[ORP] Captian Bifinny's Fish Shop! (COMPLETE!)

[SilverLynx]

Captain Bifinny looked up at the rising sun as the Fish Market begin to fill with people. He was just over 50, with a goodly set of crows feet around stormy grey eyes, but was only just beginning to show his age in his hair, what had started off as salt and pepper was now gathering strength at his temples and spreading into his beard along his jaw. The rest of his hair was a dark brown. He stood at 6'2" still, though he leaned on a cane most of the time, he was still very fit, and still an imposing figure. He was dressed in light colored clothing, a stiff white shirt, and light grey slacks.

It had been a few days since finding his little bauble, as he referred to it. He'd spent a strange amount of time studying it. He never let it stray far from him, always sitting on the table next to him when he was at home, or tied to a cord at his waist. He knew that it was a little illogical to assume that if he left it at home it would be stolen, but that's who he felt. Especially since he was growing all the more convinced that the beautiful piece of glass was magical in nature. He didn't want whatever mystical sea creature that had lost it to steal it away again. It was his.

Today was a fine day at market. He'd taken a mouthful of his medicine, bitter on the tongue but mellow on the heart, and was feeling the effect as the ache in his bones lessened and finally faded. He watched over his stall with great interest as the cleaners chattered and worked hard, their sun-kissed skin brown and shining with sweat as they scaled, gutted and filleted the catch. He leaned on his cane, his hand straying to the bottle tied to his waist.  

[A Wandering Esper]

It was some time after opening that the Captain would see a sight that was rather hard to ignore - perhaps he had even seen the youngling skittering around the market before, trailed by a patient, dark skinned man - or could it truly be the same little girl ? No, perhaps an older brother ? Sister ? It was hard to tell. If the man had ever seen Silver and Sitara, however, the resemblance that the teen held with the little girl wearing a witch's hat was too strong to ignore. After all, how many rainbow-haired, winged hellions ran around the marketplace ?

At any rate, Sitara walked by, wearing some newly-acquired clothes, some new star charms - metal instead of wood or blown glass - and looked over a list. Teenager or not, there was still meals to be made, and produce to aquire !

"Excuse me." She said, looking up at the man. "Do you have any..."

The question trailed off, when a rather odd feeling overtook her. Some kind of familiarity, but... what ? Blinking, she shook her head. "Sorry. Do you have any tuna this morning, sir ?" If it was one thing that had been hammered into her head as a child, it was to be polite to older people (well, beside old chattering hags) and shopkeeps alike.  

[SilverLynx]

The Captain, in his distraction, felt a tremble of surprise run through him as the young girl interrupted his train of thought. Reflexively, he curled his hand about his bottle, it was still tied to his hip.

He then noticed who had asked. Here he was thinking about beings on the magical side of nature, and lo and behold, one had sauntered right up to him. She had rainbow fairy hair, short, and little wings that he couldn't be sure were really...part of her or not. But what really made his mouth go dry were her eyes. Full of magic and enchantment they were - she was not a human with too much dye to her hair. She really was...something else.

He turned more fully towards her, and cocked his head. Not but a scant short weeks ago he'd seen a child no more than 7 with her hair, and now that he thought about it, the tiny yellow wings, as well. Now she looked older - was trying to do business with him.

"Aye didn't think that fairies ate fish," he said somewhat amicably. The edge of his mouth curled in what was probably supposed to be a smile. He turned and let his cane take his weight, nodding to the iced bins, hidden under the shade. "But aye, we do have some tuna. It's a wee bit early in the season for the biggest fish," he informed her, "but at least one of our boats always brings in a few." He hobbled past the whitefish and to where the fillets of the tuna lay. Fresh and mouthwatering even raw, he eyed the fairy-girl. "How much were ye lookin' fer?"

Now that his eyes were on her again, he felt a chill in his heart - that he should...perhaps know her even better than merely having seen her haunt the fishmarket before. His eyes narrowed as he took a moment to study her. Something...about her was so very familiar.  

[A Wandering Esper]

It seemed like this one either did not notice, or did not mind being stared at - the girl's attention was elsewhere, eyes scanning the market as if looking for something.

That feeling...

"Heh, im not a fairy !" She gave a cheerful, amused laugh. She didn't mind. 'Fairy' was more polite than what most people called her, anyway.

She did know one, but that didn't make her one ! When the captain turned, however, she finally saw it - a glass bottle, tied to his hip.

..........Hadn't Hymn and dad told her she have come from a bottle ?

She still looked a little puzzled when the older man asked his question, and she perked, looking though her pocket for a small list.

"...Dad only wants two this week." She scanned it over, just to make sure she wasn't missing anything. That looked right.  

