Log: Impossible
IMPOSSIBLE
Act I
All new stock, go her! Evaly hasn't officially opened up shop for the day, since the morning saw her booth abandoned, and the early afternoon saw it still abandoned. Now, just after lunch time, the blond's been back-and-forth a few times with crates that look like they weigh about as much as she does, now with five of them lined up for the unloading-- perfume, by the smell of it, and at least one broken bottle in there. Sweating buckets and doing so gracelessly, she starts arranging her wares busily, pausing now and then to catch her breath.
There's something about a proprietor who is both clearly short-tempered and sporting a large and colorful bruise on his jaw and cheek that does not inspire a lot of people to stop by and purchase... whatever it is Hal happens to be hawking today. Which seems through the morning to have been okay with him, but come afternoon he's enlisted the elderly woman in the next spot over to keep an eye on his stuff, and started to wander elsewhere, checking in only periodically. So it is that he ends up watching one graclessly sweating young blonde. "Would you like a little help, there?"
Evaly pops her head around the corner of her booth, straightens from her crouch next to an open crate with one arm and the other hand full of perfume bottles. "What happened to your face?" That's not really an answer, no, but she crouches back down to start handing bottles up to Halsten, which should suffice as an answer? Assuming so, she expects him to keep taking bottles until his arms are as full as hers. With her face turned down, it's hard to tell if she's as serious as her voice, laden with sympathetic understanding, sounds; "Someone's husband? I warned you about that."
"Did you? No. Not husband. Don't think the guy'd even been to bed with her." So there's still a 'her' in the middle of it, Halsten admits that easily as he starts taking the bottles. Helpful guy. Not a moment of complaint about it. "Where are these going, exactly?" It would be easier if he had a place to actually set them down again, after all. "I'm better at making excuses to husbands. Have you acquired one yet? I could demonstrate."
"Oh. I thought you were offering to buy them. In that case." Evaly hands up a couple more to finish loading up Halsten, then reburdens herself the same way and angles her chin to indicate the very very very bare shelves immediately behind the counter. Her, "Try to make them look pretty," is a quick request, then she's picking a shelf herself to start doing her own pretty-making. There's no effort made to wipe the sweat now, she'll get to it in a minute, nor is there any effort made to pretend she's not entertained at Halsten's benefit. "Gosh, that's a sweet offer, but I'm still as out-of-your-league as I was the last time. Also, bruises? Not all that sexy. Who did it, though?"
"Would buying them get me further than not buying them?" Hal would ordinarily be all smiles here, but the smiles don't seem to come quite as easily now. Probably something about that sort of facial expression. He's moderately good at this business of arranging items, just enough symmetry to please the eye, just enough variation for visual interest. "I'm not really making an effort, am I? I probably wouldn't have mentioned getting punched in the face over a woman if I were making an effort. Maybe if I'd done it in defense of her honor--" A sideways glance at the blonde. "--but you don't seem the sort to go for that. I thought the bruise might lend me something in the way of ruggedness, though. That's a pity." The last question, he leaves unanswered as he turns the last bottle just so.
Evaly answers pleasantly, "Well, it's perfume. I'm sure it would get you somewhere with someone at some point?" Just not here with her at this moment. "This one," she adds, holding a pretty purple bottle toward Halsten, pointing toward the middle of his arrangement to indicate where it needs to live, with a smile that brightens at his deductions about 'the sort' she is. "Oh, it's definitely rugged. In a real... 'didn't duck fast enough' way. Are you intentionally not telling me who did it, or should I quit asking?"
"Possibly, but I don't think it'd suit me, and as gifts go, I try not to give anything that I wouldn't appreciate in use, and I have a preference for women who smell like women, and not expensive floral concoctions." Halsten takes the purple bottle, holds it up to the light for a moment, then settles it on the shelf just so. "Well, go find the fellow who makes it a matched set," he offers with a smirk, although the gesture of a finger is closer to the eye. "Does it really matter? Guy by the name of Ch'son."
