Yagaritte huffed in annoyance, rolling her eyes at her satchel, where her arms were currently buried. Her fingers were reaching for, but not finding, the little bundle of medicinal herbs they were after. A silken strand of strawberry blonde hair, an accidental leaf sticking out of it, fell from her messy bun. She huffed again and pushed it from her face with a puff of air, ignoring the stowaway leaf. She stood, crossing her arms at her chest and staring down, with disdain, at her useless satchel. The medicine was there, she knew it. She had snuck it out of a cavern crawling with winter wolves herself. She had come out unscathed, but the same could not be said for one or two wolves who'd had the misfortune of crossing her path. She kicked it with her booted foot.
"Miss? Have you got the herbs or not?" A fidgeting tradesman asked, looking up at her.
To say Yagaritte was "tall", was like saying mountains are "big"..or the ocean is "deep". It was a true enough statement, but didn't really cover the scope of what you were trying to convey. She was very close to the limit that people would actually believe their eyes and not question their sanity when they first saw her. She actually lived on a frozen island filled with people the rest of the world thought of as giants, but even those giants looked up at her.
She was also well aware that most people, especially men, found her somewhat intimidating. She squared her shoulders and puffed out her chest, a silent warning that perhaps the shopkeep ought to watch his tone. She had the herbs for him, that was the end of the story, and he needn't question her as though she were some invalid child who couldn't accomplish a task as simple as securing a bundle of sticks from a cavern.
The tradesman backed away some, hunching his shoulders down. "I... I... well, please keep looking..." he stuttered, looking over at a gentleman in the corner, and at another, who was by the window looking at a stack of worn Magicka books on a table there. The shopkeeper's eyes seemed to be silently pleading to both of them to protect him if this giant woman decided she didn't want to deal with him any longer.
Yagaritte chuckled nervously . "Worry not, I have your herbs," she said.
Her intimidating looks were deceiving, in a way, as her voice was soft and full, warm and inviting. The tradesman nodded, still eyeing the other patrons carefully.
The young man by the dusty pile of books, who had, up until this point, been surreptitiously pretending he was alone in the room, glanced back at the tradesman, and then toward the looming woman. A small wispy globe of soft luminescence hovered a few inches from his face affording him just enough illumination to decipher the strange runes he had been poring over the last 10 minutes or so, but the moment she had laughed so loud and clear the minor glamour had poofed with a slight crackling sound. Who WAS that? Her voice was so rich and full, It conjured images of valkyries and feast halls, of warm furs around crackling fires. And her laugh..it was deep and hearty and honest. It was so infectious that he had almost wanted to join in, but had stifled himself at the last moment as the last thing he wanted was to draw anyone's attention. She certainly had his though.
He had never seen anyone like her in his life. He swallowed nervously. She was paying him no mind, of course, but the fact that there was such a beautiful woman in his presence was enough to get him sweating. He quickly jerked his head back to the table, and picked up a different book at random, burying his face between two pages, willing his heart to slow to a normal pace, because he was sure everybody in the vicinity could hear it.
Yagaritte bent to grab her satchel, and snatched it up, swinging it over her shoulder. She gently brushed passed the tradesman, and made her way directly for the young man at the table of books. She stopped right next to him, and grabbed a enormous stack of books, half as tall as the young man was, and with ease, she gingerly moved it to the floor. Room now on the table, she swung her satchel back of off her shoulder, and unceremoniously upended it over the table. The contents of her bag spilled everywhere. Some small bundles, coins, daggers, vials and other useless trinkets flew across the table, some onto the floor. But..search as she might, the little wrapped package of medicinal herbs was not plainly obvious.
The young wood elf beside her coughed nervously, his heart racing now again, at full speed. He was small even by Bosmer standards, and he was used to people looking down on him wherever he went. He had felt like a child when he first landed on this frozen island with these giants everywhere, but this woman, she was something else altogether. Even hunched over the table she towered over him, and she was standing so close to him the rather shapely curve of her leather clad hip was all but brushing the side of his shoulders. She looked down at him, as though seeing him for the first time. She smiled gently. At this close range, he could see that her clothes and armor were dusty, spattered here and there with fresh crimson blood. He hoped it was not hers. The twin daggers at her hips, were also encrusted in blood. That definitely wasn't hers, he thought, gulping silently. He furtively stole a glance upward at her as she was obliviously rifling through her things. Her eyes were a cool greenish blue, the color of the sweet waters off the Summerset Isles, if someone had bottled it in crystal and set it amongst diamonds. They sparkled in the dusty light streaming in through the window, and there was a familiar mischievous twinkle he knew all too well from his years in boarding school.
