Sweet to mouth and low to sigh. Come buy, come buy.

[forwhomtheytoll]

The Goblin Market Meme
Based on the Demon's Lexicon

A haven from magicians, a tourist trap, and most of all – a business; the Goblin Markets of the world are places of wonder and magic. Within these mobile night markets, you can find a collection of potion makers, fortune tellers, goods and true answers traded by money or favours.

Things to do:

JUST VISITING: perhaps it's your first time at the market, found through need or by invitation. Take your time browsing through the shops: enchanted weaponry, protective charms, fine crafts and decor. Go get your fortune told.


STEP IT OUT: as a dancer, you're one of the main reasons people show up. Dancing is not only a performance, but done correctly - it can call up demons who will trade their services for a price. Careful - breaking the circle or a misstep can be disastrous. No one wants to be possessed.


WHAT A LOVELY WAY TO BURN: fever fruit and fever blossom water can be a quick way to lower inhibitions. From a dancer, the fever blossom is a way to show favour. How that turns out depends on what you do after.


BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK: if you need a demon's mark removed, or answers to questions that can be found nowhere else, stop by the dance circles. Demons never lie. And their price is always higher than you think it is.


HOME IS WHERE...: you have our own booth, is the leader of the market or are one of the many persons who make their home at the market. Maybe you've got your own abilities - a Pied Piper perhaps, or a necromancer. Not everyone who has magic goes on to become a magician. There's a life outside the market, yes - but it's not where your heart is set.

Comments

Tifa Lockheart/Final Fantasy VII/ Home is Where

[more_than_words]

no smut please. Tifa will be a seller of wares. Can be flexible depending on what your character is seeking. If you need a prompt though how about her being a memory collector? Something you want to forget? She'll take it. But it's a two for the price of one deal and the second memory you might not be so willing to part with.

Re: Tifa Lockheart/Final Fantasy VII/ Home is Where

[countyoursigns]

U-um, hello!

the bio made me laugh

[more_than_words]

...she felt that some horrible scene or object lurked beyond the silk-hung walls, and -

"Oh -" Not exactly what she thought she'd felt coming through the curtained doorway into her small shop, but she gave a smile, surprised by unexpected cuteness. "Hello. And how can I help you tonight?"

:'D My work here is done

[countyoursigns]

I, I'm looking for some kind of matching set! Something, you know, something to bring home to a loved one... I don't have a lot of ideas though...

[more_than_words]

"A loved one, hm?"

Well, that's much nicer than what she'd been expecting considering her premonition earlier. She doesn't often get requests that are so sweet.

"Well, let's start at the beginning then. Is your loved one a girl or a boy?"

Because she hasn't got a clue about you, kid. And it's always best not to assume anything in places like this.

[countyoursigns]

He's a boy! He's in high school and he's very sweet, in a tangy, bitter way.

[more_than_words]

Aw, that's - wait? Tangy, bitter? That's... an odd way to describe someone. Still, the little one in front of her looks so cute. She knows it's the first rule of the Faire not to assume anything, and whatever is in front of her can't be just a child or they wouldn't have made it this far into the fair but - how terrible can the kid in front of her be?

"Sweet, tangy and bitter, hm?" She'll urge the little blond over toward her small table and one of the chairs there, intending to settle on the other side. "He sounds very special. Can you tell me what his personality is like? That will help narrow down what to get him."

[countyoursigns]

"Um, okay!" He slides into the seat and smiles at her, toying with the end of his braid. "He's kind and gentle, in a sort of older brotherly way, and he loves to take care of people, but he's also really good at deflecting attention when he doesn't want it, and he's got really good saving throws versus sanity loss."

Maybe he is some kind of gamer.

crap, it's been forever since I played Call, can't stop snickering

[more_than_words]

"That's-" Sanity loss? Well. She'll finish sitting down in her own seat after that brief hesitation, hands folding on the table. They'll get to the actual trinkets soon. First she needs to know which box to pull out.

Saving throws...

All right. Sure. She's heard stranger in her business.

"He sounds warm. Someone that makes everyone feel safe and belonging? So would you like something that shows him how he makes you feel or something to assist him?"

