Clothes for a Teacher (Piraen Saneka)

[Oswald Adams]

25th of Summer, 516 A.V. | Speech | Thoughts

Perhaps the first thing Oswald noticed about The Spot was how absolutely crowded it was. Bodies crammed into the tavern-ship from wall-to-wall, lining near every table and filling up the well-stocked bar. Dim candle lights illuminated the dining areas with a warm glow and painted the patron's shadows on the wall. Excited chatter bounced through the smoky air, ricocheting through conversations both serious and benign until it slipped out from one of the many open windows on the ship.

Oswald weaved his way through the traffic of bodies filtering in and out of the tavern, uttering many "excuse me"s and "sorry"s as he trudged onward. The nervous energy which had possessed him not a few days prior seemed to shift into genuine excitement. Even with his clumsy way about him and his general absent-mindedness, their was a certain sharpness about Oswald. A palpable sense of drive infected his gait and the young mage moved with purpose towards the bar.

"Excuse me-"

"Ma'am if I could have but a moment-"

"Please miss, if it isn't any trouble-"

Huffing, Oswald screwed up his face in frustration as his attempts to garner the barmaid's attention fell flat. Not one to give up easily, the skinny man attempted to force his way into the barrier of bodies which lined the bar. Waving the slip of paper bearing a job request which brought him here in the first place, Oswald managed to slip in between two particularly hefty patrons with some effort.

"Sorry," he said quietly under the two men's heavy glares. Both of them issued some sort of muffled grunt of acknowledgement before turning back to their conversation. Luckily, this small disruption was enough to garner the busy bartender's notice.

"Can I help you?" she asked with a sunny yet strained smile on her face.

"Oh-well, yes actually! I have this slip of paper, well job really. I mean, the paper isn't the job but has the job on it...I'm rambling aren't I?" Oswald took a second to breath and calm his nerves. "I would like to post a job."

The women laughed loudly at Oswald's verbal floundering, causing a confused expression to pop up on the man's face.

I didn't say anything funny, did I? Strange how often that's been happening with service staff recently.

"Alright, alright," she said between short spurts of giggles. "What's the job and how much does it pay?"

"It's...um," Oswald paused for a moment, checking the sheet he wrote on as a reminder. "Tailoring! I need tailoring done for a set of teacher's robes. For the price, I was thinking fifty gold..."

He paused at the bartender's surprised look.

"Too high? Well, I suppose I could be argued down lower. Does twenty-five sound better?"

She shook her head.

"Twenty?"

Again, she declined.

"You drive a hard bargain miss. Does fifteen sound more to your liking?"

At the woman's confident nod he continued.

"Yes, fifteen gold mizas for a sturdy set of teacher's robes. Could you post that to the job board please?" Oswald held out the slip of paper just in case she forgot like he was liable to.

She smiled and nodded once more before taking the parchment and flitting off to the wall of requests. Confident in her abilities, Oswald again squeezed between the two large men which obscured his exit and scouted out the tavern for an open seat. It took a few minutes of minutes of patience and dedicated searching, but the teacher-to-be finally spied an empty booth secreted away on the far side of the drinking-barge. Sitting down, Oswald watched the board and waited eagerly for the results of his request.

[Piraen Saneka]

There were many things about people that annoyed Pi. The most prevalent of these things was the simple fact that they existed in his life. Of course, others were a necessary evil. Without people, Pi would have no one to dress. What good is a tailor without any customers? This annoyance became even more pressing when these people existed in very close proximity to each other. Because of course people couldn't sit quietly: they had to make noise, showy movements, obnoxious heat. And of course Piraen had to find himself in one such situation.

Pi sat in one of The Spot's wooden chairs playing a round of "how many ways can I kill myself in this room." Unfortunately, this was part of his daily routine. After work, he'd covertly sneak by Azure Reflections to check out his competition before sulking in The Spot for a while. Though his current job provided for him just fine, Pi found that one could only stitch up so many holey crotches before going insane from boredom. He needed other work to spice things up, and, if he was lucky enough, build a customer base before opening his own shop.

Just as he got to his forty-third demise (starting a fight with a particularly burly and drunk man at the bar), Pi saw an awkward man flailing about in the direction of the barmaid. He didn't appear to be ordering a drink and he didn't seem drunk enough to be flirting with the bartender, which was good for Piraen's intentions. Pi's interest was snagged. After a brief conversation, the two separated and the barmaid made her way to the wall. When she reached it, Pi was there waiting with open hand--well, hand, as he wasn't going to relinquish control of one of the only free chairs in the place.

"Calling it." Piraen spoke loudly, claiming rights to the paper. The bartender quickly handed the small piece of paper to Pi before her attention was drawn back to the other patrons. As she went, she muttered something about hanging it up if he didn't actually want the job. If I don't want the job, puh-lease. Pi snickered as his eyes scanned the page, pretending to read the whole sheet. In all honesty, he couldn't really read that well. His dark eyes scanned for the word he knew best: tailor. Upon finding it, a smirk crossed his face.

Pi's head snapped up and began roving in quick, cutting movements. After a few chimes of scanning, the tailor spotted the awkward man. Seeing as this man had found a booth, Piraen finally abandoned his chair and scooted over to the potential client.

"Hello." Pi tucked one of his hands into his pants pocket while using the other hand to lift the parchment into the man's view. "In need of a tailor?"