compnetwork | Help wanted

*The video feed turns on, but instead of showing the person speaking, it shows a table filled with items, and more piled up around and behind it, and on stacks of boxes... clearly, far too much for the part of the room it's been stored in. Of what's visible, there are lamps, stained glass, hair clips and pins and what look like they could be chopsticks, and carved, beaded, and braided jewelry, wind catchers and chimes and all sorts of pretty things.*

*Judging by that sigh they let out, whoever it is holding the watch away from them, pointing it toward the items, seems a little nervous.*

I'm hardly much good with figuring out how to start, so I'll get right to the point. Is anyone interested in helping me sell these?

I've already a job during the day, and spend much of my time after that making more items, but I've almost finished making the arrangements for a shop in one of the markets from which to sell them... and I'd need someone to mind it for me. To keep it all organized, and actually... sell the things, and let me know what I need to make more of, if I haven't made more yet, and... things of that sort.

I've set money aside to pay for someone to mind the shop, but if it helps any... if you'd like something from among the wares yourself, I'm certain we can come to an agreement.

Please, let me know if you're interested!

((ooc: tossed up a small discussion on Plurk here, too. To sum, Virgo's the obvious district to put it in, but if there's other ideas, why not, right? And he can take requests, if people want something custom. Especially if they want to help him with the shop. Plus, hiring multiple people could easily be a thing; it's a chance for extra CR, especially with overlapping shifts and giving each other breaks or days off or something, right?))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My name is Avitus.

*there's a little pause, and then her COMP receives a little data -- he just sent her the location of a cafe somewhere in Hinoto-Ri*

Would this place do for you?

Yeah, it should be fine! Let's see...I think I can get there in fifteen minutes?

Then I shall meet you there. I shan't be difficult to find; I've blue skin and large black wings.

Edited 2013-06-04 11:51 (UTC)

Okay! I'll be the girl riding in on the giant moth.

Kotoha shuts off the COMP with that baffling statement.

----------

True to her words, fifteen minutes later she swoops down on the cafe, riding on the back of a massive six-winged moth. As she swings down onto the ground, the moth vanishes into a ball held in her hand in a torrent of light.

Looking around, she quickly spots Avitus and walks over with a wave hello.

"Hi!"

He hasn't been inside the little cafe long; he's still at the counter, looking at the offerings... or he was, until everyone's attention went to the windows, and he followed suit. Now he's inside at the counter, giving her a wide-eyed look. That really hadn't been what he'd been expecting. Not that he knew what he'd been expecting... just that that wasn't exactly it.

He gives her a little smile and a wave back as she approaches, though. "Hello. Kotoha, I presume?" Who else could she be?

Kotoha smiles and sweeps into a grossly overdone bow, straightening up with a little hop.

"Yeah. You're Avitus, then? Nice to meet you!"

With that, she sweeps her gaze across the various flavors and zeroes in on one in particular before addressing the counterman.

"Can I have a large mint chocolate chip in a dish, please?"

Order made, she turns back to Avitus.

"Not that there was much room for doubt on either side, of course!"

"Of course." He looks back to the counter too. "And I'll have... chocolate ganache with the fudge sauce, please. In a dish for me as well."

And he's sneakily stepped over to the register beside him, so she can't get there first, as he ordered, and pulled his card out from what's surely a coinpurse of some kind, in his sash... he's paying for both of theirs while they're dished up.

Even if she had noticed him sneaking over (she hadn't), Kotoha had still paused a bit when reaching for her cashcard - it's hard to go from buying literally whatever you want, whenever you want, to actually having a budget again. So she's fine with Avitus paying.

"Oh, thank you!"

A slightly nervous chuckle.

"I'm, uh...still not quite used to having to budget things again."

"I'm starting to get used to it. I mean, it's not as though I need much here, personally... but I'm used to having a much larger budget for my work."

He took his ice cream and waited for her to take hers, before finding them a nice seat by the windows. "...Admittedly, that's... part of why I'm so nervous about this shop. I think I have most of it figured out, but I'm certain I've overlooked something. I've never done anything quite like this before. So I would greatly appreciate what help I can get."

Kotoha savors her first spoonful of ice cream as she thinks that over.

"Honestly, most of my work as the manager of Join Avenue was advertising and soliciting new shopkeepers...but I picked up a few things. You've got a storefront, right?"

"A store... what?" He paused there, looking at her. "I have a place I'm considering for it... two of them, actually. But I need to decide on which, and clean it up, move things in... I could set up the front of it for display then... or is that... not what you meant?"

Modern terms for things like this? What are those?

"A storefront is essentially the place you're basing your business out of, yes. I can help with the moving-in aspects of it, at least."

A pause to consider.

"You might want to consider getting some flyers made up and distributed around the city, so more people than just us Visitors know about the shop."

He blinked, spoon halfway to his mouth. "Oh... oh. Yes, I should do that."

He set the spoon back down, distracted for the moment, thinking hard on it now. "I've been so caught up in figuring out the how, I've no idea what to call it, either."

Kotoha nods thoughtfully.

"...how about 'Art Under Glass'?"

"...Under glass? But it isn't... it's stained glass and lamps and jewelry and things like that, mostly."

He was quiet for a second as he had another bite of his ice cream, playing with the chocolate sauce with his spoon. "What about... ah...." Another pause, ideas still not quite coming. "Well, what about a name that plays off of the Human Citadel, or Nosgoth, or--"

He was about to say something else, but closed his mouth again, some thought stopping him dead right there. "On second thought, I ought not to. If anyone else from Nosgoth were to show up... I don't know that I'd want to advertize my presence, or where I'm from. Or what I am." He made a bit of a face at that.

Kotoha shrugs a little, savoring a spoonful of her ice cream. Once she's finished, she offers another suggestion.

"Glass Heart?"

"It's funny to me, because this would be easier back home. Most of the shops in the Citadel merely had pictures of things to illustrate what they were; most didn't have the words themselves, or even names to shops like the ones here do. Were I to do this back home, the sign for it there would probably be a bit of stained glass, or... a painting of a brush, hanging out from the top of the--"

Oh.

He pulled his pencil and a small sketchbook from somewhere under the table (did his robes have pockets after all?) and opened it up to a blank page, where he started sketching, quickly, a heart shape interrupted by some words overlapping one of the sides.

"Stained Glass Heart may work quite well... I could have exactly that for a sign above the front, outside, and light it from behind.... Oh, that would be so pretty while it's dark out, too!"

Ideas, Kotoha. You're giving him some.

Kotoha will just enjoy her minty goodness until he gets all the ideas down on paper.

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