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[R3 Early Morning, Liar's Market] Stranger than Fiction [Open]
unwanderinggirl
Member
The sun's face had yet to peek over the tall walls of the Turtle, but the caravanserai of the Liar's Market was already a bustling place full of imbali merchants setting up their booths, tables, and wares for another hot day of selling the untruth for a well-bargained price. Rivals jostled for their favorite spots. Tents were decorated. Displays arranged. The cool of the night still clung to the long shadows cast by the walls and the dark clay buildings, but it would barely be another house before the baking heat would take over.
Iyoas hadn't bothered to sleep the night before, having been unwilling to quit sewing at sunset and eventually unable to retire once he knew morning was on it’s way. Instead he chose to gather his few Market deliveries for the day into a worn leather bag with the intention of beating the summer sun and the crowds.
He managed to remember to remove his apron and made an actual effort to smudge glue from his fingertips before slipping out the door of his shop, locking it carefully, and winding through his familiar alley to the Way that eventually ended at the caravanserai.
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One of the advantages of getting up before the sun for Iyoas was the opportunity to eat the delicious first fruits from any number of little eateries that tucked themselves in between the stores on the Way of the Book and on the outskirts of the Liar’s Market. Today was less fruit and more fresh-off-the-stone flat bread, slathered in goat cheese, topped with stuffed dates, and drizzled in honey. It was perhaps an admitted favorite for the oshoor and while the slightly younger, attractive imbala lady who ran the hole-in-the-wall bakery hardly gave the bookbinder the time of day under the shadow of his field, she at least knew his name and smiled at him on occasion when handing over his breakfast. Something was better than nothing.
Heat was settling its heavy weight onto the Market by the time Iyoas passed through one of the clay tunnel-like entrances, meandering now, still licking honey from one hand as he tried to remember the location of his deliveries: one small stack of gilt-edged false certificates; a new binding for an old, rather saucy but somewhat rambling treatise on techniques necessary to maintain more than one mistress; and a handful of folded, stitched pamphlets on cheating your customers with hollow weights.
Light work, really, but it was work nonetheless.
He’d just spotted the first of his clients unloading goods off of his overfed, flighty moa and into his stall when a flurry of papers assaulted his person and immediately littered the ground at his feet. It was only with a bit of ungraceful stumbling that he avoided stepping on any of them and only with a bit of pure dumb luck that he further avoided crashing into the dark blur of a woman who appeared to be chasing them, delightedly squealing baby in tow.
“For flood’s sake!”
The tall bookbinder grumbled loudly in surprize, despite the fact that he immediately began snatching parchment from the air and collecting them into a neat stack out of ingrained habit instead of an actual desire to be helpful, “Poa’na, surely you don’t sell real dirt--”
The rest of his words were drown out by a crash and some more unwelcome cursing.
The squealing and shouting were apparently too much for Jaffa Yobe’s old dumb moa. With a squawk, the portly brown bird of burden yanked himself free of the lie merchant’s hands and took off into aisles of the caravanserai, knocking over people and goods and stands alike.
“Ea, but it’s still early...” Iyoas offered with a grin, flapping his free hand vigorously, one loose leaf still stuck to the leftover breakfast on his fingers. His freckled countenance faltered once the shorter imbala looked away--he knew why--but her hand was still outstretched for his stack of her rescued belongings.
Pressing parchment into her waiting grasp while moa squawks and a few more choice curses rang out across the Market, the bookbinder chose to catch the gaze of little Wubay instead. Too young to have the same prejudices, though young enough to still be raised into them, his wink was nonetheless rewarded with a wide grin and some completely unbiased gurgling laughter,
“...Things could get better.”
He added quietly, making faces at Lidya’s babe instead of forcing the imbala into any uncomfortable eye contact, words less of a social statement than they may have sounded. A few aisles away, the escaped bird had obviously been captured. Iyoas’ customer would eventually return to his stall with the beast, grumpy and covered in sand and downy fluff. He would probably try to cheat the printmaker out of the other half of his payment, too, the greasy jerk.
One last sheet of parchment, a little stickier than it had been, was finally held out in her direction.
Now probably wasn't a good time to let Lidya know that he wasn't necessarily the most unfortunate member of his family. The jury was out in this lifetime as to whether it was himself or his sister. That was not, however, the best line of conversation with strangers who already appeared to be quite a bit unsure of his existence in the first place. No, he managed to win a bit of eye contact from the imbala woman, and that was a small victory. He offered a crooked slightly wan smile, aware of the tentative nature of nearly all his social interactions,
"Ma'ralio, Lidya Kezia. My name's Iyoas," he said simply, assuming hardly anyone who was nervous under the pretense of his field any sincere interest in really knowing another syllable after his first name. He no longer had family to speak of, other than his sister who'd freed herself from any connection and run to Thul'Amat within heartbeats of being accepted. With more than one good reason to pack up in her suitcase and lug with her, that was for flooding sure, "I'm a printer and bookbinder."
Lagoon blue eyes snuck another goofy glance in the direction of Wubay in acknowledgement of her name before he nodded in the direction of Lidya's set-up in the Market, noting her writing implements and knowing the paper he'd just helped reassemble into a usable stack, "You're a writer, then?"
There were plenty of things that went on in the Liar’s Market or along the Way of the Book that were not necessarily for little ears, and the bookbinder didn’t need to read between the lines as Lidya spoke. Lines were often heavy with leading (and more than just in a printmaking sense).