"P-p-pardon me ma'am" he finally managed to stammer, "I-- I c--can move if I'm in your way.."
Yagaritte chuckled gently as she looked down at him. It was a hearty sound, one that sounded right at home in her throat. She seemed to be someone who, when not trying to intimidate a tradesman, was easy to laugh. She reached a hand down to his face, her thumb out, but stopped when he flinched. She chuckled again, taking no offense to his reaction, for she was used to it. "You have some..." she trailed off, mimicking on her own face where the young man beside her had dusty smudges on his own.
He blushed deeply, ferociously. He threw the book he was holding away from himself and reached for his kerchief with trembling hands, embarrassed, nervous. He turned from her hastily, and rubbed his face with the piece of cloth, over and over. Yagaritte laughed heartily at this, not in jest, but with a joyful sound. Her whole chest was full of laughter. Everyone in the room seemed to breath a sigh of relief except the gentleman who had his back to her. No, indeed, his face seemed to get even redder still. At this, the tradesman took a step closer to them. "Miss, er... um.. I don't see the herbs..." he said carefully, looking at the mess she had made of his table, and his floor. Truthfully, the herbs were not there.
Yagaritte glanced at him, then again at the pile. "Indeed not," she conceded, sighing. She shook her head, grabbing her satchel and stuffing her things haphazardly back into it. "One moment, please..." she said, swinging the satchel across her sturdy shoulders and around her back.
Without another word, she went back out of the shop and disappeared down the grimy, muddy street. The tradesman started after her, but stopped at the door, shaking his head. He sighed. She would be back.
The young man stared at the door in bewilderment. The large storm of a woman had vanished as quickly as she had arrived. He wished all at once to see to see her again and to never cross paths with her in the future. It was all very confusing to him.The tradesman, at this point, took his position back behind the counter, willing business to get back to it as usual. The young man tucked the dirty kerchief back into his pocket, searched and found the book he had been originally studying from on the table. A few pages were missing, the rest were smeared and stained... with what, he did not want to know, but that was not important to him. Though he had but a few coins to his name, he knew the value of knowledge, and as small as this book was, it contained information he had yet to know. His sharp mind thirsted for new knowledge, even more than his stomach craved food. Though even as he held it, his rational brain reminded him he would regret this decision later tonight, when his stomach started to growl, hunger gnawing at his insides.
With the book tucked under his arm, the young gentleman approached the tradesman, who was leaning back in a chair, his feet propped up. The tradesman eyed him suspiciously. Though at first glance he was dressed as someone of a noble household, it did not take a very well- trained eye to see that he had not changed clothes for several weeks (months maybe?), and there were telltale signs of battle on his suit as well. A rip here, a scorch mark there. Must be another adventurer, he thought, though judging from the staff covered in runes and topped with a dark red glowing crystal slung across his back, he was more of the cerebral type.
"Can I help you?" the tradesman asked, though it came out in way that conveyed "you better have a way to pay for that book."
With the Nord woman gone, his usual disdainful personality was back with a vengeance.
The young man blushed again, feeling exposed under this man's gaze. He set the book on the counter and waited in silence. Normally, people would bargain, make deals, anything, to walk out with what they wanted, having spent as little money as possible. Not this man. The tradesman could tell he wasn't good at bargaining. He had no face for bluffing . And while he may be talented in many other facets, this was clearly not one of them. He reached into his outer pocket, fingers reaching for the meager number of coins he had there, tied up within his tiny coin purse. But he felt something different there, something bulkier than his coin purse, something with string wrapped tightly around it. His throat caught, and he looked down, holding his pocket wide. It was a little package, an odd shape, wrapped in cloth and tied up.
It was the medicinal herbs the Nord woman had been searching for. The little bundle must have fallen into his pocket without his knowledge, when she had dumped her bag on the table.
"I..." he stammered, his head snapping up to look at the tradesman, who didn't seem aware of the young man's discovery, and he was thankful for that. "I've lost my money," he said stupidly. And before the tradesman's sneer could turn into derisive words, the young man shot around him and ran for the door, tripping clumsily in his haste to reach for the handle.
Without another word, the second weirdest customer of the day was out in the street, trade ALSO incomplete. The tradesman looked at the only patron left in the shop, and prayed to Zenithar they wouldn't do the same.
