RP:A Gift For The Gorgon-Stone
Along the Foreshore, Cenril
Verah settles herself in the sand as she twiddles around with a gold chain. The half elf seemed rather peaceful for once in her own element as she was linking tiny amber stones on the chain. Jewelry. Flowy pants that were once white, were stained in a multitude of colors: black, being the main color, with splotches of orange and red wine. Tie dyed in her own way. A matching wine colored corset ties around her torso over the top of a black long sleeve. Golden jewelry accessories her wrists, neck, fingers, and more. Long blonde tresses fall loosely over her frame as she sits scrunched on the beachside. Normally, a wagon followed the woman, but not today. Not on the seaside where she would travel to and from the island. Only a large bag sits at her side in the sand. Caramel brown eyes look up after pinching amber beads as she watches each ship load up for the next sail. Her goal was to figure out which one she would shmooze her way on.
Mac rises from the water... had anyone actually seen him enter it?... dressed in tattered breeches that make it very clear he doesn't care a great deal about fashion. And that's all he's wearing. Faint blue ring-shaped markings are scattered across his torso and shoulders. His feet are bare. When the water's at calf-height, he shakes a headful of untidy, silver-streaked dreadlocks and makes for the beach. Crumpled on the shore, a few feet from waves that lap the beach like foamy tongues, is his coat, which he scoops up and strides on, footsoles squeaking on the sand. By the time he reaches Verah, she'll be aware of just how tall this odd hobo-like creature really is. Mac doesn't rush to speech, standing there before the seated woman for a time approaching awkward, before he peers down at her with a gaze that shifts colours like sea itself. Still he says nothing, but wrestles with his unworn coat, retrieving a trinket from its pocket. This he offers her to her on the flat of a large, oddly webbed hand. "It is blessed of Selene. Perhaps thy luck would shine brighter for it."
Verah fidgets before piecing the last amber bead on the chain. Out of her peripheral vision, she notices water parting within the sea where a dread-locked man rises and casts his way to the shore. There were plenty of cargo men hauling crates onto ships and hollering in the background. Verah’s eyes flick over his appearance before looking down where her fingers graze a small butterfly charm to attach to the bracelet. Her hands pause, however, as she notices the poor looking man approach her. He stands there, and the empath’s shoulders automatically tense up with the awkward energy that is between them. Is it hard to breathe? Or is that the humid air? It’s the awkward air. “I don’t have any spare coin–” perhaps that was rather rude slipping from her lips, but a webbed hand extends towards her and she catches her breath. “A worshiper of Selene, I presume.” Was it not obvious, Verah? “Pretty strange for someone in Cenril to be giving out charms of luck, don’t you think?” She purses her lips. “Though, I do like the charms of good fortune.” Even if she felt like they were not true. “Normally I come across rather rough folk around these parts.”
Mac tosses the coat aside once more and slides into a low squat, the kind where he's sitting on his heels which most landwalkers can't easily achieve past age three or so, and grins at the woman. Tan flesh, white teeth, age... it'd be hard to discern, he might be young-old or old-young. Thick dark beard, dripping seawater on Verah's bag. "You might say.. a devotee." He'd been watching her speak in a most peculiar fashion, as though her words were tiny birds flying out of her mouth. Now those weirdly colour-shifting eyes lock on hers, perhaps leaving her feeling like he was somehow looking inside her skull. "I sing for her sometimes. Sometimes, she likes it."
Verah feels rather uneasy, although around strangers one-hundred percent of the time. The way, however, he was looking at her, her chest felt heavy. Not so easy for an empath. Either way, brown eyes stare at ones that are color changing, like the sea. Verah had been the opposite of a sea-dweller. If anything she had been more familiar with the dry sands and swamps, but as a nomad she was always on the go. “They say she can be very protective. I take that’s maybe why you sing for… her?” It was odd talking about a god she has never seen or really known. “You’re not trying to like… convert me, are you? Look, I’ve gotten plenty of parchments that want me to join some ‘devotee’ group.” She mocks his word usage a little. She holds out the trinket given to her. “Truth is, I heard word of cults, and trust me, I’m in no way wanting to be a part of something kooky like that.” Not to judge a book by its cover, but she was definitely judging the book in front of her. The way he was staring at her like that.
The Old One throws back his head and laughs a rich and mellow kind of sound, slapping one damp breech-covered thigh. "Ahaha... no. Not at all," he says, a chuckle still in his throat, "The four-faced Mother either inspires one to love her, or she does not. Far be it from my proper place to interfere in it." He reaches for Verah's hand, rough-textured fingers folding her own digits back over the shell. "And the gift is thine, free and clear, from me to thee. Because thou dost ring with music like a bell, and are worthy."
