Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.

[sapphira_ststep]

[Late morning of Saturday, February 20 (day 265)]
[Market on Main Street]

I have not seen the woman from last week, the one who was happier when she wore and bought my blue one. At least I am fairly sure I have not seen her; I do think I could place her again, mask or not. But that doesn't mean much, a young woman hiding in drapes of cloth not

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[nunaunet]

Pitched up in my usual spot. Gettin' on toward the full moon so my tits are filling out the way they do, ayuh, but since people at market seem to think of me as a fellah I bind 'em down an' weah a big sweatshirt with my jeans. Ain't warm today, so I weah a hat too, nice colourful thing Marcilla knitted for me way back. Wouldn't think she was a knitter, but theah you go. People have to keep their hands busy one way or anothah, I guess, an' no doubt someone could make a mean remark about Parras about that but given I don't much need sex myself I won't be the one to do it, ayuh.

Most of my fish is sold out by late morning, which is nice, so I pack up. Take a look at a couple of the othah stalls. See a girl who's usually heah. Always weahs a mask, though that ain't all that weird in my book.

"Morning," I says. "These are nice."

[elanna_bailey]

Excolo. If there's one place I really had no intention of winding up again, it's here, wagon-full of milk and eggs and all those other daily requirements I thought Pa would handle forever. But now he's gone, and it's my job, along with all the debts he ever-so-kindly left for me to pay back. God knows his creditors ain't going to find him where he's gone

[sapphira_ststep]

"Morning," and I look up to see a man stopping by the stall, looks familiar and seems content enough and I smile even before he says "These are nice." Most men aren't so simple about it, start by making jokes about things they could be in the masks.

"Thank you," I say, "and good morning." I've seen him here before, selling fish, and he looks too content to be leaving early over any of the trouble from a fortnight back. I set down the little knife I am using to carve and stand to hold out my hand. "Business went well, this week? I'm Sapphira--I don't think we've actually met, yet."

And the people in the market move on about as quickly as the clouds (although with more variation in direction, it's true), and there's a wagon clopping its way to a halt in front of the stall, and a young woman looking down at my wares as if I were selling soap bubbles, or perfumes. Manages a "Mornin'," when I see her looking.

"Good morning," I answer back--young thing, with something I would not call a sulk about her, but oh, not content. Enter

[elanna_bailey]

I nod. "Fine, thanks. Yeah, the wagon was my Pa's -- Old Bailey? Did the milk run pretty much forever."

The masks almost shimmer in the winter morning as the sun pops out for a moment from behind the clouds. They're pretty, I can't deny that. But when in the world did Excolo get big enough to support something as specialized as a mask-maker?

I shake my head and extend my hand, even if it means pulling it out of the toasty warmth of my jacket. "Sorry. Manners running away from me again. Name's Elanna. I'm Old Bailey's daughter, if you knew him."

[nunaunet]

Girl on a cart talks right ovah me. Townies.

"Business went well, this week? I'm Sapphira--I don't think we've actually met, yet."

"Pretty good, ayuh. Nu," I say, an' shake her hand. "Fishmongah while I'm at market. Othah things the rest of the time." Smile a bit. Then the girl's introducing herself as Elanna, an' the way she links herself to some guy like we should know who he is - townie, alright, longtime, no doubt. "Morning," I say to her as well, bit pointedly.

[isidore_excolo]

It only as I watch people passing that I realize I've started inventorying faces here in Excolo. I recognize the stall-owners, the androgyne from the Carnival, the mask-maker - people think a mask hides your identity, but it only hides your face. We are much more than that, and there is an identity to movement as well.

The young woman with the cart of bottles is new, though. But I think she has been here before. People carry themselves a certain way, look around themselves differently, when they are in a new place. I wonder where she's been.

Nanse-kam was not pleased with how Catherine and I dealt with the riot, but I think his dismay at the entire situation has overwhelmed that. He is a good man, and while I do not think he is naive, I think it has been a bit of a shock to see that madness rear its head in his town.

I bite into a late apple and watch the crowd. Twice now has the town been afflicted by some enchantment, and I want to see if I can figure out a pattern to it.

[isidore_excolo]

"As do heavy clothes," she suggests, "and yet people aren't so strange to each other in winter. There's more than the look of a face to know another by, n'est-ce pas?" She shrugs, and I let the topic pass. I know well that people say much without using their faces, but it still makes a difference, though she of course disagrees. "I don't disagree with what you're saying, for how they're seen, only find it strange that there's so much weight to the face of a woman or man."

"True enough," she comments to my search. "Is that a problem, when you are seeking them?"

I consider, and then nod. "There are some things that change in predictable ways," I say. "Though that is more true when the stories are passed down from person to person. Finding the new form of a story that has changed on its own, without men, is much harder."

[sapphira_ststep]

"There are some things that change in predictable ways," he says, and we seem to be reading from the same script, here. "Though that is more true when the stories are passed down from person to person. Finding the new form of a story that has changed on its own, without men, is much harder."

Oh, well, I should certainly not have expected that; the conversation does not seem to be quite as metaphorical as I would have thought. But he does not look like a man much given to metaphor, and I tilt my head to one side, put one hand to my mouth as I consider him. "Your story sounds quite self-aware," I say. "Would you mind my asking what it was, before it changed into whatever it has come to be now?"

[isidore_excolo]

She touches her mouth then, in a covering gesture that I wonder is instinctive for her. "Your story sounds quite self-aware. Would you mind my asking what it was, before it changed into whatever it has come to be now?"

I smile, a bit sadly. "An ideal," I tell her quietly. "Something to save a people - a goddess, one whose story was not told for centuries. I am looking for another of her stories here, perhaps."

[sapphira_ststep]

"An ideal. Something to save a people - a goddess, one whose story was not told for centuries," and I glance over to where Nu has packed up and left, thinking of what he said about the name Isidore. "I am looking for another of her stories here, perhaps."

I play the conversation back in my head, and no, I am really not seeing the metaphor--perhaps story is his religion's name for a thing as well as a tale, a discrete object that one could refer to, if not touch, but--

"Pilgrim, then, out into the empty spaces of the map," I say, smiling. Not that Excolo isn't on maps, but to go groping blind for a thing untold... "But why settle here as long as you have? Is the local goddess at all like the one that was lost?"