here lies a small building no more than ten paces from the bell tower in the low quarter, the old one that only chimes twice per day: sunrise and sunset. Perhaps it is overly generous to call it a building-- there are only three thin clay walls, and three quarters of a thatched roof. At night, and honestly most days, a patchwork screen is lowered to the street, to keep out the dust and riffraff. Looking at it you might think it would take just a small storm to collapse the structure, yet it has stood for years and years-- longer than anyone alive can remember. Building or hovel or whatever it is, it's there, day in and out, a tattered scrap of red and gold fabric hanging halfheartedly facing the street, above the missing wall.
It is the kind of place so brimming with things that the more you look, the more you see. There is a random collection of tables (each a different height, size, and shape) that fill the single room, and beat-up wooden shelves line the wall. The contents of the store are varied and… a certain kind of quaint. Near the front is a once-broken porcelain bowl, carefully pieced back together with some kind of golden glue, and an entire table is full of little animals and trees made of scrap metal and springs. Further back in the store, the items are less elaborate and in greater states of decay. One shelf is half full of bowls, each containing a different material-- pebbles, dried flowers, feathers, scraps of leather, it goes on and on. The other half is mostly broken things-- clocks that run fast or slow or not at all, a shatranj board with three missing people.
The shopkeep is only in about one day per week. Although, as you couldn't call it a building maybe you couldn't exactly call him a shopkeep. He lives here. Every morning he sweeps the floor and feeds the stray cats that come by. Every night he sleeps in the corner, the one beneath the broken roof where he can look to the stars before sleep gently (or, in some cases, violently) takes him. It is not technically his building/shed/structure, but it might as well be for all the pride and care with which he tends to it.
It’s a winter day when she comes in, and the early morning still has the bite of last night’s chill. He’s got his face lowered close to the table where a water clock lies in pieces, and one hundred percent of his attention is on carefully applying mortar to all the cracks and pressing the pieces back together, one by one. He wears a little frown as he works- a focus frown- or so he's been told. He's never aware of it happening, but more than one stranger has mentioned it- "do you know you frown when you're working?" He takes that to mean it's a bad habit, but he doesn't much care.
When Dune finally looks up he realizes there is a pretty girl looking back. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there with his brow raised in the obvious question- can I help you? If she were to glance past him she might notice a pile of rags on the ground behind the counter-- his bed-- and in it a little black cat curled up in a bit of sunlight that infiltrates the broken roof.
☾
And what on earth are dreams if not our only way of speaking?
and i must pour forth a river of words or i shall suffocate.
S
he was not looking for the shop.
It was one of those places that you stumble into without realizing it: one moment you’re on the sidewalk, the streets around you empty, save for your own reflection that looks back at you from dirty and broken storefront windows. And the next, there’s a tattered red and gold banner that waves you along inside, and its sudden shade makes you stop and blink and realize your mistake.
She’s wandering the streets early that morning, looking for nothing and everything at once. Besides the occasional pigeons that trail after her, hoping for crumbs to be tossed their way, and the scattering of frost that hovers around her hooves, she is alone — she’s often alone here. But it doesn’t stop her from continuing on down the increasingly smaller streets and side alleys, determined to
As a girl from the inner circles of Delumine, she doesn’t once stop to consider telling someone where she was going, or thinking to watch her shadow in case another one creeps up from behind.
She only walks, and walks, and walks deeper into the Court — counting the heartbeats after the old bell tower chimes the sunrise — determined to memorize the city even if she gets lost in the process.
Maybe it’s the sheer unexpectedness of the place that draws her in, the unpredictability of finding a (mostly) functional shop in the midst of an abandoned district where everyone looked hung over or as if they had just rolled out of bed. But more likely it was the sheer amount of things packed tightly together inside, from stacks of dusty books to dilapidated shelves with barely an inch of free space to boast. Maret stands there just inside the doorway while her eyes adjust to the dim lighting, unsure what to look at first when they do. A group of pigeons press in close against her, craning their heads to look inside as they coo amongst themselves.
