and i must pour forth a river of words
or i shall suffocate.
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.
“—what are you working on?”
{ @Dune "speaks" notes: i love dune }
