Using her final errand of the day as an excuse, Raiva bid Octavia goodbye and walked in the direction of home.
/I really need to stop it. I'm already in a weird spot with Griffin and Victor. Honestly, what's wrong with me? I just had to go and mess with my boarders.
She came across another park, situated against the city walls, where a few artisan street vendors had set up in between trees and pathways.
Despite the early spring weather, the afternoon sun was hot, and so Raiva decided to take a stroll underneath the canopy of the trees and look around the small booths.
/It's going to be too warm again this summer. Two weeks since it rained, too.
She stopped at a selection of carved, wooden items, and one in particular caught her eye.
Raiva picked up a hairpin, delicately carved into a slightly curved pin, with some sort of flower at one end.
"What is this flower?"
"A lotus, miss," the clerk, a man not much older than herself, with a well maintained beard and beginning gray temples, replied with a polite nod and a friendly smile. "My wife's very fond of them. Can't help herself from putting them on anything she makes!"
"Your wife carved these? They're beautiful."
He puffed his chest up a little at the compliment.
"Aren't they just? She's from a family of woodworkers, but her floral carvings are second to none, if you ask me. Says she can't do boring busywork while she's stuck in the snow, so she's been making these pretty little things all winter!"
His boastful laugh rang out, causing a few heads to turn in their direction. She smiled in response.
/Is this what a marriage is supposed to be like?
"What kind of flower is a lotus?"
"It's some kind from further east, where my wife is from originally, grows in mud. Pretty though, isn't it?"
"In mud? That's unexpected," she raised her eyebrows, investigating the flower once again.
"Right?" he laughed again. "She says they mean 'new beginnings', 'cause they fold up and hide in the mud at night, then morning comes around and they pop right back out, good as new."
"Well, you've convinced me," she chuckled. "Do you have any other hairpins?"
"Naturally, miss," his smile widened. With a shrug, he elaborated, "This one's black sandalwood, but I have some ebony and rosewood ones as well, though they're not all this type of pin. Some have these brooches they stick through, though most of those have some type of decoration as well."
He showed her one of the hairpins in question; an ornately carved brooch in rosewood, also with a lotus motif, and an equally ornate twisted looking pin with dangling beads on the end, being held on by tiny, carved wooden chains.
She gasped, having never seen anything like it.
/That might be the finest bit of carving I have ever seen, I'm not sure even Giovanni's fine metal accessories from Iboratia could boast this level of intricacy. At this rate I might start becoming interested in dressing up after all.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" he laughed once again. "My wife doesn't wear them much here, since people stare too much, but I think they look incredible."
The look of fondness in his eyes was almost too much to bear.
/Alright, fine, yes, we do fashion now, I guess. Oh! The Gala! There's no way she won't be interested, right?
"May I ask for your name, sir?"
"It's just Finn, miss."
"Finn, would you permit me to invite you and your wife to my home in the near future? I would like to commission something from her. Oh, and I will be buying these two hairpins, as well as those three-" she pointed at the ebony hairpins displayed to her left, more sturdy looking than the others, but featuring delicate swirls and dotted relief patterns; two in the regular style and one of the brooch kind. "-if it isn't too much of a bother."
"I- what?" he seemed flustered for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. "I'll ask my wife, certainly, but she doesn't really do much commissions. She's the 'if I don't want to, I can't be assed' type of woman, if you'll excuse my language."
"Of course, it will be up to her. I'm simply hoping she'll hear me out first."
"I suppose so then."
He rubbed his neck, thinking something to himself.
"You'll want a discount then?"
Raiva hastily shook her hands, "Oh, no no, I will pay full price for the items. Anything else would be an insult to your wife's skills and hard work."
She rummaged in her purse, looking at him questioningly.
He smiled, grateful that he need not get into an argument over the price yet again today, though he still couldn't help but hesitate at the sum.
"That'll be two gold, eight silver, and a copper, miss."
"What? Absolutely not!" Raiva couldn't help but raise her voice, incredulous.
"I'm sorry, but the price of the wood alone-"
"My point exactly! For that price, even if you got leftovers from bigger production, that would barely cover expenditures including tools, let alone appropriate compensation for the sheer time spent on this! Not to mention the expertise involved or the craft she has evidently been perfecting for years and years," she scratched her eyebrow while shaking her head. "I will pay you four gold-"
"Miss!"
"-not out of flattery or some misguided sense of indignance, but because that is a very fair price for these, to the point that I feel like a thief."
She took out the coins from her purse and placed them firmly in his hand, which was still reaching in her direction in an attempt to stop her.
He looked at her for a moment, seemingly trying to find a way to hand them back. In the end, his pride in his wife's craft won out, and he decided to take her at her word on the worth of the items.
After all, neither he nor his wife were entirely sure of the marketability or fair value of the items, given that he usually dealt in furniture making and his wife wasn't accustomed to Echonan, or Prievoan, accessory prices.
Raiva on the other hand, having been involved with the nobles and merchants for many years, knew that the only reason the price she gave him was fair, was due to the craftsperson being unknown and there being a low demand for this exact type of item among the wealthy. It was currently a novelty, rather than an easy-to-value object, though her broad yet shallow understanding of materials and labor was enough to know that anything less would be borderline exploitative.
She looked at the pins once again, turning them over in her hands as she followed the decorations with her eyes.
/Anything short of 60 silver for each of these materials is ludicrous, and there's no way any of these took less than a full day to make, even for someone with a decade of experience, with the extravagant one being an easy week's worth of delicate, methodical carving. On top of procuring, transporting and treating the wood, as well as expenses for tools, and I presume good sharpening utensils? And you can't get around paying for technique.
She paused as she realized how odd she was for insisting on ruining "a good bargain".
/Well, as he always said, 'invest in people, not in things'. And he left it to us to do so.
Finn stood around awkwardly after putting the money in his pouch, looking at Raiva as she pondered. She finally noticed his stare, and put the accessories back on the table.
"Would you be so kind as to wrap them in some cloth for me, Finn?"
"Of course, miss!" he laughed, letting his tension go. As he carefully packed the items in a makeshift cloth parcel, he asked, "Before I forget, where should the wife and I go to meet you?"
"I live on Opal Street, number 17. The name's Raiva," she smiled as she picked up her parcel and finally headed home.