Solo [Job Thread]To Peddle Rainwater

[Autumn Leithea]

It had been raining all day. Autumn and Marjorie awoke to the pitter patter of rain on the top of their tents and the cloth that made up the Sanctela where they lived. Hurriedly leaving their sleepy daze of morning behind they scrambled for their pots and pans, anything to capture the precious water borne of the opaque grey clouds completely obscuring the sunlight. "Babe did you get your cooking pots from your space?" asked Autumn. "Ooh, no actually, I'll be back in a second." replied Marjorie. Marjorie left the tent and disappeared down one of the many hallways within the labyrinth of the Sanctela, their home. Autumn pulled the fabric of the back of the tent up from the pieces of bunched up ragged cloth holding it down watertight and stepped outside with her large cooking pot. The rain wasn't terrible actually, but Autumn hated cloudy days, much preferring the balmy heat you could expect from summer in Sunberth. She placed the pot on the ground and the metallic pitter patter of rain began filling it. Autumn looked up at the drowsy weather and wanted to curse. Just then Marjorie exited the back of Autumns tent as well. "Got my three cooking pots!" "Great!" said Autumn. They set them down next to each other and the rain began filling them with precious water. They eyed the clouds once more, and whilst looking up with their hands protecting their eyes from the drops Marjorie said; "So what do you want to do?" To which Autumn replied... "I'm not sure we could smoke a little skunk weed and read for a while, seems enough like a lazy kind of day. Whaddaya say?" still looking upward at the clouds. "Sure! That sounds nice!" replied Marjorie. "I have to study this herbalist book Grandma Anna gave me for my apprentice studies." "Well I'm in the middle of a really good story with depth enough to rival any other literature I've read. I think we'll be fine today." said Autumn. "I hear that!" Autumn and Marjorie entered the tent and put the clumps of waterproofed cloth down at the edges of the tent to keep out the rain. Autumn got her pipe and placed some skunk weed into it, lit it, took a puff and passed it to Marjorie, whom opened her book to the page indicated by her rouge cloth bookmark and took a puff whilst reading, passing it back to Autumn again. They smoked the entire pipeful of skunk weed as they read, and then Autumn put the pipe away and they both enjoyed a warm euphoria with a welcome quiet while they read their respective literature; Marjorie's herbalism nonfiction, and Autumn's story of fiction. And they both thought 'What a relaxing thing to do to spend time with eachother reading after smoking a healthy pipe! What a way to lighten up a gloomy rainy day!'. After awhile, they took their empty waterskins out of Autumn's large chest and took turns filling them when the pots were full. And the drowsy day of reading and working went on for what seemed like a long while, but they were content.

[Autumn Leithea]

Five days later... "Babe get up!" Autumn was still halfway asleep and groaned at Marjorie's beckoning calls. "Get up get up get up!" said Marjorie shaking her with her hands in unison with her calls. "You have to see this it's perfect! "Aw, ten more... hours." stated Autumn. She was joking, which always meant she was awake. "Alright." said Autumn rising from bed and put her fists to her eyes to rub them and then stretched a good long stretch whilst yawning like a large cat. "Alright what's all the hubub Jorie?" "Look!" They removed the roll of heavy linen keeping the back of their tent airtight and waterproof and pulled the covers up to see what was on the other side. A dry, course, dead air welcomed them as they stuck their heads out, and it was HOT. Extremely hot, and the sun was high in the sky, about two hours from noon. "Today is our day!" said Marjorie. "Wow, you know what that means!" said Autumn. Autumn opened their large chest and pulled out fifteen full waterskins, and meticulously began tying lengths of string to them in looped knots around the ends of them right before the caps. They sat there and began to talk while they worked. "People will be ravenous for our water today, it's literally the perfect day for this." said Autumn "I know, it hasn't been this hot in ages!" "We should go get something good to eat after we're done, how does that sound?" "Wondrous! I haven't heard you say something of that sort for a long time." "We deserve it Jorie!" They finished tying off the waterskins to the lengths of string and slung them over their backs. "Lets go!" said Autumn, and with that they exited the tent into the halls of the Sanctela. Everything was abuzz wherever they went inside the Sanctela. Children playing, poor men peddling old clothing, and a rich inhabitant being escorted by two large bodyguards with shimmering swords tucked into sheaths hanging off of their belts. People seemed to be staying inside the Sanctela because of the cooler temperature than outside. Throughout the welcome chaos Autumn and Marjorie began advertising their wares. "Water! Two gold! Two gold for water!" shouted Jorie. "Fresh rainwater here! Two gold a skin!" They walked and talked, every so now and then yelling out their advertisement, and people began asking for their natural product as they went, not even out of the Sanctela yet. Here and there people were coming up to them and gladly paying them two gold mizas for a waterskin filled with rainwater. Some were even buying multiple waterskins per purchase, and their business was always welcome, especially to all the community within the Sanctela, which they considered family. "Oi dat dem dere a hefty profit ya? You be sellin' water everywhere huh? I'll take four my honeys, dem boyes ben gettin' thirsty an I wan dem to be happy." said one of their friends, a single mother of two little ones, rambunctious and mischievous enough to give her a hard time as a single parent, but she made it by just fine, loving the little rascals even though they were a handful. She spoke a heavy Sunberthian accent, an accent that both Autumn and Marjorie could understand from living in Sunberth for so long. It had a rhythmic music to it that you couldn't find in most other languages. "Here you go Mamma Demma." said Marjorie, taking her money and handing her four large waterskins. "Bye kids!" said Autumn. "Bye Autumn." the kids said at the same time in a shy tone. "Bye Jorie." said one of them, embarrassed because he had a crush on Marjorie. "Bye kids!" Autumn and Marjorie both said. They had sold ten waterskins by the time they exited the Sanctela. "Wheew! It's hot out here!" Autumn stated as they left the canopied halls of colored cloth glowing in the sunlight and walked into the piercing hot sunlight. "Where do you want to start Jorie?" "Hmm, the northern crossroads might have some traders and stalls there, I'm it will be busy with both traders and buyers, and there will definitely be some people passing through who will be thirsty." "You want to lead the way?" said Autumn with a warm smile. She knew the way to Marjorie's heart was to let her lead the way. It was a sign of trust, a trust that stemmed from their love for one another. "Sure!" said Marjorie as they walked together towards the crossroads.

