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 Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 11:05 am
Business waxed and waned over specific hours, often dictated by majority lunch breaks or the letting off of classes or end of shift. Realistically, with every surge there was a lull, and Isaiah grew more than familiar with this sentiment in his years of guiding pawn shop management. He knew precisely when it was appropriate to break out another game of Candy Crush to prevent the brain from rotting, and he knew when the store hadn’t quite reached that special basin of boring. The cashiers didn’t know it, but that’s why they were getting minimum wage.
Isaiah pared his staff down to one cashier by dismissing the rest to straighten the show floor and inspect for losses or damages. Two of them grew to be quite adept at the cleaning game and voiced preference for it over sitting at a register with little more than texting to keep themselves preoccupied. Melissa, however, preferred cashiering for its face-to-face interaction. In the interim, she busied herself by texting her latest friend (which, guiltily, Isaiah doubted she would ever make one).
„I can’t get past this level,“ Isaiah muttered to himself as he leaned against the jewelry counter. Arm stalwartly frozen across his waist, it acted as a brace for his elbow while he held his phone. His eyes remained locked on the screen. „I think I’ve tried it about every way there is.“
„What level are you on now?“ Melissa found no reason to look up from her phone either.
„427.“
Melissa responded dully, if not fully disinterested in processing that information. „Oh.“
„Yeah.“ He sighed at the quickly dwindling move count. „Hey, go take your break. I’ll have David cover.“
„Okay.“ About-facing, she trundled toward the back rooms with gaze still set on her phone.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2016 12:33 pm
A pawn shop that was currently experiencing a lull, with few customers, was exactly the sort of thing to draw Thalia's attention. Shopping for a gift for her mother's birthday, she has found so far, was an exercise in wishing she had a larger budget, but a pawn shop might just have something nice for a price more within the "first year college student with a part-time job" range. At least she didn't have bills, so she could allocate savings towards things like this.
Besides, maybe she'd find something interesting.
She pushed the door open and considered browsing the floor, just to see what was there, but thought better of it; better to go straight for the jewelry counter, which was most likely to have something appropriate for a Mom Birthday Gift. Maybe a nice necklace, or some earrings. Both of those sounded like decent possibilities.
The man at the counter seemed distracted, which - well, she tended to play phone games when things got quiet, too, so she couldn't exactly blame him. She started browsing idly, looking at this and that thing that was visible through the counter, but nothing caught her eye - not immediately, at least.
Until - resting on one of the trays was something out of place. A prism, oddly enough - not something she expected to see in a jewelry case, and definitely not a good birthday gift for her mom.
Her eyes kept drawing back to it, though, and finally she sighed and gave up ignoring it. "Excuse me?" She said, tone chirpy. "Can I see that prism?" She lightly tapped the counter right over it, to indicate what she was talking about.
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 7:18 pm
Candy Crush earned its notoriety in consuming lives - Isaiah remained wholly transfixed in his attempts to beat level 427, and reviewed every permutation of moves he could think of to solve the latest challenge. Isaiah stared hard enough at the screen to nearly turn himself crosseyed, and only realized how close he held the phone to his face when Enrique passed him by and pulled his wrists away from his face. The passing comment that he had a customer asking after him finally wrenched him from the game.
Immediately Isaiah locked the screen and pocketed the phone. Hands came up into a clasp, and his previously irreverent and casual manner melted into attentive business poise. „Yes, how can I help you?“
He appraised the girl after, her hair yearning toward the floor in heavy braids. Briefly Isaiah wondered how badly her neck hurt at the end of the day. Besides her hair, the rest of her spoke of secondhand store intermixed with worn, expensive clothing. Isaiah estimated that the brand-names hanging off her frame accumulated a count of years judging by their colors and wear patterns. The girl before him didn’t have much in the way of money, he expected. A shame, but even a few dollars could break even an on unwanted item or even turn a profit elsewhere.
„Prism…“ He echoed, plagued with consternation. He knew his jewelry better than anyone else in the store, and the mere mention of it left him doubting his own memory. What prism? I wouldn’t buy anything of the sort. Unless I lapsed into some kind of fugue state after eating cigarettes, mainlining whiskey and gobbling every sausage I met on the street- oh. Oh. This is new.
