Stonecold Road, [Faval, and Ask]

[Y'urne]

Summer, 22 512

Cut Brink Midday

The sun crinkled through the highlighted white clouds that formed in the sky; sudden shadows overlapped the cold stone road in front of a small young woman that had made herself a small little area of personal space. She had overlapping clothing, fur-ridden, unique to the current situation but it all seemed to match her overall appearance, a bit of dirt, a bit of soot, and a fire-darkened flare to her appearance. Next to her little humble spot, a single crate stood right next to her feet, several bottles within the wooden space. Each with a different cork, each with a different label but all the liquid within looked the same to anyone who went by, only a true potion-maker could understand each item in that wooden cage, that, and the woman who seemed to be selling them. "Come One! Come All! Today only, I have a special deal for you all! Buy one, and get one free. These little beauties will help keep you warm, keep you happy, and help those troubles wither right away! Sir!, are you feeling depressed? Sad maybe? Perhaps you need a bit of warming up, this right here will wake you right up, and let you see the joy through those shadows in your heart," she announced to everyone that happened to be listening.

The young woman had a rather fine voice, young but with a bit of showmanship hidden right down in the depths of it, of course though. The man continued on his way, slumped down, and ignoring the young woman's attempts. Though that didn't seem to bother her a single bit, she returned to her sales pitch, and pressured everyone that seemed to come by within a good twenty foot distance of her "stand". "It seems that man didn't want to taste heaven! Don't be scared, it even tastes like Hazelnut!," she added to her earlier pitch, though it didn't seem to do much good, if any at all. The young woman turned her focus away for a moment or two in order to pull back the hood of her fur-mantle, a sudden sway, and a flash of red formed from under the old-fur, and showed a finely short-cut bush of red hair on her hair, just a bit of it waving over her eye. With her face fully shown, and her hair out to the world it was time to try again!

[Faval]

Summer in Zeltiva was normally a happy and warm time and on that day, Faval’s mood mimicked the environment rather beautifully. He had gotten up early, eaten some breakfast, slung his longbow over his shoulder, strapped his quiver to his back and then set out of his dingy little Grotto apartment and out in to the lovely Zeltivan air had gotten a lot better at wading through the busy streets of Zeltiva through continued exposure and he had managed to get almost all the way down the market street without bumping in to more than twenty people. It was a pretty impressive accomplishment if he did say so himself. Separating himself from the ever moving tide of traffic, Faval ejected himself to the side of the street and resting himself against a wall, letting his eyes admire how determinedly busy people could be. Zeltiva was a good place to recognize it. There was a life to the city; it didn’t seem to stop moving. Perhaps it was because the city had the most left after the catastrophe, but Faval wasn’t sure that was the only reason that people and activity gravitated to the place. There was something special about the place. Faval slowly tore his eyes away from the constant activity in favor of something a little more peaceful. The clouds above them were beautiful today, white fluffs that meandered calmly and quietly through the sunny sky. It was a stark contrast to the busy street around them, they were calm, carefree. As much as he enjoyed the rampant energy that perforated the busy city, he much preferred to be one of the clouds, away from this chaos.

Faval’s concentration was broken as he heard a woman speak out about something Faval honestly didn’t care much about. It wasn’t uncommon, people were trying to peddle their wares off of everyone who walked by who looked like they owned a coin purse. The only reason Faval even noticed the woman was because he seemed to have stumbled right near her little peddling ground. Gently pushing off the wall as she tried and failed to get a passerby to take an interest in, Faval couldn’t help but chuckle lightly at her plight. He certainly didn’t have much experience with selling things that were his skill with a bow, so he wasn’t the person to be giving advice on how to sell little containers that were filled with water as far as he could tell, but there was one very blatant and very serious flaw with her approach at selling the things. Faval, gently peaking around the side of her cart as she tried to draw in someone in the opposite direction, spoke up in a soft tone as he examined the barrel full of the strange liquids.

“Selling something that warms you up in the middle of the summer is a weird idea.”

