Juliette Coulombe (clearyourmind) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-09-18 12:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !group thread, evander finch, juliette coulombe, kiernan manley, magnolia paget, ridley irving, seloria cassul |
Who: Juliette & OPEN (Mag, Kiernan, Evander, Ridley, & Seloria)
What: Ditching training (gasp), trying to gather her thoughts
Where: Various locations around town
When: Throughout the day
Rating: G
Status: Complete!
[The Roast – University Location | 7:30am] She had never in her life missed training for reasons other than serious illness or injury. This was, perhaps, what had Juliette looking surreptitiously around the coffee shop as she sat in the corner, sipping slowly at a café au lait and watching the university students come and go in groups. The thought of training today had been…. unbearable; it seemed impossible to continue with life as normal when everything in it had irrevocably changed. But she had still risen at dawn, as she always did, and dressed, and left the estate long before Lord and Lady Demiel awakened. She had wandered the near-empty streets of the Nobles’ District for half an hour before realizing that someone might see her – such a poor delinquent she was, she couldn’t even do this right – and so she had hastened across town and ended up here, far from anyone who might recognize her. Or so she hoped. The coffee shop was now full to bursting, and she was the only person in it to have a table all to herself; she was far too distracted to realize some groups clumped around much smaller tables were giving her irate looks as she sat and, for all intents and purposes, daydreamed. What was she supposed to do? She had had some vague thought of taking this day to sort out her feelings on the subject, but she seemed no closer to an answer now than she had been an hour ago. She took another miniscule sip of her coffee when someone approached and sat in the only open chair in the room – which happened to be at her table. [Commoners’ District – Park | 11:00am] The older children were in school or at apprenticeships by now, so she shared the playground with mothers, nannies, and toddlers. She tuned out their shrieking easily; the training yards could become incredibly noisy at times, and this trick of ignoring distractions was an integral part of her early training. She felt guilty, thinking of it. She should be in a hand-to-hand class right now, and instead? Instead, she was pushing herself lazily back and forth on a swing, her thoughts far away from katas, kicks, and punches. [Baker’s Dozen | 1:15pm] The delicious smell of something baking called her down an unfamiliar street in the Bazaar district. Though she had wandered the shops for some time, she couldn’t recall what she had looked at, and only knew that she had not bought anything by the fact that her hands were empty. Her mind was still quite hopelessly muddled. The scent, though, broke through the haze of her thoughts, and at its call she found herself entering a bakery. Baker’s Dozen, she saw on the sign over the door. Hadn’t she met someone affiliated with this place on the network once? Something about singing while he baked… A rather useless thought, but she rarely forgot anything she read. Inside, the bakery smelled even better. The clear front pastry cases displayed everything from flaky croissants to delicate tartlets topped with glazed berries. She spotted miniature white chocolate mousse cakes and felt her mouth water. Did Alys like sweets? The thought came unbidden and she realized that she could not even recall if her sister had eaten dessert the night prior, for she had been too… overwhelmed… with everything. “May I help you with something, dear?” asked the kind-looking woman behind the counter – not the singing baker, it seemed. “I am only looking,” Juliette replied. She shouldn’t. But, well, today seemed to be an entire day of doing what she shouldn’t. Perhaps she would purchase something, and take it along with her when she went… wherever she might go next. [Lux & Livre | 2:00pm] There was an unfamiliar boy behind the counter of the bookshop. Juliette remembered that the mages were having a convention this week – perhaps that was where the kind proprietress had gone? It was probably better not to draw attention to herself; when the boy stared a little too long, she ducked behind the nearest shelf. Histories – not her favorite, but she spent some time perusing them before moving towards the back of the store. The cookbooks were given some serious consideration. Perhaps she ought to explore Ordalian cuisine? Something from her mother’s region, about which she knew so very little. If she agreed… if… would Alys like it if she made Ordalian food? Would Alys even allow her to cook? Lady Demiel considered it scandalous as an occupation for a proper young lady. But Alys had inadvertently grown up common, so perhaps… She pulled a book from the shelf: Traditional Cuisine of Ordalia’s Eastern Islands and began flipping through it. Just in case. [Theatre District | 3:45pm] She had rarely been to this district except for the theatre and opera, accompanied by her guardians or some other noble, delivered to the theater doors via hovercab in her finery, departing the same way. She didn’t even know the street names, having been warned on more than one occasion that the only place worse than this hotbed of loose morals was the Red Light District (just the thought had her fighting back a blush; now there was a place she would never go). But the Theatre District was respectable, to a point – it was where the Bards’ Guild was headquartered – Alys’ guild – and it seemed, as she wandered the unfamiliar streets with wide eyes, to be home to the most peculiar people she had ever seen. Someone had told her once, it is an endless party, and she now had to confirm the veracity of this statement; though it was far too early for standard performances, that didn’t seem to stop street buskers from setting out instrument cases and hats. She stopped to watch an elderly man with quick hands juggling colored balls in the air, gasped and then applauded as he threw them high, then caught them, one by one, before bowing with a flourish. She had little pocket money left after her earlier expenditures, not to mention the communicator and chair she had had to purchase in secret the week prior, but still she found a few gil in her very light coin purse to throw into the tall black hat set by the juggler’s feet. |