#stance on this stuff so this is a huge caveat with my answer since i’ve never had an ask like this and i’m assuming people

[azvolrien]

Water Horses - Chapter Three

Fun With Fantasy Economics

~~~

           They loaded the panniers back onto Pardus���s back and led the construct along the path toward the market.

           “How does this usually work?” asked Asta. “Do you set up a stall?”

           “You can,” said Roan, “but there are always a couple of merchants who’ll just buy the whole lot in one go. So I usually have a wander around to determine how much things are going for and sell to one of them. You make more money running a stall – it’s not like you need to pay a fee for it; you can just arrive and set up – but the convenience of going to a buyer can often be worth it if you don’t have the patience for a stall.”

           “And what have you got today?”

           Asta stopped dead. “Who said that?”

           A huge creature leapt down from the summit of a rock formation to their left, landing neatly on the path in front of them. Razor-sharp talons, each one six inches long – a cruelly hooked beak bigger than any eagle’s – keen, utterly inhuman yellow eyes – Asta backed behind Pardus, ready to leap into the saddle and run back to the boat.

           “Oh, it’s just you,” said Roan. “Morning, Pirate.”

           “What’s the matter with her?” asked the creature – Pirate? “Has she never seen a gryphon before?”

           “It’s possible that she hasn’t,” said Roan thoughtfully. “Asta? You can come out – he won’t hurt you.”

           “Sorry if I gave you a bit of a fright,” said Pirate. “Most people who come out here are used enough to us. Most Stormhaven crews have a gryphon or two among them.”

           Without the detail-focus provided by sheer panic, it was easier to take in the whole picture. On all fours, Pirate was big enough to stand eye-to-eye with Roan, while his wings might have been more than twenty feet across if he fully unfolded them. His feathers were a uniform dark tan colour across his whole body, save for a golden-brown strip back between his pointed ears and a black patch over one eye. Asta managed a nervous smile.

           “I don’t think I’ve seen you come here with another person before,” said Pirate, addressing Roan again. “What’s up?” He peered more closely at Asta, and his eyes narrowed. “You haven’t started trading in slaves, have you?” His tone suggested that things could get extremely nasty if the answer was ‘Yes’.

           Asta swallowed and edged out from behind Pardus. “No, she hasn’t – I’m an escapee. She thought I might be able to get passage to Stormhaven here.”

           “Oh, that’s all right, then,” said Pirate, brightening.

           “Is your captain around?” asked Roan. “I thought she might be the best bet.”

           “She’s up at the market,” said Pirate. “Come on, I’ll walk with you.”

           “So… you’re a pirate?” asked Asta as they walked.

           Pirate laughed, or at least he made a strange clacking sound in his throat that seemed to be the gryphon equivalent. “No, just a smuggler. ‘Pirate’ is my name – after this.” He tapped the back of one talon against his black marking. “And our crew doesn’t deal in… questionable goods,” he added, seeing that Asta still looked uncertain. “No drugs, slaves or weapons. Everything we carry is harmless. We just, ah… bypass the official tariffs on it.”

           “It’s a long and illustrious tradition,” said Roan, deadpan. “Here we are.”

           The market didn’t exactly look like Asta’s idea of a smugglers’ den, though her idea had mostly been gleaned from childhood adventure novels. A couple of dozen stalls had been set up around the perimeter of a wide, sandy ‘square’, with canvas awnings stretched over their stockpiles of goods. People – not looking furtive at all – wandered around, stopping at this stall or another and haggling over whatever they bought or sold. The majority of them were human, but another gryphon hung around a campfire near one stall, and an elf in the black habit of a Starwatch acolyte was deep in negotiations over a sack of coffee beans. Although it was not as refined as Siraki Square back in Duncraig, where the ground was paved with polished granite slabs and the stalls in permanent stone-built booths, in most other ways it could have been any village square on market day.

           The biggest difference, other than the location, was how many of the traders were armed. Roan still carried her spear, and almost everyone but Asta and the gryphons sported at least a long knife at their belt, if not more formidable weaponry. The gryphons, of course, had their talons.

