It's late, near closing, but from the sounds of it, a seminar is still going strong in the other room. The storefront itself is all but deserted, with a single browser wandering the aisles and fingering the fabrics and yarns available in the displays. Wearing a shop apron made of intricately woven textiles which would cost a fortune on the market, a too-slender young woman who desperately needs more food slowly moves about the shop to straighten misplaced skeins, rearrange disarranged displays and generally tidy the place up, her mid-back oak brown hair held back by a rolled up kerchief. A broom is leaning against a counter nearby, dustpan awaiting further use.
The mermaid doesn't own a car, but every so often she day-pledges with someone long enough to get a good enough license that will allow her to rent a car. Today it was the mrbl, promising to bring her otter a bag of shellfish from the market. Having left her mrbl at World's A Part so said mustelid can stink up the place by climbing up onto a pile of junk and smashing open oysters with a rock, then throwing the empty shells near Maddox's workshop totally on purpose, Etsy went to pick up Nathania and drove the two of them to the textile store.
Interestingly enough, Etsy's actually quite good driver. Couriers are required to be. She's taken off her white sash, though, and stuffed it into the fabric cross-body bag that she's wearing; it's tatty at the corners but not as tatty as her silk slippers, which seem to almost not touch the ground, though the key word there is almost. She's a flutter of loose fabric with a leather belt hanging around her narrow hips, and from that leather belt, a metal mirror of the 'Victorian hand mirror' style, which doesn't look old at all. It looks like it could have been made yesterday, because robot boyfriends ask metal nicely if it can be super shiny. Yay, robot boyfriends.
Humming a little tune to herself, Etsy holds the door for Nathania, standing back a bit to allow the dolly to go into the textile store first. Etsy likes to knit and sew, but she isn't, well... Nathania about it or anything. "Helloandgoodevening!" she calls toward the store's interior. That has the sound of a scripted phrase recited from rote, but musically so, a sweet siren's song.
Nathania gently smiles at Etsy. "Thank... you for holding... the door. And driving. What... do I owe you... for gas, darling?" she asks her friend, before looking around the store proper. And her eyes get *big*. Buttons as big as dinnerplates, human eyes damn near comically large. "Oh, how... did I not find... this store before? It's almost... like the Craft Nook, Etsy." She looks toward the employee on deck and says, warmly, in her halting little voice, "Your store... is beautiful."
The browser in the shop glances back at the door, when it opens, but doesn't seem concerned when it proves to be two women obviously new to the shop. The voice of another woman, or is it a man?, continues from the room on the right hand wall (if entering the shop), explaining something about the differences between necessary mordants in plant fibers vs. animal fibers, due to the proteins involved, muffled somewhat by the building and by distance. It is NOT a small shop, but it isn't giant, either. Airy, spacious, plenty of room to walk around without knocking things over.
In contrast to the blase reaction of the browser, the aproned woman promptly jumps in surprise, though it's unclear whether the surprise is due to the unexpected arrival or just WHAT has walked into her store. "Uhm. Feel free to look around. We're closing in half an hour, but we open again tomorrow at eight." The voice is normal, a little hesitant, a little tired.
Nathania blinks at the employee, but nods. "All right. We... won't be long," she promises with a softness. "I used to... own a store in my old... hometown. Very similar, in fact." She looks around wistfully, before gravitating to the yarn. She begins to browse, but keeps an eye on her phone in her right hand. The clock on it is visible and slowly flipping through minutes.
Sianna does her best not to look, but it's awfully difficult to ignore the fact that the person talking to her looks like a rag doll. And is that -yarn- for hair? Muddy hazel eyes slide sideways to inspect the varieties of yarn Nathania is browsing through, searching for resemblance. Surely it's a costume. "Uhm. Let me know if you need anything?" She looks from Nathania to Etsy, then glances aside when the browser starts to head back toward the counter at the rear of the room, hastening off to help the other customer check out his goods.
