multiversallogs | A day at the market!

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A day at the market! :: OPEN

Who: OPEN, NPCs if needed.
What: A guided trip to the Aspic Bazaar
Where: Aspic
When: Coardi ~~Wednesday~~ Morning
Notes: OOC post here.

It's spring in Baedal and the Bazaar in Aspic is full of life. The sun shines on colourful buildings, bleaching tentweaves draped over market stalls. The air is full of shouts and animal noises, customers haggling with merchants and tradesmen striking deals. Children of different species rush back and forth, unattended in the crowd.

There are a lot of things on display in the market. Local produce and wares sit next to strange and exotic bleed-through goods, all of which the sellers are quick to guarantee the genuineness and legality of. Less honest characters also visit the market, it is generally known as an official stomping ground for one of the city's more notorious criminal enterprises. The city is aware of this, of course, and while Militia presence here is not as keenly felt in other place, it may be noticeable in the cares some people take.

It's still considered a safe place, or as a safe a place full of haves and havenots in a strange city can be. It's certainly considered a safe enough place to send newcomers for quick introduction to local sights and economics.

The (more recent) residents of the Valhalla Inn and anyone on the CeidaryBlue523 Node have been encouraged to visit the place. They have also been encouraged to not go alone.

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Sebastian makes a makes a small, non-committal noise before checking out what a spice merchant has to offer. That he hasn't had the opportunity to travel bothers him and he needs to extra time to process what he wants to say before actually speaking.

"It is a shame, and when I get back, I think I'd like to do something about it," he says picking up a small dish of something that looks like peppercorns. "I was in Italy when this city took me."

"You should," Jack agrees, watching the other man picking up random things from the merchant. He has absolutely no idea what the other man is looking for, if he's looking for anything. Jack himself is more there to socialize than anything else, after all.

"What were you doing in Italy, if I may ask?" Jack says, rocking on his feet some as he looks out over the rest of the crowd.

The truthful answer is that he and a pair Malfoys had left Britain for Italy, under fake papers, in order to hide and see if it would be at all possible to return the couple back to their native timeline.

"I'd wanted to see Florence for a very long time, but never had the opportunity to get away." Sebastian returns the bowl of peppercorns and picks up another of something that might be cloves. "Have you been?"

Jack keeps his eyes far away, although he chuckles slightly. "To Florence? Oh yeah. Beautiful country, the whole thing. It was during the war, though," he says, with a shrug. "I'm afraid I didn't have much time to go out exploring or anything like that. What I did see was pretty great, though."

When he mentions the war, Sebastian revises his estimate of Jack's original timeline and moves him considerably further ahead than he'd originally guessed -- mentions of a war in Italy and spaceships probably put him well out of the 21^st century. Maybe even further afield, if it's somewhere like Novo Novo Space Florence.

While haggling with the spice merchant over a packet of incense, Sebastian reorders his thoughts and decides that he ought to be bold, if not entirely polite. Faints hearts, fair ladies, and all that. "What year is it, where you're from, I mean?"

Jack looks back to Sebastian once he's done haggling and shrugs. "It depends on what you mean by when I'm from," he says. "Originally, the 51st century. Before I came here, 21st. But I've been a lot of whens before that." He smiles, making a bit of a face to say that it's not that big of a deal, when obviously it is.

"...time travel? That's brilliant," he says earnestly and with real enthusiasm. "I mean, provided you'd planned to go there or then and not like the sort of travel that pulls you to strange cities."

"What's the 51^st century like? I...it's really good to know we make it that far."

Jack chuckles. "No, time travel that you can control. Of course, not everyone's allowed to do it, but. I was in an Agency. One of the privileged few who could. And the 51st century... It's like any other century, really. I grew up in a colony on a planet, I went off and joined the Agency, met some fabulous people, traveled through time and space, settled down and then got pulled here from the 21st century."

"Humans, though," he says, "humans are amazing. I've been to the end of the universe. The last day it existed, and y'know what? Humans were still there, fighting to survive. Granted, not pure-blood. The gene pool's been mixed up since before even I was born, but. We're pretty resourceful, us monkeys from Earth," he says, with a wink.

'Any other century', indeed. Sebastian only has the one to compare to, but he'll take Jack's word that humans are humans as only humans can be. (Sometimes, they can be repetitive.)