           Pirate led them over to the stall with the other gryphon, who was conversing with two humans over a chart laid out on a crate. “Captain! These two would like a word with you.”

           “Captain Steel,” said Roan with a respectful nod.

           “Roan NicBruide,” said the gryphon in reply. Like Pirate, she had clearly been named for her appearance: unlike him, her eyes were a shade of grey very like Roan’s, and the feathers around both of them made a silvery mask. She wore a leather harness around her chest, carrying a number of handy satchels, but the closest things she had to rank insignia were a couple of silver rings piercing her ears and a scarf tied around her neck, the fine wool dyed a very expensive shade of purple. She glanced briefly at Asta, her eyes narrowing as Pirate’s had when she noticed the collar. “Looking to sell?”

           “Yes, but not her,” said Roan. She quickly explained the situation, with a few details from Asta.

           Steel raked the talons of one hind foot through the feathers on her belly. “Well, with regards to selling, I know McClellan at the far stall there has a reputation for giving a fair price. Takes the stance that you’ll lose money in the long run by swindling people, since fewer people will want to trade with you. With regards to you, Ms zeDamar…” She trailed off, her eyes narrowing in thought again. “No, no, this is annoying me too much. Keelan, run down to Blayney and get the bolt cutters, will you? I’m taking that collar off her.” One of her human crew nodded and ran off. “Back to the matter of your passage.” She gestured with a wing for them to follow her over to the chart. “I would, of course, be delighted to offer you passage to Stormhaven. Our laws not just allow but require sanctuary to be given to escaped slaves, and on a more personal level we’re always happy to thumb our noses at the trade. So to speak.”

           “However…?” said Asta, sensing an incoming caveat.

           Steel inclined her head towards her. “We aren’t going directly back to Stormhaven.” She tapped the point of a talon against the map, showing the route plotted out. “We’re heading north – all the way up to Valsnes at the mouth of Myrkfjord.”

           “Won’t you hit the sea ice at this time of year?” asked Roan.

           “We expect to, yes,” said Steel. “That’s why Curlew is travelling in convoy with Narwhal – it’s an icebreaker. So.” She flexed her wings and folded them more closely against her back. “Would I be correct in saying you would prefer not to accompany us up to Valsnes?”

           “It does sound rather cold,” admitted Asta.

           Steel laughed. “Thought as much. We’ll be back here in about a month. If you still want to leave with us, the offer will still stand.”

           “Think you can handle another month in the broch?” asked Roan.

           “If you don’t mind having me.”

           “You’re easy enough company,” said Roan. “I’m going to go and check the market values – will you be all right staying with Pardus and this lot to mind our stuff?” When Asta nodded, Roan shouldered her spear and set off along the row of stalls.

           Steel chuckled.

           “What?” asked Asta.

           “Nothing, really,” said Steel. “She just always reminds me somewhat of one of the journeyman wizards up at the College back at home.”

           “How so?” asked Pirate, tilting his head.

           “Colour scheme, mainly.” Steel turned away from the chart to rummage in one of the crates. “While Ms NicBruide is off on her rounds, can I offer you some tea?”

           Keelan returned with the bolt cutters as another of the crew started boiling a kettle on the campfire. A human might have had trouble breaking the metal, but with the strength of a gryphon behind them the bolt-cutters sliced through the brass collar with ease.

           Asta pulled it free and rubbed her throat. “It’s been years,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

           “Think nothing of it.” The kettle began to whistle over the fire. Its handle was bigger and wider than normal, allowing Steel to hook her talons under it and start pouring out the boiling water.

           “You – you said you were travelling with the Narwhal?” asked Asta.

           “That’s correct, yes.” Steel dipped the tip of her beak into her own mug. “Curlew is good for sailing up and down the coast – its design has a good compromise between speed and cargo space – but it doesn’t have the hull for sea ice. Narwhal is designed to break right through it.”

