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The Roebling Wire Works is an historic building in downtown Trenton which has become the home of the Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market -- and the PRFM is the cover for the East Edge Market, a traveling Market which visits every two months, right when the PRFM does.
Walk through the mundane market, past the displays of taxidermy and soap, punk t-shirts and cassettes, patches and pins, step over the rope that closes off the ramp to the indoor/handicapped bathroom, and walk past the slender Fairest guarding the doorway. An expenditure of Glamour, whistle or hum a couple bars of 'I wanna be sedated' (you ever wonder why they play that song so many times at the punk rock flea markets, well... ) and step through not into the bathroom supply closet but the East Edge Market.
Hob guards built like tiny balls of gears roll around the grounds, bristling occasionally if someone gets too close. The vardos and tents back up to one another, a tight little maze of booths and options.
A tall man dressed in a suit that costs more than some houses stands by the group. He's aristocratically handsome, in his mid-40s, with hair that reflects like a mirror. An occasional snowflake blows past him, disappearing into the Wyrd. He glances around at any others who might be attending the Market that day.
Mearc actually stops in the PRFM and picks up a few fun things that might be worth bartering with in the East Edge Market before he approaches the appropriate bathroom. He has a reusable grocery bag slung over one arm, along with his usual messenger bag, and is dressed in a geeky t-shirt and cargo pants, likely with some nerdy hacker joke on the shirt. The bag bulges with odds and ends, in case enamel pins or zines on witchcraft or a crocheted rainbow yarmulke might appeal to the goblins once he gets inside. It's worth the try, at least. Once he's satisfied with what's in hand, he makes his way to the bathroom and its Fairest guard.
Charlie reacts to this façade about the opposite way you'd expect things to go. While surrounded by punks, she looks about ready to run and hide from all the people she feels like are staring at her (and the occasional pentagram). Were it not for holding her girlfriend's hand, she probably would have bolted to go back home. But after a quick "20- 20- 24 hours to go-oh-oh" the two are in the market and Charlie looks visibly calmer. She holds herself differently than Wren has ever seen her. She extends to her full height and looks around with eyes that are wary, but not anxious. She's dressed in her formal clothes (Jean jacket, tight black jeans and a shirt with the blockbuster logo) with one addition: a messenger bag that she's using to carry Goblin Fruits and various knick-knacks. On the strap, there are several buttons advertising the Ratbone Stall, a local indie Goblin Market.
Wren made a point to dress in lock-step with Charlie- a denim vest over a band shirt and a jeans skirt over tired tennis shoes- and she looks equally comfortable in both arenas. Hand in hand, she has to hurry a little to keep up with Charlie, but she's clearly happy to be here, and looking about with open interest.
There's a sort of strange combination of ways that Charlie gets watched from the moment she steps through after busting out in that little refrain: everyone seems a little Nervous around her, with a capital N, though whether they think she's going to run off with the whole store or report them to some sort of vague higher authority, it's difficult to say. Maybe both!
Charlie might speak to their managers. Never mind that they don't have them. That's not the point.
A scattering of offerings along the aisles: slow-whorling columns of colorful smoke, a stack of eyeballs like a macaron tower sitting next to a huge tank of gloop which slowly cycles through pastel colors. A rocking chair with a tiny figure in it, knitting, wrapped in blankets.
The tall Fairest browses the available offerings, his expression giving away nothing about his opinions on the products for sale.
Mearcstapa, meanwhile, doesn't hide his interest in things, as he looks around the aisle. When he sees the tank of gloop, he offers the entity in the rocking chair something of a smile. "What is that, then?"
"Have you been to one of these before?" Charlie asks, squeezing Wren's hand. She's listening to her but not looking, her eyes darting around to various items. She notices Mearcstapa and waves at him, before adding to Wren, "if you want to buy anything, make sure to talk it over with me first. I've, um, got a knack for prices and some of these folks will try to rob you."
The stark difference in Charlie's demeanor isn't missed by her diminutive girlfriend. She's subtle about it, opting not to draw direct attention, but the moment she has a chance, she murmurs quietly, "You're entirely different here, angel. You feel like you own the place. In a good way. Like you're finally home." Her voice is layered with surprise and admiration, and her hand in Charlie's squeezes back gently. "I've been to one. Just one. I think it was maybe this one. It's hard to tell, it changes so often." She gestures to the stack of eyeballs. "I got one of those, if I remember right."
