Making of the Hirsute Hipster

[Otto]

Smallgood's Fashion and Accessories. More than just a wardrobe update - prepare yourself for a convention insurrection.

Earnest Smallgood, the proprietor, prowled the stylistically iconoclastic, perfectly white aisles of his store. Youths in too-tight tights and artifically second-hand tops moved in giggling gaggles past rows of colour-stained shirts, impractical hats and brilliantly coloured soft shoes. Most of it was terribly out of fashion, but that only made the patrons more interested in the items at hand. Earnest smiled beneath his perfectly straight, lank black hair (and above his shiny red bow tie).

"Look at this", exclaimed a young woman, holding up a particularly ugly blouse. "Oh, hell yes!"

Earnest's had to agree. Apart from being an obscene eyesore, it was also obscenely expensive. Today was shaping up to provide a good haul, a feeling that swelled when he heard the shop's door clang dully as it opened behind him. He turned around to greet his new customer, the greedy smile transformed into a welcoming one, and...

... and completely froze.

The... thing... that had just walked in was wider than the door, almost wider than the aisles. It was hulking, and hairy, and grey, and gods, oh so ugly. Not artificially ugly, which was all fine and good and a criticism of outward appearances in the face of internal societal decay, but just plain ugly. Its head was wrapped in thick bandages, and it looked lost.

Earnest rushed over to it, his hands waving frantically, but so that the customers couldn't see his panic.

"Excuse me, uh, sir, can I - can I help you?" he said, and stood quite firmly in the orc's way.

Otto looked around blearily, then glanced down at Earnest, then up again. His eyes narrowed, and he walked through the little man before him. Earnest stumbled against a rack of carefully, hand-tattered tights, and darted surreptitiously after the orc. His face was beginning to turn red. Otto stopped in front of a tall, rotating cylinder filled with strange eyewear, which he spun lazily around.

"Sir!" Earnest hissed. "Please do not touch the merchandise-"

"How much?" rumbled Otto. His hands reached up and grabbed a truly stunning set of spectacles from the rack, which he began to admire from every angle. Earnest stared at the glasses, then at the orc, in complete and utter disbelief.




Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the latest in eyewear accessories. Behold...

http://hypebeast.com/image/2009/11/maya-hayuk-ray-ban-wayfarers-4.jpg

... the future.



OOC: I would like to RP out the transaction for the sunglasses, please.

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

Earnest could not believe what he was hearing.

This thing standing in his beautifully, painstakingly hideous store was.. looking to buy his fine merchandise?

"Sir.. I.. uh.. are you sure you wouldn't be more comfortable in another store? I mean, I do not believe my wares are suited to someone of your.. ah," he stuttered and stumbled trying to find the right words for the disgust he was feeling.

The other customers in the store were staring and muttering. Earnest loosed his bow-tie, trying to drain some of the crimson from his cheeks, pulling out a garish handkerchief to mop his sweaty brow. He was terrified that the other people might be scared off by the towering brute eyeing the so-called "sun-glasses", patent pending. His own invention to keep the sun out of your eyes, and still look stylishly awful while doing it. On any of his usual buyers, they would have been over-sized to almost ridiculous proportions, but in the great grey behemoth's meaty paws, they looked like they had been made for his kind.

The short vendor almost choked when he started hearing mutters - appreciative murmurs, no less - admiring the Orc's "grubby chic".

"Those, [i]sir, are made of the finest materials, the lenses specially clouded by valaiyaman, and created by the best crafstmen money can buy," he scoffed, casting a disparaging glance over the muscle-bound intruder.

That last part in reality was actually 'hand-crafted by the pale, in-need-of-money elf lad who hung about near the store, smoking odd-smelling cigarettes and trying to look painfully nonchalant and aloof whenever one of the expensively shabby girls walked by'.. but he was not going to advertise that.

Some of the younger girls started sifting through the aisles, looking for ready-made dirty bandages. Always quick to try and be the first to set the newest trends, Earnest snapped up the chance, and turned back to the Orc. He raised his hand as if to give the brute a hearty slap on the back, but thought better of it at a glance from the giant.

