Undesirables [Private]

[Proficiently Awkward]

[iT BEGINS]

 

[SarahSweet]

Her shop was set back from the main thouroughfare. It looked out on a small square, centered around a fountain that bubbled with uneven waterfalls. It saw less action than the windowfronts on Main, but wasn't as intimidating as some of the back alley businesses that existed deep within the city. But what Ara loved most about it was the space.


There was the front part of the shop, the counter and even the stupid chimes on the door. But there was also a workroom that opened up behind the counter, through a doorframe that had long since had the door removed. And there was an apartment upstairs that suited her just fine. It meant she could sleep until the last possible moment in the morning.


Ara stood in the workroom, wearing a clockmaker's magnifying lens and peering down into a complicated stack of gears and wires. She muttered to herself as she picked at the thing, pulling a sautering iron from it's stand and pressing it against the contraption for only a moment. A wisp of smoke curled into the air, disappearing.


The front door bells chimed and she jumped. "Be right out," she called. She pulled the lens from her face and set it next to the contraption. Wiping her hands on her apron, she stepped into the front of the shop.


A short man with a beard almost as long as he was tall stood at the counter. His hair had been cropped into a mohawk.


"Wendall!" she said by way of greeting. "You've braided your beard."


"Yea," he said, in his clipped way. "Keeps 't out o' my face."


"Wendall, it's facial hair... By its very nature, on your face."


"Alright," he said. "Keeps 't out o' mother's Sunday soup too."


She laughed, a musical sound the made the shorter man smile.


Ara went back into the workroom, crossing to the left corner where an odd collection of mismatched safes balanced. She pulled keys from her belt, pinching the mechanism just hard enough so that the key ring released from its hold. It was one of her more practical inventions. Made it harder to misplace the keys.


She opened the red safe and pulled out a box inside. Hurrying, Ara locked the safe and walked back to Wendall.


"All patched up," she told him, setting the box on the counter before him.


He opened the box and pulled out a gold pocket watch. Opening it, he inspected as the hands ticked satisfyingly around the timepiece. He put it back in the box and put the box in his pocket.


"Thanks, Ara," he said. "Old Tom used t' talk big things about you, when he came around t' visit mother. I appreciate what you do," he patted the watch.


"Oh, stop," she said, waving her hand at him. "Any old person could fix a watch."


"Maybe so," he said, pensive. But he didn't enlighten her to the rest of his thinking. "Have a wonderful evenin," he told her, and the bells clinked as he left the shop again.


Ara returned to her project, grabbing a thin sheet of copper and wrapping the gadget in a small cylinder like a pipe, then sautering it closed carefully along the seam of metal. When that was done, she dabbed the inside with the hot iron, bonding the gears and wires to the cylindrical case. Finally, she set the iron aside. The tool slipped, and she paused to adjust it.


"Son of a bitch," she yelped as the edge of her finger caught the iron of the tool and she felt the searing heat burn into her pinky. She wrapped her other hand around the blister and walked around the workroom, as the initial sting faded into the familiar dull throb.

 

[Proficiently Awkward]

Quaint. The musical clatter of wind-chimes coaxed Iivshar to a halt just inside the doorway. Raising a gloved hand, the man drew fingertips across the hollow steel tubes, eliciting another dull shiver of sound. Nearly impishly, Iivshar smirked – a shift of the lip and little more. Somehow, despite the nature of his aristocratic upbringing, he found the demur simplicity of self-owned businesses more appealing than the shiny newness of Main Street. The side streets lack the glittering luster of neon lights and the bustle of fashionable persons skittering from place to place, but it did have its charm.


Moving deeper into the shop with a stilted sort of gait, Iivshar fished about within the depths of a coat pocket. For all his efforts, the half-blood produced a single strip of parchment paper. Scrawled across it was an address – nothing more. This address. Now, really, Iivshar had nothing in need of fixing. Not really. It was a curious rumor that had brought him in…curiosity being one of the man’s few vices. The name of the shop had been a hot tip from Iivshar’s close cousin, V’rae. A professional and self-proclaimed information gatherer…of sorts. Still, Iivshar eagerly snapped up any tidbits or leads. Having been confined to Fritch for months on end, the merchant was beginning to go rather stir-crazy.


