Log: Wealth and Taste
WEALTH AND TASTE
Act I, Scene VII
Roundabout this time of day, Halsten is usually hard at work up there at the market, but given the the humidity and the threat of bad weather, this afternoon has not been stunningly good for business. At some point he closed up, walked down to the beach. Now, he's just seated on a wide, flat rock not too far away from the water, lounging back barefoot, nursing a glass of something possibly procured from the Sandbar, and never mind the gloomy clouds above.
Bad weather or not, Evaly managed to do enough business to justify taking a long (if late) lunch today, and she's just now wandering down toward the beach with the remnants of that lunch in hand-- a sandwich from which she occasionally nibbles. At the sandline, she tosses what's left off to the left, food for firelizards, dusts crumbs off her hands, and winds up (or maybe decides?) to head toward the rock-sitter, coming up from behind with a spray of sand meant to give away her approach. "Is your name Hal?" she opens with from ten or fifteen feet away.
Giving away her approach also means Halsten has to brush his hands over the back of his head as he turns around, just in case something's there. "That depends," he tells the questioner, "on who's asking. If you're wanting to give me money, my name is anything you want to be. If he owes you money, I'm not him and I've never met him and I think he's about yea high--" He here indicates his own shoulder, even though he's sitting down, "and built like a burdenbeast." Smiling, he raises his glass to her.
Evaly clears her throat, which fails to 'fix' the hoarseness of her voice, but the effort's nice, right? Her expression is quizzical, despite the flash of a smile, and she answers, "I'm asking." All the talk of money ends with her brows lifted, no remark to the matter, and she hitches one leg up to half-sit on the left edge of his flat rock, right hand reaching across her body to extend toward him, even while she pins her eyes on his glass-- that's going to make a handshake difficult. "Evaly. And that is not the description everyone else gave of this Hal character."
"Well. I know pretty well that I don't owe you money, and I don't think you owe me, but you're pretty enough. I--" Here Halsten finally switches his drink to the other hand to shake hers, before switching it back. "--am Halsten, but my nearest and dearest call me Hal." He takes a drink, rests his free hand on the stone to lean back again. "So what can I help you with, Evaly?"
"Well, won't you feel silly if it winds up that you owe me money," Evaly comments with a superior lift of her chin, 'pretty enough' apparently not the reason she was gunning for. "Nothing, Hal, except that the Weyrwoman told me, in mostly uncertain terms, that I ought to have a chat with you. She said you're an 'interesting character.'" Since she has both hands back, she can put air-quotes around the words before she drops them back down, one palm flat to help scoot her the rest of the way up onto Hal's rock, making herself right at home. "So. Are you?" With a direct, 'dance, monkey' look back at him.
Polite sort of fellow that Halsten is, he's sure to move over enough to give Evaly space there, if not a ton of space. "The Weyrwoman. She said I was an interesting character, did she? Well. I do think I'm interesting. Quite possibly the most fascinating person you're likely to meet this afternoon, at the very least. Also possibly the most humble." Also very smiley, and making short work of his beverage. "I think I'd know if I owed you money. I don't tend to keep a lot of debts."
Evaly leans forward a little bit at the end of his 'most humble' remark, her eyebrows climbing upward once more into a questioning, 'is that it?' expression. After giving Halsten the space of a couple of seconds, she asks like she's truly confused, "Do 'humble' and 'egotistical' mean the same thing? I always thought they were antonyms. Hmmn." She purses up her lips, contemplating, adding absently, like she's still distracted with the earlier issue, "Then why bring it up? Debts, that is, if you don't keep many. And they are antonyms, I'm sure of it."
"Sarcasm, Evaly. That was sarcasm. Or maybe I just put on a lot of bravado and secretly think I'm shit." Halsten's face goes all serious as he considers this, drinks again, tilts the glass back to get a bit more of it, then swirls it around in his hand afterwards. "Not many, but a few are inevitable. You could have been here on behalf of someone I owed something. I don't think I owe anybody clever enough to send attractive women after me, though, even if I did get behind on payments somehow."
