Completed [Job thread] Lotions, potions, and serums... Oh my!

[Vaerin]

13th Winter, 516 AV.
Approximately 16th Bell, 46th chime.

The ebon haired woman stared intensely at the lilac hued oil from the sample vial. Dra-Vaerin hovered nervously just out of her eyesight. She had spent the last fifteen chimes dissecting every possible ingredient, and thoroughly testing the limit of both his patience and knowledge on the products with a barrage of increasingly demanding questions.

"And you are absolutely sure that there is little chances of the lilac causing further irritation on my daughter's skin? It wouldn't do at all if these blemishes were to worsen! Why she'd barely be able to show her face in public! Why she'd probably throw herself off the damned harbor than accompany me to the bazaar!"
She put such a vehement amount of force behind her questioning and subsequent rant that Dra-Vaerin was almost half sure that her vocal chords would pop exactly like a bubble. He was also certain that her daughter's skin was nowhere near as bad as she was making it sound. By her description, the second valterrian had contained all of its doom and destruction just on the apples of her daughter's cheeks and forehead.

"Miss, you have my complete heart behind my assurances that the lilac oil infused into this serum is of the highest quality. My mistress philters all her products herself, and has been doing so for the majority of her professional career. I emphatically guarantee you that she believes fully in the properties of the Lilac flower oil's astringency in helping to clear your daughter's skin condition when applied once daily to the affected areas." Vaerin cooed at her, making sure to include as much weight behind the words that were paraphrased from the old woman's lengthy tome that provided him with key information on all her products.

"I would even suggest buying the moisturizing cream here," he quickly procured the sample from above the woman's crouched back which was greedily snatched from his hand, "This is the very same product I use, and I have definitely noticed that it has kept my skin very soft. My mistress recommended it to me herself when I first started working for her: she said I needed it because of the damage my skin had suffered from the sun."

Without any forewarning, the woman's free hand swooped upwards through the air and cupped the young man's face. It curiously circled several areas of his face - seemingly matching up with the affected areas of the daughter's face - before dropping back down to his customer's side. The accusatory look in her eyes was quickly replaced by a hopeful one. The facial probing seeming to be the tipping point in procuring the sale. It was a slightly violating experience that cause the young man to scuttle backwards to the relative safety of just out of arm's reach from the woman. Yet, he emphasized with her on some level. It was clearly evident she worried deeply about her daughter and wanted to do something about it.

"Well, very well then. I shall have both of these, and some of the cream for myself." Her words were dignified, with a slight air of condescension to them. As if she had deigned him worthy enough of allowing the sale to be made.

"Excellent. I will get them from the storeroom, please excuse me."

He gave the woman a quick smile and did his best to not run from her as he made a beeline for the curtain that separated the small store from both the neurotic human, and what his mistress referred to as the "showroom".

Sabine, his mistress, perched herself upon one of the several tables filled with packaged products. In her green stained hands was a mortar and pestle containing a vibrantly green looking paste. Today she was donned in eccentrically coloured robes of topaz and vermillion. Her frizzed, dyed scarlet hair (just a whisper of the natural silvery roots suggested themselves from the base of her skull) was roughly knotted up from a matching band of fabric. Her dark, mulberry stained mouth stretched itself thin in a compassionate, but exasperated frown. It was a knowing frown. She put down the mortar and pestle, slid herself from her temporary perch like Mizahar's most flamboyant owl before reaching for the products she had overheard Vaerin needed. She approached her youngest clerk and handed him the three items, leaning in to tell him to close up shop after the purchase had been made.

He nodded before turning out and exchanging the goods for the appropriate monetary compensation. His customer exited the locale with the same militant and stormy precision that she had entered with. As soon as the door slammed shut, he let out a ragged sigh. His somewhat delicate nerves shot from the grueling interrogation. Dra-Vaerin quickly locked the front door and shut the windows, making it evident that the store was now closed for the day.

With that, Sabine exited from her sanctuary and peered over at him expectantly.

"Please quickly clean up here, and meet me back in the storeroom. I wish to test something on you, child."

"Aye. I shall."

He couldn't bring himself to muster any enthusiasm with those words. He had already had his face fondled once today, and not all that long ago. Vaerin was not sure if he could stand to have it assaulted again by Sabine's less than gentle method of facial massage.

(OOC: 6 GM expenditure for reference of owning cream based upon description of Arsyna cream.)

[Vaerin]

Closing down was not exactly a difficult procedure. Usually there was not much of an issue in cleaning and packing items away. The only time it might have been particularly bad was if something spilled or broke, or some of the face powders fell over the surrounding area. All together it was a usually peaceful time of day for the store. Uncomplicated, and simple. He enjoyed the quietness of this closing down period. Especially since it gave him a time to emotionally center himself after a usually quite exhaustive day of smiling and being friendly and persuasive enough to sell product. It was a buffer between the intensity of work, and then going outside world.

Dra-Vaerin quickly procured the broom from its obscured location behind one of the shelves to the right most corner of the shop floor. He started to sweep, quickly losing himself to though.

Swoosh.

