Tracyarmav — Roleplayer Guild

Mendings and Mornings

Tracyarmav

Calder Dylan, Ludelle Glowren

Day 1, Morning

Calder woke and rose, a little before the sun, as was his habit. He spent the first waking hour practicing his spell-craft. He was more testing theoretical limits than his own capabilities at this point, having spent the better part of five centuries studying his chosen fields of magic. His skills with water magic complemented his healing abilities very nicely, and on occasion the inverse was equally true, though that was rare. His father, a water elemental, bestowed upon Calder a special talent with water magic. His mother, a fae skilled in regeneration and other healing magics taught him much of those arts in his formative years. Then it was off to court and the lashing thorns of fae politics and social structuring. Those years had been difficult indeed, and they were responsible for much of Calder's personality today. Today... yes, back to todays tasks, the history lesson can wait for another ebbing tide. 

Today Calder intended to visit his latest patient. A woman named Ludelle. She had recently been broken out of south gate prison by Calder and several other knights of the Tower of Stars. Her ordeal had not been pleasant, and some of that discomfort had been caused by one of the newest knights of the Tower, Calder's half brother Sirius Dylan. Sirius of course had his reasons and alibi, all lined up and in good order, but his motives were as polluted and degenerate as any old industrial wastes bog. Still, that too was now history, and today Ludelle should be doing quiet well, physically anyway. The rest would take a bit more time to mend, but Calder had reason to believe that they would in fact mend, even with his corrupting half-brother around. 

Calder left his room, and moved quickly through the halls, his long legs moving quickly and taking great strides to move his full mass with surprising speed. Weaving through the other pedestrian traffic in the halls this morning, with the graceful agility of a fae born, he arrived in the dining hall, and consumed a hearty and oddly normal breakfast with most of his fellow Knight Captains. Gathering a tray of breakfast and several cups of various beverages, he carefully slipped it into one of the several pockets in his thick leathery shorts. The tray vanished, and the pocket didn't so much as bulge, despite a significant disparity in comparative volumes. With breakfast seen too, Calder moved on to visiting his "patient." She wasn't a patient, in the sense that she lay in a med center awaiting his arrival, so much as she was someone who needed mending, and he was seeing to her mending. 

Arriving at her door, Calder knocked three times, and awaited her response, before entering the room and closing the door behind him. Carefully he removed the tray of breakfast from his pocket and arranged the foods and beverages around the woman he had been tasked with mending. He said nothing while he worked. When he was done, he stepped back, and greeted the woman, a tad formally.

"Good morning Knight Glowren. Did you sleep well this night past?"

Mr. Garcia's Garments and other accessories

Monochromatic Rainbow, Tracyarmav

Adéla, Calder

Day -8, Afternoon.

Calder had been busy of late, though few had seen him since he’d left the infirmary before Marielle’s little tantrum. He’d not been idle though. Sirius’ appearance here complicated things somewhat, and simultaneously simplified them in other areas, it was the way of things between them. Calder didn’t hate his little brother, not by any means, but like many siblings they’d had their fair share of quarrels and given their unique talents, it had been a uniquely mutually beneficial experience for them both. Though neither of the Dylan brothers saw it as such, at least not yet.

Today, Calder was going shopping of all things, for clothes no less. A thing he’d never had to do before, as in the fey courts one’s attire is provided by one’s liege, so that you’re always showing the proper allegiance, or whatever message one’s liege wished to convey to your audience. So he was going with someone, hopefully she would be able to help him find a suitable outfit for Shard and Raven’s wedding. Calder stopped outside of Adéla’s door, and knocked, though it probably sounded like pounding, on her door thrice, before stepping back and awaiting her response. He currently wore his usual outfit, simple shorts of a thick leathery material with several magical pockets that held far more than they ought to be capable of holding. The rest of his scaly hide was unclad, as he needed no covering, and had better access to the water around him without clothes hindering him.