"It matters in as much as I'd like to know where to turn if I do need someone to throw a beating for me some day. Since it's obviously not you." Evaly thumbs her own chin in a place to correspond to Halsten's bruise, turns back to the crate to keep right on working. "They don't all smell floral. This one is..." She lifts an amber-colored bottle, takes a sniff, and immediately regrets it judging by the blinking and the turn of her expression. "...not good, but I think it's supposed to be sandalwood." She starts handing over bottles again, expecting Halsten to continue his work, saying, "I like that you have a preference, though. It makes it seem like 'beggars can't be choosers' doesn't apply to you."
As Hal continues putting bottles on the shelf, he laughs. "Yes, well, I could have told you it wasn't me in the first place. Do I look like muscle do you? I have a brain, I would rather be appreciated for more than my body." The last almost prim, with a smirk. "I have quite a lot of preferences. Does that surprise you? I realize men have a reputation for being animals, but it's not always true. Not necessarily a deal breaker, smelling like a flower garden. But not my preference, no."
Evaly perks up suddenly at the remark about appreciation, looking up with a sudden interest when she says, "By the first egg, we have something in common! Here and here." Two more bottles, then she's collecting another armload for herself and finding a small shelf to decorate prettily, all gleaming and eye-catching to attract women with rich husbands, one hopes. "It does, if we're being honest. Surprise me, that is. Do you want to list them all for me, or is this one of those 'hot or cold' games? Warmer, warmer... oh! Now colder."
"If I told you," Halsten muses, standing back away from her work now that he seems to be no longer required, "and you happened to meet quite a number of them, you would think I was just making them up to get you into bed. Which would defeat the point of being honest, I believe." He presses his palm to the bruise on his jaw for a moment as though it pains him, then crosses his arm. "I believe we already knew we had something in common, what with my little bit of trade over there." A gesture back in the direction of his own stall.
"I'm trusting by now," Evaly muses in return, affecting a similar tone, though hers is perhaps a bit more condescending, "that you've figured out that you're not going to get me into bed, and you don't seem like the 'uphill struggle' type to me. So I might even take your list at face value. --Did you put some cold meat on it or anything to help with the swelling? Or take some aconite for the pain?" She puts one hand on the counter of her booth for leverage, pulling herself up to look in the direction of his own stall with an ahhh. "Right. I forgot about that one."
Another laugh, for that. "You would have no idea what I've been through lately in the pursuit of the impossible. But I limit myself strictly to one impossible task at a time. Otherwise I don't have the energy to do it justice. I'm fine." The last, Hal tacks on almost as an afterthought, almost touching the spot again and resisting the impulse. "I do wonder why it is that women prefer to be impossible. Are you hoping for some grand effort to be made on your part, or do you just prefer to be alone?"
Evaly waits for a second after the end of that question, her head cocked like she's listening for what's meant to come next. Still listening... still... listening... "Because 'impossible for you' necessarily indicates 'impossible for everyone?' It's possible you're just not my type, you know." She gives his chin a doubtful glance while she puts away a few more bottles, decides things are stocked enough to leave the others crated, and leans her hands on a shelf behind her, resting her weight on that to try and let the sweat dry. "What impossible thing are you pursuing, Hal?"
"A lot of things are possible. It's possible I could be struck by lightning in the next half hour." Halsten gives the shelf an eye, too, but voices no objection to the arrangement of bottles thereon. "I suppose stranger things have happened. So what, then, is your type? I had taken you for a young lady of some taste." One momentary grin. "It would have to be a woman, wouldn't it? It's always women who are impossible. Everything else is just difficult."
"I'm supposed to tell you when you didn't tell me?" Evaly raises a challenging eyebrow at that, oh-really, and goes right on sitting on her hands as if to prove how she's not going to lift a finger toward Hal's request. "Is the impossible woman the one that got you clocked? The one that this Ch'son fellow probably hasn't even slept with, as you were mumbling about?" Assuming it is, because she's the type to assume she's right all the time, she adds, "If you don't mind my saying, getting beat up on her behalf will probably earn you major, major points. Though you might have wanted a split lip or something, 'oh you poor thing, let me kiss it better.'"
Long, thoughful pause. "I like brains. Good conversation. Ambition. A healthy dose of impossibility. Attractive hands." Anything that might concretely apply to Evaly goes unspoken, as Halsten spends more time looking at the arranged bottles than at her. "Even if I had trouble acquiring kisses from that one, I have a feeling that she's not going to be particularly impressed with the effort. That would be too easy. Am I too tall? I've heard there are a few women, insane women, who prefer short and dumpy, but I hadn't given it much credence."
