A Day Spent Watching (Hope)

[Eralyn]

27th of Fall, 513AV Meandering down the street, Era took in the bustle of people around her. She had been here almost 20 days and the number of people still amazed her. They all wandered about their days, completely without a thought to what everyone else was doing. This surprised Era a bit, though she supposed maybe if you had always lived around this many people you stopped caring. Not that she could imagine why. People were just so interesting. If you picked out a certain person to watch, you could track them from one shop to the next, seemingly at random. Often Era lost people as they turned corners or other people blocked her view, but she could just find someone new to watch. That lady in blue over there had stopped to chat with every merchant she passed, yet purchased nothing. The girl with long brown hair had stopped and chatted with the same merchant three separate times. The old man leaning against the wall had called good morning to half the people who passed, all by name, yet never even ventured near the merchants. Era wondered why. They were all in the same area, yet they all chose vastly different activities. It was almost a competition by now, sadly with herself the only participant, to find the most intriguing person of the morning crowd. So far the lady in blue seemed to be winning, but Era was pretty sure she could top that. Fascinated, she kept her eye out as she continued so stroll down the street.

[Hopeternal64]

Hope was standing at his usual West Street spot; right next to a stall owned by a friend of his godfather's. He watched as people went about their daily lives, barely taking any time at all to notice each other. There were people of many sorts in this part of Zeltiva. Some were rich, some were poor, but many were part of a much larger group with enough money to get by and a special treat on rare occasion. Hope had learned to observe this particular group of people; those who could afford to lose a few Nilos but didn't have any sort of extra protection on their purses. Breaking his trail of thought, his godfather's friend suddenly asked him, "So how has your godfather been holding up?" Hope responded almost automatically, "I've told you before, Michael, the caravan moved on almost two seasons ago. You really should pay attention to answers after you ask a question." "Well okay then. If you ever need someone to talk to, I'll be right here." "Believe me old man, if I need to talk to you, you'll know," said Hope as he continued his scan of the crowd. It was then that he saw her. A girl in the middle of the crowd that was taking the time to notice others. "I'll say! What a beauty! And she seems to have the wits about her to watch others and not just focus on her goals," he thought to himself. "I simply must find out who she is. But first, I shall observe a bit more. He continued to stare at her in a way that would have been uncommon if it weren't for his half-eagle mindset. [/color]

[Eralyn]

Era had the distinct feeling she was being watched. Not that she really had the ability to thrown stones, she was doing the same thing. But there was a difference to being watched, and knowing you were the one being watched. She didn’t really want to ponder the difference, not wanting to come to any conclusions as to the consequences of her own observations. Era had been following this one couple who had come out of a nearby clothing shop with great handfuls of cloth. This in and of itself wouldn’t have caught her notice, but the woman had walked ahead, leaving the poor man to try to grapple with the piles of clothing. Many times he had come dangerously close to dropping them, and Era had been watching to see how long it was before he actually did. She was definitely putting them in current first for most interesting person, people?, she had met today. Drifting to the side of the crowd, as her couple stopped to chat with a group of friends. Sadly one of the friends had taken pity on the man and taken some of burden. No longer was the billowing cloth in danger of falling over, ruining her fun. Era sighed, she would be hard pressed to find someone more fascinating than that. Partially because the man’s plight had been funny, but also because she didn’t quite believe that someone could need that many clothes. She herself found them sort of annoying. They prevented her from shifting, they got in the way, they were always getting covered in dust. Why people felt the need to put so much importance on them was a mystery. The feeling of being watched was still there. She tried to take advantage of her position on the side of the crowd to figure out who. Was it that man over there? Nope, he was just waving to a friend. Was it the lady in that silly hat? Nope she was just staring disdainfully at a nearby shop. She riffled through the possibilities before a man sitting in the shadow of a stall caught her attention. There it was, that was him. Cocking her head to the side, she examined him. Human, tall, brown haired, he seemed sort of average from a distance. Catching his eye as he looked her way, she waved. No need to be unfriendly to strangers.

[Hopeternal64]

As Hope watched the girl, he began to notice a pattern. She would choose a person or group of people and follow them. He grew even more curious and watched her closely. He then realized that he had not been searching for targets. "Come on, Hope. Pull it together," he mentally chastised himself, "You'll get no bread tonight if you don't focus." All the while, he had been watching the girl. He looked at the girl and gave a start when he saw that she was staring directly at him and... waving? "Not from around here," he noted, "No one who was here during the Coup would be waving to a complete stranger so soon after." He quickly gave a polite nod and quick wave to the girl. "No need to be unfriendly." He then, almost unnoticed by himself, began walking towards the girl. He made his way through the crowd with less grace then normal and occasionally lost sight of the girl altogether. He would then, momentarily panic until he regained his vision of her. All the while, she was looking at him. Hope couldn't tell if she was conveying concern, curiosity, or amusement. Reaching the girl he said, "Hello. My name is Hope. You must be new to the city. I couldn't help but notice how you stood out in the crowd." Seeing how dumb this must have sounded he quickly added, "To me, at least. I'm sure nobody else noticed you that much. The people in this city seem to notice each other so rarely it's a wonder there aren't more collisions." While he had been speaking, Hope was noticing every feature of the girl in front of him. Human. Thin. Long and pale, tan hair. Dark brown eyes. Weak, no, fit. It took him a minute to notice the slight curves of muscle on her arms and legs that hinted at a rather stronger individual. All of these observations happened in only a moment while Hope tried to keep his eyes from centering on each of her features. Still his eyes drifted to a few places that were just more... pronounced than others. "So what's your name?"