[Y'urne]

"Haha, well this doesn't warm the body. Its more of a saying than anything. It warms up your "soul", it helps you get through those hard times. Lifts you up, helps you forget the pains of the world for a bit. Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff," the young woman turned her focus from the street and towards the young man that had come within her pestle area, turning to face the lad, she dropped down on the small box she had been near, and used it as a "comfortable" chair for the time being. Now turned, focused, and attentive on the young man. She let him know, she could care less about what she had been doing before. "I'm Y'urne, and trust me. This stuff does more harm than anything, it's just watered down liquor mixed with a bit of oil," she came out clean to the young boy, she didn't really have anything to hide as this wasn't her favorite past-time. Sure she loved to sell meaningless merchandise, and make a bit of free coin but this wasn't an honorable means to do so. She didn't like tricking people but sometimes you needed to do it to survive in this world, and she wanted to survive. At least to see her dreams, and goals come true.

"So I've never seen you about before, what's your name?," she asked the boy in response to anything he may, or would have been doing at the time if anything. She dropped down her shoulders, let her hands brace the side of the wooden cage of goods, and had dropped her feet a distance away to let them lay straight out from her position. One of her hands slowly began to raise towards her neck, the young tomboyish young woman braced her palm against the left side of her neck, pressed down with ample pressure, and in return turned her neck a bit to the side in order to make a small release of pressure within her bones; resulting in a small popping sound. "Whew, standing up all day sure is a pain," she let that last bit jokingly wiggle from her lips which she had clenched tighter on one side than the other, letting one of her pointed canine teeth show itself against her bottom lip. Using it to softly scratch, and scrap at the spot it had been pressed into it. A bit of dryness could be seen, and the teeth was the cure for that. She slowly prodded, scraped, and remove a bit of it from her lips by moistening it. In return it forced her lips to glisten a bit more in the damp light of the sun, the clouds overhead providing moments of shade before moving on, and another taking its place within a few seconds. It was a rather comfortable spot, not too hot, nor too cold. It was a paradise in the city, at least till it turned dark.

[Faval]

Faval’s eyes didn’t leave the vials as the woman spoke and they did little to hide the increasingly darkening expression on his face with each word that left her mouth. Faval had a very resolute moral compass and very, very few things contradicted it. He also felt that everyone else should conform to that moral compass, at least to some degree and he was getting increasingly angrier the more then woman spoke. Did she not care that she was doing harm to people? Was she really that heartless? What kind of sick demented person would be selling poison on the street with a damn smile? Faval didn’t really note that, while doing considerably more harm than good, watered down liquor wasn’t going to actually hurt anyone, that wasn’t what was important. What was important was that this woman was going out of her way to pawn meaningless and destructive merchandise off on to helpless people. Faval’s hero complex wasn’t going to allow that to stand. He had seen people like her his whole life and they disgusted him. There were so many honest ways to get by that didn’t hurt those around you and she would be punished for not taking one if Faval had anything to say about it.

Faval’s eyes slowly and not very kindly turned to glare at the woman as she asked him his name. His eyes were narrowed and displeasure and quiet fury were quite pronounced across his features. It was quite a beautiful “if looks could kill” moment to be perfectly honest as Faval’s eyes seemed to be willing her murder on their own. They weren’t succeeding, but they were trying so very hard. Faval gently shrugged his bow off his shoulder, his left hand catching the dropped frame with a certain sense of effortless finesse as his eyes remained fixed on the woman’s. If the woman took that as a sign of aggression, good, it was, as Faval unblinkingly stared her down, his grip on the bow tightening as he responded to her query with a rather venomous tone. It would be remarkably stupid for Faval to start a fight and kill the woman in broad daylight, but he tended to not be very bright when his sense of morality was at stake and she wasn’t paying him for a contract, so he wasn’t morally obligated to stay his hand.

“My name is Faval Verbeugen, and why are you trying to sell anything that is more harm than good to these people?”