When a shadow deeper than the other shadows flickers inside, and her heartbeat pounding in her ears, she finally crosses the threshold.
She weaves carefully around tables and shelves arranged in seemingly no particular order, pausing at times to pick up an item of intrigue. A dusty, pink-hued crystal, tarnished silver, bits of wire twisted into playful animals, pressed butterfly wings pinned to a canvas, a book with runes she does not recognize lining its spine in gold. When she flips the book open a cloud of dust rises from the pages, revealing more of the strange letters written in an array of colored inks written vertically down the pages. She traces them for a moment, tapping the paper gently.
It’s a noise coming from around the bookshelf that makes her set the book back in its place, the first true sense of life in the little shop. She hovers close to the bookshelf as she rounds the corner, watching the darkhaired man — presumably the shopkeep — work over a small object on a table.
Maret did not realize how close she had crept, pressing in closer until she could see the individual pieces he was pressing back together again. She kept her eyes trained on the unfinished trinket, already anticipating where the next piece would go — but the whole thing lay stationary. It wasn’t until she looked up and found his eyes trained on her’s that she understood why.
The question she finds there catches her off guard. “Oh — sorry.” She takes a measured step backwards, careful not to back into one of the other tables arranged like a maze in the center of the shop. “I was just looking, at—” she gestures around vaguely, realizing a half-beat too late that there wasn’t any one thing for her to latch onto. Everything? her sheepish smile suggests.
She’s about to turn and leave him to his work — there’s plenty of other things left in the shop to catch her eye — when she hesitates. Maret looks down at the pieces scattered before him again, fascination shining in her dual-colored eyes.
It might look like chaos, like piles of junk, but everything has its exact place. And it all has a life to it that he tends to as if a garden. The young stallion is in fact so in tune with his shop, when he’s here it feels like an extension of himself. When the young patron picks something up it feels like a feathered touch on his shoulder. When she flips the pages of a book, he feels a strange breeze flutter across his skin.
But he’s too focused on his task, or maybe too used to the nonsensical nature of dreams, to be distracted by the ticklish sensations as a stranger gently walks through his world… until her quiet attention rests on him like a butterfly in the sun, and he realizes suddenly he’s being watched. He looks up at her, and she startles in a way that is, paradoxically, very calm and careful. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes soften with amusement.
He’s about to return to his work with a dismissive “let me know if you have any questions” when she asks him what he’s working on. There follows a surprised pause. He didn’t often get questions- perhaps because most strangers felt uncomfortable breaking the intense focus so clearly knit across his brow. He didn’t mind the question, not at all, but it was unexpected and he’s taken aback.
“Um, it’s a water clock.” There is another long pause. When he realizes her curiosity is genuine, he continues. “This one is very old.” They were not particularly difficult to make, the value of this one is it’s historical value. He had found it in the catacombs, when looking for rare scrolls for an employer. He kept it for himself without guilt, as he had been employed to find paper, not artifacts.
He speaks quietly, as though they are in a church. Some days, speaking still feels strange- he had gone so long without. Anyway, it was only polite when in the company of a sleeping cat. “One bowl is filled with water. There are levels marked on it, and as it drains into the other bowl you can read the passage of time.” Simple but effective; easier to craft than an hourglass, but, as with most things, difficult to create with precision. Sun dials were even simpler to make, and were thus far more widespread than the water clock. But Dune thought there was something attractive about how the water clock utilized the physical measurement of time. It spoke to the deep and unknowable essence of things, and the relationship between them all. He was not by nature philosophical, but when deep in his work his mind inevitably wandered down paths such as these. It was one of the things that made tinkering so enjoyable.
Dune looks up from the table and its many broken pieces of pottery. He feels like he should be annoyed... If anyone else stood there like that while he was working, he would be annoyed. He can't figure out why he's not annoyed, and it's beginning to annoy him. "Can I help you find something?" Meanwhile, he's wondering: have I never had a pretty stranger in my shop before? He suddenly wishes he had cleaned up a little more this morning. At least he could have swept the floor or something.