"Oohhhh," with Evaly tapping her temple, gotcha-style. "See, I usually try to save the sarcasm till I've known someone longer than three or four minutes, assuming it takes people a while to figure out when I'm being serious and when I'm not. My mistake." Back to 'attractive,' she takes a breath like she's bracing herself for an argument, folds her lips into a smile instead, and offers a partial parrot of his own words; "Maybe I /am/ here to collect and secretly am really buff. You really shouldn't be so quick to assume you're safe. I have a tremendous left hook." Alas, illustrating it as a jab with her right hand probably doesn't sell the lie.
Halsten smirks and finishes off his drink and reaches down to drop the glass in the sand beside the rock there. "I think you're supposed to tell me what I owe before you hit me. I'm never terribly worried if people know I'm being serious or not. Life's too short to be too serious. If they can't figure that out, that's their own loss, I believe. You see, now you're doing it." He shakes a finger at her, all mock-indignation. "Or has it been long enough, now, to suit your standards?"
Evaly tilts her head when the words 'supposed to' come out of Halsten's mouth, leaves it that way for all the rest of what he says, very clearly not listening to intently to the rest of it. Though she does make a quick face when he points out that she's joined the sarcasm party. When she's sure he's done, several seconds after that, even, she comments, "You have a lot of pre-conceived notions, Hal. Why is that?" 'Tell me about your father' would also slot right into her dissecting tone.
"Years of experience." Halsten is so quick on the responses. He lays fully back against the rock, fingers laced behind his head, eyes on the clouds above. "Some things about life don't change. The fellows who collect debts are big bruisers, but the object of the game is payment, not broken kneecaps. If you were collecting, you'd imply that you'd sleep with me if I paid, or something along those lines. And then not follow through, like as not."
With a speculative squint, Evaly asks, "How many years?" And, unable to keep the corner of her mouth from turning up, she surveys Halsten thoroughly once he's all stretched out and guesses, "Thirty? Thirty-five? And doesn't there come a point, though, where it's not even really about the money any more? Where the broken knees are a more appealing thought than the repayment?" Distracted by her own line of thought, she only adds a very bright, yes-yes-yes nod to his 'not follow through;' exactly what she'd do, correct!
Brows lift, and lift, and lift a little bit more, peering at her when she reaches 'thirty-five'. "Not quite that many," is all Halsten says, however, deliberately vague, before looking back away again. "If you're in the business of collecting money, it'd better stay about the money. If I'm in the business of sales, and I get to liking talking customers out of buying more than I like selling, I'm not going to be in business very long."
"I'm bad at guessing ages, it's true. I was just figuring... as much as you seem to think you know about the world?" Evaly smiles with seeming innocence to apologize for her over-estimation, the smile filtering away while Halsten talks of people's business. "In that case, maybe I got into the business because I actually prefer breaking kneecaps, and this was just the only way to really explore that particular penchant? But enough about that. What do you sell, Hal?"
Seeming innocence meets a frankly skeptical eye, but Halsten doesn't dwell on that. "Either way, you'll get unemployed fast if you overdo it. I believe that my goods have been called junk by the less charitable. I prefer to think of them as curiosities, but in all honesty most of it's junk." He waves a hand as though indicating that this is no big deal, the difference between 'junk' and 'not'. "And what do *you* do, Evaly?"
Evaly looks intently, /intently/ at Halsten's knees for a few seconds, slowly nodding for what happens if she overdoes it, and has to forcibly drag her attention back up to the man's face and not his kneecaps. "Basically the same thing that you do, except without all the caveat emptor about junk. Jewelry, perfume, things to make people feel prettier than they are." Another unhidden smirk, "/You/ should really stop and see what's for sale sometime."
"Are you implying that I'm not sufficiently pretty? I'm insulted. Really, genuinely insulted." Halsten really doesn't look very insulted considering he hasn't even bothered to sit up to express this high dudgeon. He puts the back of his hand to his forehead. Woe is him. And so on. "I've had some jewelry before. Don't really like handling it, for the most part, it's too showy. I've got one piece to draw attention, but it's not for sale as such."
Evaly tilts her eyes sloooowly upward, furthering that oh-so-innocence before she answers the first question with a slowly articulated, "Yes. Don't be sad, though. I'll still talk to you, even if you're not so easy on the eyes, as they say." There's another of her pointed pauses after Halsten's last comments, her teeth coming together in an expression that gets gradually more hesitant until she ekes out, "I'm almost afraid to ask about this 'piece' of yours..."