Most of that list, Evaly's obviously heard before, at least some variation thereof, but the last-- "Hands?" This one being new to her, she stops for a second and pulls hers out from beneath her, holds them at arm's length, looks them over, turns them toward Halsten with a questioning look. If it's something to worry about, she'd at least like to know where she stands? "I'm confused. Not about the hands. About-- are you implying that you're not having any difficulty acquiring the kisses, or that you're not trying to?" Either way, she shakes her head at him, not too tall, no.
"Why not hands?" Halsten gives hers a glance as she's holding them out, but his eyes don't linger there and he emphatically does not comment, although he's smiling through most of it. "You're impossible, remember? It shouldn't matter if I like yours. Difficult as it may be to understand at your age, sometimes there are other things to aim for in life besides kisses." He finally moves over, turns two of the bottles slightly so that they're lined up slightly different. "Is that better, or worse?"
"It's just different. If you'd have said 'legs' or 'lips' or something, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But hands?" Evaly looks at hers another time, turns them so she can curl her fingers over her thumbs and contemplate them thusly, then shrugs and puts them to use picking up one of the nearby bottles, smelling it. "That's not really an answer. Now I'm going to be self-conscious about my hands and have to start wearing gloves," with a long sigh, woe. "Don't be condescending," with a spritz of her sampled bottle in his direction, super-cheap floozy perfume, and wobbles her palm indecisively; better, worse, the same, enh.
That does elicit an answer, of a sort: "Don't start wearing gloves." Hal says it before he even seems to really think about it, then turns back to her, with the best condescending smile he can manage. "I do apologize." Then the expression shifts away from that. "So, is it short and dumpy for you? Do you prefer idiots? I couldn't really fault you for preferring company in which you knew you were superior, although I think you could do better than idiots, for that."
Evaly spritzes up the air a few more times, hoping for a perverse breeze to blow the stench Halsten's way, not that one gets many gusts on the inside of a booth. "Too late, the damage is done, I'll have a complex about my fingers for the rest of my life. Aren't you pleased with yourself now?" For all his meticulous rearranging, she decides her Prostitute Perfume belongs in the middle of his display and slides it onto the shelf, surveying the end result. "I don't like the idea of types," she answers vaguely. "It's a little limiting, isn't it? What if you meet a lovely, impossible woman who sets your heart racing, and then you notice all of the sudden that she bites her nails or she's missing a finger or something? Ruins it for you, doesn't it."
Nose wrinkles for the smell. "Fingernails could be remedied." Halsten is obviously taking this suggestion quite seriously. "And a missing finger... if the other nine were good enough could still work." He picks up the bottle in question and moves it away again, somewhere it will hopefully never be seen by anyone, ever. "Unless you're charging an arm and a leg for this revolting stuff, don't put it where it catches the eye. Someone will smell it and think the rest are all bad, too." The wisdom of the ages. "So you don't like the idea of types, but you're going to say I'm not yours?"
"Do I come to your booth and tell you how to run your business? No? That should be a hint." Evaly watches where the bottle goes, follows it with very intent eyes, odds on her retrieving it as soon as Halsten's out of sight. In the meantime, she wiggles her fingers in the air-- watch-- and does that oh-so-clever trick of making it look like she's detached the last digit of one thumb, sliding it into the air. "I didn't specifically say you're not my type. I said it's a possibility. So you've found the girl of your dreams, you can't live without her the moment you clamp eyes on her, and-- gasp! She's missing a hand entirely! Now don't you wish you were a leg-man?"
"So I am your type, and you're just being impossible. Got it." Halsten shoots an eye at Evaly, and then another back at the bottle, and then back to her again. "I'm telling you, don't, really. Save it and bring it out if anybody gripes about the price of the others, sure. I take advice from those older and wiser myself, y'know." Or probably has. At least once. At some point in the past. "If I were a leg man, she could be missing a leg. It would not be an improvement. I don't believe anyone really does that except in stories, feeling like that. I think I'm fairly safe."
