if he had been wrong. Then he remembered that it was silly to doubt himself, because even if he wasn't sure where he knew her from, he knew that she looked familiar. "But you go to HITS now?" he asked; though he had recently swapped to DCU, that didn't mean that he didn't know that everyone from back then had wound up at HITS for at least a time. "Enrolled…what, mid-October?" he suggested.
If, by very slim chance, his memory completely failed him, she could always laugh, and tell him no. If not, then he'd be able to get to the bottom of this mystery. Finding someone from the Surrounding pleased him greatly, as a part of him wondered what happened to the lot fo them. They were people he'd been forced to interact with for weeks, and though he could deny it all he wanted, there was a sort of fondness for them—deep in his heart. Jett wouldn't admit it, though there was an odd sort of kinship with the folks who he'd shared the Surrounding with.
Some of them, he'd seen again. There were a handful he still spoke to. The rest of them might have just vanished off the face of the earth—again—for all he knew.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:58 am
Natalia examined Jett for a long moment, she didn't know how he knew about that time in the Surrounding, a lot of that had been suppressed as a defense mechanism so she didn't remember it.
"Uh... Yeah I do go there... how would you know that I enrolled then?" Natalia questioned as she examined him.
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:25 pm
Jett wondered if the girl was naïve or just being coy. He shrugged, and then said in the most conversational tone he could muster, "That's when I ended up enrolled there. Because they kicked me out of DCU for a six week absence that I had no control over. So I guess you could say it was just a lucky guess. Or you could say that I thought I recognized you from up there. Either that or you had a twin wandering around up there," he said, glancing down at the girl.
He didn't consider his question to be particularly intrusive—there was nothing to be ashamed about up there, and on the contrary, he found himself rather interested. He hadn't gotten to talk to anyone about it in quite some time, and quite honestly was almost eager to meet someone who had experienced the same thing as he had.
…Well. Most likely not the same thing, but damn close enough to make conversation about it.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 8:26 am
Natalia's face completely drained of color and her mouth went dry, if she hadn't been sitting down she probably would have fallen. She didn't want to think about that time in the Surrounding, it was a horrible memory for her, both in the event itself and the downfall it had on her social and home life.
"I'm sorry if I don't remember you... I guess I suppressed a lot of memories from that time." Natalia said finally after she managed to wet her throat enough to speak. She watched Jett with wide eyes, unable to control her reaction of fear when she thought about the Surrounding.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:01 pm
"No apology necessary," Jett said, watching her closely. Her expression and the sudden lack of color in her face made him wonder if he should go grab her a soda and a cookie or something, though when she started speaking, he brushed the idea aside. He didn't really want to have to go out and get sweets any more than he wanted to deal with some girl passing out.
"It was a chaotic time for everyone, I suppose. A lot of people rather sweep it under the rug and pretend like it didn't happen." Hell, he was guilty of it. It was just a bad time to try and ignore things—not when everything was reminding you of the time you spent in space. "Here. Jett Draven," he introduced, extending his hand to shake hers.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:29 am
Natalia took his hand hesitantly and shook it, but didn't trust herself to stand yet. "Natalia Tsaritsa... What happened to you in the Surrounding?" She questioned after introducing herself, she noticed that he didn't seem to have any adverse effects from that trip and wondered briefly if she was the only one who had had such a bad experience.
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