A long-lamenting sigh. "Ah, fine. I suppose not every girl can have good taste." Halsten finally props himself back up on his elbows. "Heirloom necklace. Weighs about as much as a small child, I swear. No idea who actually wore it last, but it's big and it's shiny and it draws eyes. I don't think anyone sane would buy it, but they don't need to. They walk over to talk about it, end up buying their husbands a razor or something, everybody wins."
"No," Evaly agrees with a less tragic sigh than Halsten's. "I suppose they can't." There's a brief wash of relief when the piece turns out to be something harmless, then interest in the description of it and the purpose it serves. "Well, everybody except the husband, who probably doesn't need yet another new razor. Especially not a junky one. But I take your point. Do you mind if I ask how you came across it? This necklace."
"The razors," Halsten stipulates, "aren't junk as such. They're the ones I use, anyway." A finger run over his chin as though to check to make sure that yes, it did actually work this morning. "I got a way better deal on them in bulk. How it usually goes. I pick up things here and there by various means. The necklace was an inheritance. Might as well make it useful, it's the only thing I got."
Evaly starts to look both disgusted and concerned, pulling away from Halsten with the beginnings of a horrified look on her face. "Wait--" It takes a few extra seconds before she works through it, and exhales with theatric relief. "Not the /exact/ ones you use, just the same variety as the ones you use. Whew." Fingers swipe across her forehead, chasing away non-existent worry-sweat. "Someone left you a gawdy necklace as an inheritance? Did they think you were...?" Teeter-teeter hand, a little too holdbred to come right out and say the word 'gay.'
The young man laughs brightly, pulls himself up actually to sitting, leaning his arms on his knees. "Girl the other day told me she thought I was. I'm *not*, for the record." Not holdbred. Halsten's just clearing up misconceptions, really, leaning closer to her to make the point. "I think it was just the only thing nobody else wanted. But life gives you lemons, and well."
Hasty; "It's okay if you are. You're probably at the right place for it." Evaly waves her hand back behind them to indicate the Weyr. "But let the record reflect..." She trails off to let Halsten's for-the-record speak for itself, aside from one last sketchy look sideways at him; just double-checking. Anyway, with a short laugh she guesses, "You make watery lemonade and sell it for a hefty mark-up?"
For the first time, Halsten really does scowl. "No. Really." Then all of a sudden it brightens--"Prove it, if you like." A lighthearted offer, though, the come-on not coming with any attempt to get grabby or anything. It seems almost automatic. "Yes. That. Markup. I like that. So, yeah. It's probably worthless in and of itself, but now I've put it to work, and now it gets me more than I ever would've inherited anyway."
Almost as automatic is the refusal: "It's sweet of you to offer, but I'll have to pass." Evaly's apologetic smile is downright practiced. As grabby as he's not getting, she still scoots to the edge of the rock and finds the ground with her feet, just in case. "That's actually sort of impressive," she adds authentically about the necklace's new value. "I probably just would have sold it for a quick mark, so kudos."
A lift of the shoulders. "Just saying. I'm not some kind of closet case." Halsten smiles, then, more authentically for the actual praise. "Well. It was tempting. But I had a hard time finding a buyer of any variety for as much as I thought it ought to be worth. Which was, I admit, mostly based on my being pissed off at how little I got. It all worked out. In the end."
"Mhmn." The sound is enigmatic: mhmn, she really believes that, or mhmn, keep telling himself that. Whichever, Evaly finishes what she started and pushes off Halsten's rock, commenting, "Sorry as I am that you got jilted out of your inheritance, and as much as I'd like to hear the rest of that story, I really better get back to my own mark-ups. Can I stop by sometime and see this necklace? Without you trying to sell me razors for my husband?"
"Do you have a husband? For the record." Halsten beams at her as she gets up, no hint of discouraged. "But sure. Stop by anytime. I promise to only try to sell you things you really need. Solemn oath." He starts to get up, too, plucking his glass back out of the sand. "Looks like we're in for a spot of rain soon anyway. And I desperately need another drink. Nice to meet you, Evaly."
A smile is all the record gets in response to that, neither here nor there, and Evaly drops her hands to a clasp at the small of her back before she trots up toward the Weyr again. A look shoots skyward at the mention of rain, and she picks up her pace some, gone lickety-split.
