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carrionmywaywardsunThe memory opens in a room lined with roll upon roll of richly colored fabrics over the walls: some patterned, some plain, and in a variety of materials. Wooden shelves in the middle of the room display spools of thread and other tailoring accoutrements–rope, needles, and so forth.
One of the room appears to open up onto a busy street, the door currently standing open to show busy passersby hurrying to and fro. At a glance, the crowd of shoppers looks relatively well-to-do. The other end of the room has a doorway covered behind hanging fabric.
Standing by one of the fabric-covered walls is a younger Valor, around twenty years of age. He’s dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with a stiff standing collar and baggy pants that reach just below his knees, and soft slippers–a less fancy version of this, more or less.
Valor’s in the middle of an animated conversion with the only other person currently in the shop, a middle-aged woman wearing an elaborately patterned sarong, her neck and wrists dripping with gold jewelry, and accompanied by a servant. At the moment, Valor’s hard at work extolling the virtues of a particularly lovely blue fabric, striped silk worked with stylized silver chrysanthemums, turning the charm offensive up to maximum: smiling, laughing, flirting (just a little). And it works–after a long conversation, and showing the woman a couple other fabrics, she finally decides to buy a length of the blue silk. Then comes the haggling, another long conversation, before they agree on a price and Valor is finally able to pull the roll off the wall. He expertly measures and cuts the fabric, tying it neatly in a bundle for the woman, who promptly hands it over to her servant before sweeping out of the store.
With the woman and her servant gone, Valor is alone in the store, sagging against the counter near the front, smile fading as he looks around the shop. It really seems a little too big for just one attendant, and some of the rolls and shelves toward the back seem a little bare, though the goods have been carefully arranged to hide this.
After a long moment to rest, Valor begins to straighten up the rolls and shelves toward the front of the store that had been disturbed by his long bout of salesmanship. The cloth-covered doorway at the back of the doorway flaps open as another man pushes through at a brisk pace. He looks a few years older that Valor, with an unmistakable resemblance, and dressed in a similar style to Valor, though in a slightly richer style.
His brother, Heron, stops dead in the center of the store, looking around with a frown. “*******, what have you been doing?” he demands. “This place is a mess.”
Valor carefully finishes straightening out the shelf in front of him, then turns to look at Heron. “Yeah, I know, I was just–”
Heron barrels right over Valor’s attempt to explain. “You know we need every sale we can get. Who’s going to buy anything from us when the shop looks like a scrap heap? I keep telling you, *******, you need to shape up and start pulling your weight–”
Valor opens his mouth as if to respond, then shuts it, apparently deciding to try and ride out Heron’s scolding instead, which more or less continues in the same vein. However, his expression just gets darker and darker, until eventually, Valor bursts out, “Heron, if you would shut up for just one second--”
Heron draws himself up to his full height, a couple inches over Valor. “Don’t talk back to me. I am head of this household now. Pa might have been fine with letting you mess around but he’s not here anymore, and–ugh, I’m going to be late meeting Uncle Crake about the shipment from Tsubaki. Clean this place up before I get back, okay?”
“I was just doing that–”
Heron holds up a hand. “No excuses, *******. Just–get it done.” He sweeps past Valor and out the front door.
Alone in the shop, Valor runs a hand over his face, as if forcibly smoothing the frustration away. When he pulls his hand away, his expression has reset to something closer to neutral. Taking a deep breath, he drifts to the nearest wall to continue setting everything right.
- Pre-Exaltation Valor, so he’s missing the sickly complexion and the red in his hair/eyes. Looks about 20 in this memory.
- You can tell that ******* is his name from context, but you can’t make out what it is at all. There’s just a buzz of uncomfortable static where it should be.
- Heron is his older brother by about three years. He’s a jerk! (Valor already knew that though.). Their father isn’t dead, just–gone.
- The textile shop is the family business, but it’s not doing well, for reasons.
- Customer service sucks but he used to be quite good at it.
