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Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 8:52 pm
The asteroid of Iris was not a typical tourist stop. It was all desert, with dark colored sand which absorbed the heat and made it even more unbearable to stand on with bare feet. No natural water resources and natives who had a tendency to restrict tourists to the only city on the asteroid probably made it even less desirable a destination.
However, if there was one appealing aspect to this world covered in sand and heat, it was the Iridian Bazaar.
Iridians and foreigners alike would come to trade their wares. For Iridians, it was a way of life, and for the foreigners, they frequently sought out a bargain.
Sailor Iris was completely comfortable in the chaos in the sandy alleyways, a pastel multicolored cloak protecting her skin from the harsh sun. Though she wasn't truly incognito, it was a little more difficult to tell she had her senshi uniform underneath. The tall figure merely seemed to weave about from vendor to vendor, seeming to just look at the wares.
As she passed one stall, it seemed the senshi accidentally bump into another person admiring the wares.
"...Oh... sorry!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 11:35 am
The Iridian Bazaar was fit for its asteroid, or at least for its asteroid's reputation: it was a riot of color in a bleak, hot expanse of nothing, vibrant and alive with noise and heat and tinted shadows where light filtered in through the tents overhead. Hvergelmir had seen many vast, open markets in her travels -- but this one was worth the visit.
She'd come with a fair bit of money to spend, belted in a pouch at her hip -- she always did -- but for now, she was contenting herself with dancing merrily from stall to stall, looking at the sellers' wares, occasionally stopping to sniff at her lunch options here and there. She tried to keep in the shadows cast by the sellers' tents as best she could -- the sun was relentless on her exposed skin, threatening to turn her pink -- but everywhere there was something to see, and it was hard to force herself to do things in any semblance of order.
Hvergelmir had just been on the verge of asking to purchase a beautiful beaded hair comb, spinning it over in her hands with a little confusion, when someone else jostled into her suddenly.
"No, I beg your pardon," she said with that automatic politeness that Sailor Cosmos expected of Cosmos knights as her only real request. "I wasn't watching." She looked up at the other woman and smiled. "Say, I don't suppose you know where I can find the price of this?" Hvergelmir asked, holding up the comb. "I was hoping it might be marked somewhere."
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Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 8:46 am
Based upon skin tone and dress alone, it was easy to tell the one she bumped into was a foreigner. It was even more glaring that this was perhaps her first time visiting the Iridian Bazaar when she asked for pricing.
Without hesitation, the cloaked Iridian Senshi called her out on it.
"...this is your first time here... isn't it?"
Glancing amongst the others in the immediate vicinity, Iris eventually spotted the vendor and a potential trade going on. A bracelet was the item in question, and the offer seemed to be a good sized sack of some sort of grain. With a gloved hand, she gestured for the unidentified foreigner to observe the interaction.
"...that is how it works..." she mentioned lightly.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:00 pm
Hvergelmir watched where the cloaked Iridian was pointing. Ah. A barter system, then. "Hmm. So you're telling me my money's no good, then?" That could pose somewhat of a difficulty. She set the comb she'd been admiring back down forlornly. "Well, that's going to make feeding myself a little difficult, I suppose. It's considered rude to sell a gift near the planet that gave it to you, and everything else I have is in coin." She jangled the heavy pouch at her waist. "I don't suppose they'd consider rare coins worth trading? I'm sure I still have some gold from way over Altair way, or silver ducats from the Southern Cross."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:33 am
The Iridian placed both hands behind the back of her cloaked head, considering the question posed. "...I don't know if they'd consider rare coins... but potentially pretty coins. Pretty coins that are made of good metals. They'd probably get used for jewelry of some sort, or get melted down to be used as other pieces."
Some of her own formal wear had a tendency to be decorated in coin accents, which meant there was a place for coins in this society. It just wasn't currency in the Iridian eye.
Bringing her arms down, she then offered "...if you show me what coins you have, I could help you figure out what would probably be worthwhile to the vendor..." A pair of gold eyes glanced to said vendor. The one thing that could be said for native Iridians was that they weren't past taking advantage of the non natives when it came to "equal trades." Sometimes the only way to ensure equal trading was to find a willing Iridian to assist.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 2:01 pm
Hvergelmir studied her Iridian companion with a little more scrutiny. She was offering to be helpful, and that was certainly necessary -- but this wasn't exactly Hvergelmir's first time traveling the Asteroid Belt, as the saying went, and she knew better than to trust helpful people completely blindly.
"And there is, of course, an appraiser's fee, I take it?" she asked with raised eyebrows and a smile.
