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Gift Shop

Sailor Bacchus couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a marketplace with anything particularly interesting, and the ancient senshi felt vindicated in his decision to bring along the proper gifts. It still felt a bit foolish, paying obeisance to ancient s**t that no other living person remembered, though the fact that he carried an idol pilfered from one of the liars’ dens did give him some defiant and possibly hypocritical satisfaction as he swaggered toward this semblance of a market day.

A playful grin crossed his face as he strode over to the strange merchant, “So, I’ve heard this is where the magic happens?”

He had heard no such thing, but considering the appearance of the “gift shop” it seemed like a reasonable guess. Approaching the table, he summoned a series of items from his subspace. Empty ritual or not, or still felt important to some stupid distant part of himself that he would much rather lose to the centuries with the rest of him.

Rough rings of gold, silver, and copper jingled on a short length of leather cord knotted into a loop as he laid it on the table.

Sharing the clan’s wealth.

Not like there were many people around to represent with those clattering bits of metal and since the worst of the spores had receded a bit, the skeletons were far less likely to talk back if he asked their opinion.

A tiny, teardrop shaped flask made from mold-blown glass followed, its surface adorned with what resembled a network of roots.

A fine grey powder resided within, filling the vessel not quite to the top.

Dancing with the Grey Lady required a willingness to breathe in her perfume. Bacchus had never been entirely certain if she actually did open his consciousness to the wonders of the universe, but even if Almadel was disinclined to partake, her presence was still needed to oversee the exchange.

Finally, the deep space senshi produced a bottle of golden spiced mead plucked from his private reserve. Bacchus done so much to protect his cellar from the spores, and in that endeavor at least he’d been successful. Much as he resented himself for the small scale of his victories, he was grateful that he retained some small degree of control over the quality of his handiwork. The craftsmanship of the bottle wasn’t of quite the same quality as the small flask he’d provided, but he was confident that the contents would make up for it.

Or they had bloody well better.

After centuries of practice it would be a true accomplishment to be bad at it. A greater disgrace still would be to present something subpar to his host. Under ordinary circumstances they would share a drink from the bottle as a means of opening the trade with trust and good cheer, but something about that would have felt strange in a place like this.

“Now, with gifts given I offer in trade this token of the ancients.” The words felt wrong, imprecise in this clumsy human tongue, but there was little he could do.

With a flourish he called forth a figurine roughly the length of his hand and set it on the desk before them. Carved from a mossy green stone, the form of a woman stared boldly upward at Almadel with eyes inlaid with an unfamiliar iridescent material. Branching golden antlers grew rootlike from her head, complementing the gleam of her surprisingly intricate jewelry. The artisan clearly took a great deal of pride in their craft, working the stone until it fell in deceptively delicate looking folds across her body. At her feet, a faded Tuath inscription made some ancient declaration that Bacchus had long since begun to consider insulting, though it would represent no betrayal to this stranger.

Bacchus appreciated the levity of the trader’s tone, it felt appropriate for someone who spent his life gallivanting about the galaxy obtaining these treasures of questionable provenance. If he’d ever encountered the man on Bacchus, the senshi’s opinion might have shifted somewhat, but as he saw it now, the dead had little claim to what they’d left behind. It wasn’t like they were going to come looking for it on their barren worlds.

“It’s only right, after all you are our host.” His people’s complicated dances of hospitality and commerce weren’t quite as lost on him as he might have worried. He imagined that some of the stuffier members of his civilization would have commentary, but their bones were too far underground for their opinions to matter all that much to him.

“Of course, just be careful of the antlers, I think they were delicate even when they were new.” The second question probably should have embarrassed him, there were times when it would have, but any gods who might have demanded his reverence were either dead or undeserving of his devotion. If they’d ever existed, anyway. “In a temple, if she objected she could have had the ground swallow me.” He shrugged, “As it stands, I don’t think anyone has more of a right to it than I do and I’m happy to offer her to you.”