[Location: The Market] Stalling out

[skinandbone]

This is completely terrifying.

Somewhere at the outskirt of the Market, Metody has rented a stall with the last of her money and some very fast talking. She sits at the front of it, giving the world a tense, edgy smile.

She is not wearing her environmental suit, and that is completely terrifying. Appearances matter and no one looks friendly in a black space suit, and so it is stashed under the tablecloth. In it's place, Metody is wearing her impression of business dress: Electric pink jeans, a green blouse, a blue net scarf and a blazingly purple jacket. She's done something complicated with a pink ribbon to one arm, and there's a band of carved ivory flowers holding back her hair, and okay, it's maybe not the most staid of outfits, but the jacket means it's professional, right? And so does the scarf.

Her wares are displayed as attractively as she could manage: on one side, delicate carvings of bone - little boxes with geometrical or botanical themes, long strands of interlocking beads, flowers with petals so thin that light shines through them, intricate ivory hair ornaments. On the other side is meat of the operation, ha ha: purplish venison steaks and what looks at first glance to be chicken thighs and cutlets, but is actually rabbit. She's even got a(n ivory) plate of samples with frilly toothpicks sticking out of them, and neatly hand printed recipe cards.

There is paper and string to package up the meat, and little boxes for the jewelry and carvings, and if no one buys anything, she is facing a long walk home followed by another meal of yet more freaking venison and rabbit.

She might just try eating grass and rocks instead. Or she'll try staring at the crowd and willing them into purchasing.

C'mon. C'mooooooooon.

Comments

[skinandbone]

"I just - why that? Why not something stronger, or faster or - I mean, if you want something gentle, okay but really, if all you want is to get stoned - "

"I mean, I can think of two or three other things that'd be much better and easier to obtain, and that's just off the top of my head. And I hardly ever drug, except for religion."

[kings_fool]

"Oh," says Jeremy as the full thrust of her questioning and reaction finally become clear.

"...oh."

He rocks back on his heels a little, hands jammed into his pockets, studying his toes in his flip-flops a moment before giving a casual shrug.

"I kinda had some bad experiences with the harder stuff. And 'sides, I can deal with charges for possession of weed, if I gotta. Coke or meth? Ain't worth it. No way.

"....so.... what, religion-- you're doing what, like peyote for that then?"

[skinandbone]

"I...don't know what those are, either. I think we have some very different words for things?"

"Oh, golly, no, I'm inland Eastern. Mostly goldleaf and summerdust, depending on the ceremony. I used to do locations and banishments, so lots of ghost powder and red, but not so much anymore because it's too hard on my heart."

[kings_fool]

"...dude, we must, because I've never heard of any of that," Jeremy says, shading his eyes against the sun and then looking around for a place to sit that is a) in the sun and b) means the counter of the booth isn't blocking his view of Metody.

"--it sounds like, all pretty and stuff though. Your drugs have great names. Summerdust. Goldleaf. That's miles better than 'methamphetamines'. Although I guess ecstasy and angeldust are pretty names. Except angeldust is seriously not pretty to use," he says, scrunching up his nose as he babbles.

[skinandbone]

"It's mostly off of how it looks. Or when you make it, or what it does."

There's a battered chair behind the counter. Metody isn't in it anymore; at some point in the conversation, she stood up.

"What's angeldust do?"

[kings_fool]

"Maybe that's the problem. I think most of our stuff is just, like, 'interchangeable white powder #21'..."

Jeremy flip-flops back behind the counter (what are boundaries) and flops into the chair.

"Uhmmn... makes you tweak like crazy," he says with a squint and a rub at his jaw. "You don't feel pain but you go pretty psycho-- aggressive behavior, violence, stuff like that. One guy killed a girl and ate her freakin' lung cuz he thought she was the devil. Naaasty stuff."

[skinandbone]

He gets a hug as soon as he's back there. It has been a terribly stressful week, and while she is weathering it well, she still needs comfort.

"...why would eating a lung stop a demon? Wouldn't that just give it a road to influence?"

"We have stuff that has bad side effects like that, too. It's not in common use, though. I mean - look at the consequences."

[kings_fool]

Hugs! Yay! Jeremy returns them warmly (whilst holding his breath), and is careful not to do any lifting-of-Metodies off the ground.

He looks quizzically up at her question. "...it doesn't really make you logical," he says after a bit. "I don't think he was like, thinking rationally about eating the lung, you know? He was all ARGLE BARGLE YOU ARE EVIL I'M-A KNIFE YOU AND THEN MAYBE CHEW ON YOUR FACE. Not that I knew the guy or anything."

He stretches back in the chair, nodding a little. "It's illegal as hell in our world. What're your policies like?"

[skinandbone]

She doesn't smell quite so bad as usual; not wearing her sweat-marinated suit helps.

"I think that even someone very high back home wouldn't eat part of a demon. But maybe we're more wary than you guys?"

"On drugs? Home brew isn't regulated, really - I mean, how could you? But you're responsible for what you do or neglect to do while on drugs, or what's done while on stuff you provided to someone else, and you've got to be of age, and it's illegal to transport past a certain distance."

"And certain things are definitely regulated."

[kings_fool]

Jeremy squints some more in that same quizzical fashion. ".....well, demons aren't.... you know... real where I'm from. So that's... probably something to do with it," he says at last.

