[h3]The Man of Glass[/h3]
[sub]with [@Peik][/sub]

“I must be the only Dunmer here,” the gray-skinned alchemist muttered to herself. 

The hustle and bustle of the jungled village passed her by while she had taken a moment to rest on a street corner, leaning against the walls of a house that looked like it had been grown straight from a tree, her spear nestled in the crook of her arm and her hackle-lo pipe dangling from her lips. Smoke curled and turned lazily in the air before her eyes as she exhaled slowly. The architecture of the village reminded her a bit of the Telvanni mushroom towers of Morrowind and she mused for a moment on the fact that her diminutive elvish cousins turned out to be just as liable as her own kind to grow homes from plants. A coincidence, or not? 

Then Ina hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders and resumed her languid exploration of the village, taking in the sights, smells and sounds the festival had to offer. Other visitors and locals bumped into her from time to time, their excitement speeding up their pace and preventing them from clearly seeing where they were going, but the unhurried mer paid them no mind. She stopped to inspect the wares of a textile merchant for a few minutes, the Bosmeri merchant looking at her with expectant eyes that grew increasingly annoyed as the minutes stretched on, and Inanna heard a disapproving tut behind her when she turned away at last without having purchased anything. She chuckled to herself and moved on. 

She stopped at a glassware merchant’s shop next, who inhabited a space that looked more like a permanent storefront than anything she had seen so far. Ina let her eyes wander over his wares for a while before looking up at the man himself, expecting to see a local. Instead, she was greeted by the sight of a [i]very[/i] Imperial man, the style of dress and grooming immediately familiar to the once-inhabitant of the Imperial City, and she raised her brows in surprise. Ina took her pipe out of her mouth and gesticulated at the man’s storefront. 

“You live here?” she asked flatly. Not one for etiquette and propriety, Ina forewent a greeting of any kind and her gaze was as irreverent as ever.

“A customer!” must have been the first thing to cross the man’s mind upon hearing Inanna’s words, for his eyes glinted so visibly with elation that one could’ve thought of it to be magic. Eyeing the Dunmer up and down momentarily in what was no doubt an assessment of disposition, the man’s face took a rather worldly expression before he started speaking.

“I guess I really don’t look the part, do I?” he said in a rather humorous tone, leaning more towards breaking the ice rather than disparaging the province’s residents. “No, sera, I’m afraid not, I’m originally from Cheydinhal. This here’s a temporary establishment.” He stopped for a moment. “Garo Secundus Minassian, at your service,” he said, opening his arms as he spoke as if to show that the store was also at her service as well.

Her expression softened at Garo’s usage of the proper form of Dunmeri address, a smile playing on her lips, and she nodded along with him when he mentioned Cheydinhal. That explained his familiarity with Dunmer customs. But it was his family name that prompted an audible ‘ah!’ of recognition. “Minassian, I know that name,” she said, approval evident from the tone of her voice. “Quality glassware. Well, well, your reputation precedes you.” 

Ina smirked and inclined her head gracefully. “Inanna Aryon, alchemist. A pleasure, serjo.” 

She placed her spear against the wall and looked back at the displayed wares, taking in the rugs on the ground, the shelves full of crystal glass goblets, wine cups, pitchers and vases, the trays settled on the walls behind the goblets, and the pillows scattered everywhere. Ina deduced that their purpose was to break the fall of anything that might drop and shatter, but it had the additional effect of looking remarkably cozy. 

“Vials?” she asked without looking back up at him, her eyes still searching through the glassware but not seeing what she was looking for. “Do you have those?”

Garo accepted the woman’s compliment and introduction with a curt, yet graceful nod, smiling with a half-humble, half-proud expression and keeping silent to let the woman observe the products that covered the walls without interruption. There was a queer air about her, the way she smirked and put her spear down and eyed the shop as if she owned the place – had he been younger he would’ve warned her about being careful around the products, but at his age and experience he knew that a merchant’s reputation, while as brittle as glassware, was much harder to substitute.