She wouldn't object to offering a few coins for her helper's trouble, actually -- but she was conscious that there was a chance that some of her coins might take it upon themselves to just wander off on their own, in situations like this, and so happen to wind up in the pockets of a helpful advisor. She had some sense that it would be better to make it clear she wasn't completely without her wits -- at least then, if the Iridian turned out to be cheating her, she'd feel compelled to put a respectable amount of effort in.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:28 pm
Iris' lips couldn't help but quiver for a moment or two as she attempted to hold her emotions in. However, when that failed, she soon enough was laughing something good at the accusation. Rubbing at her eyes a bit as she attempted to calm herself down, she shook her head from side to side.
"...if I lived in the Port... then maybe... but no...that would take up unnecessary space during my travels! There's only room for the essentials, not much else!"
Running her gloved hand over her face one more time, she added with a couple chuckles "...I wouldn't be opposed to a meal, but as you said before, it would probably be difficult for you to get food with the objects you brought to barter with."
With that, the cloaked figure picked up the comb which had been set aside, merely to get a look at it. "...it's Parthenopian Ivory set with a small amount of gold... not pure... but there is gold in the mix..."
Even with that information, it probably meant very little to the foreigner.
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Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 10:05 pm
Some people took affront at being laughed at. To be fair, Hvergelmir was certainly no exception -- but having spent the past several years traveling the galaxy on one errand or another, one thing she'd gotten used to was the likelihood that she'd get something wrong about a new culture without even thinking about it. In the end, the truth of human society was that there was no one right way, no one defined way, that it developed. People were always a little more different than you expected them to be. Being laughed at for misjudging a cultural point of order was, in the grand scale of things, not really so bad.
And it wasn't even the first time in the last five minutes that it had happened.
What an embarrassing day.
She listened to the presumably-Iridian describe the comb she'd been eyeing with rapt interest. "Can all Iridians spot partial gold content at 10 paces, or is it just you?" she asked. She pulled out a handful of coins from the top of her full coinpurse. "Are any of these worth their weight?" she asked. "And where do you travel to, if I can ask? I do a bit of traveling myself."
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:20 pm
With a gloved pinky, she pointed to the corner of her eye. "All natives perceive color exceptionally well! It takes a teeny bit of schooling as a child, but once learned, it doesn't require any thought."
With a casual glance at the coins shown, the cloaked Iridian plucked a single coin out of the group.
"...if you have 3 more of these, it would be a fair trade." It technically didn't answer the question, but it gave the foreigner what she needed to know.
Skillfully, she seemed to flick the coin between her fingers, making the metal object practically dance between her fingers at a steady rhythm. As she seemed to keep herself entertained with the coin, she finally proceeded to answer the final question.
"...well, most of us just travel this asteroid... this is the only city on Iris. The rest of the world is just a desert. Me, on the other hand... I am a bit of an exception to the rule!"
With that, the Iridian skillfully seemed to move the hand holding the comb to the top of her cloak covering while keeping the coin steadily dancing about. A slight tap of the cloth, it fell back to give a better look at the blonde Iridian hiding underneath. Her hair might have been a bit on the messy side, but there was a tell-tale tiara adorning her forehead.
"...my duties require a bit more travel throughout the allied territories within the Asteroid belt."
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:52 pm
Hvergelmir was just in the process of digging through her coinpurse to dig up some more Rhodesian pieces-of-six when the Iridian's description of herself as an exception to the rule caught her attention. She looked up, six copies of the coin flat on her palm.
"Oh!" she said, surprised, when the Iridian pulled back her hood to reveal what was obviously the tiara of a sailor senshi.
With an immediacy that bespoke stringent training, Hvergelmir curled the coins up in her hand and ducked into a well-practiced, formal bow.
"Well met, good soldier," she offered her greeting. "Glad tidings from a knight of Hvergelmir, one of the Wonders of the Cosmos. I'm here on no official business -- only to see the famed Iridian Bazaar with my own eyes."
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:28 pm
The Iridian just seemed to blink lightly as she continued to fuss with the one coin between her fingers.
"...Generally... there is no official business for a knight on this world..." It wasn't meant to be mean, but it was a plain fact.
With that, she extended her hand that now had the coin perfectly balanced upright on her middle finger. "It would explain the outfit though... I was curious why you didn't have any sort of covering for your skin though. Sunburns are quite painful last I heard."
The senshi set the comb back down so she could once again reach back and lift her covering back over her head. It was a habit for her to keep covered up while out, if only because her skin color was a life long condition she'd learned to adjust to while growing up.
