"Yeah, everyone talks a bit faster when they're trying to buy and sell. You should hear how fast they are in the east. I was in Alayim, atoning as bastards do, and whenever I could get to the markets it was a wonder. So many tongues, I just went to whoever spoke common the loudest." Cato smiled as he continued to look over the different pots, and he himself felt a little overwhelmed. It was hard to buy things for women, especially his mother and his dearest friend Ami. One would be much nicer about him buying a bad gift than the other, and he knew his mother would feel strongly if he wasted money. It would also be a nice gift for the women, an apology for falling to temptation. Something like charitable giving. Perhaps he needed to buy three. He reached for his belt, lifted the coin purse, and looked inside before nodding to himself.
He set the purse back in place and let his fingers linger there a moment, not because he meant to count again, but because the weight of coin always pulled strange memories out of him. In the west, coin meant a lord had noticed you, which could be good or bad depending on the lord. In Alayim it meant you could eat, you could sleep under a roof, you could buy a small kindness for someone else and pretend it balanced some other, uglier thing. The market there had been a storm of voices and spices and bright cloth. Even now, standing among pottery and plain wares, his mind tried to drag him back to that noise, to the feeling of being nobody in a place where nobody mattered. He swallowed, forcing his attention back to the stall in front of him. The pot he had chosen was not the prettiest, that was the sort of thing his mother respected. His mother liked tools, not ornaments. She would never say it like that, but she would hold the pot and weigh it, turn it in her hands, look at the handle, test whether it would slip when wet. If it broke quickly, she would not complain. She would simply never trust his choices again, and that thought stung more than it should have.
The bastard of the west smiled at the other and nodded his head. "Sturdy over shine, my friend." Cato put his fist out and gestured toward it, then realized this could look aggressive. "I came up with this while on work for my uncle. Silent confirmation of agreement. I call it 'knuckles'." The bastard turned his fist to the left, raised his other hand, and knocked them together. He crossed his arms behind his back and forced himself to focus and listen to the man in front of him. He wanted to make sure he showed the other respect, the kind men like them did not get in places like this. Men like them stood out among lords and princes. He remembered the first time he had done it, back when he was still trying to figure out what kind of man his uncle wanted him to be. Words were dangerous in certain rooms, and even more dangerous on the road. A simple gesture could say yes, could say I heard you, could say we are together in this, without giving anyone else something to repeat later. It had felt foolish at first, like playing at being part of something bigger. Now it felt like one of the few honest things he owned.
"Let's pack it up. I think I won't get any more than the one, and if it goes over well, then I can come back and get another." He nodded as if he had said the whole conversation out loud, and not like his thoughts were bouncing from one thing to the next. Cato often wondered if it had something to do with being a bastard. Were all bastards the sort to think so much and so often? No. Some were thick in the head and could barely do more than grunt a few words, and even then they did not say much of anything at all. Still, his mind never stopped moving. It leapt from the pot to the purse to Ami, from Ami to his mother, from his mother to his own mistakes, and from those mistakes to a quiet fear that he would never stop paying for them. He told himself he was buying an apology, or buying a peace offering, or buying a bit of warmth to place in someone else's hands. But apologies were words, not objects, and he had never been good at words when the stakes were real.
At the comment, he looked briefly confused, then started to laugh. "Oh, no. Well, my father is, well, we're not supposed to say, but it's pretty obvious." There were two ways he came to be: a man not of the Westerlands, or a lord from House Prester, for they were the ones who looked like him. But you would never hear him say such a thing. People disappeared when they fucked with that Prester cunt, and he did not fancy vanishing. Which, he supposed, was being murdered. He kept the laugh light because the truth behind it was not. He had learned early that people loved stories about bastards. They loved to guess at the father, the circumstances, the scandal. It let them feel clever and safe at the same time, like gossip was a wall they could hide behind. For him, it was a rope around the neck that could tighten whenever someone wanted it to. In some places, a bastard was a joke. In others, a bastard was a threat. In most, he was both. "Few old way folks though."