Adéla grumbled as she dragged herself out of bed at the sound of Calder knocking, stumbling over to the door and pulling it open. Blinking through sleep addled eyes she stared at Calder for a moment before her brain had spun up enough to make the connection. “Oh! Righ-” she broke off, looking somewhat embarassed, “Just… give me a second!” She hurriedly closed the door, stumbling back across her quarters to a small closet where she pulled out a nondescript shirt and pair of pants and speed-dressed, returning to the door in a little over two minutes, fully dressed and… mostly awake.

“Right, we’re going clothes shopping?” She clarified, “I have a few places in mind to check, unless you had somewhere you wanted to check out first? I… can’t say I’m an expert on Fae fashion styles, or any fashion styles really, so you’ll have to forgive any mistakes.”

“You can do no worse than I. I have never been permitted to acquired my own raiment before. And I have no desire or need to maintain any ties, even that of fashion, with my former masters. So lead on my bedraggled and befuddled guide, as I try not to bemoan the dismal straights I must have arrived at, to agree to being led by one as blind as I.” Calder responded lightly and glibly, quite pleased to be simultaneously living up to multiple definitions of his breeding. 

Adéla’s initial appearance, while revealing, was not particularly embarrassing for the troll to witness. Fey are wild creatures, clothing is entirely optional and often purely decorative in nature. He thought nothing of her weary response to his knocking, and merely lifted a massive arm to one side, and half bowed as he spoke when she returned to the hall, physically indicating his willingness to follow her wherever she decided they should go first. He fell into step beside her, and matched her pace as the two departed the residential area of the tower.

“Riiiiiight… I think this is the place we’re looking for.” Adéla was doubtful, but she strode towards the building they had stopped at, pushing through the front doors and pausing. She’d been here once before, albeit not for her own personal use - some colonel had needed a snappy suit and been too self conscious about his masculine image to go and ask a tailor in person. So she’d been dispatched on the very productive enterprise of acquiring said suit for the man. 

The tailor who owned this store hadn’t been exactly happy to hear what she needed, apparently his niece had been maimed in a bombing or something, she didn’t really know, at the time she’d still been barely scraping by in a brothel, it wasn’t as if she’d had any control over it. 

She doubted he had any fond memories of her, she’d done her best to be courteous but, as a friend had put it once, “Sweetie, your definition of courteous is everyone else’s definition of uncivilized harlot.”

It had taken her a little while to realize sex didn’t always sell. 

Knocking on the door, she let herself, and then Calder, in. Walking up to a man seated at a desk, preoccupied with typing something on a computer, she cleared her throat, waiting for him to look up before speaking. “We’re here to see Mr. Garcia. Reservation under the names Láska and Dylan.”

He looked up at them and immediately his brow furrowed, “What are you doing here?” He snarled, “Garcia isn’t seeing you again. Not after last time.”

Adéla sighed, she had been expecting this. “Look, this time I’m paying, and I’m not with the Blade anymore - what was I supposed to do? Tell my commander ‘no’ and get myself shot?” She fished out a small plastic chip from her pocket, “There. That should be enough to convince you I’m not here on any fishy business. My friend and I are here because we need some formal wear, and your boss is the best I know of.”

“You got shot anyways, so that’d be ‘yes’ little tempest.” Calder spoke with a voice that might be likened to slow movement of deep waters. It was inexorable in its own right, and it complimented the ironic truth quite nicely. “Mr. Garcia can honor his appointment willingly as any merchant should, or he can tarnish his reputation with petty squabbles. Which he chooses is his business, but I’ll still hear it from his own mouth, as a paying customer I’d rather like to get my money’s worth for my time. I’m afraid clerks don’t cut it, nothing personal boy.”

Calder wasn’t particularly trying to intimidate the boy, but it would be difficult not to, considering he was clearly bred and trained for war, plus fae blood always seems a little off, usually in a pleasant way, but it was a not so pleasant manner for Calder and other trolls. Calder didn’t mind doing business with a wide variety of beings, but if they couldn’t accept good coin for their services then he saw no reason to leave them in business, choking out more honest merchants. Though his definition of an honest merchant wasn’t what most beings in Galendar thought of when they heard the phrase. The boy seemed to take offense at Calder’s words and was about to respond in a rather heated manner when his lips were suddenly and inexplicably covered in ice, preventing him from speaking. Calder tried to communicate one last time with a more direct approach. “Fetch Mr. Garcia, now.” This time Calder’s voice was decidedly glacial, and left little room for wondering who had put the ice over the boy’s mouth. He wondered if the boy would need further incentive to do as he was bid, but it turned out that he didn’t. As the boy fled, Calder turned to Adéla and asked about her last visit, his voice a warm bubbling spring.