"...you don't need to call me a 'soldier'... you can call me 'Sailor Iris'... It is a title most will insist on while you are on this world."
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Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2014 11:04 am
Hvergelmir, who had certainly visited worlds in her time where she'd been -- to describe it in a word -- unwelcome, wasn't terribly alarmed at the reminder that there were no knights in alliance with Sailor Iris's asteroid. That much she knew -- or there'd have been someone she could've gone to to offer her greetings straightaway, someone who was ultimately part of the same order to which she'd pledged her service. The same great brotherhood. Iris had not deigned to play host to any knights.
"Iris may see it that way," she allowed with a smile. "But if Sailor Cosmos had sent one of us here to make contact -- or if a starseed had passed on and was in need of a chaperone back to the Cauldron, it would've been terribly official on our side. She's a notorious stickler for manners and protocol, that one -- we have that drilled into us in training."
She watched with amused fascination as Sailor Iris rolled the coin back and forth over the tops of her fingers like it was the easiest trick in the book. "As for my clothing . . . " Hvergelmir shrugged. "All starlight falls gently on the knights of the Cosmos -- or so they say. We'll see how I do."
Hvergelmir wondered if she was ever going to get that coin back, or if Sailor Iris planned to keep it. Nothing for it, if she opted for the latter: Hvergelmir could hardly demand a world's sailor senshi remit her a small coin.
"Sailor Iris," Hvergelmir repeated her title back to her, holding out the Rhodesian coins on her palm, with a grin. "Will you show me how making a price with a vendor is done in the Iridian Bazaar?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2014 8:19 pm
With one precise motion, her hand flipped over so that the coin which had been balanced there was now in her own palm, extended towards Hvergelmir. Apparently the senshi was true enough to her word about not needing payment as she seemed to offer the object back to the original owner.
"...there really isn't a specific way about it... you just get the vendor's attention and tell them what you are offering... let them look it over if they want to... and wait to see if they want it or not...." With a shrug, she rolled the coin back into the representative of Cosmos' palm.
"We Iridians speak the common language out of necessity, so anybody here should be able to understand... very few actually speak or read the native language... so no worries about language barrier."
Briefly she said something which sounded somewhat lyrical, but almost nonsensical, in a decently loud tone. When none of the vendors in the nearby vicinity seemed to react, the senshi gestured to all of them.
"See... nothing!"
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Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 10:24 pm
Hvergelmir observed the exchange -- or lack thereof -- with interest. It wasn't an uncommon thing to see a world where their original language had fallen away in favor of the common languages of trade, but it was a bit more rare to find one where the old language still had a remaining oral tradition, and hadn't yet faded to old texts and academics.
"I'm dying to know what you said to them," Hvergelmir said quietly, leaning over into Sailor Iris's space so she could lower her voice. " 'You ugly sons of dogs' or something inflammatory like that?"
She parceled out the spare coins she'd dug up, and tucked them back into her coinpurse, then stepped back up to the table where she'd found the comb she liked with only the number Iris had indicated still tucked into her palm. "Excuse me," she said,hoping to catch the vendor's attention. "I'd like to offer you a trade for this comb. Four Rhodesian pieces-of-six, newly minted." She lifted her palm to show her offer. "You can see the craftsmanship -- not a nick or a dent in the filigree, and the details on the portraits are exquisite for coin of this size.
Hvergelmir glanced back at Sailor Iris briefly with eyebrows raised, to see how Iris thought she was doing. Should she have led with a smaller offer and haggled her way up?
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Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:47 am
Golden eyes shifted to the Hvergelmir that was in her personal space bubble. "...I simply said 'I have an offer, please assist'... I do actually know some of these people... and there is a chance that someone does know the language. Not a good chance, but any chance is still a chance."
She barely shifted as the representative of Cosmos made her way to the older man who was clearly in charge of the table of goods. His skin was a good deal darker than the momentary duo, and as he looked over the four coins, his bushy eyebrows seemed to knit down as he contemplated.
Pulling a circular piece of glass clearly meant for magnification from his apron, he held it over the girl's hand, leaning in closer. Just because he had the enhanced color perception did not mean he had the eye for detailing as well.
There were some murmured "Mmmm" and "Yes" noises that came from deep within the vendor, but when he eventually straightened up, he first looked to the senshi behind the woman, then to the woman herself.
"...Are you sure you only want the comb? I could throw in this ring as well." With that, his dark, bony fingers gestured to a white ring without any gold accenting on it. It was not nearly as ornate, but it did have a simplistic pattern carved into it.
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