A penny saved is a penny earned. Part 1

[Taylani]

The merchant smiles, closing the box with the beads in it and pushes it now toward Fallan. He did not miss the glower that Taylani gave Fallan and he, nor did he miss the crossed arms and the almost defiant stance she keeps. It seems to him that this Drykas boy has gotten himself a hold of a handful. "Many thanks my good friend, enjoy them."

Taylani manages to hold her tongue until after the deal was completed, though she does not consider herself to be glowering really more...scowling deeply. Her hand reaches up instinctively to run through her red hair when she notices Fallan looking, and she has to force her hand to stop trying to thread her fingers through it. Taylani is scowling mostly because she is not certain how she should feel about the fact that he had bought pretty trinkets that were non-necessity and from his and the merchants words for her hair.

Not caring that she had been contemplating the effect of said beads in her hair while she danced, Taylani lifts her chin once Fallan was finished wrapping up the exchange. "My hair is perfectly fine the way it is." To emphasis this she tosses her head once more to send her loose locks over her shoulder once more, ignoring that the bead work would help keep it out of her face that wasn't the point. Her words are spoken not with anger or obstinacy but simple stating of a fact.

[Fallan Windchaser]

With a smile and a bow for the merchant, Fallan paid the agreed coin and collected the box, pleased with the transaction even if he wasn't sure that he had paid a good price. His smile remained on his face as he observed the expression that Taylani had for him, though the cause was obscure. Somewhere, something had happened, but what and when he wasn't sure.

One thing that he was sure of was that whatever the problem was, she was going to have to deal with it, for one way or another his will would prevail. But neither did he wish a battle for the sake of it, so unless she wanted to make an issue, then he did not. He admired the hair toss, however was not about to let it go entirely unremarked.

"Hair look good. Look good like that spread out on bedding."

Of course words were followed immediately by a mental image of her naked underneath him with her hair mussed around her head and shoulders. It caused him to smile more deeply and his eyes to unfocus for a moment.

"See what other stalls?"

[Taylani]

As always it seems to Taylani, his response threw her off guard, dismissing the annoyance of him once again making decisions about her body by exchanging it with confusion. It wasn't really the matter of beads but the simple fact that he is taking yet another aspect of herself and bending it to his will, but the stab of pleased emotion at his compliment confuses her enough that her annoyance is at least for now put on the back burner.

"Fallan," Her voice not annoyed but with no small amount of exasperation. The same tones her own mother used to use on her whenever she was being particularly hardheaded. "Sometimes I wonder if you just ...don't understand anything." The last is said with a shake of her head, before she moves forward once more, skirting around him just enough to get by without jarring him, hoping to brush past to the other stalls.

Moving to the next stall, her eyes not really seeing the wares as she focuses more inward then out. She contemplates the possibility of shearing off her hair, let him try and bead it then..but she is not at the point of cutting off her own nose to spite her face just yet. Her hair was her vanity, so she wasn't ready to do anything drastic. But he has already taken away her choices on her own reproduction, her choices on her own career, and her choices on everything else in life. With a sigh, she glances back to him before trying to put her mood out of her thoughts, it wouldn't be worth a public spectacle .

With a concerted effort to smile, "I am finished with what I need. If you insist I can stay with you while you ...browse." Taylani turns her slightly forced smile fully towards him, "Unless you don't need me that is." Perhaps she could sneak off and speak to these merchants while he was busy perusing. Though the more she looked at these traders the less joy her plan gives her, wondering if she was really thinking seriously on escaping..and if she would be jumping from the pan into the fire..

[Fallan Windchaser]

He bit back a grin as she flounced off ahead of him for a few paces. He juggled his packages and found a new balance with the box wrapped up in the leather pieces tucked under his left arm before following her.

"Not insist," he said softly as he closed the gap between them. "Tay free to shop, return tent." He shrugged, not wishing to force her to follow him round for this, especially given the mild friction he had encountered at both stall they had visited so far. It had only served to remind him how they were seen by others and how far they had yet to go.

He might have to enlist his sister, Adelias, advice on how to make Taylani appear more Drykas. He was fairly sure that there were hidden rules on how women were supposed to dress and how hair could be braided and beaded, but they weren't the sort of thing that were generally shared with men. Then again he hadn't yet broached the subject of Taylani with her and he wasn't entirely sure of what she really thought. Regardless of that he was sure that she would help.

He cast his eyes over the stalls, dredging up memories of the peoples of Eyktol and wondering what might be found here. The peoples of old city of Ahnatep loved gold and jewellery, most of which was going to be out of his price range for now. Perhaps if he could find really good quality items in the cities of Cyphrus and Syrila they could sell to traders such as this, and trade the other way too. A stall would be worth a look to get a feel for what they had. Perfumes too he recalled. Decadent were their vices, but a little luxury was appreciated by all who could afford it.