Act I, Scene VII
Roundabout this time of day, Halsten is usually hard at work up there at the market, but given the the humidity and the threat of bad weather, this afternoon has not been stunningly good for business. At some point he closed up, walked down to the beach. Now, he's just seated on a wide, flat rock not too far away from the water, lounging back barefoot, nursing a glass of something possibly procured from the Sandbar, and never mind the gloomy clouds above.
Bad weather or not, Evaly managed to do enough business to justify taking a long (if late) lunch today, and she's just now wandering down toward the beach with the remnants of that lunch in hand-- a sandwich from which she occasionally nibbles. At the sandline, she tosses what's left off to the left, food for firelizards, dusts crumbs off her hands, and winds up (or maybe decides?) to head toward the rock-sitter, coming up from behind with a spray of sand meant to give away her approach. "Is your name Hal?" she opens with from ten or fifteen feet away.
Giving away her approach also means Halsten has to brush his hands over the back of his head as he turns around, just in case something's there. "That depends," he tells the questioner, "on who's asking. If you're wanting to give me money, my name is anything you want to be. If he owes you money, I'm not him and I've never met him and I think he's about yea high--" He here indicates his own shoulder, even though he's sitting down, "and built like a burdenbeast." Smiling, he raises his glass to her.
Evaly clears her throat, which fails to 'fix' the hoarseness of her voice, but the effort's nice, right? Her expression is quizzical, despite the flash of a smile, and she answers, "I'm asking." All the talk of money ends with her brows lifted, no remark to the matter, and she hitches one leg up to half-sit on the left edge of his flat rock, right hand reaching across her body to extend toward him, even while she pins her eyes on his glass-- that's going to make a handshake difficult. "Evaly. And that is not the description everyone else gave of this Hal character."
"Well. I know pretty well that I don't owe you money, and I don't think you owe me, but you're pretty enough. I--" Here Halsten finally switches his drink to the other hand to shake hers, before switching it back. "--am Halsten, but my nearest and dearest call me Hal." He takes a drink, rests his free hand on the stone to lean back again. "So what can I help you with, Evaly?"
"Well, won't you feel silly if it winds up that you owe me money," Evaly comments with a superior lift of her chin, 'pretty enough' apparently not the reason she was gunning for. "Nothing, Hal, except that the Weyrwoman told me, in mostly uncertain terms, that I ought to have a chat with you. She said you're an 'interesting character.'" Since she has both hands back, she can put air-quotes around the words before she drops them back down, one palm flat to help scoot her the rest of the way up onto Hal's rock, making herself right at home. "So. Are you?" With a direct, 'dance, monkey' look back at him.
Polite sort of fellow that Halsten is, he's sure to move over enough to give Evaly space there, if not a ton of space. "The Weyrwoman. She said I was an interesting character, did she? Well. I do think I'm interesting. Quite possibly the most fascinating person you're likely to meet this afternoon, at the very least. Also possibly the most humble." Also very smiley, and making short work of his beverage. "I think I'd know if I owed you money. I don't tend to keep a lot of debts."
Evaly leans forward a little bit at the end of his 'most humble' remark, her eyebrows climbing upward once more into a questioning, 'is that it?' expression. After giving Halsten the space of a couple of seconds, she asks like she's truly confused, "Do 'humble' and 'egotistical' mean the same thing? I always thought they were antonyms. Hmmn." She purses up her lips, contemplating, adding absently, like she's still distracted with the earlier issue, "Then why bring it up? Debts, that is, if you don't keep many. And they are antonyms, I'm sure of it."
"Sarcasm, Evaly. That was sarcasm. Or maybe I just put on a lot of bravado and secretly think I'm shit." Halsten's face goes all serious as he considers this, drinks again, tilts the glass back to get a bit more of it, then swirls it around in his hand afterwards. "Not many, but a few are inevitable. You could have been here on behalf of someone I owed something. I don't think I owe anybody clever enough to send attractive women after me, though, even if I did get behind on payments somehow."