Evaly, blinking; "Are condescending arrogant men who can't fight really anyone's type, do you think? I wonder." She hmmns lengthily, taps her chin like she's really giving it a good think, but fails to draw any conclusions, so can't do more than just shrug at the end. "You've never been just immediately attracted to someone? I suppose the 'suddenly, hopelessly in love' thing probably doesn't happen that often, but attraction-- I'm fairly sure you can get that in large, instantaneous doses." Nothing further said about the bottle, it's her booth and she'll do what she wants with it.
"I gave him as good as I got," Halsten maintains. The ego, it must be respected. His eyes are drawn momentarily to the tapping, and then he shifts, finds himself a good place to lean, as though he's settling in a bit now. "There are quite a lot of women I'm immediately attracted to, but not so many who I would feel any great loss if it turned out they were less attractive than I thought at first glance. I'm far more often disappointed by a lack of good conversation, but it hasn't led me to stop wanting it." Ingratiating smile.
In almost the exact same tone she used before, Evaly asks, "Are condescending arrogant men who can't duck fast enough really anyone's type, do you think?" She tilts her head and flashes a cheeky smile, happy-now? Despite the new stock, she's not exactly attracting a flock of buyers, and there's a brief, accusing look sideways at Halsten right when he really digs in. "And when you find out they hold conversations about as well as a sieve holds water, what do you do? Because I'll be honest and tell you that I assume you generally still sleep with them if they'll let you." Frankly jaded.
The revision gets a smirk. "Clearly enough women that I'm not suffering. Even you find me interesting." It's almost an accusation, but rendered in a mild, inoffensive tone. Halsten glances around at her look, eyes the lack of customers, just smiles at her and keeps up his leaning. "And yes. Of course I do. What do you think, I'd claim to be an ascetic? It's not like they don't get anything out of it."
"Or maybe they also just take whatever they can get?" Evaly tries for the same, mild tone, but she's a little more judgmental about the whole thing, and the twinge of distaste shows despite her casual efforts. "It just seems a little shallow. Don't you think? Granted, sex is different for men, but it does seem a little cheap if there's no... connection. To me. I guess there really are different strokes for different folks." As to interesting, "The Weyrwoman told me you were interesting, and who am I to argue with the weyrwoman?"
"The Weyrwoman is a very smart lady." Halsten, since he's hanging around, pulls a pouch out of his pocket, starts rolling himself a cigarette. "It is a little shallow. It doesn't get a lot more shallow than jerking off, and anything past that point is an improvement." He's such a gentleman. Really. He lights up, notably without asking if it's okay, but hey, she was just the one spritzing that awful perfume at him a moment ago, she can't mind awful smelling things too much, right? "Preferences. It's all preferences. What will do in a pinch isn't always what one wants. Men aren't animals, we're just more inclined to settle."
Straightening up, backing closer to the shelves behind her, Evaly makes a gracious display of showing him the way out on her side, even uses her foot to push one of the crates out of the path for him, so courteous. "I think we've just crossed into the realm of 'stuff I didn't really want to know, thanks.' Also, that?" The cigarette, the turning up of her nose to the smell of it. "Even less sexy than the bruises, believe it or not. So thanks for the help, you can go now."
So very courteous, but Halsten is taking his time about straightening up, ambling towards the path she's created. "Of course, of course. Waiting for your unblemished Lord on his white horse, to take one look at you and be madly in love?" He's grinning, though, an expression good-natured for all the messed up face. It's a good thing that bruise is going to fade. It really doesn't become him at all. "You need any more help, if it's a slow day, you let me know. And if any of my easy girls want perfume, I know right where to send them, don't I?"
"Where did you put that 'don't be condescending' perfume?" Evaly asks musingly, looking back behind her among the shelves to spot the previously used bottle, like she didn't memorize the location. "I will absolutely keep that offer in mind. You're so sweet." She shoos him off with her fingers, an extra shoo to chase away a curl of smoke that insists on lingering in her otherwise perfumey booth.
A big, beaming grin. "I am," Halsten agrees. "You'll appreciate how much more when you're older." And with that and a smirk, he finally makes his way back over to his own stuff, to spend the rest of the afternoon not doing much in particular, and probably still smelling like cheap perfume which doesn't help.
Oh, because the cigarette smoke was /totally/ going to bring them in droves.
Some people like it.