Yahebeh, now, he delved deeply into his mind for that distant city which was little more than a name to him. Salt and spices perhaps, it would be true of the desert cities. Foodstuffs would spoil on the long journey, but new flavours could be worth more than their weight in gold. So much for the cities, he had heard that there was pottery here, he guessed from the Chatawe or Benshira, but though it could be beautiful he did not have a wagon to transport it.

His mind came back into focus and he looked around anew to see if Taylani was still there or not.

[Taylani]

Taylani was on the verge of moving away from him, if not to speak to the merchants, to inform them of her plight, surely one would have a daughter her age, or a young wife and sympathize. Yet his words stopped her, and she turned around to face him once more. Her arms shift the bag that contained the jewelry tools within so that she was cradling it close to her body in front of her, her expression one of thoughtfulness.

She looked from Fallan to the strangers in the tents, then back to Fallan again. There was the known danger, of him, and then there was the unknown of the merchants. With Fallan, he at least was up front with her or so she thinks. She is his slave, she will bear him children but he doesn't mistreat her other then the glaring obvious. The merchants, they are an enigma, she knows that Drykas are not the only people who practice slavery, and who is to say that the merchant that helps her out of the city does not throw her in chains and sell her to a worse individual.

With an almost inaudible sigh Taylani abandons her plan to speak to these merchants though she does not give up the idea of finding a Syliras trader in the city. Taylani moves back towards him, to take her place at his side. Without commenting on going back to the tent or staying she simply points out the spice traders. "The people in Syliras pay high for spices. Mostly salts to help preserve their meat. Meat is not as easy to come by in the city so what they have they want to keep."

[Fallan Windchaser]

He was slightly surprised to still find her there with him, though it pleased him that she had chosen to remain. He smiled softly, the remaining irritations fading away as he allowed the memories to drift away. "Be in the present," his father had taught him so long ago, and he used the practice to refocus on the here and now.

"Thank you Tay," he said nodding at the comments she made.

"We much the same," he mused, aware that his knowledge of spices was limited. He led the way over to the stall, and paused bemused by the selection, the pungent smells and the vibrant colours.

He waved at the selection and commented in an aside to Tay, "you know what these are? I not know where start. Want buy something spice meals."

[Taylani]

Moving with him to the spice stalls, Taylani wraps her arms around herself as she looks over the selection as he speaks. Yet once again she is brought to acknowledge that she held no useful skills, causing her to reflect that perhaps she deserved to have her life taken from her. She had concentrated on such vapid skills that she neglected most others. With a soft sound, not quite a sigh not quit a word, she shakes her head, giving him a rueful smile. "Yet again, I don't know much more then the simplest. Spices were a bit of a luxury, and we only bought the basics."

Her hand reaches out, one finger extended to point out specific containers, the first filled with a small white crystalline substance. "I probably know only what you already do, but that is salt. That.." She points to another container with small circular pebble-shaped objects of various hues of brown. "That is pepper, if you crush it, you can sprinkle it on food to give it a bit of flavor. Those are the two that are common. The others..." She shrugs, casting her eyes downward, "Sorry..I told you, next to useless." Her arm returns to fold around her middle, her hands laying on the opposite arm with the bag caught between them.

Leaning forward, balancing just a little so that she didn't tip over she sniffs one of the dark red powders, perhaps too hard because suddenly there was an overwhelming urge to sneeze, and the nasal cavities burning gently. She steps back quickly, hoping she didn't bump Fallan even though the urge to sneeze was so strong her eyes watered. Suddenly two strong sneezes, instinctively she turns away from the stall and Fallan as she does so, are given before she recovers and straightens. "Smelled good...until...yeah..." Chagrined she turns her back so that she didn't see the slightly disapproving look of the merchant while he worked with a different customer.

[Fallan Windchaser]

Aware that potential customers, or timewasters, depending on your point of view were waiting the merchant finished his business and moved over to serve them.

The disapproving expression by now had been masked, but replaced by one of caution. The spices were valuable and yet easily damaged, but clearly neither Fallan nor Taylani knew what they were looking at which was clear to the merchant. Despite this a professional smile managed to make it's way onto his face, though he stared for a moment at Taylani.

