Things That Go Bump In The Daylight

One small, mothy fae made his way through the Strip, a heavy satchel slung over his shoulder. It was the sort of heavy that made his wings give off an audible hum as he flitted about. His feet skimmed the sidewalk often, leaving behind whorls of glittery white frost.

Ever since he and Nevin had struck their deal of mutual benefit, Fenn had been periodically running ingredients and… “ingredients” over to the alchemist for refinement and payment-for-the-refinement. The fae had plenty of things growing in his apartment that had non-hallucinogenic applications. Personally, he was glad not to have to worry so much about the drug-making bit of business. The only preparation-thing he had to worry about was freeze-drying some of the stock. Luckily, Fenn was basically a walking fridge, so that wasn’t anything too hard. It made him almost cheery. One tended to feel a lightness about the chest with their workload lightened — more time for goofing off, less time being anxious.

Yes, the only unfortunate thing about Fenn’s present moment was that all this thinking meant that he was not paying very much attention to where he was going.

Rounding the last corner on the way to Nevin’s shop, diving at a concerningly carefree angle and speed, he found himself smacking straight into another person. Person? Probably a person. With Manta Carlos, it wasn’t quite easy to tell who was “people” and who wasn’t, but Fenn was pretty sure he’d hit something with… uh… well, someone probably female. The button on his precariously-stuffed satchel popped right off. Both bundles of plant and one mothy fae wound up on the ground.

“Oh! Clueless, mimsy, beguiled goat of a gullion—!“

It was only after letting loose the string of nonsensical swears that he stopped to glance up at whoever he’s run into. Please, let it not be a copper.

@ArcanaFate

It took Fenn a minute to process the words that came out of the odd, de-monocled redhead’s mouth in reply. His head was still spinning. With a stunned grunt, he peeled himself off of the pavement. “Little?” the fae muttered, quirking an eyebrow and an antenna in blushy unison. Fenn was already smelling condescension — and it made him flustered. Y’know, on top of smacking into this lady’s bazongas.

“Y-yeah, I got places to be, I guess. My regrets.”

Rubbing his head, Fenn glanced down at the scattered contents of his satchel. Some of the plants-trapping that had exploded out were innocuous — some magically enhanced rosemary, feverfew, scarlet beebalm — but the bagged peyote buttons absolutely were not. With a strangled squeak, he snatched them up, eyes flashing up at the lady.

Most people weren’t going to recognize something like that. Still…

“What’s someone so nice-dressed as you doing here anyway?” he said, hastily misdirecting this odd and unintentional conversation. He picked up her monocle for good measure, and woozily held it up for her to take. “Don’t see many folks wearing this kinda gaudy thing. Ain’t glasses more convenient?”

Well, this was a little nosier than Fenn expected of such an encounter. To a certain extent, though, the fae was as charmed as he was caught off-guard. Back in the Reaches, folk tended to just hiss at you and go on their merry way when bumped into. But this lady was smooth. “V-visiting a friend,” he stammered out in turn.

It wasn’t a lie. Right? Popping in for an hour or two counted as a “visit”, and Nevin could loosely be described as an “acquaintance”, which was just a really weak way of “friend”.

“Though, I guess ‘s a business thing too, kinda. Nev brews shit, I got plants. We got an agreement,” he admitted shakily, brushing a bit of excess dirt off his coat. “But uh, I guess that’s my business. I go by Fenn. Care to give me your name?”

@ArcanaFate (whenever u do a return)