Verah’s skin cools as the mellow laugh fills the air. The empathic woman cannot help but offer a slight smile at the reaction. The amusement bellows through the air, and Verah is not sure whether to form that smile to a laugh in return or just stare with blank big brown eyes. There was something her and Selene had in common with personality. As the strange man reaches for her hand, she holds still. A cool gaze. Worthy? Well, that made her feel some mild interest. A ping of a wishy washy heart for a moment. Especially when given and surrounded by pretty things. Materialistic, she was. “Well, there must be something I could give in return. Perhaps a palm reading? Or… perhaps a little look into your future? Or maybe a commoner has caught your eye and you’re looking for a little gift to pursue a one of interest?”
Mac’s gaze has shifted to deep ocean-dark, a blue so fathomless it may as well be black. There is still a glint of that humour in his eye, however, as he holds both palms toward the woman and shrugs faint helplessness. There is not a line, a whorl nor an arch to be seen on the callused surface of those hands, so oddly webbed between the first and third fingers. “I know not what a commoner is, Lady, nor why it might require I bestow it a gift. But if thou wouldst, I do have a small request of thee.” He nods toward to the large bag she’d brought, “Thou art skilled with stringing golden tree-blood. It would make a fine offering..” to whom he didn’t say.
Verah watches carefully as palms are unfolded out. No lines. A blank canvas. The webbing between fingers makes her think of the sea and her brown eyes briefly cast in that direction. Selene. Webbed hands. He came out of nowhere from the depths of waves. He was either born of sea or part duck. Was there slight nervousness that seeped in her chest? She had played with seaborn before. Perhaps she should walk a fine line with the being in front of her until she can get more of a read. “It’s oddly something they do. I’ve never thought why either. Gifts and pretty things.” Although, she did like gifts and pretty things as well, but as for why it was custom to give to each other, was another story she never thought about. The suggestion he has, has her face falling straight and analyzing where his nod was. “Stringing golden tree-blood?” She peers at her bag and the jewelry she had been mending before he got there. “Like… sap and bark…?”
The kraken too peers, nodding, a long forefinger pointing out the amber beads. “It is prized among our people, for many reasons. My wife…” Mac coughs, and pauses for a beat, as though recovering from a slip he’d not meant to make, “…she was extremely fond of it. As is her sister, to whom I’d like to give a bauble for her wrist.” His voice carries an air of sadness as he speaks of these women though his tone is casual enough, as if some great loss was a powerful undercurrent running just below a calm sea. The forefinger brushes a bit of amber wistfully, and he straightens. “If it be no trouble to thee, perhaps two such trinkets? I will compensate thee well for the second.”
Verah twists her lips before looking down at the beads she was linking to the chain. The rock collector had been somewhat of a hobby for her over the years of her traveling. Always moving. Always on the go. Speaking of which, she heard some men hollering about the next cargo ship sailing to the island abroad. She still had some time. The cough and pause from the man makes her mildly uncomfortable, mostly because the slipping of his beloved seemed to be a hidden tale. The empath feels for the stranger mildly with the sadness that envelopes her heart. Why? Why the empathic ability? Some days it wanted to make her vomit, but alas, the storyteller and sucker for heartfelt stories finds herself staring deeply into those orange stones. Instinctively, she moves to reach in her bag for two pendant sized stones. Smooth and shiny. Her mind reflects on the webbed hands of his. “You owe me larimar,” she reaches out to attempt to grasp one of his palms, if she could, of course, and tuck the amber stones within his grasp. “For her.” She stands. “We’ll meet again,” her eyes reflect over him carefully. She felt sure of that. “And when I see you, you owe me larimar… One.” A rare light blue gemstone. “Next time we meet, you can call me Vee.” Her nickname. “And the next time we’ll see each other, well, perhaps it will be on these shores.”
“For her.” These words elicit the ghost of a flinch, which vanishes like a stone thrown into water. Mac closes his hand around the gems, nodding agreement. “All things shall come to balance,” he says, and perhaps the solemnity of his tone will inform Verah that the phrase is some kind of contract or vow. The amber warms in his fist as he watches this newest acquaintance take her leave, watches as she seeks and finds the ship, and until she is safely boarded on it. Only then, with the whip of wind-driven sand at his back and the plaintive cries of gulls for company, does the Old One shove his hands deep in the pockets of his coat and turn away, vanishing into the dunes.