[SilverLynx]

The girl never quite met his eyes, always glancing about. Her voice seemed very much...normal. He almost laughed to himself when he saw her eye his bottle. Something in him reacted. If anyone, anything, else had looked at the bottle in the past few days he'd told them square off that they had best be looking elsewhere. But when she looked, her face didn't have the same sense of greed or jealousy he saw in others. He fancied her innocent glance to be one of recognition.

The not-quite fairy then was drawn away by whatever had brought her to him in the first place. She draw out a tiny list and squinted at it, and her cool golden eyes flashed back up to his steely grey ones. He didn't notice she'd made an order at first and hesitated - his body almost frozen like a old bit of wood carved into the likeness of a man. His ears then caught up with his mind. His cheeks colored just slightly as he nodded stiffly. "Right." He looked over to the money taker, his voice snapping clearly, "Elli - get this girl two Tuna Fillets."

The man nodded, then looked a little creeped out at exactly who the Captain was speaking about. "Sir...?"

"Now." The captain's voice was one that inspired immediate action - and the man did not question again.

The captain could feel his knees aching a little behind the dulling effect of his tonic, but his deep interest in this girl distracted him from it. His voice dropped from his harsh commanding tone to something more subtle - like a sea breeze, "If you don't mind me askin'...if ye aren't a fairy...what manner of being are yeh?"  

[A Wandering Esper]

"No one's really sure, actually. Not even my dad." She admitted. Well, that was not entirely the truth - she knew what she was, she was pretty sure, but she doubted the old sailor would trust her. Nothing in her gaze or expression betrayed her, however - it was, still, mostly truth.

"Though... there are more like me, but we're all different. We call outselves Dusts." She looked over to one side, then to the other, and after noticing there was no one nearby, and scooted a little closer. "Dad found a bottle in the forest... and he said I came out of it. It sounds kinda silly, and I don't remember it, but..." Her curious gaze returned to the bottle. "It feels... familiar."  

[SilverLynx]

This news completely floored the captain. He drew the bottle from his waist, just to hold it closer to his chest. "A bottle like this? You - a child - came from a bottle like this?"

She had mentioned there were others. Indeed, possibly many others. She said she had a father - one who had owned a bottle just like this. In all his days on the high seas, for the women he had taken on occasion to his bed, he had never once thought of having a child. He knew the process, of course, of the natural method, but not once had it entered his mind that tangles of fate would give him a child - a child without first taking a wife.

He had so many questions to ask her. And yet, he found he had no way of expressing them. His awe and fear were rudely interrupted by Elli who cleared his throat and held out the paper-wrapped fish.

The Captain straightened, himself once more. He took the fish from Elli, and jerked his bearded chin at the man - telling him to get lost. The man did not hesitate, looking quite happy to be as far away from the...Dust...as he could.

"If ye could - send yer father by... I have a few questions for the man." He took his bottle and looped the string around his waist back about the neck of it. "I have to say - I didn't think this little bauble meant so much..." and yet as he said it, he knew it was a lie - ever since he had first touched the mysterious thing, he knew that the piece was magical, and it was not something he would ever let go of.

He then held out the fish. "No charge."  

[A Wandering Esper]

"That's what he told me." The girl nodded. "Hymn said so too... And Hymn's like me. A dust." It was only when Hymn had mentioned the very same thing than her father had that she had started to think that it might... just might... actually be true.

"Ill'd do my best." She blinked a bit, clearly a little confused when the fish was given to her at no charge, but smiled, took it, and left with a "Thank you, mister~ !"

And so, the energetic teen darted off, and was gone.

--------------------------------------

It took about one hour before the man of the captain's interest would show up - indeed the man that he would remember seeing with the young child that the teenager had resembled.

After all, brown skin and white hairs made him rather exotic himself, and hard to overlook.

Silver had a look around and, after noticing the fish stand his daughter had told him about, headed toward it.  

[SilverLynx]

In the hour since the girl had run off with the fish, the old sea captain had launched himself into work, attempting to distract himself from his concerns. Time flowed quickly by, as he took in an order from a late boat - reaming the man up and down for not coming in sooner - knowing that half his catch would spoil before it sold, even on ice.

"The extra 50 fish you wasted time getting are spoiling, along with half as much as yeh took in. Yeh were given command just last month and ye've been faithful to what ye've been taught so far...so what happened this time?"

The other, less experienced captain took the berating well - he was about to respond when Elli approached them both, making both captains straighten and turn on the fishmonger. Captains' affairs were NEVER addressed before civilians - nor were they EVER a subject to be interrupted by those who worked under them.

Bifinny's thin lips pressed together in a line and he crossed his arms. "Yes?"

"Captain, a man...claiming to be the girl's father...said you were looking for him?"

Bifinny's heart leapt to his throat. "Git," he snapped. "You tell him I'll be right there." He glanced back to the young sea captain before him. "Next time, you time it - and don't break the timing for extra. Better you come in with a bit less - that's why you're with the company. We protect our own against a slow day at sea."

