A Day For Encounters [Open]

[Washi]

"Ah! You, Sir. You look like a man with fine taste for culture. Care to see my collection? Thousand-year-old scrolls from an ancient time before Forinasi! Oh yes, I had five scribes examine them and they were all quite sure. How about pottery? Dug from the caves surrounding Ruby Mountain, they were! No? Gems, then. A necklace, Sir, for your pretty wife. From the collections of ancient noble ladies, these..."

The key to selling anything was making stuff up. The rolls of gibberish he scribbled and faked with a bit of silt and black sauce? They're now ancient scrolls. The pots he found near an old camp? Antique pottery. Stolen jewelry? Well, maybe most of those were real, but definitely not from noble ladies of long ago. Being old jacked up the price, though.

Washi grinned, which to a dragon meant stretching his lips so that he looked like he was about to snarl, and made a bow of thanks to his last customer. The marketplace was full of suckers, and as a reputable sneak, it was his noble duty to make money out of them.

[[ st r yder ]]

My heart's a graveyard, baby And to evil we make love. . . In the sweet air of the late afternoon, Kazeielan reclined on a rooftop. Yes, my darlings, he thought with a smile as he looked upon the crowds of people, milling about their days, their eyes blank to him. In their hearts was only the blackness of Man, and he knew that. There was nothing to love in a mortal, not after what had been lost to him. In fact, he could love nothing about them but their bodies, so sweet and full of blood and the warmth he craved. He was not hunting for blood tonight- no, he'd had his fill in the wee hours of the morning, all he could drink. That, at least, would keep his vampire-like blood lust at bay. Kazeielan breathed in the scent of the impending night, and the cool smell of darkness relaxed him. There was no man more at home in the night than the skeletal creature in the black suit, resting on the top of the building, and night was coming, night in the market, the best time for finding oneself a pretty boy to spend the night with. He chuckled, the sound gravelly in his chest, more felt than heard, and he stood, slipping down the back of the building and into an alleyway, and then along the back roads until he came to the end of the market district. There, he turned, retracing his steps up the way until he came to a small shop. Antiques? Aah, he knew all about antiques. Most of the authentic ones reminded him of his childhood, before the Pits and before he became what he was now. Kazeielan ducked into the doorway, his white skin glowing in the low light. Running his pink tongue over alabaster lips, his dark eyes, shielded by his black, wide-brimmed hat, scanned the room. Ah, as he thought. Fakes, each and every one of them. Though. . There was a necklace in a glass case, just under the counter. Why did it disturb him so? It felt of a long-lost memory, something from the days of song and family, things he'd lost in his own private war, nevermind what had been going on in the realm since his birth. So much chaos. . . "Excuse me, Verkäufer?" he said, removing his hat. The blood-red locks were then free to spill over his shoulders, collecting in mounds on his shoulders than then cascaded to his waist, at least. He went from bent over the emerald necklace to looking at the young man who'd just done the bowing. Pretty boy, and certainly not human. "Kan you tel me abaout zhis necklace?" Kazeielan asked, gesturing with a long, white hand toward it. . . .On our passion's killing floor

[Washi]

The question was clear, albeit with a strange accent Washi had never heard before. Ah, well, he thought. Some people would be genuinely curious, while some would try to test his knowledge of his own wares. No matter. Even if Washi himself couldn't remember where he got the particular item, he could always make something up. Washi schooled his muzzle into a semblance of a smile as he stood from the bow and quickly turned to the visitor.

"Ah." he exclaimed as he glanced at the necklace. This one he remembered. From an old lady's jewelry box, if he was correct. Of course the client didn't need to know that. Thankfully Washi knew a thing or two about history. It always helped to know a bit of truth, for a liar to be more convincing. "'Tis a rare find, Sir. You have a good eye. That used to belong to a human noble lady. Almost seven hundred years old--a long time for a human. If you will recognize the time period, it was around the time of the Bleakness. With the lack of food at the time, it would have been sold to a farmer for a bag of wheat despite its actual value. Rarely would anything from the time would end up with merchants such as myself."