Some people eat bugs.
Act I
All new stock, go her! Evaly hasn't officially opened up shop for the day, since the morning saw her booth abandoned, and the early afternoon saw it still abandoned. Now, just after lunch time, the blond's been back-and-forth a few times with crates that look like they weigh about as much as she does, now with five of them lined up for the unloading-- perfume, by the smell of it, and at least one broken bottle in there. Sweating buckets and doing so gracelessly, she starts arranging her wares busily, pausing now and then to catch her breath.
There's something about a proprietor who is both clearly short-tempered and sporting a large and colorful bruise on his jaw and cheek that does not inspire a lot of people to stop by and purchase... whatever it is Hal happens to be hawking today. Which seems through the morning to have been okay with him, but come afternoon he's enlisted the elderly woman in the next spot over to keep an eye on his stuff, and started to wander elsewhere, checking in only periodically. So it is that he ends up watching one graclessly sweating young blonde. "Would you like a little help, there?"
Evaly pops her head around the corner of her booth, straightens from her crouch next to an open crate with one arm and the other hand full of perfume bottles. "What happened to your face?" That's not really an answer, no, but she crouches back down to start handing bottles up to Halsten, which should suffice as an answer? Assuming so, she expects him to keep taking bottles until his arms are as full as hers. With her face turned down, it's hard to tell if she's as serious as her voice, laden with sympathetic understanding, sounds; "Someone's husband? I warned you about that."
"Did you? No. Not husband. Don't think the guy'd even been to bed with her." So there's still a 'her' in the middle of it, Halsten admits that easily as he starts taking the bottles. Helpful guy. Not a moment of complaint about it. "Where are these going, exactly?" It would be easier if he had a place to actually set them down again, after all. "I'm better at making excuses to husbands. Have you acquired one yet? I could demonstrate."
"Oh. I thought you were offering to buy them. In that case." Evaly hands up a couple more to finish loading up Halsten, then reburdens herself the same way and angles her chin to indicate the very very very bare shelves immediately behind the counter. Her, "Try to make them look pretty," is a quick request, then she's picking a shelf herself to start doing her own pretty-making. There's no effort made to wipe the sweat now, she'll get to it in a minute, nor is there any effort made to pretend she's not entertained at Halsten's benefit. "Gosh, that's a sweet offer, but I'm still as out-of-your-league as I was the last time. Also, bruises? Not all that sexy. Who did it, though?"
"Would buying them get me further than not buying them?" Hal would ordinarily be all smiles here, but the smiles don't seem to come quite as easily now. Probably something about that sort of facial expression. He's moderately good at this business of arranging items, just enough symmetry to please the eye, just enough variation for visual interest. "I'm not really making an effort, am I? I probably wouldn't have mentioned getting punched in the face over a woman if I were making an effort. Maybe if I'd done it in defense of her honor--" A sideways glance at the blonde. "--but you don't seem the sort to go for that. I thought the bruise might lend me something in the way of ruggedness, though. That's a pity." The last question, he leaves unanswered as he turns the last bottle just so.
Evaly answers pleasantly, "Well, it's perfume. I'm sure it would get you somewhere with someone at some point?" Just not here with her at this moment. "This one," she adds, holding a pretty purple bottle toward Halsten, pointing toward the middle of his arrangement to indicate where it needs to live, with a smile that brightens at his deductions about 'the sort' she is. "Oh, it's definitely rugged. In a real... 'didn't duck fast enough' way. Are you intentionally not telling me who did it, or should I quit asking?"
"Possibly, but I don't think it'd suit me, and as gifts go, I try not to give anything that I wouldn't appreciate in use, and I have a preference for women who smell like women, and not expensive floral concoctions." Halsten takes the purple bottle, holds it up to the light for a moment, then settles it on the shelf just so. "Well, go find the fellow who makes it a matched set," he offers with a smirk, although the gesture of a finger is closer to the eye. "Does it really matter? Guy by the name of Ch'son."