Iyoas’ grin turned into more of a lopsided smirk at the shorter, darker woman’s question, “Honestly?” There were so many things wrong (and right) about using that word, “Too many political publications, these days. Everyone’s got an opinion, you know. But they pay. I print some other … uh … side projects as well ...” They paid better, obviously, but were more like oases in the desert.
The tall half-blood trailed off there, less sticky hand straying to rub the back of his freckled neck, unwilling to go into details about his occasional magical publications, “If I had my time in the shade, I’d much rather be printing for independent folks …”
Every small project he’d printed had been admittedly enjoyable. Hand-setting type for poetry, even the steamy sort, gave Iyoas more creative licence than any thick, opinionated tome by some other imbali intellectual.
“I’m sure they’d like their voices heard over the flooding government clamor.” Iyoas glanced back at his customer’s stall across the aisle, wondering if the man would return with his beast, but not in a hurry to barter over the rest of his payment owed. Conversation, however reluctant Lidya may have been, was still conversation the printmaker didn’t normally get to enjoy,
“Who have you been reading lately? Anything good?”
What little social graces the oshoor had managed to gather in life were well-practiced, if only because the very nature of his existence made it difficult to make and keep friendships closer than arms’ length, if not even further. They were honed by survival instincts and pure need, even though by all accounts save his magical abilities, he was just another imbala hoping to get by. Only, he wasn’t. Or he was, depending on who you asked, anyway.
Lagoon blue eyes did not miss as the imbala woman relaxed in spite of the weight of his field, watching the excited glow spread across her much darker features as she spoke about a love he whole-heartedly agreed with: books. The tall printmaker’s shoulders softened their angle, supporting his burdened satchel of carefully wrapped deliveries, and he shifted his hips just so, settling into the warm sand to listen with a smile even as small rivulets of sweat began to trace their way down his creamed coffee skin in the heat of the Market.
He knew his hold on her attention was tenuous at best, a cool breeze hours before the sun set, so he acted quickly,
”The colored plate editions of The Good Farmer’s Son are very rare, as far as I know. Hang on to the one you have; it should make a pleasing heirloom for all your lovely future generations.” Iyoas offered another somewhat silly grin in Wubay’s direction for emphasis, though he was obviously speaking to Lidya, “I like the sound of that retelling. Should your friend decide she’s ready for a first edition …”
The freckled printmaker returned his gaze to the shorter woman, with a teasing tone and a more lopsided smile, never one to shy away from free advertising, “...I might know someone who is more than capable of putting such a story together in print properly.”
Whether he was implying himself or someone else wasn’t entirely clear, though he wasn’t about to pressure a stranger unsure of his value.
Iyoas sniffed, freckled face curling into something thoughtful as he ran through the canals of his memory to place the name Lidya so obviously dropped between them with the full intention of bargaining with his skillset. The tall half-Mug exhaled through white teeth, lagoon blue eyes narrowing with an interested shrewdness,
“Mmm. Well, if your friend had toiled over composing some dry as the dunes historical tome filled with long words all lined up in a row, then perhaps, yes, she’d find herself in need of your husband’s work.” It wasn’t an insult, per se, but neither was it entirely a complement. Someone had to do the laborious work of large blocks of text. That someone was preferrably not himself, “But as her work is prose, she’d most likely be much more pleased with a printmaker such as myself whose hands were practiced setting blooms in the desert with type whenever it is needed.”
The printmaker offered a warm smile to his overly flourished speech, easing like water into a more comfortable bartering state of mind. As long as he wasn’t defending his heritage, talking about his work was indeed a matter of personal, creative pride. Hands produced a wrapped volume from under the flap of his satchel: one of his deliveries, the saucy book of prose perhaps not appropriate reading for a child but still a sample of his meticulous typesetting and stitch work for the spine,
“If Jaffa Yura ever makes it back with his moa, I’m sure he’d be happy to agree over the quality of my craftsmanship. At least let me make sure he pays, though, before too much sweetness pours from his withered lips.”
“There’s very little the less-than-honorable Yura is above, at least in my narrow but experienced opinion. If it wasn’t for his usually more jovial moa, he would most likely crawl about on his belly more often than not.” Admitted Iyoas dryly, even as the sun began to peek above the outer wall of the Turtle. Folks would gradually trickle in from Thul’Ka proper, some more reluctant than others. Most of them only made it into the Liar’s Market, a handful made it as far as the Way of the Book, and anyone who explored further was surely an imbali or else they had little right to be there.
“I appreciate your kind offer, Lidya Keziah, and the shade will be a most welcome respite already.”
The half-blooded bookbinder understood that Lidya made her living in the Liar’s Market, that she had at least one mouth to feed, if not more, and that there was no opportunity for fresh business if one picked the flowers instead of waited for the fruit. He returned Yura’s book to it’s place with his other packages with an agreeable roll of his narrow shoulders, finding somewhere out of the way to stand in the shade that didn’t make him look like he was a customer or make him into an object of too much annoyance.
Iyoas did hope it wouldn’t be too long before Yura returned. The man was most likely paying those whom he had offended or those whom his moa had ruined their wares. If the man talked too much, it would take longer than necessary. The printmaker decided to keep up conversation instead of gnawing the inside of his cheek with impatience,
“Is your husband also preparing for Poster Day? Does he also offer his services to those who pretend to serve our beautiful Thul’Ka as a whole?”