“So what’d you do the last time you were here? You might have told me we could expect such a warm welcome, I might have offered do the talking and invited you in after the deal was made; and so we might have avoided this little travesty committed in the name of good business.”

“Well, long and awkward story short, before I got to the point of being a high ranking member of the Blade myself, my boss had a ceremony to attend, and he didn’t have anything nice to wear. So he sent me and a bunch of other mooks out to go and find him a nice swanky suit.” She paused, “I came here. He hadn’t given me any money and I had almost nothing myself, so I had to threaten the poor guy into doing it for me. He wasn’t interested in sexual compensation, and I had no alternatives left.” Awkwardly shrugging, she waited patiently for his arrival. “Nothing to be done about it now, I suspect we’ll be charged a premium. But this is the best place to get some formal wear in the area.” She paused, “Well, that we can afford at any rate.”

Calder looked at Adéla askance, he probably had more than even he knew stuffed in his pockets, he’d been filling them for many years, still she wasn’t entirely wrong. He didn’t want to empty his pockets for a mere outfit. Still, perhaps it this man could make something truly remarkable. His last masters had contented themselves with glamours, cheap yet intricate marks of one’s social standing. It would be interesting to see how a real tailor’s work would compare. Calder considered responding, but a rather irate man appeared interrupting the conversation. 

“What’s the meaning of this? What have you done to my man?” The man Calder presumed to be the tailor in question asked angrily. Calder replied, his voice cool and calm, “He sought to diminish your business, and to waste my time. If I have acted out of turn I apologize, I am not accustomed to the ways of this place yet. I have need of a very special set of garments, and I hear that your the man to see for such a job. Are you that man or do I seek another?” As Calder spoke, the clerk’s mouth was freed as the ice vaporized leaving him no worse for wear, though his lips were a tad cool to his inquisitive touch. Amazed and still somewhat in fear of his life, the clerk stayed back, hoping to avoid the ire of these particularly troublesome customers. The tailor, somewhat mollified, though no happier to see the customers, nodded his head and admitted that it would be all but impossible to find a better tailor than he in these parts. Calder grinned, revealing his reptilian teeth, and responded positively. “Excellent, then we need garments for a wedding of great import. Stormlord and Lady Raven have invited us to join the celebration of their union, and we require garments that fit the occasion. Do you still think you can handle the task? You may not have time to fix any mistakes, and wasting my time will not be a profitable endeavour.” 

The tailor, now somewhat indignant, sniffed in disdain, and responded rather poorly. “And what makes you think you can afford my work? Last time she was here my work was taken at gunpoint. This time you won’t be able to do that as I have nothing on had for you to take.” The last he threw in Adéla’s general direction though he seemed to be above speaking to her. It made sense to Calder, though he knew the man was wrong, he also knew correcting the man would be unproductive at best, and so let the man live in his fragile fantasy for a bit longer. In response to the man’s question, Calder reached into one of his pockets and rummaged around for several minutes, mumbling something about needing to clean his pockets out at some point as he searched. Finally he pulled out one large lumpy, nugget of gold. It was on closer examination an excellently crafted bust of some otherworldly beautiful creature, the detail was simply breathtaking. Even the slightly jagged base was a nice artistic touch, if a tad too realistic. 

The whole thing was just a bit too realistic in fact, as if the head had been removed from a living creature and then dipped in gold. Which wasn’t far from the truth, but this was a solid gold bust. And it hit the clerk’s desk with a solid thump, as Calder dropped it for the tailor’s examination. If that wasn’t sufficient to pay for their suits, Calder would be very suspect of the man attempting extortion.