"It matters in as much as I'd like to know where to turn if I do need someone to throw a beating for me some day. Since it's obviously not you." Evaly thumbs her own chin in a place to correspond to Halsten's bruise, turns back to the crate to keep right on working. "They don't all smell floral. This one is..." She lifts an amber-colored bottle, takes a sniff, and immediately regrets it judging by the blinking and the turn of her expression. "...not good, but I think it's supposed to be sandalwood." She starts handing over bottles again, expecting Halsten to continue his work, saying, "I like that you have a preference, though. It makes it seem like 'beggars can't be choosers' doesn't apply to you."
As Hal continues putting bottles on the shelf, he laughs. "Yes, well, I could have told you it wasn't me in the first place. Do I look like muscle do you? I have a brain, I would rather be appreciated for more than my body." The last almost prim, with a smirk. "I have quite a lot of preferences. Does that surprise you? I realize men have a reputation for being animals, but it's not always true. Not necessarily a deal breaker, smelling like a flower garden. But not my preference, no."
Evaly perks up suddenly at the remark about appreciation, looking up with a sudden interest when she says, "By the first egg, we have something in common! Here and here." Two more bottles, then she's collecting another armload for herself and finding a small shelf to decorate prettily, all gleaming and eye-catching to attract women with rich husbands, one hopes. "It does, if we're being honest. Surprise me, that is. Do you want to list them all for me, or is this one of those 'hot or cold' games? Warmer, warmer... oh! Now colder."
"If I told you," Halsten muses, standing back away from her work now that he seems to be no longer required, "and you happened to meet quite a number of them, you would think I was just making them up to get you into bed. Which would defeat the point of being honest, I believe." He presses his palm to the bruise on his jaw for a moment as though it pains him, then crosses his arm. "I believe we already knew we had something in common, what with my little bit of trade over there." A gesture back in the direction of his own stall.
"I'm trusting by now," Evaly muses in return, affecting a similar tone, though hers is perhaps a bit more condescending, "that you've figured out that you're not going to get me into bed, and you don't seem like the 'uphill struggle' type to me. So I might even take your list at face value. --Did you put some cold meat on it or anything to help with the swelling? Or take some aconite for the pain?" She puts one hand on the counter of her booth for leverage, pulling herself up to look in the direction of his own stall with an ahhh. "Right. I forgot about that one."
Another laugh, for that. "You would have no idea what I've been through lately in the pursuit of the impossible. But I limit myself strictly to one impossible task at a time. Otherwise I don't have the energy to do it justice. I'm fine." The last, Hal tacks on almost as an afterthought, almost touching the spot again and resisting the impulse. "I do wonder why it is that women prefer to be impossible. Are you hoping for some grand effort to be made on your part, or do you just prefer to be alone?"
Evaly waits for a second after the end of that question, her head cocked like she's listening for what's meant to come next. Still listening... still... listening... "Because 'impossible for you' necessarily indicates 'impossible for everyone?' It's possible you're just not my type, you know." She gives his chin a doubtful glance while she puts away a few more bottles, decides things are stocked enough to leave the others crated, and leans her hands on a shelf behind her, resting her weight on that to try and let the sweat dry. "What impossible thing are you pursuing, Hal?"
"A lot of things are possible. It's possible I could be struck by lightning in the next half hour." Halsten gives the shelf an eye, too, but voices no objection to the arrangement of bottles thereon. "I suppose stranger things have happened. So what, then, is your type? I had taken you for a young lady of some taste." One momentary grin. "It would have to be a woman, wouldn't it? It's always women who are impossible. Everything else is just difficult."
"I'm supposed to tell you when you didn't tell me?" Evaly raises a challenging eyebrow at that, oh-really, and goes right on sitting on her hands as if to prove how she's not going to lift a finger toward Hal's request. "Is the impossible woman the one that got you clocked? The one that this Ch'son fellow probably hasn't even slept with, as you were mumbling about?" Assuming it is, because she's the type to assume she's right all the time, she adds, "If you don't mind my saying, getting beat up on her behalf will probably earn you major, major points. Though you might have wanted a split lip or something, 'oh you poor thing, let me kiss it better.'"
Long, thoughful pause. "I like brains. Good conversation. Ambition. A healthy dose of impossibility. Attractive hands." Anything that might concretely apply to Evaly goes unspoken, as Halsten spends more time looking at the arranged bottles than at her. "Even if I had trouble acquiring kisses from that one, I have a feeling that she's not going to be particularly impressed with the effort. That would be too easy. Am I too tall? I've heard there are a few women, insane women, who prefer short and dumpy, but I hadn't given it much credence."
