multiversallogs | A day at the market!

Entry tags:

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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"Two." And he misses them fiercely, although that at least he masters a non-commental expression over. Not that it matters, since he's fairly obvious about it as soon as he opens his mouth but it's the thought that counts. "James Carmicheal should be turning nine soon, maybe a month if my times aren't all out of wack. He's a sunny little dork; really into the proper ways to dig up dinosaurs and the like. And Patricia! She was thirteen when I left and cocky with it!"

Malcolm reaches forward to tug the material sharply between his hands, looking for a weakness in the weave as he continues, turning to roll his eyes deliberately and expressively at Cassandra. "The big dark eyes routine never worked for me, you know. Too gawky otherwise. But Patricia Lorriane? Gawky just looks sort of long-limbed on her so the big black eyes on her stupid face just get her her way with everyone."

Giving another few bolts of fabric a look over he makes a few faces at Cassandra. "What about you -- any siblings you miss?"

In a few minutes he's going to start asking the merchant questions and making faces like they're shockingly over-priced.

"Oh, thank you." If any of the recent arrivals can use a friendly face, it is Rachel. She's way out of her element here, still adjusting to... well, everything. "Pottery and I aren't exactly friends but the clothing vendors and I are about to start something beautiful, I think."

And now that his hands are free, she offers one of her own. "I'm Rachel."

Cassandra had no idea what he meant about the 'big dark eyes routine,' but she suddenly felt a bit self conscious and found herself averting her eyes from him. Was there something wrong with having big, dark eyes? Certainly, she had never been told such. On the contrary, Othryoneus used to say that her eyes were her most attractive feature. She would have to find a way to learn more about that one.

But another time.

For now, Cassandra could relish one of her favorite comments. "Oh, I had fifty brothers," she said nonchalantly. In the past, she had gotten a variety of reactions to that one, along a continuum as entertaining as the reactions she got when she said that yes, she was that Cassandra. "And eleven sisters," she continued. "I suppose I miss my youngest sister, Polyxena, the most. She was sixteen."

"Well, that depends on what you'd want me to tell you about," Jack says, with a smile, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking on his feet. "And I guess we should figure out if we're from the same universe before I go about spoiling you for what could be your future or anything like that."

"Anything? Everything?" Immediately, Sebastian can think of several small reasons to hide his past, but none of them are really strong enough to count as a legitimate objection.

"And, ah, in your world, was there a terrible disaster in Newcastle in the early 2000s that took out close to a tenth of the population?"

Jack narrows his eyes, for a moment, trying to remember if there was (sometimes, things that weren't important were sort of fuzzy thanks to being buried alive for all of those years), but no. Nothing that took out a tenth of the population, if there was something to happen then, he would have remembered that.

Jack shakes his head. "Nope, not that I can recall. Were there any mass sightings of strange things flying over London that the government passed off as hallucinogenics in the water?"

"Variously as modern outbreaks of ergot, St Vitus', and terrorist attacks, but that was all over Britain and not just London," he says plainly with the tone of a man who knows (and may have helped create) the cover story.

"For you, was it homegrown warfare or external?"

"Well, we've managed to stay away from all-out warfare, for the most part. All threats have been mostly external, though," Jack says, with a shrug. "Sometimes there are things that popped up having spent a lot of time preparing for the attack, sometimes they just came on a whim and decided that Earth looked like a good place to invade. Regardless, there was a lot of stuff going on. More than one tiny organization should really be capable of handling, but we do well enough."

"Lex Luthor," he replies, taking her hand in a firm but by no means overpowering shake. He's not used to introducing himself by first name only, and by now his full name easily rolls off the tongue.

As he releases her hand he nods toward the clothing vendors. "I'd be happy to join you if you'd like a fashion consultant. I'm told my fee is quite reasonable."

He certainly meant none of the horrible things Cassandra is fretting about -- his own eyes are ink-black and fairly wide -- so if there is some sort of negative stigmata he's unaware. Therefor her sudden need to avert her eyes just confuses him.

And then she hits him across the face with her siblings and Mal ends up choking on his cigarette and forgetting all about the lack of eye-contact. "That's. Christ Alm-- I mean jeez." Malcolm coughs a bit more, although this is mostly to cover for his nearly taking the Lord's name in vain in front of a lady.

"I thought grandma had it tough with thirteen children. Is that. Well." There is no polite way to ask how many women someone's father has screwed so Mal just hurries on past that. "She a sweet girl, your sister?"

The poor merchant is looking a little frazzled over the fact that Malcolm seems to have forgotten he's clutching samples of fabric.

"Then it's not the same world," he says looking satisfied and thereby implying that in his world, it was a civil war that he fought in. Moreover, Jack didn't seem like a wizard, but there were a limited number of muggles working with the Ministry of Magic.

Cassandra would never cease deriving a secret pleasure from seeing that kind of reaction to the size of her family. The strange part was, she had never really thought of it as being all that big. At least, not abnormally big. That's just the way things were in Troy.

Thoughts of Polyxena, however, diminished her pleasure slightly. She nodded. "Polyxena was everything a child ought to be. Curious. Thoughtful. Playful. Kind." Everything Cassandra had once been, before a certain god robbed her of that innocence.

She shrugged. "She had a spark. I can't think of a better way to put it, better words. She was just...so alive."

"It's nice to meet you, Lex."

A shot at not navigating this crowded, weird, unfamiliar place on her own? Yes, please. Rachel smiles and nods. "I'd love the company, thank you. I could probably use the fashion advice too," she says, with a small laugh.