He thought about the solitude. Truthfully, he'd always been retiring and quickly found himself drained in social situations. It was not that he didn't enjoy the company of others. It made him feel tired though. He was never able to be like some of the more sociable peers he had grown up with. The ones that could liven a room up with a mere turn of phrase.

Swish.

It was never from lack of trying that he was unable to achieve this. He so carefully put all of his existence behind being a likeable person. Always praising others for what they did well, and encouraging them to do better. Never had he said a bad word of others, even when he really desired nothing more than to do so. He knew exactly why this was. He knew exactly what it boiled down. All the long nights staying up too sad and dejected to even shed a tear. All the snide looks. All the hollow and not so hollow threats of violence. All of the hard work that he had to put into proving himself to be worthwhile. All the furtive glances that peered at him when they thought he wasn't looking. All the pregnant pauses that revealed so much more hurtful subtext about what people he had respected really thought about him more than words ever could. All of the callouses and sore muscles to achieve the ability to climb across the vertical lengths of the aerial silks with the same level of fluidity that was inbuilt to the Symenestra. The very same talent that he was robbed of. The sole reason why he wanted to scream and scream and scream whenever he saw his reflection stare back at himself. Yes, he may have been many things and called many names. But there was one thing that Dra-Vaerin was not. That one thing was stupid. He would play it occasionally, but he knew the reason. Of that he was entirely, emphatically, and utterly sure of.

Swoosh.

He

Swish.

Was

Swoosh.

Dra.

His face was hot when he managed to get a better control over his emotions and though process. He shortly realized that he had not made much actual progress on sweeping the floor. His internal monologue distracted him to the point where he had very angrily swept just the one section of floor for who knows how long.

It was an embarrassing realization to make. Dra-Vaerin then proceeded to do a very hasty job of sweeping the rest of the store's floor. It was nowhere near his usual standard: but he didn't want to keep Sabine waiting too long and he had no way to tell he had been out here. Whilst the woman had been a fair and reasonable employer to him since he arrived; he felt that it would have been a bad idea to displease her. He needed her far more than she needed him.

However, his job was not quite done yet. He placed the broom back and procured the mop and bucket that was on the other side of the room. The bucket was filled in the morning just before opening, and was emptied during the cleaning process at night.

Since he felt the time constraints on him; he decided a quicker method was necessary. With that the young man picked the bucket up and threw the water directly onto the floor in sections. Rather than immediately start mopping though, he went around to all the display tables and covered them with the thick pieces of calico that acted as dust covers. He would just have to make sure that the following day he wiped down the tables prior to opening.

With that he then proceeded to mop. This time being expressly careful to not let his thoughts take him away from the task at hand. Instead he focused on his method of washing the floor to avoid potentially slipping over it in its wet state. That would have caused a bigger mess in conjunction to causing him a great deal of pain. Yes, avoiding that was an ideal notion.

Keeping this in mind he started with the sections closest to the door. He would be exiting via the back door. Which he actually preferred to use. It was closer to the route he needed to take back to his apartment in comparison to the front of the shop. He honestly couldn't wait to be back in that room. While the rest of his day had been mostly uneventful: the culmination of the last half bell had been enough to void him of any desire to do anything but crawl into his bed and fall asleep.

Not that he had much option given the curfew that had been put in place. It would have been close to suicidal for him to stay out after dark. The authorities seemed to be less accommodating to races that weren't humans. But that didn't matter, he'd be home well and truly before that deadline.

He kept a small path between the upper left hand corner of the room and the exit to the store room where he imagined Sabine was waiting for him intently. With the bucket handle resting in the crook of his arm, he closed this dry path with every step he took. Then when he was at the doorway, turned around and threw the mop at the corner it lived by. He made his mark. But then it fell with a loud thud.

This caused Vaerin to cringe. This was indeed a slapdash cleaning job on his part. He was sure his mistress would not be in the least bit impressed with his performance on this duty tonight. However, he hoped that she would allow him this one indiscretion as usually he was very thorough in cleaning the showroom floor. In fact this kind of attention to detail was reserved for one of the other clerks he often worked with.

With that he crossed through the threshold, putting the bucket down by the door. Sabine stood there, tall and imposing like some kind of wild untamed forest spirit wrapped entirely in petals of an exotic flower. It was almost an intimidating sight for the young man.

[Vaerin]

She did not question him about the length of time it took him to clean the front of the store. This was because it did not take much longer than what she expected it to. Though it was true Sabine would have been disappointed if she saw the lack of attention that Dra-Vaerin had put into cleaning.

Truthfully she was developing quite the soft spot for the young man. His earnestness meant that he worked hard. She saw that he had a desire to succeed here. Even if he did not quite have the skillset that she usually looked for in her employees. She respected that. After all, she was a self made woman, and highly valued that desire to achieve. Everything she had created for herself in Syliras had been through hard work. In some ways Dra-Vaerin reminded Sabine Montgomery of her late husband. Both had highly valued being thought of as helpful, yet were both quite timid. Even if it was still very much framed within the contexts of their working relationship: Sabine viewed Vaerin like a son.