When Isaiah located the piece, he lifted it out with the photographer’s gloves and almost started examining it himself. Instead, he settled it on one of the velvet strips on the counter for his customer to investigate. There wasn’t a price tag on the damned thing, and he knew nothing of where it came from. „Interested in prisms, are you? It’s about the only one I’ve got - I imagine one of the other clerks thought it’d make a pretty paperweight. It’s got good clarity, though, and some excellently precise cleavage,“ he finished, as he leaned over to look through it.
Not at her chest, or anything.noir songbird oh god i'm so sorry about the wait!
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Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 11:19 pm
It was strange, that this little thing was unfamiliar to him but that it sang so strongly to Thalia. She wondered why she was so drawn to it, that even just waiting for him to produce it from the cabinet had jitters of anxious, nervous energy running through her. It was just a prism, some...paperweight, like he said when he put it down, not a Stradivarius.
"I hadn't thought I was, but I'm looking for something for my mom, and she does like little knicknacks," she lied smoothly, because admitting that she felt inexplicably pulled to an inanimate object seemed utterly silly. It was, again, just a paperweight. He might have understood if it was something of real, proper value, but this was just....silly.
Doing her best to control her jitters, she reached out to touch it - and as soon as her index finger made contact, she felt a rush.
It was like a supernova in her core, and for a moment she swore she smelled flowers, though she couldn't identify what they were if she tried. It was like being in a garden and in the heart of a star all at once, and it only lasted for a moment, but it was a moment long enough.
When it settle there was no longer a college student standing in front of Isaiah.
There was a Page.
 xStrickenized you're sorry look at me i'm a mess
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 7:23 am
Isaiah never felt all of his organs drop through his body so quickly before. Flooding after them came panic and conflict, where he asked himself whether he should take this suddenly-page under his wing and explain to her how she walked headlong into enormous danger about now, or to tell her to have a nice day and please take the damn prism, it's free. Frantically he searched his own thoughts for a proper phrase, even a single sentence urging her to come with him into his office, or to step aside to a more secluded area, or even just to kindly remove herself from the store. But before him stood a page now, delicate in her satin dress that pooled at her feet, and the long sash coiling and sheer. In her hand rested the prism, a perfect fit against small palm.
"It's not for your mom," Isaiah answered lamely, and nearly kicked himself for it. "You're…" He paused, sighed through his nose. Fingertips tapped his chin while he worked out how to answer her without sounding fantastical and slightly crazy. "You're a page," he responded while he pointed at her. "And you just transformed in a public place. Which, you lacked much control over it." Mentally he urged himself to become far more familiar with his merchandise, in the case that another page-to-be wandered in and found their weapon sitting on one of his racks. How did such coincidences even happen? While still remembered his own cruel awakening, he found no similarities with hers.
"I'm going to be as forthcoming with you as I can. First, I can't sell you the prism. It belongs to you, so I have no business taking money for it. Secondly, you just landed yourself in a world of responsibility, and I shouldn't let you leave here without at least some idea of what you are now and why it might jeopardize your life. Lastly, we need to speak about it in a more private location. My office is back that way." He gestured toward the far door standing open while he opened a piece of the counter for her to pass. Isaiah caught a puzzled look from Vargas, but he knew that if the other man watched the ceremonious awakening of a knight, he might soon forget with enough rounds of scotch in his system. And, really, that proved the least of the new page's tribulations here.
His luck manifested in enormously strange ways, he considered. If the universe held a consciousness in the same way as the Code, then perhaps this bizarre encounter was more than coincidence. He granted the thought little time to brew in his head, however; he needed to ensure this page left with at least some idea of who she was, unless she decided to blow him off and leave of her own accord. At that point, all responsibility he felt for her would fade.noir songbird eleusis! so cute! i know you face a lot of pressure right now, so she can either walk into the office and we can rp the info, we can handwave it, or she can leave of her own accord!
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