A Peasant's Pleasant Present.

[Squ]

This is me experimenting with something. You are free to join in anytime you like, but I already have a certain outcome set up for this story.

From the perspective of a rich, city girl:

“The sun is like, totally uncool; I mean I can’t ignore the fact that it is there! It’s burning me up and it’s making me sweat... ew.”

I looked up to the sky, annoyed by the relentless sting of that blazing orb above me. Normally I wouldn’t mind some sun—I would be laying on the beach and get myself a nice brown tan. But right now I would be better off with a nice cold breeze and some clouds. As if my carriage breaking down wasn’t bad enough, I ended up in the middle of nowhere. To make matters even worse: my clothes were sticking to my body from being sweaty, totally gross.

“How long do we have to keep walking before reaching a place with some decent accommodations? So far, there was only this one place, what was it called again, The Peachy Promise or something? Well, it doesn’t matter; it wasn’t peachy and definitely far from promising. I mean seriously! It totally reeked in there! That place was infested with a horde of old, ugly, smelly men that looked like they’d been living in a cave most of their lives. Oh, and the food was totally bad; it looked like last year’s leftovers and it tasted even worse. Thinking about it makes me wanna toss my cookies.”

The girl walking next me just smiled and nodded. In case you’re wondering; I met her at the place I’ve been rambling on about for the past hour. She was hanging around in that dark, musky place; clueless as to what she was going to do next. Although she definitely needs to work on her clothes, she was at least pleasant to look at –unlike them crude, slow-witted inbreeds you find in every Podunk town.

Anyway, she told me her name was Teefa and she said she wanted to travel, going from place to place and occasionally taking on a simple job to earn some extra money. The way I see it: She probably got dumped by her boyfriend and now she’s left with no money to get back home. Poor child, it must be tough to not be as rich as me. Oh well, at least she has her looks –not that she’s nearly as good looking as I am, but she would still be able to pick up some middle-class guy and live off him for a while.

“Um... look over there.”

Oh my gosh, she talked! For the past hour or so she hadn’t talked at all and I was beginning to wonder if the cat got her tongue. She was probably one of those timid types, you know; the ones that used to follow me around and carry my books for me.

“Yes? What?” I asked with some disinterest, half-turning to what she was pointing at.

There was some guy standing in the middle of a field, beckoning us. I narrowed my eyes and raised my eyebrow as I looked at him; it was a peasant –go figure- and he looked like he hadn’t seen a bath from the moment he was born. His faded blue overalls were covered in dried mud, his shirt had huge wet sweat stains everywhere, but the biggest pools were under his arms. The mere sight alone made me wrinkle my nose in disgust. I turned away and looked at Teefa.

“Ignore him, it’s just some stupid peasant” I said in a nearly scolding manner, slightly annoyed that she made me stop to look at something so repulsive.

“But, he’s beckoning us...”

“So what? He probably wants some attention. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re the only two good looking girls around here, so you’d expect any man to ‘beckon’ us.”

“But it seems as though he’s looking for something.”

Teefa’s replies were in rather surprisingly calm and gentle manner whereas mine were snappy and impatient, it kinda threw me off. I just wanted to move on; the hot sun was burning me up and I wanted to find some shade.

“Who cares? He’s probably trying to find his goat or something.” Probably the only company he’ll ever have in his life, no doubt. I grinned at the thought before growing tired from standing still in the middle of the road too long “Let’s just move on, shall we?”

“But—“

“But what?”

“Shouldn’t we at least ask what he wants?”

“Well, aren’t you sweetest thing but how about this?” I paused before I waved my hands once “No! Okay? Got it?”

“You don’t have to come with me, I can—“

I quickly grabbed Teefa’s arm and dragged her with me. Although I barely knew her, I felt a responsibility to look after her, so no way in hell I was going to allow her talk to that smelly inbred; god knows what his intentions would turn into if a pretty girl started talking to him. I shuddered at the thought. A brisk pace was good and luckily Teefa followed without protest. I was beginning to feel relieved when, to my horror, I could hear the sound of approaching footsteps. A thick calloused hand landed on my shoulder.

“Oy, hold on a minute now. Could you ladies help me out?”

"..."

World of disgust!