"Those are the family who stick out in everyone's minds, huh." He still looks a little poleaxed but at least he's stopped absently tugging the vender's fabrics to tap the ashes from his smoke to the ground. "It's good you have that sort of relationship with her; I know some of the guys back home from bigger families didn't really get close to their siblings."

Mal is doing that thing inside his head where he mentally compartmentalizes whatever outrageous thing someone here has told him into a box that better fits his world view. Large families are normal ergo he will just forget her fifty billion siblings except as a little, inconsequential, detail.

"You want that fabric? It's kinda cheap-looking but maybe you could do something with it." It's not cheap-looking and Mal knows it but hey, play along. "I'm sure we saw better stuff a few stalls back if this guy wants a ridiculous price."

Cassandra raised an eyebrow at Malcolm. She wasn't entirely sure what he was talking about. The fabric was absolutely beautiful, anything but cheap. Perhaps he wasn't actually a tailor. But why would he lie about something like that? What could it possibly get him?

She had a tendency to assume that all men wanted the same thing, but she'd reserve judgment for the moment.

"No," she said, letting the fabric go. "I don't think so." She could never afford it anyway. A pity. It reminded her somewhat of one of her old chitons. With a gold ribbon and some pins, she was certain she could recreate it.

"Well, alright, if you're sure." He backs away from the stall, waiting for her to catch up before he'll give her a look out of the corner of his eye. "Have you ever haggled before? I'm not trying to assume or imply anything, mind, I'm just asking."

Cassandra reacts oddly to things he says and does so maybe what needs to happen is that he explains all his comments and tries not to make use any more Americanisms. Maybe if he treats this like talking to someone who's just learning English (another comparison he's not going to mention to her).

"Haggled?" she repeated uncertainly. She was familiar with the concept, of course. But certainly, she had never done such before. Frankly, she had never had need to purchase much of anything before, but she decided to keep that to herself. "No. Never."

At least now she understood what he had been driving at.

Sort of.

"I'm afraid," she sighed, "that I'm not as worldly as I would like to be. You must understand, I never traveled beyond the walls of my own city until I was twenty six years old."

"Oh, you're twenty-six." Cassandra makes Malcolm into the worst sort of blurter; he's usually so much more cool and collected (he's not going to admit that it's because he hasn't talked to a girl in months). "Uh, only I meant you look younger and I was a bit surprised because I turned twenty-one myself just last spring."

Mal goes a slightly dull pink all over as he hurries to explain and then hurries on to hopefully change the topic after that. At least he keeps a calm expression? "I wasn't being very nice about the haggling anyway; it's a matter of looking like you could walk away from whatever you plan on buying. It was really nice stuff and the fabric didn't give or anything but if I say that he'll just jack up his price. Fishmongers do it all the time."

She nodded slightly. She could actually follow his logic and was grateful for it. It was highly doubtful that she would ever be much of a haggler, but new information was always good. And at least this information didn't come with a sore throat. Cassandra would take a little while longer to recover from the Lucky Strikes.

As to her appearance...well...that's what happened when one was untouched by the sun.

"I'll remember that," she said.

Jack shakes his head. "Doesn't sound like it is, no," he says, with a smile. "Alright, then. Go ahead. What would you like to know about my world?" Not that he'd answer any question posed, mind. Jack is definitely reserving the right to pick and choose. He's definitely not going to let Sebastian know more than Ianto would, for example.

Without any concrete idea of what the future might be like, Sebastian knows he needs to narrow down the field before he's able to get any really useful information.

"If we could go there right now, or if we could go anywhere, anywhen, where would we go? Where have you been that's special or where do you still want to visit?"

"Two can help better fight the crowds anyway. Come on."

It's said like an invitation rather than an order and together they walk through the bustle of people. He makes certain not to lose Rachel in the crowd, but due to her hair color, that doesn't prove to be much of an issue.

The first clothing vendor they reach has a large display of trousers, many of them brightly colored. "I'm not quite sure if this is what you're wanting. What kind of pants are you looking for?"

If Jack were to answer that question honestly, he'd give it a lot more thought. He wants to go back to when he came from, make sure that Gwen's alright and they're not just leaving her all by herself there. But there's more explanation in that than he feels comfortable saying, so instead he says.

"Resort planet," he says. "Definitely a resort planet. There are tons of them out there, each one with their own special twist. Don't think I could narrow it down to just one."

She casts a dubious eye over the offerings--there's nothing wrong, exactly, with all the pants on display, they're just not her style. She's a jeans-and-cute-t-shirt kind of girl, as shown by her current attire; brightly-colored trousers just aren't her.

"Like, jeans, I guess?" she says, turning her attention to Lex. She shrugs. "I mean, I might not have a choice in the end but... these are lovely but they're not me. I can come back if I don't find anything else."

Lex nods, his hunch correct. This didn't seem like the sort of thing to be her style just judging from her current ensemble. "It looks like there's plenty of other places to see who aren't as interested in dressing you up to look like a piece of candy."

They move to another section of the bazaar, this one filled with vendors selling jeans, cotton shirts, jackets and the like. He tends to dress more often on the formal rather than casual side, but he does need to rebuild his wardrobe and this doesn't seem like a bad place to start.

"If you'll permit me to make a suggestion," he withdraws a shirt in a rich gold color and holds it out to let Rachel get a good look. "I realize that you're looking for jeans, but I think something like this would compliment your hair nicely."

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A day at the market! :: OPEN

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