The other captain nodded, thanking Bifinny and promising to follow the rule from now on.

Bifinny turned on his heel, as he would at sea, not thinking too much about what such an action might cost. But the pain was something he could withstand. He must speak to the man who knew about the bottle, and that was all-important.

Scanning the customers who were picking over the fish, he spotted the one who was staring at him instantly. He nodded to the man, hobbling quickly to the side of the stall.

Being of well-tanned skin, and having gone white in places himself, he didn't think too much of the other man's appearance until they got face to face. This man was...markedly younger than Bifinny expected. He took note of this in stride - at the very least the man himself didn't look like a fairy. Though one couldn't be too careful.

"Names Captain Gregory Bifinny." He introduced himself. "Yer the father of that wee dust-girl I spoke to earlier this morning?"  

[A Wandering Esper]

"Silver." The dark-skinned man answered with his own name, though not with his last. "I am... Sitara told me you had questions ? To be honest, I don't know much myself, but... Ill do what I can."

He looked... and ha, there it was, the bottle. The very same shape that Sitara's own had been, though very different as well. The resemblance, however, was unmistakable. Definitively the same kind.

And as such, he understood the apparent possessiveness. He had felt something much alike.  

[SilverLynx]

The captain was more than agreeable to this. A quick glance at the shadows told him that the lunch crowd would be hitting the streets soon and thus he gestured, to have the man follow him away from the busy, and noisy, walkway.

As he walked, he spoke. "To be honest with yeh, I wasn't too sure anyone would show. Sometimes the fair folk are like that. Not to be sayin' anything about yer daughter a'course." His mouth formed an awkward half-smile and his slate eyes twinkled.

He reached to his belt and drew the bottle from it. "So then, what can yeh tell me?" He held it out before the younger man.  

[A Wandering Esper]

Silver observed the bottle for a moment. Nothing seemed too... unusual about it, at the first glance. "Well, I found mine in the Whi forest." He said, turning his gaze back to the captain. "I found the bottle unusual, so I took it with me... After a few days, though, it started glowling. Very, very brightly. No one knew about it so I thought to bring it back to the forest... I made a camp on the outskits and then... Sitara was there. I do not know if she came out of the bottle..." Oh, he was probably sounding crazy. "But there she was, a little girl maybe 5 or 6 years old. I never found the bottle again... And very recently she just suddenly grew to.... well, you've seen it for yourself."  

[SilverLynx]

Captain Bifinny stroked the bottle with rough fingers, pondering the man's tale. Truth be told, the story chilled him to the bone. There was a flicker of fear - and for a terrible moment, he wanted to throw the bottle away again as he had wanted to do when he first found it. Even as he thought about it, he knew he couldn't. If a child were to appear from this bottle as young as all that, throwing the bottle away may leave the poor thing stranded, or worse in the clutches of some evil beast or man.

No, he would keep this child for himself, though he knew nothing of child rearing or even fancied the thought of being a father. He knew he had to protect this little one.

His lips pursed and a look of judgment fell upon his face. "In all the tales that I've heard at sea or port, I've never heard of a bottle being found as such, with a child hidden inside. Yer daughter, Miss Sitara, stated that there were more dustlings about. If this be true - do yeh know if it's under the province of Aevah?" He considered his words, then clarified, "if it be a good thing? Do yeh know if there be something happening in the realm of gods or fairfolk that these children are suddenly appearing all around us?"

He spoke from some semblance of experience - around the ports, there were always children, abandoned by their tawdry mothers, not knowing their fathers. Most were thieves and beggars and the like, but just as many found work at sea. Many a good man under his command was a whore's son. But this reminded him of a day when the law found and took down a bawdy house not but a block from the port - the fish markets had been rampant with starving and frightened children that day.

Could such a thing happen in the spirit world? He didn't know.  

[A Wandering Esper]

"Im... not too sure actually." Silver had to admit. "There had more of them about... they are usually easy to pick out. Especially their eyes...." Of the dusts he met, all had eyes that seemed oddly... blank.

But then the first he had met... Aren... had told him to protect her because she would be the one to protect him ? But... from what ?  

[SilverLynx]

Having only Sitara to reference, the comment about the eyes did not explain much. Perhaps, he mused, they all had bright golden eyes. He did recall that her eyes were the first thing that convinced him she was far from being human. But their quality escaped him.

His rough fingers caressed the surface of his bottle. At least, if there were so many more of them, whomever may from *this* bottle would not be alone on this world. That was a comfort.

He replaced the bottle to the rope at his waist. He looked up to study Silver again and saw the man before him as an extension of himself, lost in worry and confusion. "If yeh don't mind my asking, if this bottle be as yours, I'd like to introduce the child that comes forth to your Miss Sitara. So the wee one might have a friend."