He might be lying about the end of the universe. He probably is lying, but it's still a heartening thought to know that humanity survives. "After that long, with that much evolution, we're bound to be at least a little different. I don't mind."

Jack isn't lying about the end of the universe. At some times, he wishes that he didn't know at all, that he would not have ever gotten that far, never met Professor Yana and consequentially the Master as well, never had to experience the Year That Never Was. And yet, without that year, he isn't sure that he'd ever appreciate Torchwood and the home that he'd created there as much as he does. Go figure.

"We're not all that different," he says with a smile. "I mean. I don't look all that different to you, do I?"

Before agreeing with him, Sebastian pauses again, standing back to give Jack a proper, rather thorough looking over. It seems that he's the sort of man who wants to consider his words before offering his opinion.

"No, you don't."

The medic nimbly plucks the smoke from her hand, placing it between his lips as he looks around. Not really seeing any place in the immediate area that sells drinks, Mal shifts his bag around and unclips the top of his canteen from where it sits on his belt.

"Alright, first thing first." Mal grins around the cigarette, letting it dangle a bit loosely from his lips as he talks. "Don't inhale. You want to hold the smoke in your mouth not your lungs. Not at first."

Mal flicks the lighter to life, pulling it close and cupping the flame and tip with one hand and breathes in. He makes a point of holding it in his mouth a couple of seconds before he inhales a little deeper before clicking the lighter closed and pulling the smoke free, letting the smoke stream out between his lips after it. The final little bit he rounds out his mouth and makes a few tiny rings in the air.

"Don't inhale too deeply your first few tries and then inhale the smoke that's already in your mouth down before letting it out again. Alright?"

Cassandra watched him with wide, curious eyes. She was especially fascinated by his lighter. It seemed a far more efficient way to stoke a fire than some of the more traditional methods with which she was accustomed. After all, rubbing two sticks together took a very long time. He had created fire within two seconds.

She listened to his explanation. It still sounded a little peculiar, but she supposed she'd understand better if she tried it for herself. "I think I understand," she told him after a moment. "Hold the smoke in your mouth, not your lungs."

"I tell you what, though," he says, with a grin, "I'll bet you that I smell different than normal humans. That's part of the mixed blood, and all." He's not going to tell Sebastian to step closer and sniff him, but if the other man so felt the need, he would catch a whiff of his 51st century pheromones, that adapted to smell like everyone's favorite cologne or aftershave.

Another look, first to Jack and then down to Velcro -- after all, the dog has a far better sense of smell than Sebastian does.

"How so? You'll have to forgive me, I know I'm a bit too curious, and I'm not really sure where and what the taboos are." He's half-tempted to lean in and sniff, but he has no way of knowing if there's some sort of strange, future-human smell-based defense mechanism involved or just what sort of 'different' it could be. (Before you laugh, consider how bizarre their respective canons are and then tell me that there's no world where humans haven't developed just that thing.)

Jack shakes his head. "Not too curious. Not sure that's even a possibility with me. Like I said, 51st century." He grins. "Different social norms. But no, I'll stop being mysterious about it. I've got pheromones. Nothing too strong, and nothing that'd do any sort of mind control or anything if that's what you're worried about. Here..."

He steps closer to Sebastian, so that the other man would be exactly within wind of the smell, putting his hand down for Velcro to smell as well. "See? Just one of the perks. You guys have no idea..."

Malcolm is a little in love with his lighter too; it's made life a lot easier the past few months. He's going to be so upset when he runs out of lighter fluid and wick.

"First step, anyway." With a sort of doubtfully amused expression, Mal hands the smoke over, nodding in agreement.

He hesitates and then in the interest of full discloser he adds. "Most first time smokers end up coughing up a lung no matter how prepared. Just. You know. So you're aware."

He has the canteen all ready to go!

She took the cigarette, a bit uncertain how to hold it at first. She was afraid of burning herself. Then again, she supposed, that might come with sucking on the tip. Nodding slightly, she took a drag...

And immediately started coughing.

Well, at least Malcolm had warned her.

Cassandra leaned over, feeling a bit like her lungs were on fire. There was definitely nothing lucky about those Lucky Strikes. Maybe Malcolm was crazy. She hadn't paused to consider that.

"Perhaps that's not for me," she said, handing it back to him.

