well, speckle me a monarch

They say the citizens of Castle Town didn't take a righteous notice to the fall of the Twilight, shrouding the palace itself and everything else any lower down so easily, so quietly, so slipped with velvet tones.

They say the hustle and bustle is just the same as it always was, just oblivious if not completely ignorant to the tragedy, like all natural scourges, that ripples all around.

Minoth noticed, though. He considers it a duty of his, as a self-appointed steward of odd and irreprisable objects. Why wouldn't he notice if the sky turned gauze-gray and began twinkling with filmy squares of indecision?

But there's nothing he can do about it, per se. If no one else has noticed, he doesn't quite feel right disturbing their peace, especially when he's already regarded as a bit of a wild card in the shopping ward. Not prominent like Jovani, not central like Telma, not sensational like Purlo, not high-falutin' like Chudley, not necessary like Borville, not unnecessary like Fanadi, not even debatably beneficial like the Gorons who peddle potions and oils on strange stairwells and parapets; to say nothing of the everyday grocers, the shoe-shiners, the shoppers, shoppers, shoppers all.

There is one like him, though. One inexplicable and indespicable.

One even odder than him: Princess Agitha, ruler of the bugs.

Agitha has a seemingly infinite supply of money, and she makes religious use of it buying new bugs, old bugs, cages for the bugs, glitter and sparkles and fairy lights, intricate umbrellas and delicate ones, hoop skirts and wicker baskets.

She'd buy most of it from Minoth if he actually kept this kind of junk around. Instead, he trades in ancient manuscripts, shattered Poe lanterns fossilized into wrought-iron flesh, paintings from places like Snowpeak and others most Hylians dare not name, artifacts of the royal family...

Stuff in grays and browns that appears as a mélange of murky subtext, undiscernable to the average, uninterested eye. Even Vandham, an apocryphal half-Goron hybrid beyond the pales of Ordon's Bo, writes it off as relative garbage - if no one can tell what it is, how's anyone ever gonna buy it off ya, huh?

So maybe Minoth's not doing himself any favors keeping a storehouse of stuff that couldn't possibly hope to interest his adopted charge, Iona.

He does hope himself, idly, that it'll be Agitha who interests Iona, and brings her out of her pre-teen post-traumatic shell. That'd be nice. Even personable, sociable.

But it'll never happen if he doesn't get a youth-sensitive handle on his...junk. They more or less live in a basement (cellar, is the polite word), and while he's careful to make sure that the wares stay in the storeroom, he can't deny that some have creeped out into his side of the living space, and begun nesting around his bed.

And Iona's afraid of Goron children, of course, which are most of the only children that might be accessible for her to see. Purlo's girls are just a few years too old, and they consider themselves, oh, frighteningly mature. No Zora children hang in the Hylian town, and the girls chasing their mothers' skirts instead of boys (what boys? there aren't any boys) don't have time to dally with an orphan child whose father is just strange, instead of strangely handsome.

(Well, Vandham disagrees with this little sentiment, and it's not only a small comfort, but Vandham is strange himself.)

He's gotta be an oddball, though. People will produce gold for the strangest of things - Jovani's whole situation is a prime example - and the schtick doesn't work if you're just a normal guy, a little bit boring.

How does Minoth sell himself and his wares? What's the best play, the best ply at pursestrings? Should he be an odd-jobs-man, should anyone ever actually ask, but really makes his bones on digging and sniffing for lostrel too precious for Gorons to be found mincing with? Should he style himself an archaeologist, a fanatic for the ancient ways of Hyrule, and bunk in with Falbi and Fyer about the personified chickens they keep around?

It's a bit much, though, one has to admit.

So most days, Minoth doesn't even worry about it. Iona is far more important and far more present and real.

Junk. Junk, junk, junk. That's what Vandham calls it, and usually Minoth has the gall to defend, but not with this bunch. A clattering array of busted, dirt-encrusted brooches, pendants, pins, and the like, all missing a plethora of stones from their settings and all doubtless cosmetic even if they were in pristine condition.

Puts into perspective how ridiculous a hobby, let alone an occupation, it is to be digging around in the caves of Hyrule Field, angling your mitts just shy of a Bombling in order to get at what it's guarding, sometimes when it doesn't even know the treasure's there.