Most of that list, Evaly's obviously heard before, at least some variation thereof, but the last-- "Hands?" This one being new to her, she stops for a second and pulls hers out from beneath her, holds them at arm's length, looks them over, turns them toward Halsten with a questioning look. If it's something to worry about, she'd at least like to know where she stands? "I'm confused. Not about the hands. About-- are you implying that you're not having any difficulty acquiring the kisses, or that you're not trying to?" Either way, she shakes her head at him, not too tall, no.
"Why not hands?" Halsten gives hers a glance as she's holding them out, but his eyes don't linger there and he emphatically does not comment, although he's smiling through most of it. "You're impossible, remember? It shouldn't matter if I like yours. Difficult as it may be to understand at your age, sometimes there are other things to aim for in life besides kisses." He finally moves over, turns two of the bottles slightly so that they're lined up slightly different. "Is that better, or worse?"
"It's just different. If you'd have said 'legs' or 'lips' or something, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But hands?" Evaly looks at hers another time, turns them so she can curl her fingers over her thumbs and contemplate them thusly, then shrugs and puts them to use picking up one of the nearby bottles, smelling it. "That's not really an answer. Now I'm going to be self-conscious about my hands and have to start wearing gloves," with a long sigh, woe. "Don't be condescending," with a spritz of her sampled bottle in his direction, super-cheap floozy perfume, and wobbles her palm indecisively; better, worse, the same, enh.
That does elicit an answer, of a sort: "Don't start wearing gloves." Hal says it before he even seems to really think about it, then turns back to her, with the best condescending smile he can manage. "I do apologize." Then the expression shifts away from that. "So, is it short and dumpy for you? Do you prefer idiots? I couldn't really fault you for preferring company in which you knew you were superior, although I think you could do better than idiots, for that."
Evaly spritzes up the air a few more times, hoping for a perverse breeze to blow the stench Halsten's way, not that one gets many gusts on the inside of a booth. "Too late, the damage is done, I'll have a complex about my fingers for the rest of my life. Aren't you pleased with yourself now?" For all his meticulous rearranging, she decides her Prostitute Perfume belongs in the middle of his display and slides it onto the shelf, surveying the end result. "I don't like the idea of types," she answers vaguely. "It's a little limiting, isn't it? What if you meet a lovely, impossible woman who sets your heart racing, and then you notice all of the sudden that she bites her nails or she's missing a finger or something? Ruins it for you, doesn't it."
Nose wrinkles for the smell. "Fingernails could be remedied." Halsten is obviously taking this suggestion quite seriously. "And a missing finger... if the other nine were good enough could still work." He picks up the bottle in question and moves it away again, somewhere it will hopefully never be seen by anyone, ever. "Unless you're charging an arm and a leg for this revolting stuff, don't put it where it catches the eye. Someone will smell it and think the rest are all bad, too." The wisdom of the ages. "So you don't like the idea of types, but you're going to say I'm not yours?"
"Do I come to your booth and tell you how to run your business? No? That should be a hint." Evaly watches where the bottle goes, follows it with very intent eyes, odds on her retrieving it as soon as Halsten's out of sight. In the meantime, she wiggles her fingers in the air-- watch-- and does that oh-so-clever trick of making it look like she's detached the last digit of one thumb, sliding it into the air. "I didn't specifically say you're not my type. I said it's a possibility. So you've found the girl of your dreams, you can't live without her the moment you clamp eyes on her, and-- gasp! She's missing a hand entirely! Now don't you wish you were a leg-man?"
"So I am your type, and you're just being impossible. Got it." Halsten shoots an eye at Evaly, and then another back at the bottle, and then back to her again. "I'm telling you, don't, really. Save it and bring it out if anybody gripes about the price of the others, sure. I take advice from those older and wiser myself, y'know." Or probably has. At least once. At some point in the past. "If I were a leg man, she could be missing a leg. It would not be an improvement. I don't believe anyone really does that except in stories, feeling like that. I think I'm fairly safe."
