[PRP] the floating market (cass & jeremiah)

[azuredreams]

Fell had not been wrong that the paths of the Court would lead them to the market. While they had found the public paths that were opened to most visitors, they quickly ended up leaving them. The wind itself seemed to blow at the ribbon on Cass's wrist and, if anything, was part of what lead them to where they needed to be.

Eventually there were many sounds heard, not just words but animal noises and calls and everything in between. As they turned down a path, the stones started to crack and float up in the air. Jeremiah raised an eyebrow but motioned to head up them. There were infinite places within this world it seemed and soon they were standing at what was clearly a floating market. The earth was beneath them, though they were definitely no longer on the ground, and stalls were set up everywhere.

All manner of being was around, not all remotely human looking at all.

"Well," Jeremiah said slowly, glancing around (they had been spared their Court attire once gone from the Court). "I suppose if we are going to find something of use, this is an excellent place to start."

demon_pachabel

*prayer hands* jeremiah and cassandra, do not be wordy.

 

[demon_pachabel]

As the pathway slowly ascended, Cass released Jeremiah's arm to jaunt ahead, pausing at the top of it to peer downwards - perhaps with a little bit too much leaning. At least she wasn't afraid of heights. She 'hmmmmm'ed thoughtfully, then looked back to Jeremiah as he made his way up with a smile. "How exciting! We're actually off the ground!" Kind of. "I wonder how they make it float. Do you think it's some sort of Fantasy Float-Stone or a rune of some sort?" she asked, though those were both fairly straightforward answers. Maybe it was something even more fantastic.

"This is definitely a better place to look than anywhere I was thinking. Should we just pick a side and start our way around or pick opposite sides?"

azuredreams

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit-

 

[azuredreams]

"Could be," Jeremiah replied, "or something involving the combined desires for this place to remain as it is." A floating market that traveled around. Either way, it was certainly interesting.

Looking from side to side, he cut his gaze towards Cass. "Well, we are likely better off with a goal in mind. We will need items with meaning that can be attributed to air as well as, perhaps, whatever we are going to imbue with it." His eyes went then to a stall that looked as if it was nothing but crystals. "Perhaps opposite sides? That way at least we can call to the other?"

demon_pachabel

*PRAYER HANDS, PACH, PRAYER HANDS*

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Well I wish our combined desires would make this thing and we'd be good to go," Cass said with a small laugh. Yeah, because life would be that easy on them. Still, she stood, waiting on Jeremiah to decide how they were going to go about this market.

"Okay, well, I'll take," she pointed to the side opposite of where Jeremiah was looking, "this side then." Without waiting, she went to the nearest stall, manned by a strange, hiss-y creature with a squirming face that she couldn't quite focus on enough to actually tell what it looked like. It was surreal. She'd read that description before, but it was weird to see in person.

She loved it. Inappropriately, she took a picture on her phone (for the ongoing 'Cid Album'). She quietly looked over their wares, then moved on.

Cass was roughly three stalls down her row before she shouted, "HEY JER," and then turned around holding up a jar of bees with a stupid s**t-eating grin on her face. She shook it once and the bees inside buzzed angrily. "BEES," it wasn't a helpful suggestion, simply a shouted observation. The creature manning the stall reached to take the jar from her, but only succeeded in knocking it from her hands. It hit the corner of the table and shattered.

Bees went everywhere.


Cassandra also went everywhere.

azuredreams

Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

 

[azuredreams]

"We've got to get the items needed to make it first," Jeremiah laughed himself, nudging her lightly as he leaned on his cane. He nodded as she went off, finding himself at what looked like a stall ran by a group of ... pixies.

At least, if pixies were made of crystal and had leaf wings. They spoke quickly, in a high-pitched whistle that he was able to understand (but not sure how). At their stall was several interesting items, most of seemed to be things contained in bottles. One of them they claimed was the first breath ever released into the world which he seriously doubted but was not going to call them on.