"Oohhhh," with Evaly tapping her temple, gotcha-style. "See, I usually try to save the sarcasm till I've known someone longer than three or four minutes, assuming it takes people a while to figure out when I'm being serious and when I'm not. My mistake." Back to 'attractive,' she takes a breath like she's bracing herself for an argument, folds her lips into a smile instead, and offers a partial parrot of his own words; "Maybe I /am/ here to collect and secretly am really buff. You really shouldn't be so quick to assume you're safe. I have a tremendous left hook." Alas, illustrating it as a jab with her right hand probably doesn't sell the lie.
Halsten smirks and finishes off his drink and reaches down to drop the glass in the sand beside the rock there. "I think you're supposed to tell me what I owe before you hit me. I'm never terribly worried if people know I'm being serious or not. Life's too short to be too serious. If they can't figure that out, that's their own loss, I believe. You see, now you're doing it." He shakes a finger at her, all mock-indignation. "Or has it been long enough, now, to suit your standards?"
Evaly tilts her head when the words 'supposed to' come out of Halsten's mouth, leaves it that way for all the rest of what he says, very clearly not listening to intently to the rest of it. Though she does make a quick face when he points out that she's joined the sarcasm party. When she's sure he's done, several seconds after that, even, she comments, "You have a lot of pre-conceived notions, Hal. Why is that?" 'Tell me about your father' would also slot right into her dissecting tone.
"Years of experience." Halsten is so quick on the responses. He lays fully back against the rock, fingers laced behind his head, eyes on the clouds above. "Some things about life don't change. The fellows who collect debts are big bruisers, but the object of the game is payment, not broken kneecaps. If you were collecting, you'd imply that you'd sleep with me if I paid, or something along those lines. And then not follow through, like as not."
With a speculative squint, Evaly asks, "How many years?" And, unable to keep the corner of her mouth from turning up, she surveys Halsten thoroughly once he's all stretched out and guesses, "Thirty? Thirty-five? And doesn't there come a point, though, where it's not even really about the money any more? Where the broken knees are a more appealing thought than the repayment?" Distracted by her own line of thought, she only adds a very bright, yes-yes-yes nod to his 'not follow through;' exactly what she'd do, correct!
Brows lift, and lift, and lift a little bit more, peering at her when she reaches 'thirty-five'. "Not quite that many," is all Halsten says, however, deliberately vague, before looking back away again. "If you're in the business of collecting money, it'd better stay about the money. If I'm in the business of sales, and I get to liking talking customers out of buying more than I like selling, I'm not going to be in business very long."
"I'm bad at guessing ages, it's true. I was just figuring... as much as you seem to think you know about the world?" Evaly smiles with seeming innocence to apologize for her over-estimation, the smile filtering away while Halsten talks of people's business. "In that case, maybe I got into the business because I actually prefer breaking kneecaps, and this was just the only way to really explore that particular penchant? But enough about that. What do you sell, Hal?"
Seeming innocence meets a frankly skeptical eye, but Halsten doesn't dwell on that. "Either way, you'll get unemployed fast if you overdo it. I believe that my goods have been called junk by the less charitable. I prefer to think of them as curiosities, but in all honesty most of it's junk." He waves a hand as though indicating that this is no big deal, the difference between 'junk' and 'not'. "And what do *you* do, Evaly?"
Evaly looks intently, /intently/ at Halsten's knees for a few seconds, slowly nodding for what happens if she overdoes it, and has to forcibly drag her attention back up to the man's face and not his kneecaps. "Basically the same thing that you do, except without all the caveat emptor about junk. Jewelry, perfume, things to make people feel prettier than they are." Another unhidden smirk, "/You/ should really stop and see what's for sale sometime."
"Are you implying that I'm not sufficiently pretty? I'm insulted. Really, genuinely insulted." Halsten really doesn't look very insulted considering he hasn't even bothered to sit up to express this high dudgeon. He puts the back of his hand to his forehead. Woe is him. And so on. "I've had some jewelry before. Don't really like handling it, for the most part, it's too showy. I've got one piece to draw attention, but it's not for sale as such."
Evaly tilts her eyes sloooowly upward, furthering that oh-so-innocence before she answers the first question with a slowly articulated, "Yes. Don't be sad, though. I'll still talk to you, even if you're not so easy on the eyes, as they say." There's another of her pointed pauses after Halsten's last comments, her teeth coming together in an expression that gets gradually more hesitant until she ekes out, "I'm almost afraid to ask about this 'piece' of yours..."