With a final cursory glance at the address, Iivshar stowed the strip of paper back within the confines of his pocket. Shoving an unkempt mess of stark-white bangs from his eyes, the half-elf sauntered stiffly toward the counter.


“Son of a bitch!”


The yelping curse drew the half-drow to a halt. That soft simper he wore died by a few watts, both bone-white brows raising high on his forehead as he craned over the counter. Peering into the back of the shop, he caught sight of a pacing form. It wasn’t worry that masked his features, but rather an amused sort of curiosity.


“…should I try back another time?” That tone was clipped, guttural. Even in those few words leaving his lips, it was made obvious that the common-tongue hadn’t been his first language – and that he’d never bothered to learn the finer points of pronunciation. It gave Iivshar’s speech an odd flow, but the pitch was warm and not entirely unpleasant. Resting an elbow on the counter, Iivshar made no effort to hide his childish amusement.

 

[SarahSweet]

"Should I try back another time?"


Ara froze mid step. She continued to hold one hand with the other, the throb pulsing from where it had connected with the hot iron. Of course, she thought. Of course someone would come in at this precise moment.


"I'll be up in a minute," she said, fighting to keep a whimper out of her tone. She shook her hand out, then walked around her workbench and into the front room of the shop. Leaning on the counter was a finely dressed man with a well made cane. His pale hair wasn't overly long, and a scar crossed the bridge of his nose. "Sorry about that," she told him with an amiable shrug, her cheeks growing warm at the amused expression on his face. "Dangers of the job. What can I do for you?"

 

[Proficiently Awkward]

Concealing his amused simper behind the gloved pad of his thumb, Iivshar only shook his head. It was an apologetic sort of gesture, as though he’d committed some social faux pas by adding insult to her injury by pointing it out. Slowly, the half-breed brought his hand from his lips and gestured vaguely in her direction.


“Please.” Iivshar paused and offered the woman a rather impish smirk. “…Don’t waste apologies on my behalf.”


For all his finery, Iivshar’s clothing did seem somewhat threadbare; the glimmering silk threads embroidering his coat had lost some of its luster, the boots creased and discolored. Travel-worn.


“Really, I only came in to poke around. I’ve heard…” Keeping his smile intact, Iivshar shifted his gaze, eyes drifting curiously about the storefront. “…you have a knack for fixing things. Am I correct?” At that last query, his gaze settled back on her.

 

[SarahSweet]

Ara smiled back at him, her shoulders relaxing just slightly. "A knack? I don't know about that. But I've been tinkering since I was old enough to hold a screwdriver." She swung her left arm out in gesture that seemed to indicate the years she'd spent in the workshop. "After a few years, I was bound to pick up some things. I also have a few of my own... inventions... floating around," she pointed a finger at a glass cabinet that housed a number of odds and ends, "If that's more your style."


"What do you have that needs repair?"

 

[Proficiently Awkward]

Gloved fingers pointed gingerly towards the glass cabinet in the wake of her words, if only to confirm his curiosity. A handful of lazy, stilted steps brought the young half-blood before the knick-knack cabinet – with an almost child-like exuberance, Iivshar peered inside. Unsure of exactly what manner or oddities the woman had neatly stacked and placed behind that clear pane, the merchant had an itch to ask what each and every one of them was for. What purpose they served.


“I am a collector. Of sorts.” There was a congenial sharpness to his tone. A matter-of-fact and precise placement of words.


It wasn’t until Iivshar had visually dissected each odd and end in the case that he returned his attention to the shopkeeper. Keen cerulean eyes settled on her amiably. “And it’s not a matter of what I need fixed…I’m not in the market for a repair job. What I had in mind is a little more…delicate.”


Smoothing back a mess of short, wavy-white out of the way. Iivshar sighed heavily, the rush of air filtered through an impish smile. “But you’d have to be up for a challenge.”

 

[SarahSweet]

She watched him as he inspected the gadgets that were on display in the cabinet. A variety of uses, most were small enough to fit in a pocket or purse. He spent several minutes looking carefully at each one. Ara got the distinct impression that he might have pressed his nose against the glass of the cabinet, were he less polite. Absently, she rubbed her fingers over the blister beginning to form on her hand.


"What I had in mind is a little more... delicate. But you'd have to be up for a challenge."


Her eyes gleamed at the implications of the word. "Alright, sir. What is it that you need?"