Evaly, blinking; "Are condescending arrogant men who can't fight really anyone's type, do you think? I wonder." She hmmns lengthily, taps her chin like she's really giving it a good think, but fails to draw any conclusions, so can't do more than just shrug at the end. "You've never been just immediately attracted to someone? I suppose the 'suddenly, hopelessly in love' thing probably doesn't happen that often, but attraction-- I'm fairly sure you can get that in large, instantaneous doses." Nothing further said about the bottle, it's her booth and she'll do what she wants with it.
"I gave him as good as I got," Halsten maintains. The ego, it must be respected. His eyes are drawn momentarily to the tapping, and then he shifts, finds himself a good place to lean, as though he's settling in a bit now. "There are quite a lot of women I'm immediately attracted to, but not so many who I would feel any great loss if it turned out they were less attractive than I thought at first glance. I'm far more often disappointed by a lack of good conversation, but it hasn't led me to stop wanting it." Ingratiating smile.
In almost the exact same tone she used before, Evaly asks, "Are condescending arrogant men who can't duck fast enough really anyone's type, do you think?" She tilts her head and flashes a cheeky smile, happy-now? Despite the new stock, she's not exactly attracting a flock of buyers, and there's a brief, accusing look sideways at Halsten right when he really digs in. "And when you find out they hold conversations about as well as a sieve holds water, what do you do? Because I'll be honest and tell you that I assume you generally still sleep with them if they'll let you." Frankly jaded.
The revision gets a smirk. "Clearly enough women that I'm not suffering. Even you find me interesting." It's almost an accusation, but rendered in a mild, inoffensive tone. Halsten glances around at her look, eyes the lack of customers, just smiles at her and keeps up his leaning. "And yes. Of course I do. What do you think, I'd claim to be an ascetic? It's not like they don't get anything out of it."
"Or maybe they also just take whatever they can get?" Evaly tries for the same, mild tone, but she's a little more judgmental about the whole thing, and the twinge of distaste shows despite her casual efforts. "It just seems a little shallow. Don't you think? Granted, sex is different for men, but it does seem a little cheap if there's no... connection. To me. I guess there really are different strokes for different folks." As to interesting, "The Weyrwoman told me you were interesting, and who am I to argue with the weyrwoman?"
"The Weyrwoman is a very smart lady." Halsten, since he's hanging around, pulls a pouch out of his pocket, starts rolling himself a cigarette. "It is a little shallow. It doesn't get a lot more shallow than jerking off, and anything past that point is an improvement." He's such a gentleman. Really. He lights up, notably without asking if it's okay, but hey, she was just the one spritzing that awful perfume at him a moment ago, she can't mind awful smelling things too much, right? "Preferences. It's all preferences. What will do in a pinch isn't always what one wants. Men aren't animals, we're just more inclined to settle."
Straightening up, backing closer to the shelves behind her, Evaly makes a gracious display of showing him the way out on her side, even uses her foot to push one of the crates out of the path for him, so courteous. "I think we've just crossed into the realm of 'stuff I didn't really want to know, thanks.' Also, that?" The cigarette, the turning up of her nose to the smell of it. "Even less sexy than the bruises, believe it or not. So thanks for the help, you can go now."
So very courteous, but Halsten is taking his time about straightening up, ambling towards the path she's created. "Of course, of course. Waiting for your unblemished Lord on his white horse, to take one look at you and be madly in love?" He's grinning, though, an expression good-natured for all the messed up face. It's a good thing that bruise is going to fade. It really doesn't become him at all. "You need any more help, if it's a slow day, you let me know. And if any of my easy girls want perfume, I know right where to send them, don't I?"
"Where did you put that 'don't be condescending' perfume?" Evaly asks musingly, looking back behind her among the shelves to spot the previously used bottle, like she didn't memorize the location. "I will absolutely keep that offer in mind. You're so sweet." She shoos him off with her fingers, an extra shoo to chase away a curl of smoke that insists on lingering in her otherwise perfumey booth.
A big, beaming grin. "I am," Halsten agrees. "You'll appreciate how much more when you're older." And with that and a smirk, he finally makes his way back over to his own stuff, to spend the rest of the afternoon not doing much in particular, and probably still smelling like cheap perfume which doesn't help.
Oh, because the cigarette smoke was /totally/ going to bring them in droves.
Some people like it.
Some people eat bugs.