A long-lamenting sigh. "Ah, fine. I suppose not every girl can have good taste." Halsten finally props himself back up on his elbows. "Heirloom necklace. Weighs about as much as a small child, I swear. No idea who actually wore it last, but it's big and it's shiny and it draws eyes. I don't think anyone sane would buy it, but they don't need to. They walk over to talk about it, end up buying their husbands a razor or something, everybody wins."
"No," Evaly agrees with a less tragic sigh than Halsten's. "I suppose they can't." There's a brief wash of relief when the piece turns out to be something harmless, then interest in the description of it and the purpose it serves. "Well, everybody except the husband, who probably doesn't need yet another new razor. Especially not a junky one. But I take your point. Do you mind if I ask how you came across it? This necklace."
"The razors," Halsten stipulates, "aren't junk as such. They're the ones I use, anyway." A finger run over his chin as though to check to make sure that yes, it did actually work this morning. "I got a way better deal on them in bulk. How it usually goes. I pick up things here and there by various means. The necklace was an inheritance. Might as well make it useful, it's the only thing I got."
Evaly starts to look both disgusted and concerned, pulling away from Halsten with the beginnings of a horrified look on her face. "Wait--" It takes a few extra seconds before she works through it, and exhales with theatric relief. "Not the /exact/ ones you use, just the same variety as the ones you use. Whew." Fingers swipe across her forehead, chasing away non-existent worry-sweat. "Someone left you a gawdy necklace as an inheritance? Did they think you were...?" Teeter-teeter hand, a little too holdbred to come right out and say the word 'gay.'
The young man laughs brightly, pulls himself up actually to sitting, leaning his arms on his knees. "Girl the other day told me she thought I was. I'm *not*, for the record." Not holdbred. Halsten's just clearing up misconceptions, really, leaning closer to her to make the point. "I think it was just the only thing nobody else wanted. But life gives you lemons, and well."
Hasty; "It's okay if you are. You're probably at the right place for it." Evaly waves her hand back behind them to indicate the Weyr. "But let the record reflect..." She trails off to let Halsten's for-the-record speak for itself, aside from one last sketchy look sideways at him; just double-checking. Anyway, with a short laugh she guesses, "You make watery lemonade and sell it for a hefty mark-up?"
For the first time, Halsten really does scowl. "No. Really." Then all of a sudden it brightens--"Prove it, if you like." A lighthearted offer, though, the come-on not coming with any attempt to get grabby or anything. It seems almost automatic. "Yes. That. Markup. I like that. So, yeah. It's probably worthless in and of itself, but now I've put it to work, and now it gets me more than I ever would've inherited anyway."
Almost as automatic is the refusal: "It's sweet of you to offer, but I'll have to pass." Evaly's apologetic smile is downright practiced. As grabby as he's not getting, she still scoots to the edge of the rock and finds the ground with her feet, just in case. "That's actually sort of impressive," she adds authentically about the necklace's new value. "I probably just would have sold it for a quick mark, so kudos."
A lift of the shoulders. "Just saying. I'm not some kind of closet case." Halsten smiles, then, more authentically for the actual praise. "Well. It was tempting. But I had a hard time finding a buyer of any variety for as much as I thought it ought to be worth. Which was, I admit, mostly based on my being pissed off at how little I got. It all worked out. In the end."
"Mhmn." The sound is enigmatic: mhmn, she really believes that, or mhmn, keep telling himself that. Whichever, Evaly finishes what she started and pushes off Halsten's rock, commenting, "Sorry as I am that you got jilted out of your inheritance, and as much as I'd like to hear the rest of that story, I really better get back to my own mark-ups. Can I stop by sometime and see this necklace? Without you trying to sell me razors for my husband?"
"Do you have a husband? For the record." Halsten beams at her as she gets up, no hint of discouraged. "But sure. Stop by anytime. I promise to only try to sell you things you really need. Solemn oath." He starts to get up, too, plucking his glass back out of the sand. "Looks like we're in for a spot of rain soon anyway. And I desperately need another drink. Nice to meet you, Evaly."
A smile is all the record gets in response to that, neither here nor there, and Evaly drops her hands to a clasp at the small of her back before she trots up toward the Weyr again. A look shoots skyward at the mention of rain, and she picks up her pace some, gone lickety-split.