Solo It's Always the Quiet Ones...

[Krysanthe]

1st of Winter, 2012 AV They’re easy to spot. You’d recognize them in a crowd. They are the people who are ‘just looking’; one of the biggest pet peeves of someone trying to make a living. The casual customers meander through the crowd, spending too long touching things and trying on things and staring at things and smiling at things. They either are completely silent or won’t stop talking, and as soon as the sales person mentions a price, they smile, say they are ‘just looking’ and that they would ‘have to think about it’. Similarly, there were those who claimed they ‘forgot their money’ or would ‘come back later’. They never come back. They were never going to buy anything in the first place. The funny thing about these window non-shoppers is they think they are so clever. They think they can gain pleasant customer service and pretend to be wealthy by taking a peculiar amount of interest in products. It can be quite amusing to watch, these obscure non-buyers, as they act so curious, act so amazed, as they deny the sale but pursue with questions of quality and creation and style and options. What this non-spender doesn’t realize is that the only thing they are really doing successfully is frustrating someone who needs the money to put food on the table. Every minute one of these non-customers spends asking questions could have been used as a minute to actually make a sale, and in the minute-to-minute life of Wind Reach, every moment counts. Krys hadn’t had much luck in the area of sales in the past few days. The first snowfall hadn’t fallen yet so she had hoped to get a bit of extra money before things really got chilled. She was hoping to buy something nice. Perhaps she could get a mask for the upcoming festival. She had always wanted to attend a winter Masquerade, but she never actually had. She was never much of one for social situations. She prided herself on her rather passive silence. The term ‘introvert’ had been coined by her name. Being a social butterfly seemed to be expected of a majority of the inhabitants of Wind Reach, so a silent young woman like Krys was often just passed over, ignored as if she didn’t exist, and this is just the way she liked it. Being invisible was the greatest advantage she could have as far as she was concerned. She had worked very hard to ensure that she remained invisible. Except when she tried to sell things, in which case she grew as noisy as the rest of them. Even then, she didn’t stick out as being extraordinary. She was just another avora trying to earn some extra pinions. Sadly, though, by the time the crowd had thinned and the time to sell was done, the only thing that Krysanthe had gained was an incredible amount of frustration. By the time she left her booth, she couldn’t stand anyone. Her frustration towards excuses became irritation towards all voices. It ended up getting so bad that Krys didn’t even want to look at another tall, tan, red headed green eyed guy or girl who was ‘just looking’. Face after face and voice after voice blended together into one huge sea of roaring red ocean and Krys felt like she was drowning, even now as the tide receded. She needed to get away. She needed to be alone. Much to her dismay, simply taking refuge in her normal sanctuary in which she spent most of her time did her absolutely no good. She tried sitting in her bedroom for a while but she found that she could still hear people outside. Their worried yet excited voices for the upcoming winter season penetrated the door. No matter what she tried to do to keep her mind busy, she couldn’t tune out those voices. Her room wouldn’t work. She had to find a place of peace and quiet. She had to find refuge. Then it hit her. Where better to find quiet than in a library? Surely the Enclave would have some sort of quiet corner that she could hide in for a while. Without a second thought, Krys headed out of her room and strode with purpose towards the Enclave, trying to swim out of the sea of voices before they sucked her under.

[Krysanthe]

At first, the Enclave brought her very little relief. It seemed as though the library was the place to be. Sure, any chatter was at least hushed as a sign of courtesy, but there was no complete silence as Krys had so hoped. That’s all that she really wanted – complete silence. She wanted the kind of silence that was so quiet it just made one’s ears pound as if it was loud. The silence that was unreal, the silence that never seemed to end. Total silence. Of course she would settle for the kind of silence where she could at least be far enough away from everyone that she couldn’t hear their conversations. ‘Can you believe winter is here?’ ‘I love winter!’ ‘I hate winter.’ ‘Snow is beautiful!’ ‘Snow is horrible.’ ‘At least it’s not too hot.’ ‘It’s freezing.’ Krysanthe couldn’t care less about the change in the season. It’s not like it was some huge event. She had been through nearly twenty season changes in her life. Why would she start freaking out now? She didn’t have any reason to complain. They had a good year; food shouldn’t be in too short supply. She had the warm clothes to survive after it really starts chilling out. Besides. She thought the snow was beautiful. She didn’t see why anyone could hate it. It cleansed their dark world with a holy blanket of pure white. It was gorgeous. Besides that, with the winter came quiet. It was a lot less difficult to find a quiet escape in the winter… Except for today, apparently. Gradually the voices grew more distant, more sparse. Finally she thought she could find some solace in one of the corners of the first section of the Enclave. She caught sight of a table. The table was unoccupied, but it was laden with little black and white boxes. She was going to leave it be, thinking that someone had claimed the table and was collecting these objects from around the library. They would probably be back. She should leave. She turned and started to walk away. “Wait.” Krys stopped. The whisper caught her of guard. She thought she had found peace and quiet. There was probably someone over there that she just hadn’t seen. Someone trying to get her attention for whatever reason. She didn’t want to deal with it. She just wanted to leave. She took another step further away, but the whisper persisted. “Aren’t you curious?” This stopped Krysanthe in her tracks. She didn’t say anything at first, a bit irritated that whoever this was decided to try to mess with her natural curiosity. She turned slowly to accuse her distraction of such a thing, but she was surprised at what she saw. It was a table laden with small black and white boxes. That’s it. No tricks. No secrets. No chairs. No people. No nothing. Just a table and some boxes. But how could that be? “Who’s there?” Krys demanded. She hated not seeing whoever it was that was talking to her. She felt she deserved to know. She felt it was unfair of the man or woman or child or whatever itw as to just hide like a coward and whisper to her. The voice didn’t respond in words, but suddenly, Krys heard lots of whispers. Muffled conversations, words that didn’t quite make words, thousands of little whispers fighting over each other to be heard. Krys was so confused. She headed over to the table, looking under it, around it, trying to find whoever it was that was doing this, trying to find a logical explanation, but there was none to be found. It seemed like the voices were coming from inside the boxes. Krys stared at the boxes for a long while, trying to make sense of the whispers. She found herself drawn in, as if she couldn’t ignore them. She really wanted to listen. She wanted to let the little whispers free. She wanted them to talk to her. They wanted them to listen to her. It was a strange feeling, but still a feeling. With these boxes, she didn’t mind the noise. She actually wanted to hear their conversations. She knelt in front of the table and reached out to a small white box, her eyes lighting up as she lifted it off the table. The other boxes hushed a bit, although they weren’t entirely silenced. Krys almost felt like she could feel the life within this box. It was amazing. And wonderful. And beautiful. “Hello.” Whispered the box. Krys smiled, although she wasn’t sure why. “Hi.”