_

[The White Masquerade]

Out of Character:

I decided to jump in, as I am new to the game. If you want to PM me the purpose of this post, I can aim my posts toward helping it along, if you wish.

"Perhaps the dear girl did not make herself clear, my good sir."

The voice would echo from behind both girls, and from behind the foul man as well, a somewhat light hearted tone that sounded like it would have a problem backing up whatever that phrase was intended to do. If any would turn and look, the owner of the voice would only enhance that belief. He looked like a complete and utter pansy. Seriously, he even had one of the quaint little flowers tucked into a pocket on his coat.

He was wearing a black suit, with a red undercoat, something quite fancy for a simple day such as this. Nothing special going on or anything, no festivials, nothing of the sort. Yet this man was parading around in a black suit, with a red bowtie, and a white pansy tucked into the pocket. Gloved hands were clasped behind his back, and his dress pants matched the suit he was wearing. A pure red, quite clean and crisp, without a single stain or mark. How he had managed to avoid dust and dirt, that was quite a wonder in it's own right. How he had moanaged to avoid even a single brush of a twig, a human hand, or any other kind of filthy surface was a whole other miracle. That wasn't the odd thing about him though. No, the odd thing about him was the fact that he was wearing a facial mask. Even stranger, this mask only had two holes, and eyes peeked through those holes. The rest was a pure white, going from his forehead down to the very bottom of his chin, and curving down under it to touch to part of his throat as well. Bright blue eyes smiled from behind the mask, although they gleamed with something beyond humor and happiness. Indeed, as his muffled voice echoed out from behind his mask again, the humored tone would sound slightly less humored then a normal happy sound. It would sound slightly annoyed, as if the thug had not hopped quick enough to the Masked Man's request.

"I would suggest you remove your hand from her self. Immediately."

It had been a good day before all this had happened, really. The Masked Man was reflecting upon this as he calmly spoke, his mind somewhat in a different area. He had been pulling in a good amount of coin, amazing the rich fools that were walking around on this nice day. Juggling balls was one major thing, and then throwing one at someone's head was another. It never actually hit their head of course, it stopped just short and came back. That was what amazed them, and managed to get him the coin. He only brought out his cards on special occasions, but this was a time he was tempted to do it. So many idiots with full purses.

Then the two girls and their troublesome friend had bothered to pull him into mischief. He shouldn't blame it on them, but he did. How dare they do it where he would be close enough to get curious. How dare they.

His eyes would slowly shift over the man's shoulder, as the brute was between him and the two girls, and he would focus his gaze on the more outspoken girl of the bunch, the humor still slightly lit, but still slightly demented.

"Perhaps if you try pulling your top off of your breasts, you won't look like you are selling yourself on the market. I doubt our friend here is looking for a prositute, as there are several other choices, but I figure you would want the tip. You might want to start by taking off the fur you are wearing, milady." He spoke this in an oddly polite and calm tone, which was infuriating to most. He was being quite blunt.

His eyes stayed pinned on her for a moment, and then the Masked Man would slide his eyes to the timid girl.

"And you."

The girl took a step back, her eyes wide, unblinking, a bit filled with fear at the Masked Man. He did have an intimidating presence, mostly generated by the mask, but he looked a little hurt as she shyed away from him. He did not move though, and merely gave a shake of his head, signalling that she was okay.

"You are fine. Although you shouldn't let people drag you around. On second thought, no, you all need help. Shall I buy you some clothes? Especially you, milady. You look like you are going to die of heat."

The last sentence was directed at Squ, and the bluntness, yet sudden kindness was kind of offsetting. It was hard to get a foot on what was happening, but the Masked Man would pause a moment, awaiting some kind of response. It was likely that everyone was staring at him now, for he had just offered to buy three random strangers some clothing. Why wouldn't he? The man was smelly and looked like he was wearing a sack, Squ was completely soaked in sweat and wearing fur, for God's sake, and the other girl was just a wallflower that needed to stand out.

The Masked Man was still thinking about the fact that he had lost out on the rich people and their coin purses. Ah well. He would rob them blind later, so he supposed it didn't really matter.

That much.

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting since before the beginning of this year (2009). Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another admin and they will be able to move it for you back to the Peaceful Promenade.