He scratches at his belly and wonders if he's actually starting to believe this whole place is real or if he's just going along to get along, now.

Oh well, drug-talk's more interesting. "Huh," he says. "Our laws are kinda whack, I dunno. I mean there's a lot of soft stuff like weed that's technically illegal but nobody really cares, and then there's the cocaine and crap like that which is all, shit, gangs and such, so people smugglin' it in and getting shot over it and stuff. I've thought about moving to Amsterdam a few times. Maybe I should just move to your world instead."

[skinandbone]

It's Metody's turn to give Jeremy the Fryface. "...how are demons not real where you're from?"

"We've got lots of people who move stuff illegally, especially to other parts of the country where the right plants don't grow."

"Why Amsterdam?" And she's not even going to think about Jeremy in her world. It'd be like watching a kindergartener blunder through a four lane highway.

[kings_fool]

"They're just... not?" he says helplessly. "I mean. The only people who think demons are real are like, the serious religious nutjobs. 'JESUS SAVES OR YOU'RE GOING TO HELL' types. Repent-the-end-is-nigh. I dunno, I don't know to answer that. Nobody I know has any proof demons exist?

"--I don't mean here, obviously. Here, I think everything exists." He knuckles at his eyes and wishes he had some sunglasses.

"Cuz Amsterdam--" he yawns, "--has really loose drug laws. Weed's legal and most other things you wanna shoot, puff, snort, drink, or whatever.

"You selling anything?" he asks, and then, realizing that can maybe be taken in one way given their current conversational topic, he clarifies, "I mean, any of your stuff here?"

[skinandbone]

"Oh. Well, they exist back home. You can summon them and everything."

"I mean, theoretically. No one does, for obvious reasons. They're really dangerous, and if you make a mistake it's dangerous too, because - " Because. Because. She jerks her train of thought onto some different rails before she says anything too revealing.

" - I'm selling everything, really. Venison, the carvings...I can do custom work, too."

[kings_fool]

"That is supremely funky," Jeremy pronounces, and scootches the chair back an inch so that his eyes are not in the sun.

He grins lopsided at her words. "I meant, are you having much luck selling anything?"

[skinandbone]

"Home is - this place is so.....nice. Like, not just saf - safe-ish - but...nice. Kind and sort of...nice."

"Oh! I sold some meat, several hairpins and a pendant. And a powder box, but I think that was a one off thing. And I talked up a butcher," - it was his fault for going near Metody in the white apron - "and I'm going to see if I can't get him tho buy some meat regular from me."

[kings_fool]

Jeremy gives Metody a squinty look. "....so the blizzard from hell and the ice witch thing is an improvement in the safety department, for you?"

He skritches at his belly then leans forward to look at the things that are still on display. "The beads are sweeeeet. But I still want a bong. Or maybe a guitar pick! I wonder if it'd break."

[skinandbone]

".....um. No."

"But there's no spirits here. Like - none."

Unless Horst and William count. What an odd and unexpected thought - but maybe that's why they look dead. Because they're not alive, because they're spirits, and spirits have a different kind of life than people.

Man.No one ever talked about how they found out how to pacify spirits. They just said what to do.

"Maybe? I think it'd chip, at the very least."

[kings_fool]

"I dunno what to tell you there. Spirits are like demons for me: some church-y people believe in them but most people don't and there's no proof of them. I guess this place must be weirder to you than it is to me, and it's plenty weird to me."

Jeremy picks up a hairclip from the table while he talks, turning it over in his hands and playfully sticking it into his hair.

"What is this, like.... balsa wood or something? --alder. Alder's the white wood. I think? Or is it birch?"

[skinandbone]

"They're all over back home."

And then, anxiously, "I mean, I've still got my alter set up, even if it isn't entirely accurate, and I've got my stones and string and - maybe all that's keeping them away? And I just haven't noticed them? Maybe?"

"Oh, no, it's deer bone."

[kings_fool]

Jeremy plucks the barette back out of his hair while he listens to Metody's worried words. He knows jack shit about altars and strings and stuff like that, and it probably shows on his face.

"...okay, well... so what happens if someone doesn't do the altar thing? Cuz, like, I haven't. So... if they were here, wouldn't they be-- uh, well, doing whatever is your spirits do to people?" he says at last, trying to go for semi-comforting semi-logic, or something.

"--did you say deer bone."

[skinandbone]

"Just - all sorts of things - " Anxiety has worn some very deep paths in Metody's soul. Oh, no, does this mean that Jeremy is going to be attacked?

"Yeah. It's all deer."

[kings_fool]

Jeremy is distracted from trying to suss through Metody's weirdass worries by this revelation.

"Dude. Dude. You are.... you are officially the most metal person I have personally known," Jeremy informs Metody in earnest tones. "You own fucking body armor and appease the spirits and you make shit out of bones. You've displaced Flamingo Eddie, and he eats fire."

[skinandbone]

"I mean - I haven't seen any - "

She trails off, blinking at him.

" - sorry, he eats what? Why? That's not how I appease spirits. Um. Do you want me to make you a little ward for your home, maybe, just in case...?"

[kings_fool]

"No no, he doesn't do it to eat fire, he-- he's a performer. Like me. It's a show. You know? Fire-eaters, sword-swallowers? Do you have those acts?

"....uh, I dunno about a 'ward'. I mean-- technically-- I'm Jewish."