[Eralyn]

The man seemed seemed surprised when Era waved. Was there something surprising about the gesture? Era didn't think so, she was just trying to be friendly to someone who had clearly taken an interest in her. Maybe he was playing his own watching game, though she couldn't understand how she would count as interesting. The shoppers were clearly much stranger. Though the gesture apparently wasn't as out of place as he first made it seem, because he returned it before abandoning his spot on the opposite of the side the street. Making his way across the crowd, almost running into a few people. He obviously wasn't watching where he was going, and it made Era smile. Even she, without much practical knowledge of city streets, could navigate a crowd, she thought a bit proudly. Well, a simple crowd like this, she amended thinking of the rowdy groups she had seen over in east street and the bustle down at the docks. As he reached her, he introduced himself as Hope. Then he added that she stood out in the crowd. She blinked in surprise, eyes flickering out to the street. Were there other people out there watching her too? Was she just part of a circle of watching? But he went on to explain that few people out there would notice. This seemed a bit more consistent with what she had seen so far. She supposed if more people had noticed they would have told her to go away and stop staring. But then this begged the question of why Hope had picked her out, even if no one else did. Responding to his final question, Era told him, "My name is Era." finishing with a smile. Then she jumped right into what she really wanted to ask "So why did you notice me if everyone else didn't?" She straightened up from where she had been leaning on the wall, cocking her head in curiosity and gesturing vaguely in Hope's direction.

[Hopeternal64]

Relieved that she hadn't criticized him for his clumsy movements, Hope suddenly regained his confidence and usual bravado. He added an ere of confidence to each word and shifted his posture to look a little less forced and more natural... More alluring. "My name is Era," said the girl. "So why did you notice me if everyone else didn't?" she added, cocking her head to one side. This question caught Hope off guard. Normally people didn't care enough to ask such a thing on the off chance he talked to them. Nevertheless, he did not show any sign of confusion and responded coolly, "It's what I do. I notice what other don't. And I must say, you are quite pretty. Hard for me to not notice you." Hope prayed that Era wouldn't think he came off too confident. With any luck she was the type that responded to that sort of thing. He searched her face for any signs of discomfort and felt relieved when he found none. As he looked at her closer, he began to notice a few subtle flaws in her features. Her eyes were too large for a human and her face, though curious, was too calm. At least it was not at all the calculating face of a human who had experienced hardship. "Which pretty much encompasses everyone in the land of Mizahar," Hope thought to himself. "You- You're not human are you?" he asked quietly.

[Eralyn]

Hope's demeanor changed once she'd responded. He stood up straighter, and his smile relaxed. Maybe he had been worried she wouldn't be nice, a lot of people in this city had been suspicious of strangers because of their coup. Even though she had waved at him first, he probably still didn't know. She was glad the fighting was over, maybe now the people would be happy again. Or maybe this was just an unhappy city. She had never known it before the coup. He responded to her question in a no nonsense It's what I do, prompting the thought: could you be a professional watcher? Era thought this would be a fun job, but she wondered at its purpose. Who would need a person to just sit and watch other people? She put the question away as something to ask Lora later. Turning back to the conversation, she heard him make an offhand comment about her being pretty, but she dismissed it. She put no pride in her human form, it simply was. Sure her hair was a pretty color, but that was only because it matched the color of her fox form. As a fox however, Era was very proud of her appearance. She was white-ish and fluffy and she was proud of that. She was pretty in that form, in this form she was just...human. Once again realizing her thoughts had wandered she looked up at Hope's face to see if she had missed something, but he was just giving her the strangest look. Era, with her limited ability to read facial expressions, couldn't even begin to guess what kind of look that was. Shock, maybe. The look was accompanied by a stumbled question about her not being human. Was she human? It was an interesting question. Did it matter? She didn't feel human, she felt like a fox, one in a large human shaped body but a fox all the same. But for all she knew that was how humans felt, except they were humans in human shapes bodies so they didn't notice. In her own head, her self-image was one of a fox, so maybe that was an answer of its own. She tried out the label 'kelvic' in her mind, but decided she didn't like it. It seemed too impersonal, like it didn't accurately describe what she was. Like describing an oak as a 'tree', sure it was but there were lot of trees and you learned nothing about the oak by describing it as such. Era had paused briefly as she thought through this in her mind. Giving up with labels, she shrugged before replying ,"No, I'm a fox. I'm just human shaped sometimes." There was another slight pause before she added thoughtfully ,"Or maybe I really am human sometimes and just feel like a fox.Is there really a difference?"