Actual screencap: http://tinyurl.com/c973vgh

[countyoursigns]

Something that shows how I feel! Something paired, to tie us together... I know what I'd get to support him instead, but I really don't want to put any more forks into his hands. So let's go with expressing my feelings.

that's.... so beautiful/wrong it brought a tear to my eye

[more_than_words]

Forks? Somehow that seems almost... sensible in light of some of the other things said so far. So she'll just nod and hum and turn in her chair to face one of the ornate wooden cabinets near the table, fingers moving down the handles as she speaks.

"Knowing someone feels that way about you can be a source of strength. When you say tied together do you want something you can both share or do you want an item that would literally let him draw support from you in his need?"

Re: that's.... so beautiful/wrong it brought a tear to my eye

[countyoursigns]

"I was thinking something couples-themed... but I'm open to suggestions!" He kicks his feet a little.

[more_than_words]

It's really too cute and she tries her best to hide the smile as she sets two covered boxes she's pulled from the drawer in front of her.

"All right. Last question. Cute or eldritch?"

[countyoursigns]

"Um, both is probably most accurate..."

[more_than_words]

While she knows better than to ask too many questions in a place like this, Tifa can't help but get snagged over the choice of 'accurate' as a word. 'Accurate' as in... applicable? Curiosity wins out.

"How are both accurate?"

[countyoursigns]

I'm a Hasturian.

[more_than_words]

"You're a-"

Yes, she heard and yes, she's aware enough to recognize the name but... the blond looks so cute. And young. And - cute. And he's talking about loving someone in, as far as she can tell, a non-soul flaying, tentacle invading, too many dimensions for the mortal mind kind of way. She's pretty sure 'cute' isn't supposed to go with what the Sleeper in the Deep involves. So she's still going to need some clarification because, despite talk of sanity saves -

"You're a what?"

[countyoursigns]

"I'm Hastur, a Hasturian! It's, um, nice to meet you-?" He's not seeming any less cute or moe-blobby, apparently, though he does seem to be catching on to her reaction.

[more_than_words]

Okay. This is the goblin fair. She steals people's memories for a price. Strange things aren't new to her. She can parse this. Yep.

Nope.

"You're - " she's, even off her balance, still too smart to say the name considering it's already floating in the air once. Because... that isn't something you want to call. Because it's so terrible and mind breaking that - that it looks at you with huge blinky-blink eyes?

She should think the kid's joking. Except you don't. Joke. About that. Ever. At any age.

It's terrible the blond looks so cute and young. The gut instinct to not hurt or worry a child is awfully strong in Tifa.

"You - mm - you don't look the way I'd heard..."

i'm sorry i've run out of cute things to say about the seemingly nonsensical thing i'm doing

[kinetosis]

[ The summer sun baking off the back stone step of a rough little tavern in the city (what passed for a city, then), the familiar, comfortable feel of basking in it while wearing the green moss-matted grey wolf's form as he watched the foreign world of men hustle by - back then, he would've balked at the idea of ever intermingling freely with humans, undoubtedly. Humans or their magic-making counterparts, whatever the real difference (ignorance, he thinks, in less kind words). But things have changed, since then. The tavern is so much rotted wood and crushed stone, by now, centuries under the dust and gone, for sure. Life is not static (no forest, no village), and the world has moved on long before them. He's gotten used to it.

Of course, she's a world apart from the past, now, too. From knowing only whispers of the underworld and paying those of it only cautious homage. Even at his worst, he'd never been stubborn enough to doubt she of all of them would have a natural aptitude for magic, though, once she broke that mold - but her peculiar choice of specialty has never ceased to puzzle him. The market floods with strangers and familiar faces with each deepening night, awash in a sea of treasures and oddities, junk and gold. And every night she picks and chooses pieces of their pasts to rearrange the present. Her abilities have ranged far beyond all that he knows, but these days that's a thought edged with sort of guilty pride, instead. Part of the reason he sticks around (but not even the half of it).

Tonight, there are flower petals showering out of his hair and a clot of moths boiling around the disruptive hand dislodging them, as he sweeps in past the curtain of chattering beads that bars the door. (Well, that's one thing that hasn't changed - he still can't figure out what drives her sensibilities over interior decor. Mud and roots always did him fine.) No customers, yet. But the cluttered little hole-in-the-wall shop is out of the way, set way back where one need look to find - and those calls always come in late. So he doesn't bother with any self-conscious or standoffish airs as he answers the unasked question in the relative quiet. ]

You have anything around here for driving nymphs away?