The figure in the chair turns eight segmented eyes on Solstice from within its wrap. My, what... large numbers... of arachnid eyes you have! The creature makes some sort of crumpled sound that might be laughter as the gloop in the jar circles and cycles.
A pair of eyes spin upward in the gloop itself, line up, and focus on Mearcstapa, and words impress themselves upon the air, embossing themself into the space between the gloop and the Lost:
Not what. Who.
The tall Fairest idly wanders to the same stall as Mearc, considering the words. "Interesting."
"Ah, my apologies for the assumption." His freckles rapidly flicker a brighter red, and he offers a small bow. "Do you know of anyone at this market willing to sell a mote of their luck?"
One of the eyes does a little somersault over itself, spinning in place, which is both disgusting and, when followed by the other eye, gives a vague impression of a slow blink like a lizard closing one eye and then the other rather than simultaneously.
Two stalls down. The colored smoke floats in slowly-circulating plumes ahead of the stall that the gloop indicates by cranking one of its eyes in that direction.
Charlie blushes a little. She's not at full so-crimson-a-goblin-might-want-to-buy-the-color levels of blush yet, but a faint one flickers past her marbled skin. "Oh, um, thanks! This ain't exactly home, but its darn close!" It's not hard to pick up on the fact that she talks a little gruffer and twangier when a goblin looks their way. "I've been, um, interested in one of those eyes too. So I can, um, make sure things aren't dangerous."
"It's super helpful. Gotta watch the costs, though." Not that Wren usually needs to. She's got a pretty sweet deal, for all she keeps it tucked under wraps most times. "This isn't the market you lived and worked at, then, is it?" She smiles to herself to hear more of Charlie's real accent leak through, and if she leans into the taller woman's side discretely, well.
I mean, those are tight jeans. Nobody'd blame her.
When Charlie says she's interested in one of those eyes, one of the eyes in the gloop -- and only one -- swivels slowly to fix on her. The hazel eyeball, mismatched to a green, slowly expands and contracts its pupil while staring at her.
The tall man considers the jarred creature. "What goods do you have for sale?" He asks it.
Mearc glances over, noticing Wren and Charlie, and lets out a bit of a whistle--not like a catcall, but something closer to a bird song. The call of a winter wren, for any who'd recognize such, whether from an avid love of ornithology or from hearing his phone when she texts him Ironside. But he doesn't approach them, or pay them particular attention after he whistles, glancing at the booth indicated by the goop-friend and beginning to head in that direction.
Eyes. An old eye for wisdom, a young eye for clarity of vision. A drunk's eye for the truth. Which for you?
The gloop may be taking liberties with the differences between what the eyes can do, but it takes those liberties if that's the case without blinking. Mostly because it can't. One eye fixes on Wallace, the other stays trained on Wren.
A plume of teal smoke circulates itself next to a glittering iridescent shaft of spinning and whorling glittersmoke, and down at the end pink spills into the red velvet color of a modern tearoom's walls; the tent is old and ratty, blue and white striped fabric that's been set up and taken down at so many markets that the bottom is stained with mud and possibly other things.
From within, a tall and slender Hob steps out: she looks like a normal-sized human who got put into a stretcher. Her skull is long, her hands and arms are long, and she looks like what would happen if a praying mantis evolved into a humanoid, generally, including pale green skin. "May I interest you?" In what, she does not say.
"Oh, no, that one's much smaller and doesn't move as much," Charlie says, offering Wren a smile. She seems to be too busy to note how close Wren's hands are getting.
Charlie reaches into her bag and pulls out an arcade token and one of those things you can get at a greeting card store that has a number of sound effects on different buttons. She saunters over to the eye dealer and says, "I want the young man's eye. And I have things you'll want. I can give you a token a child used to play his last game before he never touched video games again and a machine that captures common sounds." She looks at Wren with a surprisingly smooth glance,
"Well, maybe we can visit it sometime?"
Wren follows along behind Charlie, keeping behind the woman while she bargains. Since Charlie's hands are busy, Wren puts both hers on Charlie's back, the balls of her palms resting on her lower back. She keeps leaned just faintly out past her side, so she can watch, but it gives the impression that she's hiding behind Charlie, the little flops of her rabbit ears framing her face with those golden locks.
"Hmmm." He considers the eyes, then the goopcritter. "And - forgive my asking - do any of these eyes carry with them any... negatively impactful effects, alongside the obvious benefits?"
Mearc's whistle getting no response makes him pause briefly, his smile dimming a hair, but then he shrugs, giving the mantoid goblin a nod. "Your comrade in the tank suggested you might be interested in selling a mote of your luck to someone like myself. I'm curious if I might have something that would be of interest to you."
