Post by Faraday Ael Iai on Jul 24, 2010 23:07:42 GMT -5
Faraday had first arrived in the western nations in the middle of January. Needless to say, she hadn't been impressed. She'd left The Polar Ice in a tiny little washtub of a ship, been battered across the ocean, landed on the coast of a kingdom called Halon, taken a horse across the continent to Terre de Conte, and been greeted by a high temperature of fifteen degrees and four feet of lake effect snow that had drifted across the empire. True, it had been a small step up. (A really tiny step. I mean, we're talking a really microscopic step up.) But, it was a step up, going from a strict high temperature of negative six degrees. Snow had never bothered Faraday, and the cold didn't really either, since she'd grown up in it. Still, she'd been expecting low forties, at the very least, as the ship let her out in the western continents. Instead, she'd found that she'd traded one tundra for another. For someone who'd never felt a temperature above thirty degrees, the fabled ninety-five degree summer days of the western kingdoms seemed like an impossible dream. Nonetheless, she'd waited, with baited breath, for spring to arrive, and after that, summer. And as summer hit, the seventh circle of hell seemed to materialize beyond the front door.
Summer, she'd found, with it's true to name eighty damn degrees, could go fuck itself, rightly. Faraday could always be found on such days in-doors where the hot rays of the sun couldn't reach her. She'd remained cloistered somewhere until the afternoon hour dwindled down closer to sunset and the extreme heat cooled to less roaring temperatures. It was at that point that she would go out for her daily walks.
She would walk. For hours, it seemed, Faraday would be completely absent. It was always, 'She's in the garden,' 'She's at the common,' 'in the stables,' 'at the market.' Anywhere fresh air was, you could be guaranteed that's where Faraday would be, too. The smells especially were what drew her out in the welcoming mediated seventy degree weather of late afternoon or early evening, wearing a light linen dress only, her clasped in front of her in order to keep from picking every new flower she saw. The flowers that peppered the city had positively amazed her, when she'd arrived. It had seemed impossible that there were so many types of blossoms, and especially ones so bright and beautiful. The City of Venus was a mixture between the smells of baker shops, leather tanneries, alley-ways and the thousands of flowers that were displayed in shop window boxes, or planted strategically around the city tourist traps.
True to form, as the setting sun began painting the sky coral shades, Faraday emerged into the noise and bustle of Rue Coupole. Her colorless hair was coiled just above the nape of her neck and held in place with a wooden comb carved to resemble a horse and painted bright gold. The hair piece was the only ornament she wore apart from a leather throng dangling from her neck and threaded through eight beads of circular emerald and slender topaz. The dress she wore was olive green by way of color, embroidered at the waist in gold and seemed about a size too large. It hung to the ground but carried a slid from hip down on either side that clearly revealed that fact that her pale feet were bare, as usual. A woven belt was slung low on her hips. The belt neither cinched the garment nor was there anything for it to hold closed. Instead it's sole purpose seemed to be to give her something to which to attache a purse made of plain pearl gray leather. Slung over her left arm was a white, empty wicker basket that swung back and forth with the slightly uneven pacing of her steps.
She rounded the main square of the market place, her gaze drawn across the merchant stalls arranged along the paved walkways. Every so often she'd pause before a merchant and exchange a few coins for one good or another, which she immediately added to the basket hanging from her arm. Some of them were familiar with her, from past outings. Certain items like herbs, blown glass bottles, and such required regular restocking and these venders were prepared with her usual order on hand, and prepared to receive the static price. Faraday never haggled. The lapse was not for excess of funds or impatience, but simply because she did not know to haggle. Whatever price the merchant named, she payed and went on unawares that it was not exactly the standard of doing things. Markets of this sort were not the norm in the Polar Ice and so she was largely unaware of the ploys and tricks to be employeed in them.
For example, as she stood before a merchant weighing out grain, she was completely unaware of the fact that the scale he was using to determine pricing was weighted.
Summer, she'd found, with it's true to name eighty damn degrees, could go fuck itself, rightly. Faraday could always be found on such days in-doors where the hot rays of the sun couldn't reach her. She'd remained cloistered somewhere until the afternoon hour dwindled down closer to sunset and the extreme heat cooled to less roaring temperatures. It was at that point that she would go out for her daily walks.
She would walk. For hours, it seemed, Faraday would be completely absent. It was always, 'She's in the garden,' 'She's at the common,' 'in the stables,' 'at the market.' Anywhere fresh air was, you could be guaranteed that's where Faraday would be, too. The smells especially were what drew her out in the welcoming mediated seventy degree weather of late afternoon or early evening, wearing a light linen dress only, her clasped in front of her in order to keep from picking every new flower she saw. The flowers that peppered the city had positively amazed her, when she'd arrived. It had seemed impossible that there were so many types of blossoms, and especially ones so bright and beautiful. The City of Venus was a mixture between the smells of baker shops, leather tanneries, alley-ways and the thousands of flowers that were displayed in shop window boxes, or planted strategically around the city tourist traps.
True to form, as the setting sun began painting the sky coral shades, Faraday emerged into the noise and bustle of Rue Coupole. Her colorless hair was coiled just above the nape of her neck and held in place with a wooden comb carved to resemble a horse and painted bright gold. The hair piece was the only ornament she wore apart from a leather throng dangling from her neck and threaded through eight beads of circular emerald and slender topaz. The dress she wore was olive green by way of color, embroidered at the waist in gold and seemed about a size too large. It hung to the ground but carried a slid from hip down on either side that clearly revealed that fact that her pale feet were bare, as usual. A woven belt was slung low on her hips. The belt neither cinched the garment nor was there anything for it to hold closed. Instead it's sole purpose seemed to be to give her something to which to attache a purse made of plain pearl gray leather. Slung over her left arm was a white, empty wicker basket that swung back and forth with the slightly uneven pacing of her steps.
She rounded the main square of the market place, her gaze drawn across the merchant stalls arranged along the paved walkways. Every so often she'd pause before a merchant and exchange a few coins for one good or another, which she immediately added to the basket hanging from her arm. Some of them were familiar with her, from past outings. Certain items like herbs, blown glass bottles, and such required regular restocking and these venders were prepared with her usual order on hand, and prepared to receive the static price. Faraday never haggled. The lapse was not for excess of funds or impatience, but simply because she did not know to haggle. Whatever price the merchant named, she payed and went on unawares that it was not exactly the standard of doing things. Markets of this sort were not the norm in the Polar Ice and so she was largely unaware of the ploys and tricks to be employeed in them.
For example, as she stood before a merchant weighing out grain, she was completely unaware of the fact that the scale he was using to determine pricing was weighted.