           “I think I saw it being launched, back in Duncraig,” said Asta. “It’s actually a construct, isn’t it?”

           Steel looked rather impressed by this question. “Yes – the biggest ever grown. It carries the ‘ship’ on a harness on its back, while its skull is ridged and armoured for breaking ice. The armour looks a little like its namesake’s horn, but much sturdier.”

           “The Constructists back at home will never admit it,” supplied Pirate, “but the ones in Duncraig are working on some very exciting stuff with aquatic constructs.”

           “They still have a while to go until producing constructs like Narwhal is entirely practical,” said Steel, “but at least they’ve proved the concept is sound. More tea?”

           Roan returned after about a quarter of an hour to find Asta deep in conversation with Steel, Pirate, Keelan and a couple of other crew members about the merits of grown constructs versus built ones.

           “I suppose they both have their positives and negatives,” said Asta. “Speaking as an enthusiastic observer, that is – the only magic I can do is to summon and dismiss Pardus here,” she stroked her construct’s nose, “and that’s all in the summoning stone, not in me.”

           “Grown constructs are much less wasteful,” said Keelan. “Once made, they last for a lifetime.”

           “That’s true, but they’re also much slower to make,” said Pirate. “A skilled Constructist can knock together a half-decent built construct in a couple of days, if they have the materials for it; Narwhal took months to grow, and Pardus would have taken – what, a fortnight?”

           “That’s about right, yes,” said Asta. “I would ultimately argue that grown constructs are better for personal transportation – a bound construct can’t be stolen; Pardus will never obey anyone but me, or Daro would have taken it to sell – but built ones are probably more economical on an industrial scale.”

           Roan cleared her throat, hiding her smile behind her fist. “Speaking of your construct – I need it to carry our stuff over to McClellan’s stall.”

           Asta waved farewell to the Curlew crew and led Pardus after Roan.

           “That seemed to go well,” Roan commented.

           “…Did you leave me alone with them to see if I could trust them?”

           “No, I knew full well you could trust them. I left you alone with them to see if you could stand them enough to share a boat with them.”

           “Very cunning,” said Asta flatly, half-suppressing a smile.

           “You look much better with the collar off, by the way,” Roan added. “You stand taller without it.”

           McClellan’s reputation for fairness turned out to be accurate: he gave Roan a good price for the fish, pelts, vegetables and other goods Each-Uisge had borne over from the mainland, enough to buy fresh supplies with a little left over to set aside. All in all, Pardus was hardly less laden returning to the boat than it had been when they arrived.

           “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you talking about your interests,” said Roan, packing a sack of oats into the locker. “So you like constructs, then?”

           Asta passed a bag of bread rolls down to her. “Yes. They were something of an obsession when I was little – I used to sit in my window for hours, just watching for any passing by in the street – and I’ve made a bit of a study of them ever since. I know all the steps and spells for how to make one, too – I just…” She held out one hand palm-up, demonstrating her complete lack of magical ability. “…can’t actually do it.”

           Roan glanced at Pardus, then looked back at Asta and raised an eyebrow.

           “Pardus was a gift,” explained Asta. “My parents commissioned it to celebrate my university graduation.”

           Roan nodded and packed the rolls in next to the oats. “That must have cost them a fair bit.”

           “I think they started saving up as soon as I matriculated,” said Asta. “They couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. We weren’t poverty-stricken, but not exactly rich either. We had enough for everything we needed, but not necessarily everything we wanted.” She sighed and looked out at the horizon.

           Roan let the silence lie for a couple of seconds before she cleared her throat again and pointed at the next item, a smallish bale of woollen cloth. “That Daro lad probably got everything he wanted growing up, and look how he turned out.”

           Asta shook her head as if to clear it, rubbing the back of one hand against her eyes, and half-laughed, half-winced. It was easier to joke about Daro when he was well out of sight. “Yes, that’s him in a nutshell.” She lifted the roll of cloth and handed it down, and climbed back into the boat herself once everything was packed away.