"I have all the spices that you could wish for," he claimed, "traded from all the corners of the world and preserved by the desert heat." He pointed at some of the items on display. "Salt and pepper as you have seen," he smiled thinly at Taylani. "but also cinnamon, cumin and cloves," he pointed at them in turn. "Ginger, nutmeg and poppy, mace, turmeric and of course saffron." At the latter he pointed to the carefully placed display of bright yellow orange strands. This Fallan had heard of, though largely because of it's extreme value.

The question had to be asked of course, so he did. "How much the saffron?" The merchant smiled, the chance of a good sale, no matter how remote making it worth the chance of wasting his time. "Ah, you have good taste, saffron is a mere eighty gold miza per ounce." Fallan tried to hide the wince at this. Even if he wished, this was more than he could attempt. It seemed that he would need to try and save up if that was an option for the future.

"What of the salt, pepper and cinnamon?" The merchant was quick to respond, naming prices with no sense of hesitation at all. "The salt is two coppers, the pepper forty gold and the cinnamon, the taste of the desert is two gold."

Fallan nodded and paused, contemplating what he should buy.

[Taylani]

Taylani returns the merchants stare, she doesn't speak or openly move, though she does itch just for a moment to send a signal any signal to the merchant. But the moment passes without incident, her eyes dropping to the wares in containers. If she was going to rectify her problem that she can not do anything of use she was going to have to learn the hard way. It is not as if she was bound to wander around the camp asking random Drykas for lessons. Her eyes narrows at that idea, though she supposes she might be able to ask the few other captives she has bothered to converse with.

Surely they weren't all as much of a ninny about basic skill such as she was, though she conceded at least one was clearly not able to care for herself let alone anyone else and the other was probably too wrapped up with his sisters condition. Shaking her head, she pulls herself back to the here and now, listening to the prices that the other merchant offers.

The saffron she can not tell one way or the other, the bright spice something she had never seen before. However the pepper price catches her ear and her hand once more falls to Fallan's arm. She has never bargained or traded before today but she has bought pepper and salt with her mother before. She turns her back toward the merchant, thinking that it would not be helpful if the merchant understood what she was saying Taylani thought hard. Dredging up the words in Pavi that she could remember was difficult, trying to find the ones that would fit, so perhaps her sentence might seem like non-sense but hopefully she could get the point across.

"No." Taylani says, her body shielding her hand, having to speak the spice names in common but the rest she manages to say in Pavi...even if they weren't exactly the words, maybe he will grasp what she was meaning. " Pepper bad ..no " Here she held up four fingers next to her hand with her fingers curling. "Pepper Good..." Now one hand has two fingers up, and the other hand had Five fingers. "Salt...kind." She flatten her palms to tilt first left the right, trying to convey that it was an ok price, might be able to get it cheaper but not by much. Taylani bites her lip, waiting and wondering if she got the point across.

[Fallan Windchaser]

Fallan attempted to keep what he thought of as his bargaining face on as the prices were listed out, so he appeared interested but didn't react overly much to the prices and instead tried to file them away whilst also trying to dredge up what he knew or could remember of prices. It wasn't easy though as his cooking ability was very basic indeed, and whilst it had served him well enough he had become aware that there was a large difference between what was acceptable to burn at the side of a fire or eat raw with most of the dirt washed off and quite another to serve any of that up to someone else. It was another thing that he might have to watch more closely in the Pavilion. As it was though, he had more in mind a gift to the Pavilion for this in return for food that was somewhat more edible than he had been able to produce.

As such he was grateful for the hints that Tay provided. He squinted at the hand signals and nodded, smiling his thanks and gave her a hug with a soft kiss to her cheek. It both expressed his thanks and perhaps obscured the meaning of the exchange.

Saffron was out, the pepper was also, even at the price that Taylani suggested for his purse was far too light for that. Even half an ounce would halve his savings which was a shame as he'd have liked to buy the pepper.

He returned his attention to the merchant. Price high. Buy fifty ounce salt, three silver. Two ounces cinnamon one gold, no more." He reckoned that there would be more room to bargain on the cinnamon once they got closer to Eyktol and as such it was now a luxury suitable for a gift. The salt though would be useful now whilst the Fall hunts were on to preserve both meat and hides against the coming winter.

The merchant barely held his smile as his suspicions about the time wasting nature of his current customers became clear. Still a sale was a sale and it was bad practice to annoy a native in the natives own camp. Five silver, one gold," the merchant answered with the finality in his tone indicating that he would not waste any more time in the bargaining, not while he could see more potential customers attracted to the stall. Fallan nodded in agreement and paid.

The allure of the market was beginning to pall for him as his purse became lighter. He had bought things and it was time to return to the tent and take stock.

He made a concious effort to improve his Common and ran through the words before he spoke. Are we done?" He smiled at Tay and cocked an eyebrow.