"For one of my favourite customers, how does 75 gold strike you?"

His smile was as patently false as the weathered tights and shirts hanging on the racks surrounding them.

[Otto]

Otto's brow slowly creased. It was like watching two tectonic plates collide, and occurred at about the same speed.

"Have I been here before?" he asked, confusedly.

"Oh. My. God", shrilled a voice behind him. "You have to tell me where you got those wraps! They are so-o awesome."

The orc lumbered around and saw a short young women staring up at him, her eyes scrutinising his every item of clothing. She herself had expertly shaped her hair so that it looked like she'd just spent four hours standing in a gale, and sported a short skirt over skin-tight pants and baggy, sleeveless shirt. She held in one hand a top that looked like a house painter's old work shirt.

Otto's memory chugged into action. "Infirmary", he mumbled.

The girl looked curious. "Never heard of it. Is that a new store?" She spied the sunglasses in his hand. "Oh, dude, yes. Those are so cool."

Otto didn't know what else to do, so he put them on. The world went slightly sepia, and the girl gave him a thumbs up. It was a bit like wearing the protecive goggles he used in the forge.

While Earnest fumed slightly behind him, the orc said, "Is seventy-five a good price?"

"You know, Remault's does some awesome specs", she replied. "You could always check them out instead. Hey, why don't I show you where it is?"

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

If looks could kill, Smallgood would have been down one customer. His gaze burned holes in the oblivious girl's back, as she toyed coyly with a lock of her hair, before remembering the effort she'd put into the bed-head look and promptly stopped.

Earnest, once again hooked a finger into the slightly over-sized and shockingly red bow-tie, gulping loudly as this potential profit on legs looked ready to leave.

"Remault's? Oh, no, no!"

He shooed the girl away from his new favourite customer, fixing her with a withering glare as he waved his hands at her; almost as if she were some pesky bird. With her style, it was doubtful any God would have been so cruel as to create such an abysmally ugly creature. He tried to marshal his racing thoughts into some semblance of order. Only one option came to mind, and though it went against every fibre of Earnest Smallgood's being, he could see no other alternative.

"For such a finely attired gentleman as yourself," again, the plastic smile, "only the best worn-by-design accessories will do!"

The small gathering had taken to rummaging again, their eclectic ensembles making them look like a swarm of vagrants; the irony, Earnest reflected, was it had cost each of them a small fortune to look that way. Well, he wasn't going to let this walking small fortune escape so easily. Smoothing down his ready-wrinkled shirt, and pulling up the pants that did not in any way match it, he did a quick calculation.

"Now, I only do this for the tres-chic," he whispered conspirationally, mangling his Braen, "but I can offer you a discount on that item - which looks fantastic on you, sir, I must say."

He winked in what was meant to be a friendly fashion.

"What would you say to seventy gold?"

[Otto]

"Uh", said Otto, behind his psychedelic specs. "Okay."

He fished out some coins from his purse, and counted them out at the counter. After he had finished, and just before Earnest was about to start pulling out his hair in frustration, Otto donned the glasses and made for the door. When he reached it, he found the girl there waiting for him, with a bunch of her equally well-dressed friends.

"Hey, we were going to go to Remault's now, anyway. Wanna come with?" she asked.

"Uh", said Otto. "Okay."

They spent the next hour in a slightly larger, similarly stocked store. The girl and her friends pulled countless clothes off the shelves and held them up to the orc, trying to find the best (read, poorest) fit for his massive bulk. He had tried on holey jeans, crotch-strangling tights, coloured singlets and a number of jaunty caps before the orc finally came to his senses. Upon being presented with a set of polka-dot braces, he gave out a horrified scream, burst though the door, ran up the street and then all the way to the garrison, without stopping.

But he kept the glasses.



OOC: I'm happy with this. Thank you very much for your assistance, Aur :)

[Mordelain]

Gold deducted.