OOCRemind me not to ask someone to start a thread with me the weekend my in-laws come to visit! Harrrr. Sorry for the delay on my response. Edited because I realized autocorrect is a jerk.
Finian had discovered the poster while investigating the Alements just the day before. That evening, he may have also spent a few too many of his limited mizas on a meal, but it was certainly worthwhile. If he’d come to enjoy anything about experiencing life on land in a city, it was perhaps more than a little biased toward enjoying the different foods.
He had honestly tried not to stand in front of the poster for too long, one calloused hand rubbing the freckled back of his neck as he squinted at the Common. He ignored the Tukant entirely, unable to even muster up the desire to figure out a language he couldn’t speak. Maps had pictures, lines, and charts, and he was thankful for that. The blond Svefra could recognize key words, however, and it had been the word “sailing” that caught his eye in the first place. He had to sound out the word “instructional” out loud, quietly, almost under his breath, but the words “trade” and “food” made the request written neatly on the poster sound worthwhile enough. He could teach sailing. That was easy. Even though he had no idea what kind of vessel this person was asking a favor of instruction for, if it was anything personal-sized, he was confident enough he could figure it out.
Then, if he had taken a long time to read the poster, he’d took even longer in the writing of the response. Writing felt awkward and he could hardly call what he scrawled on paper anything close to proper handwriting. He made sure to make the 3 extra large, you know, to emphasize it. Hopefully everything else was at least remotely legible. Numbers, he was good at. Measurements and calculations were important for shipwrighting, but everything else related to writing could be considered more than just a little optional in his life in general. Next to the time, his name was probably the most well-written. Once finally finished, he’d tacked up his note next to the poster somewhere obvious.
The day of his requested meeting time, he truly intended to be to the Alements on time. If only the city streets weren’t quite so confusing … at least he’d begun to pick up landmarks, visual queues that stood out to him along the way. That crooked tree or that broken wall or that strange sign. Waverly, his tavan, may have actually had a better idea of where the pair was headed, but thankfully the albino otter wasn’t one to rub it in.
Eventually, the two of them found their way and were only a handful of chimes late.
The itinerant shipwright made his way to the outdoor seating area with it’s lovely view (well, what part of Riverfall didn’t have some kind of decent view, anyway?). There were a handful of other folks outside, but one woman in particular--a Konti woman, at that, if what he saw as indeed a hint of scaled glimmer was visible in the afternoon light of Syna shining on the wooden deck--was looking more than just a little eager near her poster and his hand-scrawled note. It was easy enough for the blond to make the connection, especially considering he was sure he was mostly on time. Finian put on a broad smile, offering a warm wave to identify himself as the object of her possible impatience,
“Hello, I’m gonna venture a guess that you’re Kavala, eh? Kavala Denusk?” He hoped he didn’t butcher her name horribly, given his unimpressive level of literacy and his somewhat imperfect grasp of the Common tongue, but what he lacked in ability, surely he made up for in enthusiasm. The Konti would find herself nosed by Waverly even before Ian could finish his sentence, the young white creature doing his best not to find something worth chewing on on her person, “Looks like y’could read my note. I’m Finian o‘the Truewind pod, but, please, call me Ian. Thanks fer meetin’ me, albe’t a bit late as I am.”
He’d offer a hand worn by years of crafting as a means of greeting, having learned that not everyone was a hugger or as touchy-feely as he was used to as a Svefra. All sun-kissed freckles and sea baubles, the blond decided he would hold himself back from inundating the woman with questions about her vessel and the lessons she was looking for in order to let her get a breath of introduction in herself. There was plenty of daylight left for all of that, after all.
