It wasn't as if Verad needed a free meal or ten. Certainly, when he'd first arrived in the city, there had been lean times indeed, and he recalled at least one instance in which he'd abandoned his principles and allowed a customer to buy him dinner at the Coffer & Coffin as payment. For a man who had counted on food every other day, that had been a delicious roast marmot indeed.
Such concerns, of course, were no longer his own, and his regular quarters at the Harbingers' estate ensured that a great deal of real, unadulterated food came with it. Were it not for his svelte Elezen metabolism he would no doubt look a bit round around the middle from overindulgence. So it wasn't as if he really needed what he happened to espy the young woman offering from his position around the bend of Pearl Lane, offering free samples of his new line of Seduction Comments to limited success.
Then again, his observational activities on another front had found him eating so much shrewmeat that he was going to die if he didn't cleanse his palate. His mouth felt and tasted like the inside of a rotten lemon. In light of that, baked goods would suit a not-fully-but-rapidly-approaching-empty stomach quite nicely. But it was not enough that he merely ask for baked goods, for even in leaner days he had appeared far too handsome and magnificent for many to even consider him on the verge of starvation. No, Verad knew better; he had to sell the matter.
So it was that around the bend from Lilithium, a particular Duskwight shambled into view, in a manner that was clearly and elaborately feigned, hand clutching around his midsection and other arm reaching out imploringly into the space ahead of him as if blindly groping for some mirage of a grand feast. He couldn't make himself look gaunt, or haggard, because even a miracle couldn't make some things happen, but he was definitely able to adopt one of his higher-grade forlorn expressions, with beard half-drooped, mouth part-way open, and eyebrows squinted together.
"Oh, woe!" he began, because he was sure this was how such things started, and kept speaking in the midst of his stumbling, shuffling stride. "Woe and calamity indeed! My dubious goods for bread, for my stomach is a-weary, a-weary, and I would that I were dead!"
So saying, he fell down on the ground in front of her, suffering the indignity of laying face-down and prone in the middle of Pearl Lane. The smell of the street wasn't too bad if one stopped breathing.
Such concerns, of course, were no longer his own, and his regular quarters at the Harbingers' estate ensured that a great deal of real, unadulterated food came with it. Were it not for his svelte Elezen metabolism he would no doubt look a bit round around the middle from overindulgence. So it wasn't as if he really needed what he happened to espy the young woman offering from his position around the bend of Pearl Lane, offering free samples of his new line of Seduction Comments to limited success.
Then again, his observational activities on another front had found him eating so much shrewmeat that he was going to die if he didn't cleanse his palate. His mouth felt and tasted like the inside of a rotten lemon. In light of that, baked goods would suit a not-fully-but-rapidly-approaching-empty stomach quite nicely. But it was not enough that he merely ask for baked goods, for even in leaner days he had appeared far too handsome and magnificent for many to even consider him on the verge of starvation. No, Verad knew better; he had to sell the matter.
So it was that around the bend from Lilithium, a particular Duskwight shambled into view, in a manner that was clearly and elaborately feigned, hand clutching around his midsection and other arm reaching out imploringly into the space ahead of him as if blindly groping for some mirage of a grand feast. He couldn't make himself look gaunt, or haggard, because even a miracle couldn't make some things happen, but he was definitely able to adopt one of his higher-grade forlorn expressions, with beard half-drooped, mouth part-way open, and eyebrows squinted together.
"Oh, woe!" he began, because he was sure this was how such things started, and kept speaking in the midst of his stumbling, shuffling stride. "Woe and calamity indeed! My dubious goods for bread, for my stomach is a-weary, a-weary, and I would that I were dead!"
So saying, he fell down on the ground in front of her, suffering the indignity of laying face-down and prone in the middle of Pearl Lane. The smell of the street wasn't too bad if one stopped breathing.
Verad Bellveil's Profile | The Case of the Ransacked Rug | Verad's Fate Sheet
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
