it’s naive to pray for world peace if we’re not going to change the form in which we live

[serjeant]

Who: Master Stoneshell and YOU?
What: Blacksmiths do good business in a nervous town.
Where: Seoraj's Forge.
When: Whenever.
Notes: If you'd like me to set up a thread in the comments to run into him somewhere else, drop me a line.
Warnings: Stay tuned.

Chaos is profitable, when your business is weaponry.

It isn't that he doesn't get by otherwise - the farmers keep him busy, and he does casual business with his swords and his knives, and beyond that he's not exactly strapped for cash in the first place - but demand spikes when citizens start eyeing their neighbours the way he's seen lately, and there's money to be made in that. People wanting silver crosses attached to steel stakes and swords they can have blessed by a local priest and one fellow, memorably, gives him a small vial of something to mix into the molten metal before he makes the knife. For the price he gets to name on that one, he doesn't ask what it is.

(He holds onto the vial, though, with the traces left of it; he makes sure he has receipts and records for every purchase and who made it. It seems like the sort of thing it might be useful to have, later, and it isn't as though keeping records isn't standard practise.)

Politics aren't his strong suit and neither are supernatural creatures, but he knows money and he knows trouble - he's been seeing a bit more of both, lately, and if you asked him, then he'd probably say the further he goes, the more familiar everything seems to be.

Comments

[serjeant]

It's approaching the hour where Seoraj starts closing up for dinner and then the work he's still got waiting for him at home- not so late he's already packing up what he's doing, but late enough that he's doing inventory and record-keeping, and that's what he looks up from when the door opens and-

"Ah, you." It's a friendly greeting, accompanied by a quick smile. "All right?"

[fish]

"Yeah..." After the handle, the spook is careful not to touch anything else on his way through the door. It could be said his sense of self-preservation is defective, since he's here despite his really obvious unease, but curiosity has won out against the mystery of his self-named 'spidey-sense'. Being undead doesn't come with a manual, sadly, and he has no mentor to advise him. This might be a little easier to deal with if he'd kicked it in a Tim Burton film.

"Hi. I, uh, saw you had a thingy out here and came to check it out." All the way out here, yes. To the middle of nowhere. "....Are you closed?"

[serjeant]

Seoraj makes a so-so gesture with one hand, though you'd think 'open' or 'closed' would be a pretty simple question to answer- "Quietening down for the evening is all." A few addresses to rewrite in a more legible hand, that sort of thing. "What d'you make of my 'thingy', then?"

The world may be going nuts and iron may freak the hell out of some people, but his affect remains unrelentingly good-natured and mildly entertained at almost all times. It's not a bad way to get through a strange series of days, if you can manage it.

[fish]

"Uhhh, heh..." Hearing Seoraj say that word is kind of amazing, let's not even pretend it isn't. "It's, um. It's cool, it... I feel like I'm walking into a story or something." A scary story, Fish? Is that why you look like you might pee at any time?

Once he's hung his sunglasses from the collar of his jacket, he folds his arms across his chest—hugs himself, more accurately, hands jammed into his armpits—and treads a little further into the place, unabashedly wide-eyed and slow-moving. ...Well, this is one way to shut him up, anyhow.

[serjeant]

"You sure you wouldn't rather enjoy the story from the porch?" ...because Seoraj is at all observant, and Fish really does look like he's creeping around a dragon's lair trying not to wake something up. He's relatively certain that it's not him inspiring that reaction - not ruling it out, mind, but he's not unused to startling lowlanders and they tend to wear it a bit differently. "It's not a bad place," he adds, with more evident pride. "Had a one up in the mountains, wasn't quite like this."

[fish]

"No, I mean, it doesn't look bad or anything... I'm just, uhm." Wigging out? "I've got allergies." Yes. Yes, that is exactly what is happening here.

After a lengthy pause, during which Fish—being the sort whose eyes always seem to find an open door before much else—stares past Seoraj into the adjacent room where certain works-in-progress happen to lay, he puts his slackened jaw back to use. Still staring. Now motionless. He does sound a bit more resolved, though, in the way one might sound while declaring the intent to get the hell out of Dodge. "The porch sounds like a great idea."

[serjeant]

Well- that's interesting, that is, and Seoraj visibly registers the reaction and what prompted it. That's all that seems to happen on the surface, though; he notices, then he shrugs, folding up the paper and getting to his feet. "Well, suits me- I wanted to ask you about your art, come to it."

a single typo, i smite thee

[fish]

The shorter (...much...shorter) man's reaction comes after a slight delay, like dragging his attention away from that door presents a physical difficulty. When he does finally look, though, it's evident that he is at least somewhat easy to distract, if only superficially. "Oh, yeah? Sure, okay."

Just one more glance back thataway (it's pretty much a glare, as if rooms can feel threatened), and then he retraces his steps... literally, even, backing up for several paces before turning to exit properly. He left the door open, at least, so there's no need to touch it again on the way out. Not that the door is offensive, or anything. It's an okay door, he doesn't mind it. Anyway, he's going outside, where once again he will be able to communicate in multi-syllabic words, presumably.

[serjeant]

The door is so inoffensive in its present state that Seoraj leaves it ajar when they emerge - admittedly, more to indicate to any passersby that he is still technically on the clock if they need anything. There's a bench on the porch that he arranges himself on with ease, so it can't be quite as rickety as it looks, and he occupies himself with a bit of polishing that still needs done. Paperwork can stay indoors.

"I was thinking," he says, in the tone of someone who is warily reintroducing 'casual' to a conversation, like he's a little concerned that Fish might not be in the most thrilling of moods presently, "the place could do with a sign."

[fish]

Fish, meanwhile, situates himself against a post or a railing, if there is one near enough to his current conversation buddy, or else he leans against the wall itself. In any case, he is not entirely relaxed but still clearly relieved to be outside (albeit a bit squinty).

"Yeah, I was wondering why you didn't have one on the way in... I wasn't sure I was even in the right place until I saw you."