He hefts the bag from the PRFM. "I've just been Ironside, grabbed some interesting items there."
It only takes a moment or two longer, during a break in the conversation between Charlie and the Merchant, when the responding whistle shrills back. They are, the both of them, engaged with different stalls, but at least Mearcstapa knows it's fine to approach once someone's business is done!
An obligation to the truth, elides the goop. And the granter thereof. This, to Wallace, slow bubbles circulating through the goop as one of its eyes stays trained on him.
The other eye, trained on Charlie, dilates its pupil when shown the items. Acceptable. Place the items in the tank. Normally, one gets the feeling, the negotiation would be an awful lot longer, but something about Charlie makes this a little bit easier.
"Hmm," the tall hob offers with a scraping sound that seems to resonate like cricket legs rubbed together. "For a little luck, this is not too much to ask." She produces the elongated wishbone of a bird that's not a turkey, filigreed with fine silver lines, from underneath her -- wings? dress? -- and holds it out toward Mearcstapa in a gesture usually reserved for Thanksgiving tables. "Let us see how much luck."
Mearc tilts his head to one side, and then takes the offered half of the wishbone. "I'm not sure I need all that much. Just...enough. An edge."
Charlie gives it(?) a broad smile and extends her wings and flicks the coin into the tank, gently following it with the sound machine. She then spins around on her heel to bend down and give Wren a kiss. "I saw Mearc earlier if you want to go say hi to him!" she says, elated. This is her element. The part that's less her element is the part where she reaches down and delicately picks up the gross eyeball, shuddering from the texture. "I'm, um, going to have to eat this," she says with a queasy look on her face.
Wallace considers the eyes, then nods to the critter. "I appreciate you explaining your wares. I may return, should I find the need." And he moves along to examine a rack of Hedgespun clothing at the next stall." He glances around the market again, noting where the other changelings are.
When Charlie spins round, Wren's arms slip up round her neck and turn what she might have intended to be a quick smooch into a bit more of an involved affair. It's not TOO long, though (she doesn't want to short circuit her girlfriend, after all) and she nods at the mention of Mearc! "I'd like that. And um... yes, but good news, you just have to swallow it to get it down! After that it just... y'know... hangs out in your tummy."
A sort of strange bubbling sound from the goop as Wallace moves on, and then both eyes snap to watching Charlie. The items drop into the goop, swirl around once, twice, and then simply... vanish. And when Charlie picks up the eyeball she chose, it spins up to look at her, sharp and focused. Yep. She's gonna have to eat that.
The insectile hob gives Mearcstapa the sparest of smiles, then twists sharply on the wishbone as she pulls. The larger piece remains in her hand, accordingly. "And a little bit you shall have." The majority of the luck stays with her, it would seem. "Leave the items on the table."
And presuming Mearc does so, a hundred little ants swarm out from between the table's bamboo slots to carry away the exchange. She, on the other hand, simply turns to fade back into the tent.
Mearc leaves a bandana with the rainbow pride flag on it, three enamel pins with animal skulls and a crocheted yarmulke, and bows at her as she re-enters the tent. "Well, that was easy."
He turns and looks around for Wren and Charlie, now.
Finding nothing of interest, Wallace instead approaches the other Changelings. "With the Freehold, I presume?"
Charlie waves at Mearc, who sees a radically different version of her than the one she saw at the bar who was about ready to faint at any second. This one is still blushing from the prolonged kiss though. She looks back down at the eyeball and makes eye contact with it. Her red blush immediately changes to her being green around the gills. She reaches into her bag and draws a can of ginger ale out of it. "If I die of disgust, um, take all my money." Her noble act of self-sacrifice is halted when Wallace talks to her. "Oh, hi! Yeah, we're Winter," she says, gesturing to the two of them with a hand full of eyeball
Wren turns when addressed, slipping behind Charlie again. Is she actually that shy? Who can say? Mearcstapa can, don't ask him. But she seems content to play the part just now, and it keeps her hands on her girlfriend's lower back (second best to actual butt touches) so she sticks with that and lets Charlie be the social one while she still actually feels like it.
She does nod to confirm her status in Winter, though. Her mantle is pretty powerful, and the outside world mutes around her, like the quiet from a snowfall. Her face is framed by floppy white rabbit ears poking through blonde hair.
And gee whiz, but she's small. Physically, and Wyrdly- she's barely even on the radar.
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