The man’s eyes widened. Swallowing his pride he took the nugget, nodding tersely to Calder and then, looking almost as if it might kill him, to Adéla. “Very well, if you would follow me to the back, we can take measurements. Valdez, don’t think this gets you off of your shift.” The clerk nodded quickly, rushing back to his seat and casting a fearful glance over his shoulder at Calder.

Leading Adéla and Calder to a room off to the side, he put the nugget somewhere to the side and pulled a measuring tape out. “Now, whose measurements would you prefer I take first?”

Adéla shrugged, “I don’t care, do you?” She looked up at her surprisingly wealthy companion expectantly.

“You first. You know what you’re looking for, I only know what I want to convey, no point making you wait while I work out how to convey that message with a master tailor.” Calder set his mind to puzzling out how best to explain his desire to Mr. Garcia. He wanted something that conveyed the depths and intricacies of an ocean realm, but how could he tell the man what an Ocean realm was? It is vast, deep, dark, cold, and very heavy, yet vibrant, alive, and always in motion. Calder wasn’t sure how the poor man would get it all in one set of raiments but he desperately hoped that Mr Garcia could do it.

“Fair enough then.” Adéla shrugged her jacket off, tossing it onto a hook nearby and stepping forward to let the tailor begin to, reluctantly, take her measurements as she detailed exactly what she wanted. “I need a gunmetal grey suit coat styled thing, slightly longer than normal, reaching about to mid thigh. Double breasted, and lined on the interior with a graphene-dilatant armor system. The shoulders will need a silver eagle on both of them, and a silver fourragère attached at the right shoulder and near the top right button, preferably tucked under the neckflaps.” She paused, “Oh, and a thick black leather belt, you can choose what style, or however that works, since you know more about this than I do.”

And with that she was more or less done. All in all that was over faster than she’d expected. “Calder!” She called, “You’re up, good luck.”

“I shall have need of it, I think.” Calder traded places with Adéla and considered who to try and convey his desire. “I need a raiment of regal bearing that displays the might, depth, and complexity of the sea. How you choose to display that on my substantial frame, I leave to you. If you can shape your work so that the strength of the sea appears to be one and the same as my strength, you will earn a further boon.” 

Mr. Garcia stood there for a moment, mouth agape and somewhat horrified, he’d been asked to turn an idea into a set of clothes. That … didn’t usually work out well. Steeling himself he began taking measurements, and examined the troll’s shorts as he did to get a feel for what he usually looked for in clothing. Clearly the troll valued practicality and durability, so perhaps a roguish look would suit him best? hmmm, ideas began to flitter through Mr. Garcia’s head and he took a few extra measurements just to be sure he had a good feel for the sheer volume of material this outfit would require. 

Calder stepped back out when the man was done, a proper glint in the man’s eyes. Whatever he made would surely be a masterpiece, though it might not be the masterpiece he was looking for. Calder shrugged and walked out of the shop with Adéla. He looked up into the sky, blue above the smoky haze that covered the city. He smiled, the sky reminded him of vast oceans, and those thoughts comforted him. Glancing down to his companion, he spoke his thoughts. “Well, that’s done. Shall we enjoy the rest of the day on the town or head back to work?”

Adéla raised an eyebrow, looking back up at him, “Heading back would require helping out with the wedding preparations.” She began walking out to the car they had borrowed, “I’m content to just show up and look snappy, personally. Never really been one for weddings.” The credstick in her pocket weighed on her, she had… not been entirely truthful when she said that anything nicer than Garcia was out of her price range, but now she had even more money saved up to go and use. 

Well over thirty years of money from prostitution, and forty years of actual pay stored in a secure account, in fact. Thirteen of them at the rank of colonel. She had money to spare.

She grinned. “Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere fun, and with good food, I missed lunch today.” Calder responded easily, and with a wide toothy smile. He was glad he could relax a bit and enjoy the day. It was easy for him to get lost in his work, and there was so much to do these days. He slid into the modified back seat, that was still a tad cramped for his great bulk, and settled in to see what the day had in store for them.

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