[ It's not the first time he's asked, and a barely-there layer of clandestine fondness promises it probably won't be the last. (He could live without the flowers, though.) ]

look at our life, look at our choices?

[more_than_words]

[The world has moved on and so have they and sometimes, when she catches the glint of sunset through the depths of the careful bottles she keeps or late at night when the world beyond the walls of her small wagon whisper, she wonders if they've moved on with it... or if they've just sidestepped it, slipping between one of the myriad of cracks in the world, turning sideways. She doesn't know, in those short, paused moments when her reality holds its breath, which she hopes it is. Or isn't. But then the amber beads at her door clatter or a dog barks or her leshy makes some dry, disparaging remark about nothing related and that door shuts inside again. All she really knows, in those spare, sparse moments, is that she wouldn't have it any other way than the way it is for her.

Her head turns at his entrance, candlelight catching in the small white gems that lace her hair, revealing and hiding stars in that darkness and her hands are as pale as moonlight as they briefly still on spreading the silk cloth over the small table she does the real work of her business at. Her smile is utterly common however, spreading over her face and spilling into her wine dark eyes and so is the way she clucks her tongue on an amused sound as she comes around the table to him, practical hands reaching up to help pull fragrant petals from what he passes off as hair.

They've come a long way together, further, she knows then they ever would have alone. It's one of the reasons she's still with him (but not even half of it).]

Only your charming personality. [she answers, teasing as she lets petals flutter to the ground with one hand and keeps them with the other, taking more time playing with the feathers and moss and silk of his hair than truly necessary. Chiding the opposite of the way things actually usually go.] How many times have I told you not to pick on them?

i have never looked at my choices and i don't intend to start now

[kinetosis]

It wasn't me.

[ But she's heard that a few times already, too, and the defensive edge in the words is only cursory. Just like the childish argument he launches into next, folding his arms resolutely over his chest as more petals (and a fair share of loose down) scatter around his sandaled feet. (They're wrong-footed, appropriately, but he's made greater concessions, over the years. Like silverware. And not filling his cot with dirt.) ] Their ringleader's to blame.

[ He could always stop fraternizing with the enemy, of course - but that would take away a great many of his current opportunities for maintaining the optimal level of contrary behavior. ]

[more_than_words]

[She appreciates the use of silverware. She really appreciates the lack of dirt even more however when it comes to bed sheets. She doesn't want him to be anything but what he is... but she certainly appreciates when he softens certain parts of it to make things gentler on her. The shoes she has no hope for and never has but it's far too adorable to mention and risk losing. With a soft sigh and a quiet smile, she tucks strands of soft moss back behind his ear to point out the flower he's got stuck there. What tree spirit wouldn't love the embodiment of a forest? He's honey to the ants and she often suspects that his gruff half-measure rebuffs only spur them on.

It's as close to flirting as she's probably even seen from him.]

Which one's the ringleader?

[kinetosis]

The pink one.

[ As if it's obvious. But just in case it isn't-- He gestures vaguely toward the back of his head, in a bit of impromptu sign language that probably wouldn't make the slightest lick of sense to anyone who hasn't seen a greater forest nymph flitting about with a voluminous pink ribbon in her hair.

Plucking the extra blossom out of what serves for his own, Cloud examines it briefly before holding it out to her, instead. Though he's long since passed the stage of only making meaningful exchanges (and those begrudgingly, at best), now and then there's still a passing tension in even the humblest of secondhand offers. ]

...I'll have more where that comes from.

[more_than_words]

[The bubbling good humor shifts when he holds out that flower for her, softening, soothing from sunlight specks to moon light whispers and there's no hesitation as her hands reach in response, petals falling from the one hand that had been keeping them in gift of something imminently more precious to her. It's not for the flower, though it's beautiful in its simplicity but rather for the gift of it and it's a silent sign of just how far they are from where they began that she accepts his offering without hesitation or qualm, fey-wild though he still is to the strands of her that are still mortal, equal mix of trust and willingness to give anything in return.

She doesn't thank him though as her fingers curl around the delicate stem, not with words at least. She never thanks him with words anymore. Instead she leans in, a tip of her chin, and her lips brush his in a soft kiss, sun dried honey and new grass. One of her hands leaves the flower stem to brush his cheek - and then it's finding the worn fabric of his shirt as she pulls away and giving him a light tug toward a chair, indication to settle there inherent in the way she moves and the cheerful smile is there again.]

Is that a threat or a promise?