☾
And what on earth are dreams if not our only way of speaking?
and i must pour forth a river of words or i shall suffocate.
T
here is a certain peace in the way he works. Maret is drawn into it, by the tight knot of his brow when he leans down over his work, to the way the lamplight casts a reflection of the clock onto his cheek like the window to another world. His is the kind of focus that is all-consuming, the kind that’s so deep you lose yourself in it — and Maret wonders where he goes when he does.
It seems too personal a thing to ask a stranger, but the little shop seems far more familiar, and more intimate, than a patchwork building on the corner had any right to be. It’s easy to feel at home.
Maret drinks it in now in senses and images — all rich colors half-hidden in shadow, wood shavings on the floor, fretwork and filigree, light filtering down from the broken roof to lay gently against tired sculptures and ornate furnishings. There’s a soft glow about the odds and ends that makes her wonder how many hands they’ve passed through, how many different lives they’ve watched from the corner of a mantelpiece, how many roles they’ve played besides just clock or statue or dictionary.
Even the broken water clock he works on — set into pieces on the table, pieces he carefully pressed back together one by one with bits of mortar filling the cracks — seems less like an ornament and more like a living creature placed under a spell. Like at any moment it might hop up and declare its work done here, and tumble off down the street on its way to some other appointment.
Maret listens quietly, letting her eyes follow the direction of his words as he describes the different pieces of it. And it strikes her then the softness of his voice, the way it falls around the object as if in quiet reverence.
She’s about to comment on the water clock — a statement that surely would seem underwhelming, because how could she possibly capture the essence of an ordinary yet extraordinary thing in small talk? — when he slips back into the shopkeep-role and asks her what he can help her find. And it serves as a reminder, that she is a patron (a guest) and he has, undoubtedly, more important things to tend to. She smiles politely, and takes a small step back.
“I’m not sure I was looking for anything in particular,” she says, as means of an apology. “I was only — looking.”
But what she does not say and leaves her eyes to say for her, as she lingers by the corner of a table and watches her breath blow a layer of dust from the spine of a book, is what would you suggest I find?
{ @Dune"speaks" notes: a terrible, terribly late reply }
he takes a step back, a small one, and the space between them seems suddenly vast… but she bridges that gap, somehow, with her long-lashed gaze.
Dune finds himself speechless.
A pensive quiet sits between them, not exactly uncomfortable, before being broken by a quiet rustle. One of the strays had awoken from his nap in the palm husks (Dune used them to package ceramics and other fragile things for transport) and emerged from the small pile with an overly luxurious stretch. Spying a new victim, the little orange cat begins to rub back and forth against the mare’s legs with a happy little chirrup.
Dune finds himself simultaneously embarrassed, annoyed, and admittedly a little jealous. Little traitor, I thought you only did that to me. “Tsst, stop that now,” The cat, of course, pays him not even the slightest attention. Quite the opposite-- he begins to purr heartily, and press against the lady’s legs with excessive vigor. Dune puts down the broken pieces of the water clock he had been working with. His annoyance and jealousy grows to a level he’s acutely aware is irrational. “I’m so sorry about that, miss. Always in the way, damn cats.”
(Surely they’d be less in the way if he didn’t provide them food, water, and a dozen nooks and crannies to snooze in. Dune pretended not to care for the cats, but really they were the closest friends he had. If asked about it he would fiercely deny they had names, that would be too sentimental… but the little orange making a scene right now? That’s Mango.)
Since speaking to strangers (it was a whole story in and of itself, the whys and hows of his flirtation with mutism) Dune had found it surprisingly easy to charm. Lying, too, came quickly and without effort. So the sudden loss of words before this brown(blue? He doesn’t want to look closely)-eyed girl is particularly uncomfortable for the boy.
He could, of course, just leave her to browse-- and, inevitably, drift away once more. But he has the distinct sensation that would be a loss of some sort. “Where are you from?” He asks, grasping for something to say. Surely she’s not from here… he would have remembered her.
☾
And what on earth are dreams if not our only way of speaking?