Mal has the canteen unhooked completely and ready for her in a bare minute, his other hand calmly accepting back the cigarette so he can lay it back between his own lips.

The effort to keep himself from actually laughing is enough that it leaves his face crinkled up into amused lines so over-taking that you can barely make out the black eyes. "Perhaps not." Is all he says in reply, however.

"Take a few sips and you can keep the canteen for now; you'll probably want a few more as we go along just to help remove the taste." The medic looks up and around again, performing his now-routine scan of the area, puffing in and then continuing to speak on the exhale in a rather draconic manner. "I don't think we'll find what I'm looking for today so perhaps we should take a wag around for what you want."

Cassandra accepted the canteen, taking a healthy sip of water. She immediately felt better, if not a little bit embarrassed. "Well," she said, once she could find her voice again, "I've always wanted to try everything. This is just something else to cross off that list." In truth, it had never been on the list, but that probably had something to do with the fact that cigarettes didn't really exist in Troy.

She let her eyes dart around the market. "All I really need is some fabric. I can't spend the rest of my life in these clothes." She took another sip of water. "The man...or...well...thing at the employment office seems to think I can find a job in a tailor's shop." It wasn't exactly appealing, but it was better than living on the streets and starving. Or worse yet, having to move in with someone. A particular someone.

"What about you?" she asked, pushing that thought aside. "What sort of trade do you practice?"

Cautiously, Sebastian leans in a little before smiling and looking somewhere between pleasantly surprised and outright confused. Why would humanity evolve in that direction?

"Clearly. Can you tell me about it? Or would that break some space-time rule?" He's tempted to ask if there are wizards in Jack's world, but for now, he'd rather learn than speak.

"I haven't made time to see the employment office yet." He probably should but he's still trying to get his mental shit together while maintaining an outward apperance of calm and fortitude.

It's an effort that's sort of exhausting him.

He gestures forward towards some stalls fluttering with fabric, keeping a decent distance to the side of Cassandra as he starts walking. "I've been a medic for what feels like forever but, jeez louise, it can't really have been more then two years. Before that I helped about in my father's tailoring business and mother's flowershop while I watched the little monsters and went to school."

It sounds like a lot all at once but Mal's compacting his life from age nine up to now into one sentence. "We have something in common with the tailoring then."

"You watched monsters?" she asked, a bit incredulously. That had to be some figure of speech with which she was unfamiliar, right? Otherwise, Malcolm had suddenly become a lot more interesting to her.

And even if it was just some cliche, it was often she heard of a man tailoring clothing. That was interesting too.

"A medic is a type of healer, is it not?" she mused, walking up to one of the stands and running her fingers over a bolt of fabric. It was absolutely exquisite, scarlet with a pattern of leaves and flowers in gold thread. Far too expensive for her, of course, but she couldn't help but look. "Sounds like a useful trade. I'm sure you can find work here. People always get sick."

From that tone of voice, it's pretty obvious that Cassandra is considering taking him at the literal level and both of Mal's hands fly up, waving in front of himself lightly, as if to ward off the mere idea of that as gently as possible. "No. Uh. No, no. Not real monsters; my younger siblings is what I meant. Sometimes they just act the part of monsters."

Realizing he's still waving his hands about like a fool, Malcolm shoves them back into his pockets. "A medic is a basic healer, yes'um. We're not even supposed to stitch up a wound but, well, I've always been a neat hand with a sewing needle and can at least identify what you shouldn't eat or what can sooth."

He can send messages with flowers too! He's like the worst sort of jack-of-all-trades ever. "Do you know anything about plants for dyes or the like?"

"A little," Cassandra said. "Although I could never really master the art of blue die. The plants are very rare where I come from. I was never able to make enough of it. We had to buy blue thread from the east."

And speaking of blue, her eyes fell upon a gorgeous bolt of blue fabric. It was cobalt blue, like the color of Helen's eyes. There was a pattern of spirals in the thread, of the same color, but going against the rest of the stitching. She ran her fingers over it, luxuriating in the feel of it. This was something she would definitely have to return for, once she has some more money.

"How many siblings did you have?" she asked, turning back to Malcolm. She could actually understand the monster comment. She had quite a few younger brothers and sisters herself.

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A day at the market! :: OPEN

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Trufax, I made a smoker-friend of my explain this to me X3

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Livejournal. Stop eating my posts. Thanks.

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