In his mind, to him, he would always be a man of the Westerlands, and his father would also be a man of the Westerlands, and there would be no great tragedy in his story unless one counted where he slept. Even then it was better than sleeping in hedges and ditches. He even had blankets and pillows now. The room under the stairs had been a kind of miracle the first night he slept there. He remembered staring at the ceiling, low enough that he could almost touch it if he lifted his arm, listening to the sounds of a house settling. He had lain on a thin mattress and thought, this is what it means to belong somewhere, even if it is a corner that no one wants. Ami had given him that, or had fought for him to have it, and the memory of it made him feel both grateful and unsteady.
Shifting his weight, rubbing his thumb against the edge of the wrapped pot as if he could smooth out his own thoughts the same way. His mother would take the gift and ask what it cost. Ami would take the gift and ask what made him choose it. That was the difference between them, and it was why one frightened him more than the other, even though he loved them both. "Ya know," he started, as his mind drifted to the kindness Ami showed him and his room under the stairs, "there's a special lady. Right, so, the pot I'm going to give to my mother, I've decided. And the lady, the one that's my dearest friend, I would like to give her something nice. Perhaps a nice teapot or set, if you have one back there. One of those nice ones that pours the water nice, good color, or something that can be painted nicely."
Cato wanted the gift to say thank you without saying thank you, because thank you felt too small. He wanted it to say I am trying, even if I am clumsy. He wanted it to say I remember what you did for me, and I will not forget it. He also wanted, selfishly, to give her something that was hers, something not borrowed or shared or handed down. Something chosen for her, even by a man who did not know how to choose properly.
ਸ਼ਾਨ
mir continued to stand on the other side of the sprawl of painted pottery as the other continued to ramble, nervously shifting from one foot to the other which he hoped the other would not be able to tell, considering he knew he could not appear too relaxed whilst working lest he end up being scolded for chatting for socialising rather than to try and sell more product. "yeah, i get that. normal." he seemed to speak for the sake of speaking, so the other knew he was listening - it was a normal thing in conversations, but he did it hoping he had not said it to the wrong thing. his accent was clear and concise, however mir was suddenly all too aware of his own accent sounding incredibly different.
he did not quite understand what the other truly meant about his father, and about lineage in the westerlands and about the old way - all prospects and concepts he did not know, and he was not quite sure whether he was supposed to know. "she seems special, considering you're wanting to buy her a gift." was there two special women in the story? was the man in front of him a love rat? that would definitely make a turn of events, that would be most entertaining. then he clarified it was his mother. the special lady was his mother? no, they were two women.
was a man in his position supposed to know about all of these things? he. simply nodded, opening his mouth to speak and say something however the other would continue speaking about what it was he was speaking about - the topic of conversation seemed to twist and turn at a rate he could not keep up with. so he nodded, and let out an amicable laugh every now and then, as though he would agree that women were hard to buy gifts for. he had never bought a woman a gift in his life.
"i don't really know what best to get a woman, i think it depends on what colour and style they like most. do you know her favourite colour, maybe?" he kept his hands behind his back as he looked down upon the spread, wondering whether to try and push him in the direction of the most expensive so he could possibly earn some money - but the thought seemed to seep from his mind when he looked upon the man.
because whilst he was dressed well, something about him did not seem as though he could afford to spend large amounts of intricate pottery from across the narrow sea because some volantene talked him into it. he cleared his throat, ready to open his mouth and talk however it was again interrupted. he did not know what the man entirely wanted him to do, he was used for physical labour and packing more than selling, however his coworker had been late returning from his break and now here he was, an apparent salesman. he ducked down briefly beneath to pull out more options; vases, sets, plates, bowls, goblets. wine glasses. "take your pick." mir indicated with his hand, wondering why a tea pot would be pouring out water.
these westerosi did not know how to drink tea properly, by the looks of it, they would need a lesson either from the essosi or the dornish. "though if she's just a friend…" he eyes trailed to the set with inscribing of romantic messages on it, in the area where a woman would traditionally put her lips. he picked it up and showed it to cato briefly, before both shaking their heads in unison and mir put it back below with a slight laugh. "i don't really know who made that, but it's…different, one could say. first time for everything i suppose."