The elderly woman also thought he was good for business. His striking appearance was quite different from the norm. It was true that the Symenestra had a bad reputation: but one could not argue that as a race they possessed quite defined physical characteristics that drew the eye. She knew that using that striking visage as a space to advertise her products would be quite effective for promoting her brand.

His polite - almost delicate way of handling himself with interactions was also quite beneficial in her mind. It was ego stroking, and had the potential to sell more of her creams and oils. After all, he was not an ugly lad. Sabine knew what she was selling as a merchant, and it extended far beyond the realms of simply a concoction of herbal oils that toted the benefit of improving the quality of someone's skin. She was selling an experience. Many of her clients came in because of self conscious concerns, they wanted to feel confident in their appearance. She found it unfortunate that this was the case. But she knew that they often came to rely on Sabine and her wares because she was no longer youthful. She had spent more seasons than she cared to count perfecting her art. That was what made her business competitive.

Dra-Vaerin factored into this experience for this very reason. She knew most of her clients were female, and would have been likely interested in men. If given the opportunity, she believed a fairly substantial proportion of the women with all of these characteristics would be more willing to part with more mizas while being serviced by a complementary - but in no way threatening or lascivious - attractive young man than they would a young, beautiful woman. If that helped them on their journey to better self confidence through the mode of what she had dedicated her life, while earning her gold mizas, then Sabine felt her job was being done.

Of course Dra-Vaerin was none the wiser to this. To him, he had just heard of Sabine's fairly eccentric and eclectic choices in clerks. It seemed she usually hired from the non-human races when possible, or those with a very striking kind of look. He just approached her tentatively, concerned with how roughly she would 'massage' his face this time around. She proclaimed that it was particularly good for the circulation of the skin. He was not entirely sure he bought that. But he wouldn't argue that with the woman that had more years of experience in these matters than he did in living. That was pure folly.

"Come, Rin. This is a mixture of basil and a few other ingredients. Since you have about the most delicate skin I have seen outside of newborns, you know the routine. Let me know if you feel any noticeable reactions to it after application. I think it will work best as a facial pack. Which means you will wash it off after a given time. We will test it at five chimes, and then tomorrow I want you to try it for thirty chimes."

"Of course, Mabdaine."

Without much else to say, she approached her young employee while dipping a hand into the mortar, the cool wetness of the freshly mixed paste sending a slight chill down his spine as it made contact with his face.

He managed to push his dark hair from his face before she put the product over his forehead. He hated nothing more than when any of the skin care that he used got into his hair. This one was especially goopy feeling, and he wanted his hair to have nothing to do with it.

He strolled gently to a seat that had remained unoccupied and sat down. He then closed his eyes and focused on the sensation that the pack was providing, and any form of pain or discomfort it may cause. The product had a sharp coolness to it. The wet, slimy sensation wasn't entirely unpleasant: but it was not his most favourite feeling. However, it did feel like it began to settle into a much more tolerable drying feeling at the end of the five chimes. As far as he felt, there was no major discomfort in terms of his skin. It didn't cause any immediate stinging as other concoctions had. When he mentioned this to Sabine, she added that it was because she believed he might have an allergy to turmeric. According to her, its usage as a component on the skin could mean a brightening effect for those that wanted a more uniform complexion.

"Of course, that is not something I necessarily think you need, young Vaerin. But, one should pass on knowledge when possible. But now, wash it off. We both should be getting home." Sabine said whilst offering him her product free hand, leading him over to a small basin filled with water.

Dra-Vaerin looked at his reflection in the water for a moment before cupping his hands into it and scrubbing at his face. He did this several times until the pack left no trace on his skin. From the distorted water, he could not see any rash forming after that short exposure. So he believed that nothing would come of this product.

"I believe it's a success. My skin does feel perhaps in need of a bit more moisture after that...but you usually recommend following up the use of a product such as this with a more moisturizing cream don't you, Mabdaine? He queried, patting at his skin to dry off.

"Yes, usually. Hm, well perhaps I will add in a few more ingredients if you still feel the same way after a longer test tomorrow. But away with you now! It is getting late and I am tired." She responded, with a flourish of her hand and her robes as she left the store via the back exit.

He soon followed suit, after making sure to lock the door behind him. He had already done a substandard job cleaning. If the store was robbed in the middle of the night because of him not locking the door: well... it was not best to think of such things. Especially if they were unlikely to happen.

[Samuel Longwell]

Grading Complete Please edit your grade request thread so that it's obvious that it's been graded. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions/problems with your grade. Name: Vaerin XP Award: Persuasion 1 Rhetoric 1 Observation 2 Philosophy 1 Housekeeping 2 Socialisation 1 Lore: Sabine: Eccentric cosmetologist The pain of not fitting in Syliran Knights: Less accommodating to non-humans Sabine: Tests products on me Notes: I'm sorry there isn't much XP, but a lot of the time Vaerin wasn't actually doing anything, so I couldn't give XP for that. Just a quick note. In your first post you use the word emphasized, but I think you mean empathised. Thanks for upgrading your ledger already I hope you enjoy your grades.