Jeremiah looked up sharply as he heard Cass call out to him and watched in a strange sort of horrific fixation as the jar broke and bees were suddenly everywhere. He was there in a flash, next to Cassandra and gripping onto her arm as he tried to bubble a barrier around the bees.

It'd take a moment but he'd have the bees gathered up for the owner. "It's not a bad suggestion, to be honest," he said finally, "because they're beings that live in the air."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Cass nearly knocked into Jeremiah as he teleported next to her. She wasn't allergic to bees or anything (because if she had been, she definitely wouldn't have manhandled that jar the way she had....actually knowing Cass, she still would have), and somehow she'd gone unstung by the BEES EVERYWHERE, but she definitely stopped her 'oh lord, there are bees everywhere' retreat when Jeremiah bubbled them up.

And made the smart connection of their nature as air creatures.

"Well, I'd be hesitant to use anything that was uh...alive in what we're doing unless we get to let them go afterwards. Or if they'll stay alive for whatever process we're doing." BEES WERE REALLY IMPORTANT OK.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"I think they'd be alright," Jeremiah replied, looking over the bees and watching as the owner managed to corral them back into a proper container, "and we'd be able to do something to ensure that."

The bees, upon closer inspection, did not look quite like regular bees but that was neither here nor there. "See if you can get some from the merchant? I'm going to go check something else out I saw."

Which meant that he gave Cass one last squeeze before he was back over to the booth he had been at, looking through things and moving to the next.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Sure, sure," Cass agreed, still hesitant about the whole 'hey, living creatures in a thing' deal, but she'd fuss that more later. She only needed a few of them (however many she'd released...was way more than any bees she wanted to have on her person). Communication was surprisingly uneasy with a being that she really couldn't make out. It was like their presence was trying very hard to take on a form her brain could actually process, but it was also holding bees.

"What do you want for the uh...bees?" she asked, "Like maybe 10 of them?" It made a noise - a very squishy, slimy noise, and Cass couldn't help but wonder how that translated into anything understandable in her head. "Uhh, okay, I uhmm.." Cass began to pull out the contents of her pockets. Paper, paper, half a dog treat, her keyring.....Man, when had she gotten so many keys? The being reached out for the keyring and she instinctively pulled it back to her.

The being spoke again.

"A key to what? I...dunno, what's it look like?" she asked and it produced a large box. There was distinctly a lock on the front of it. Cass picked up the ring, barely sliding a finger into the ring before an old key carved out of the same sort of metal made itself prominent. When had she gotten that? She slid the key off the ring and offered it up to the creature.

Cass just looked more confused as apparently that key opened the container. But if it just wanted a key she hadn't even known she'd had in exchange for 10 bees...she was OK with that. Still, the confusion remained on her face as she made her way back over to Jeremiah.

"I...I just..." she was still baffling over her key ring. Cass had never had enough keys on her ring to even know that they were happening. "I have so many keys." Also she had bees.

Azuredreams

Whoops, Cass's Dreamer and Riser power both just made themselves obvious to Cass at the same time for the first time ever. XDD

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah was actually focused on what looked like an incensor. It was old, definitely an antique and probably magical considering where it was.

He was in the middle of talking with the stall owner - this time it was a small lizard who spoke in chirps - and glanced to Cass when she appeared with the bees.

An eyebrow rose. "Do you normally have so many keys?" His eyes glowed brightly as he studied the key-ring before he let out a snort. "Actually, I would say you probably discovered a magical talent of yours if you don't."

Jeremiah already seemed to have a small pouch of precious gemstones and crystals from the pixies - it had cost him creating a ball of ice with coldfire trapped within.

"What do you think about this?" he asked, gesturing towards the incensor. "Or do you think, perhaps, something else?"

demon_pachabel

yer a wizard, cass.

