[closed] she only ever walks to count her steps

[ebeje]

Who: Max (ebeje), Anora (solitaryrose), Prior Walter (priorly), more to come
What: A catch-all post as I roll back from hiatus. PM me if you'd like something!
When: Late October / early November
Where: Various locations
Warning(s): None so far, will edit if needed.

Comments

anora

[ebeje]

[ It's at breakfast that she finds Anora, a small plate of bread and a cup of tea in hand. This second relocation seems somehow easier than the first; at least she hadn't come to expect anything more stable. That their household has at least managed to stick together and not fall ill are things she appreciates, even if she doesn't count on either to last.

Her cup clinks against the table top as Max comes to settle across from the other woman, which is in itself unusual — they don't not get along, exactly, but Max has been a touch standoffish about Anora in the past, and they both keep busy enough it isn't difficult to glance off each other's orbits most of the time. Today is different, though. Today she has a plan. ]

Anora, [ she greets with a polite smile. Good morning. ] I meant to ask — would you say that there are quite a few of your countrymen amongst us here in Wyver?

prior

[ebeje]

[ They're going shopping, is what she told Prior before they left the house. They have no money, perhaps, or none that should be spent on anything other than food and shelter in their precarious financial position, and maybe no one wants to wander a market in the middle of an epidemic, but none of that seems to bother Max a whit, and she trusts Prior to go along with it. (If he's been— out of sorts these past few weeks, she doesn't mention it; she does charm a passing cart driver into giving them a lift most of the way there.)

There, as it turns out, isn't the Old City marketplace at all. It doesn't look like anything, just a turn between two old buildings into an alleyway that seemed certain to dead end on them, right up until a door revealed itself around the next bend. ]

Here we are, [ she beams.

Inside still isn't exactly bustling, but the number of shady-looking individuals increases exponentially. Max reaches to loop arms with Prior like they're a young couple on an outing and not a pair of penniless refugees waltzing into the worst of the worst part of town. If the gesture has the combined effect of keeping him close and encouraging others to keep their distance, so much the better. ]

Come, walk with me — and tell me, how did you make your way in the world before all of this?

[ This. El Nysa. The Storm. His illness, perhaps, though she doesn't like to make assumptions about that. ]

[solitaryrose]

[Anora looks up at Max, then looks back to her book.]

Only a few. Not quite a few. Why?

[ebeje]

I wondered if they were settling into Wyver well.

[ Out of the kindness of her heart, probably. ]

Or if perhaps they, or even you, found Olympia's grand streets and cooler weather to be a better fit.

[priorly]

[They're going shopping, and that was really all that needed to be said to get Prior on board. He hasn't asked a question about resources or need: shopping only for essentials doesn't count, first of all, and he has often shopped without resources. It's startling how something small but emotionally necessary can just fall up his sleeve when times are truly dire. A little lifting habit he developed before he had the balls to walk up to a cosmetics counter and make purchases, and which has trailed him into occasionally broke adulthood.

This trip though. As gradually becomes clear, this trip is in fact a visit to worse crooks than he could dream of being. Best not to sneak something up his sleeve in this company.

Oh, it's exciting though. Keeping his elbow linked with Max, he clasps his hands.]

Well, never in places like these. My first black market. I'm expecting a stall with organs dangling like sausage links any minute.

[He looks enough the part, here. He's gradually adapted his dress to the common fashions, but not his colours or his style. Many here have a touch of flamboyance about them. It's almost homely. He tucks her in a little more against him as they walk, so he can speak close to her ear.]

I'm a trust fund baby, baby. The Walters are an old family. Old enough to have made a lot of money, and lost the majority of it. Of what little remains, a little was bequeathed to me. It keeps me afloat, most months, when nothing's broken and my pills haven't hiked in price. Besides that, I did some club design, catering - parties, for the rich and the undeserving. A hostess, like you.

[solitaryrose]

I did like the weather. [It slips out of her mouth unguarded, quite unlike anything she has said to Max before. Where she comes from, it's the south that's cold, and Gwaren, where she grew up, is as far south as civilization goes. Even so...

She puts down the book, thoughtful.]

Olympia is grand, but I like this better. Other than the weather, it's a little more like my home.

[ebeje]

Like I am now, [ she corrects, gently teasing. Not like she has always been. ] I can imagine it. You have an eye for people, I think -- what they want, what will divert them.

[ She certainly finds him diverting, at least, and in her opinion it is an underappreciated skill. A useful one, too, for certain purposes. ]

Before all this, I owned a tavern, [ she begins, pausing a beat to consider how much to share. ] And an inn, a butcher, a tanner, a tailor -- controlling interest in nearly every business and trade operation in Nassau.

[ A calculated glance up. She isn't sure how well he knows his history -- or how history has recorded Nassau at all, but either he knows what sort of place Nassau is or he doesn't, and she's not one to share more than suits her in any particular moment. ]

The year before that, I had as little as we do now. [ She shrugs. Fortunes change. ] But places like this, they are full of opportunity.

[ebeje]

[ Max's brows knit a touch; this isn't where she would have pictured the other woman, but then, truly she doesn't know very much about her. ]

How is that?

[priorly]

[That was exactly it. He acquired things: wedding doves in the requested shade of pink, party guests in the aspired to social category, entertainments and diversions, through a web of contacts made simply by having turned in the right circles for long enough. Work as an extension of his social life, the only way to do it, really.

Here he's not quite settled on what to do. What he would be capable of. But there's no trust fund pillow to lean on, so the thought does grow more pressing.

Though it's put away for the far more interesting purpose of discovering a little more about Max's history.]

Remind me never to play you at monopoly, sounds like you swept the board. Very impressive. Well. You ran a retail empire, Byerly just sounds like he's named after one.

[Perhaps he should make his fortune taking bets on which of them ends up with a controlling interest in this place. Very different strategies, he imagines, but quite a game.

Distracted by some scuffle breaking out in a corner, he glances away, but it's over almost as it begins.]

I must admit I struggle to see those kind of opportunities. Not much of a head for business. But I've... I've heard of Nassau, haven't I? Yes. More than one of my ancestors captained ships. There was a Prior Walter in the British Naval fleet, for a time.

[ebeje]

Not in Nassau, I hope. [ British Naval Officers haven't done well there, historically.

A n y w a y.

Max's eyes slide away from the fight, to follow a young woman's hand as she takes advantage of said distraction to deftly pocket an already-stolen hatpin from a table. A fond smile tugs at the corners of Max's lips, and she tugs Prior toward the table of previously owned hats to cement the redirection. ]

This sort of business, it is not so different from being a hostess, I think. People here have needs, like anywhere else — only these needs, the world has told them they cannot fill. Society has said to them, they may not live comfortably — their skills are not acceptable, their ambitions too large for their humble beginnings — and they have resolutely disagreed. They need things to sell, people to sell to, and safe places to conduct their business and their lives where the rest of the world cannot touch them.

[ She plucks one — a tricorne — from the table and holds it level with Prior. Hmmmm. ]

Or, sometimes they simply need the right hat. Not everything is complicated.