"Mmm," agrees Etsy, her voice a musical rise and fall, that absent noise a gentle glissando. She blinks slowly at the jumping customer, and then turns her attention to Nathania, flipping her hand absently. "No, is a goodness. Is just maybe buy a coffees for me a laters, or help to pick outs a fabrics for dresses. Am think am going to make a shop belt for a Maddox and a dresses for me." Her webbed fingers gently touch the back of Nathania's hand. "Is not unlike. Craft Nook a homes for mer-- for me," she corrects herself as they're addressed. Surely Sianna just misheard her almost start the word 'mermaid' and then clear her throat so delicately. She is the most innocent of mermaids, after all. Her Spring Mantle splays out across the floor, sending illusory runners up bolts of fabric and sprouting tiny white flowers from skeins of yarn. "Yes, am needings," she addresses Sianna. "Am needings very sturdy fabric of making work belts, and is holding off a grease as best can hold off a grease."
Nathania smiles to Sianna. "Sure." And then she looks to Etsy. "Oh. Fabric for... a dress? I'm happy... to help. A nice blue-green, maybe..." She puts down the yarn and heads for the fabric while Etsy addresses Sianna.
Sianna smiles at the browser-turned-customer as she slips behind the register to ring up his purchases, a mildly distressed look cast in Etsy's direction when the .. whatever she is .. starts talking to her again. And -- plants? On her fabric? She blinks twice behind her glasses, then awkwardly bangs shut the drawer of the register, handing over the receipt. Once the man is out of the building, she hesitates, fingers a smidge unwilling to unlock from the counter's edge they are currently clinging to. "Y-you could try duck cloth, and treat it after dyeing it," she suggests, looking toward the small section of undyed fabrics of that variety, in varying weights. Seeing as her store is aimed more at the small-batch custom-made sort of crafter, it doesn't have nearly as many pre-made pre-dyed materials as, say, a big box Joann's would.
"Yes." Etsy is very agreeable tonight, especially where Nathania is concerned. "Am not a thinks Maddox will notice a dress of niceness for a going outs, because is not go beep beep or fly or shoot lasers out of eyeballs, but will make me feel a betters to have a dress of very much niceness for a Maddox and an Etsy." She rocks absently back and forth on her feet, her hands flaring at her sides. If one didn't know better, one might think that her idle motions are the landlocked version of instinctively treading water. "Yes! Am thinks a blue-greens." And then she smiles, close-lipped, at Sianna, nods her head, and drifts toward the duck cloth. "What colors for lightings, you think, Nat? Or maybe an embroideries? And what is you gets?"
Nathania considers. "I dunno, Etsy. I'm... going to get... that carrot-y orange yarn." She gestures to two skeins she'd deliberately set out before wandering over. "Mmm. Blue. And then.. yellow... embroideries." She smiles and holds up a length of satiny fabric. "How's... this?"
A small handful of people start to trail out of the weaving room, calling farewells over their shoulders and, from a few of them, farewells to Sianna also, referring to her as Dr. Doran. The awkward young woman smiles back, and seems abundantly relieved when a shorter, plumper, almost chickadee-like native American woman follows the rest out of the room. She's wearing an apron of slightly less exquisite textile, but still very well woven. "Natalie, would you mind closing up for me?" The woman glances at the two remaining guests, then laughs and shakes her head, waving Sianna off with a light, "Don't worry about it. I'll help them find what they need."
Sianna, immensely relieved, smiles briefly and somewhat nervously to Nathania and Etsy, then walks out through the door in the rear wall of the shop.
Nathania watches Sianna go with big eyes before looking to Natalie with a shrug. Then she glances to Etsy again, holding the fabric up still. "It'll... be a pain... to dye, but I think... I can manage!" she says with a smile. "If I can use... the same dye... on synthetic... yarn as synthetic... fabrics." She shrugs. "We'll... buy enough... for me to... experiment with." She smiles warmly at Etsy, somehow including Natalie in that smile, too.
"If is too difficults to have a dyes, can just make. A Maddox will not, honestly, notices much of colors probably," Etsy sighs, making that little dismissive gesture as she starts gathering up bolts of cloth. Duck cloth for the robot boyfriend and silk for herself. The two materials couldn't be more different. And yet. "What is going to makes for self?" she asks of the dolly, and her smile includes the worker too, even if it includes no teeth at all. Etsy doesn't show her teeth.
Not until she means it.
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