OOCly, Tsubaki Province is where Persephone, Hades, and Amaranth are from, because I enjoy continuity nods like that.
One of the room appears to open up onto a busy street, the door currently standing open to show busy passersby hurrying to and fro. At a glance, the crowd of shoppers looks relatively well-to-do. The other end of the room has a doorway covered behind hanging fabric.
Standing by one of the fabric-covered walls is a younger Valor, around twenty years of age. He’s dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with a stiff standing collar and baggy pants that reach just below his knees, and soft slippers–a less fancy version of this, more or less.
Valor’s in the middle of an animated conversion with the only other person currently in the shop, a middle-aged woman wearing an elaborately patterned sarong, her neck and wrists dripping with gold jewelry, and accompanied by a servant. At the moment, Valor’s hard at work extolling the virtues of a particularly lovely blue fabric, striped silk worked with stylized silver chrysanthemums, turning the charm offensive up to maximum: smiling, laughing, flirting (just a little). And it works–after a long conversation, and showing the woman a couple other fabrics, she finally decides to buy a length of the blue silk. Then comes the haggling, another long conversation, before they agree on a price and Valor is finally able to pull the roll off the wall. He expertly measures and cuts the fabric, tying it neatly in a bundle for the woman, who promptly hands it over to her servant before sweeping out of the store.
With the woman and her servant gone, Valor is alone in the store, sagging against the counter near the front, smile fading as he looks around the shop. It really seems a little too big for just one attendant, and some of the rolls and shelves toward the back seem a little bare, though the goods have been carefully arranged to hide this.
After a long moment to rest, Valor begins to straighten up the rolls and shelves toward the front of the store that had been disturbed by his long bout of salesmanship. The cloth-covered doorway at the back of the doorway flaps open as another man pushes through at a brisk pace. He looks a few years older that Valor, with an unmistakable resemblance, and dressed in a similar style to Valor, though in a slightly richer style.
His brother, Heron, stops dead in the center of the store, looking around with a frown. “*******, what have you been doing?” he demands. “This place is a mess.”
Valor carefully finishes straightening out the shelf in front of him, then turns to look at Heron. “Yeah, I know, I was just–”
Heron barrels right over Valor’s attempt to explain. “You know we need every sale we can get. Who’s going to buy anything from us when the shop looks like a scrap heap? I keep telling you, *******, you need to shape up and start pulling your weight–”
Valor opens his mouth as if to respond, then shuts it, apparently deciding to try and ride out Heron’s scolding instead, which more or less continues in the same vein. However, his expression just gets darker and darker, until eventually, Valor bursts out, “Heron, if you would shut up for just one second--”
Heron draws himself up to his full height, a couple inches over Valor. “Don’t talk back to me. I am head of this household now. Pa might have been fine with letting you mess around but he’s not here anymore, and–ugh, I’m going to be late meeting Uncle Crake about the shipment from Tsubaki. Clean this place up before I get back, okay?”
“I was just doing that–”
Heron holds up a hand. “No excuses, *******. Just–get it done.” He sweeps past Valor and out the front door.
Alone in the shop, Valor runs a hand over his face, as if forcibly smoothing the frustration away. When he pulls his hand away, his expression has reset to something closer to neutral. Taking a deep breath, he drifts to the nearest wall to continue setting everything right.
- Pre-Exaltation Valor, so he’s missing the sickly complexion and the red in his hair/eyes. Looks about 20 in this memory.
- You can tell that ******* is his name from context, but you can’t make out what it is at all. There’s just a buzz of uncomfortable static where it should be.
- Heron is his older brother by about three years. He’s a jerk! (Valor already knew that though.). Their father isn’t dead, just–gone.
- The textile shop is the family business, but it’s not doing well, for reasons.
- Customer service sucks but he used to be quite good at it.
OOCly, Tsubaki Province is where Persephone, Hades, and Amaranth are from, because I enjoy continuity nods like that.