 

[demon_pachabel]

"I own like three keys - my place, my car, and Marcus's place..." she trailed off as she realized she'd just revealed just how much time she spent at her 'well maybe kinda of' boyfriend's house. It wasn't like she had space in his closet yet or anything. It was fine. "I didn't even realize I had more until I was pulling things out of my pocket. I uh..traded one for bees though. I guess the uh.." whatever it was that thing had been, "didn't have the key to something but...I did?" Cass's confusion was unending, but her conclusion was roughly the same as Jeremiah's: magic.

"Well, I think an incensor full of bees would be hilarious?" Cass admitted quietly, "But on a serious note, it should be fine. As long as we use air not incense in it." she nodded slowly and purposely.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Mm, remind me to give you a key to the house when we get back to Ashdown." House as in the place in which she took over the kitchen sometimes. "Just to add to the collection."

Did it say something that Cass had a space in the Mercer fridge? Who knew.

"Seems like a good trade then. You got the bees that we want, it got the key that it needed." Then his lips twitched at the mention of an incensor full of bees. "Admittedly, I am thinking the same thing."

Was it potentially a little mischievous? Absolutely. Jeremiah gestured to the incensor and spoke, not realizing that he was making the same noises the little lizard creature was making as he did so.

Apparently he was holding a conversation and, soon enough, a notebook of his dropped into hand. Jeremiah was writing something down a moment later, what looked like a magical array, and offering it out to the little creature.

It studied his work, head bobbing, and then pushed the incensor forward.

"Well, that takes care of that ..." The incensor was tucked under his arm. Jeremiah inclined his head towards another stall. "Let's look at that one over there? There's a perpetual breeze coming from it."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Or else the key might just find it's way to me without your help," Cass added, though she wasn't quite sure how that worked. Key pixies? Maybe. She continued to stare as Jeremiah spoke to the being with the incensor, eyes seeming to glaze over with an inability to understand. When he was done, she looked up at him with a frown. "When did you learn to speak lizard person? Is there a class I can sign up for?"

Was it harder than Greek?

The notion was entertained for a moment until Jeremiah motioned to the other stall with the breeze around it. She nodded. "If nothing else, it's just a nice spot too," she agreed, striding towards it ahead of him.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"I would wonder if that means I would be down one house key." The keys had to come from somewhere, didn't they? Not necessarily, no.

Jeremiah blinked a bit, glancing back towards the lizard and then back at Cass. "I was? I thought-" His nose wrinkled a bit, pausing to lean on his cane a moment. "Felt like I was speaking normally." It was probably magic. "Though that's not the first time I've ... had to speak with something that doesn't speak the same way we do." Maybe he had done so then as well? Who knew. Mostly he expected that the magic, his own magical will, was what enabled him to do so without realizing it.

It just did not give him the knowledge of the language.

More like a universal translator.

The stall they were heading towards was covered in greenery. There were even wind chimes that looked to be made out of flowers and hanging plants and they had, it looked like, their own breezes.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Jeremiah's garden was probably jealous of some of these plants as Cass stood, looking over them all and the strange golem-looking creature who seemed to either be tending it or was just a body to placehold so nobody stole anything.

"These are neat!" she held up one of the pots with a breezy something-or-other in it to her face, hair blown away by the small wind that came from it. It was pleasant. "This is better than a personal fan by far. It's so strange and unique." her tone was an implied reference.

Feed me.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

A smile, a far too amused wry one, was hidden behind a hand for a moment at the tone and implied reference. "We're not naming it Audrey II," said Jeremiah.

Though he was definitely impressed at what the breezy something-or-other was able to do. Was it moss? Was it vines? Who knew, it seemed to be a bit of everything but it also produced air which was definitely a thing they wanted.

His attention turned to the golem-looking creature who, instead of gesturing for some kind of payment, simply made the item drop into Cass's arms.

Then they would both hear a faint, distant voice in their minds. To help Lord Tailormercer.

Jeremiah bowed, a grateful nod given. He did not skip a beat at the oddness of the name given. "Your kindness is appreciated and will not be forgotten."

He looked to Cass then, eyebrows raised at their small hoard of items. "We should be able to work with what we have now."

Which meant it was time to head back to Court.

demon_pachabel