           “Time to go,” said Roan, coiling the mooring rope and hanging it over its hook. “For obvious reasons, we need to be back at the broch before dark.”

           “Do the water horses like that beach as well?” asked Asta as Roan readied the sail and adjusted the tiller.

           “Not as much as they like the rocks, for some reason,” said Roan. “But still – best to avoid it after dark just in case.”

           They were almost back to the mainland when Roan suddenly pressed a finger to her lips and pointed into the water alongside the boat, jerking her head in the same direction when Asta just gave her a confused shrug in reply. Asta nodded and, keeping low and moving slowly, shifted from one side of the boat to the other to peer over the side.

           The water was murky with peat and silt washed down from the hills, but even so the great mottled shape was clear enough. Riabhach the water stallion was keeping pace with the boat just below the surface of the water, and close up it became clear that he was not only bigger than his fellow water horses, he was longer than the boat and easily big enough to shatter its planking should he take exception to its presence.

           Roan pointedly met Asta’s eyes and pointed downwards, before sliding off her seat in the stern to crouch in the bottom of the hull. Asta nodded back and copied her. The boat creaked and rocked as Riabhach’s back scraped against the underside. Roan and Asta stared at each other, holding completely still for a few minutes. Something broke the surface; a huge snout let out a gruff snort. Then, nothing. Roan gestured for silence again and carefully sat back up to look over each side of the boat in turn.

           “He’s gone,” she said, sitting back in the pilot’s seat with a sigh of relief. “Close one, though.”

           “Would he have attacked the boat?” asked Asta, fighting back the tremor in her voice.

           “He never has,” said Roan, with a grimace that acknowledged this was not a reassuring ‘no’. “I’ve never been wholly sure how clever they are. I’m pretty sure he knows a boat isn’t prey or a rival – but I don’t know if he thinks it’s just an interesting piece of flotsam, or if he knows full well it’s something people ride in and just didn’t think we were enough of a threat to bother with.”

           “Maybe he’s less territorial towards things he meets out at sea? If the rocks and beaches are where all his, his wives and children are most unsafe?”

           Roan gave her an odd look with a small smile. “I’ve never heard anyone refer to a water horse as having wives and children before. But that would make some sense, aye.”

           At last, Each-Uisge ran back up on the beach and Roan climbed out to shove it back into the shed. “With a bit of time to spare, too,” she said, gesturing towards the western horizon, where the sun was sinking lower but had not yet turned red. “We’ll – well, Pardus will carry everything back to the broch in one trip, and then you can help me get Vanessa and the girls locked up.”

           Asta paused in the middle of summoning Pardus back out of its stone and blinked. “Who’s Vanessa?”

           “The boss hen.”

           “Oh. You’re talking about the chickens.” She held the summoning stone up and stood back to let Pardus materialise around it. “The chickens have a boss?”

           “Of course!” Roan lifted the panniers, ready to swing them across Pardus’s back. “Haven’t you heard of a pecking order?”

           “Very funny.” Roan just grinned, and started loading the panniers as soon as they were in place.

           With the hens safely cooped up for the night – and feisty Vanessa duly identified as having a redder tail than the others – Roan unlocked the broch door and let them back into the gloom of the interior. The fire had died down to a few glints of red among the ash, but it still cast some warmth out into the room.

           “Well, then,” said Roan, dusting off her hands once everything from the market had been properly stored away. “Looks like we’re stuck with each other for a month.” Nothing in her tone suggested she was disappointed about this.

           Asta folded her arms, leaning against the wall by the stairs. Roan’s wound tincture had done its work well; covered by the dressing and her tunic, the wounds on Asta’s back were no longer unbearable to the touch. “Funnily enough,” she said, smiling, “I think I’m all right with that.”

~~~

Steel doesn’t actually know Wygar; I’m not sure if she even knows what his name is. He just has a very memorable appearance.

Roan is more sentimental about her hens than you might expect. She doesn’t even eat them once they stop laying.