Open | Some used your name for glory

[kadia]

WHO: Colin, Kadi, and you.
WHAT: Catch-all/open
WHEN: July and August
WHERE: Various places in Northcliff Pass
NOTES: Starters inside. cw: mentions of a cult and the abuses of it.

Comments

Kadi

[kadia]

I. Herbalist

The mushrooms she gathered are mostly fenced to people in the marketplace. On the way in from the woods, she found an entire ring of morels, which are both valuable and delicious. But most of the things she gathered have medicinal value, so she follows Faro and Lance's tip and heads to the herbalist's. She knocks at the door, a waif in a baggy robe with the sleeves ripped off and a baby in a sling.

II. Seamstress

In the weaver's shop, Kadi waits for Leala to finish up with another customer while browsing through the fabrics. Grubby fingers hover over each, but do not touch, astounded and awed by the variety of colors, textures, and trim. Kadi's own robe, designed to hide a woman's shape, covers her from chin to toe in a rectangular block of beige. It is in wretched shape, with the sleeves ripped off to use as wash rags during her journey. It was technically washed a few times, but without soap and only in cold mountain stream water. The short shift she wore under it was also repurposed long ago. The only clean, semi-new thing she is wearing right now is a white sling with a baby in it.

Whenever Leala finishes up with her customer, Kadi approaches, maintaining some distance because, despite bathing before coming, she is self-conscious about smelling.

"Hello," she says tautly. "I need...everything."

III. Forest

She has a house now. Her own little house with two whole rooms. She has clothing that doesn't make her look like a brick and that has color. She loves all of it more than she could possibly have believed. But it's still the forest that feels like home the most.

Silfa is bound to her back and out of the way, a small lump of sleeping baby between her shoulder blades. Kadi has no fear for her safety in this forest. This is where Silfa was born and spent the first month of her life. The Earth protected them then; why should they have anything to fear now?

IV. At night, in the village

You might be up for any number of reasons--a nighttime call of nature, hunger, or simply an early start to your day, when Kadi can be seen as a flash of white against stone walkways, dressed only in a long shift with fitted sleeves, its skirts fluttering in the wind with her long red hair. Her eyes are open, but glassy, and she seems entirely unaware. Her bare feet nonetheless find their way up the stairs at the wall, where she stands as if in a trance, face toward the forest.

V. Marketplace

There is a smile on her face and color to her cheeks. She has her very own booth in the marketplace now, where she sells whatever she could not sell to the herbalist or the weaver. Mainly these are wild vegetables, mushrooms, edible nuts, and ripe berries. If you want to pick up something special for dinner, here is where you can do it.

And yes, that's a baby asleep in a basket behind her.

VI. Wildcard

Colin

[keenly]

I. Detlef

"Can I show you something?" Colin crept into the stable late in the evening when most people have gone indoors and is now smiling at Detlef hopefully.

II. Hammer and Spoke

This is becoming his new tradition. As much as he is walled up in his little bakery, he has plenty of introvert time. Spending the evenings there too went beyond the what was necessary for introvert time and left him feeling lonely. He finally found a drink he likes and has gained comfort in sitting quietly and listening to conversation. During a bout of storytelling, he even (very shyly) ventures an entry of his own.

"So my, um. My da wasn't allowed to cook in our house after this? He-he...well you have to know my sister Catherine loved bacon. And once, my da cooked bacon and he, it, he burned it so badly..."

His audience is deflating. He blushes.

"So he was going to throw it away, but he looked back to the pan and Catherine was already digging into it. She had this streak of black...ear to ear, and she was gnawing in the middle of this strip of bacon, and she said, 'Da, there's still a little bit of bacon in there!'"

As poor as the storytelling itself was, the punch line at least gets a chuckle from a few people. But Colin has learned his lesson, and is not going to try this sort of thing again. He can't stop blushing after that.

III. Marketplace

It's not uncommon to see any number of animals wandering the marketplace, but it's just not a good idea for chickens to run about unattended, seeing as how so many people and creatures eat them. That is why Colin is darting through the crowd, his eyeline right around your feet.

"Excuse me, have you seen a chicken?" A beat as he realizes that's not nearly enough information. "Um. A hen, brown, with white specks? She's very friendly."

IV. Wildcard