“Vials? Of course we do,” Garo replied confidently upon hearing the question. “Although I keep them in the back. They’re not as appealing as luxury wares on the storefront, you see. Hold on, let me show you some.” He pointed up as he turned back, as if to signify he’d be back in a minute, and indeed moments later he’d come back, holding a box of oak, narrow of height but horizontally wide, with an iron frame and hinges. He put the box on the counter, turned it towards Inanna and pressed a rather nondescript button on the front of the box, unlocking it with a metallic ‘click’. He opened the top part, revealing three rows of seven equal-sized vials of a dark amber color, resting side-by-side in a generous padding of soft red velvet. The vials in the middle row had crisp patterns branching out from the bottom to cover the bottles’ exterior, as if there was lightning caught inside.

“A pleasure to hear that you have a high opinion of our glassware, and a pleasure to meet you as well, sera,” he said as he pointed at the vials with an open hand. “I’m afraid they don’t come in any other color, it’s a side-effect of our special hardening process. This way they have a tendency to cave in when struck, rather than shattering outright,” he added, his wording quick and softly emphasized.
“The ones with lightning patterns just are the same, it’s just decorative. One of my brothers came up with the idea. Looks quaint, doesn’t it? Makes it feel magical… Of course, one can make it so, I guess. I had a few customers who bought them to separate magic or potentially harmful brews.”

Ina nodded appreciatively -- that was Minassian glassware, alright. Looking at the well-furnished box they came in and the lightning tendrils that spiderwebbed across the vials, Ina’s first reaction was to doubt whether she could even afford them. She’d learned long ago not to skimp out on materials she used for her profession, of course, but being a wandering alchemist was not as lucrative a position as she might have liked and she was almost always short on cash. 

She looked back up at Garo while he talked, taking in the way he spoke and the way he gestured, her head slightly tilted to the side. It was clear that he was an expert on the topic at hand, and a good salesman; swift, effective, empathic but soft-spoken. He wasn’t the boisterous, dramatic type, many of whom were manning the stalls that she had passed, that annoyed Ina so much. 
“I’d be using them for a similar purpose,” she said when he had finished his appraisal, but let the implication that some of her brews might be poisons go unaddressed. “Good to know.” Her fingers fidgeted with her hackle-lo pipe for a moment before she took a draw from it, let the smoke swirl in her mouth for a bit and exhaled, never breaking eye-contact with Garo. 

“How much for the lot?” she asked at length. 

The glass merchant did not waver from the sudden gust of hackle-lo smoke and consistent eye contact, except for a slight moment when he rubbed his chin as he thought of the pricing. She wasn’t a bad looking woman at all – he wouldn’t let that act as a subconscious price discount.  

“The clear ones are three Septims each… The ones with lightning are four, owing to the magic processes they’re put through. I have regular vials for only two Septims but those get no impact resistance guarantee. The contents of the box are 70 Septims in total, you want the box wholesale, I can give you a 10 Septim discount on the house, along with the box, and the corks for the vials. What do you say?”  
It was a big expense, but she [i]was[/i] in the market for new vials… and the impact resistant quality that Garo claimed they had was interesting. Azura knew Ina had enough small nicks and cuts on her hands over the years from working with inferior glass. She reached for her purse and weighed it in her hands, estimating how many septims she still had. Was she going to haggle? He’d already offered the bulk discount without her saying a word. Must be her wily charm at work. Ina resisted the urge to scoff at the thought. 

“60 for the whole box,” she repeated and nodded. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” Ina started counting out the coins. As she counted, Garo leaned down under the counter and pulled a sack from below, untying its mouth to reveal its contents - hundreds of identical corks.
“Only the best corks from the finest Colovian Oak. You can have some extra on the house - though if you take more than ten I’d have to start charging again,” he added, chuckling. 

She took precisely ten corks with a coy smile, thanked him for his business and stuffed the box of vials in her backpack, which was now positively overflowing with belongings. It was time to find a room. Ina wandered back onto the streets until she found a large tree-home that advertised itself as an inn, with a sign that had grown straight out of the branches of the tree that enveloped the building. It was quite inventive, and Ina chuckled at the sight. 

Thirty minutes later Ina had obtained a room, unpacked her clothes and equipment, and changed into something more comfortable -- a black satin robe, with loose folds and flowy textile. The hum and buzz of the festival outside grew louder while she applied the kohl makeup to her eyes, and she felt the familiar purr of excitement in her chest. Losing herself in a crowd of strangers, locking eyes, quickening pulses… this was her favorite part. 

“Let’s have some fun,” she whispered to her reflection and winked.