[Autumn Leithea]

They reached the crossroads at the perfect time; it was high noon. Around them was the normal bustle of commotion at the crossroads; a dusty, dirty little circle of land connecting three dirt roads that stretched out throughout the Tent City. One lead to the fields and grasslands to the South, another headed East through the heart of the Tent City colloquially known as the heartroad, and the third North up to the outskirts of Sunberth. The crossroads was one of three others which served as the bleeding hearts of community in Sunberth besides the heartroad. Many people were here and were talking, communing, or just traveling through. It was the perfect place for Autumn and Marjorie to sell their wares. "I'm getting thirsty babe, want to share a water?" said the parched Autumn, with dry mouth making her speak as if she had cotton on her tongue. Marjorie bushed some hair off of her sweaty brow. "Sure!" she replied. They both walked over to the edge of the crossroads, where the grass and tents began, and knelt down, pulling the lengths of twine rope from over their shoulders and placing them on the ground. Autumn untied one of the waterskins from the twine and opened it, handing it to Marjorie first. Marjorie took a few healthy swigs and handed it to Autumn. "Oh! It's just as cool as it was in the Sanctela!" stated a surprised Marjorie. "Jorie you're right! This is delicious!" They sat and drank for about twenty minutes, watching the dull furor of commotion happening all around them. People playing dice and talking of gossip and rumor and travelers passing through. It was a strange place, here in the middle of the Tent City, and people looked thirsty. Autumn and Marjorie got up after a little while of comforting rest and then began to call out to the crossroads... "Water! Fresh rainwater! Get it while you can!" "Rainwater here! Haggle if you can but it goes to the highest bidder!" Immediately multiple people showed up, surrounding Autumn and Marjorie at the side of the crossroads, yelling out prices for them to have. Autumn and Marjorie sold an entire length of twine's worth of waterskins within half an hour, making quite a number of Mizas as the bidding war continued. After a while though the sun became too hot and people began leaving the crossroads for the cool sanctity of the Sanctela. "Wow, we just made a LOT of money!" stated the excited Marjorie. "Mhmm!" stated a temporarily satisfied Autumn. "People are clearing out, we should try the heartroads now." "I agree wholeheartedly!" And with that Autumn took Marjorie's length of twine filled with waterskins and threw it over her shoulder, Marjorie not complaining, grateful and complemented by Autumn's usual selflessness. "To the heartroads!" Autumn yelled jokingly and happily, throwing her finger up in the air for comedic effect.

[Autumn Leithea]

The heartroads were naturally teeming with activity, even on such a deliriously hot day. The heartroads were always a place of great commotion, people everywhere enjoying the activity. People stumbled upon eachother whilst walking along, finding good deals on cheap items from sellers with their rugs covered in many cheap things to buy. Broken small chests where the lock would no longer work, dirty hand-me-down linens stained and patched fraying at the hems, even small battered change purses. Obviously the entirety of the merchandise was either discarded trash found by the seller, or was actually stolen merchandise being fenced for a couple mizas. Autumn dearly remembered being one of the many in the local gangs who would man one of these rugs, selling merchandise her and they boys had stolen from some of the richer saps of Sunberth. She could still remember the girls of the gang coming back from finding bargains amongst the heartroad's many "establishments" for the boys, and Autumn, to sell at their stall. If you were looking for anything but broken and stolen merchandise, such as food or more expensive things, that was for the markets of Sunberth, but on the heartroads anything goes! Autumn and Marjorie couldn't help but eye some of the items that were selling. "Jorie, don't you dare." "Aw Autumn, just a little?" "Jorie you're eventually going to buy something that will probably explode in your face. You know where all this comes from." "Aw fine..." said Marjorie, disheartened. "You wanna go see the boys?" "That would be awesome!" They continued down the busy road until they found a couple of boys sitting on upturned pots and pans upon a filthy blue rug. "Boys." said Autumn tipping her head slightly. They all looked up from their bored trances and saw an old friend. "AUTUMN!" they said at once. "We missed you terribly!" "Hey Jorie! How's life?" said one of them. Marjorie laughed and smiled. "It's great, Autumn and I are living comfortably in the Sanctela." "Ooh, I stay away from that place. I once got lost for six hours in that place; the people there kept giving me bad directions... they must have found that funny." said one of the boys. "Boy's how's business?" asked Autumn. "Great. We've been getting some really good product in lately." said what appeared to be the brains of the small operation. "You guys must have a ball procuring that product..." Autumn said with a grin. "As petchin' always!" he said. "Boys, you want some water?" asked Marjorie with a smile. "Yeah." they all said at once. "Give us one and I'll trade you..." "You know I don't haggle boys." said Autumn sternly. "Yeah, same old Autumn..." another one of the boys said. They paid Autumn and she untied one of the waterskins from the twine rope over her shoulder. "There ya go, nice and cold!" They passed it around once. "Ahhh! Thanks Autumn, Marjorie." "Good day you little rascals!" said Marjorie Jokingly. And with that Autumn and Marjorie made their way back through the heartroads, yelling out their wares and ended up selling all of their stock. They returned to the Sanctela and napped away the heat until nightfall.