I don't own any characters in this WHOLE thing except for Jinx. Jinx is mine. The others are not. Moving on now…
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"Whether you think the price is decent or not, ma'am," I sneered in Elvish, "you still have to pay for them."
"Outrageous!" The fat-bellied twig-limbed amphibian blubbered, her massive sickly-yellow eyes boggling out of her slimy head. "Twelve bits for a half-dozen tooth faeries! I need their guts to curdle my pond stew, now take the seven bits and hand them over, you black-hearted, pale-skinned demon! You're crazy if you think I'll pay a dozen bits!"
I narrowed my amber eyes at her, gritted my teeth and tried to keep my temper. If there was anything I hated more than not being able to eat the amphibians that frequented my stall in the heart of the hustling-bustling Troll Market, it was serving the ones with attitude problems. And nearly all amphibians have attitude problems.
"Ma'am," I ground out, "Twelve bits is the price to pay for a full cage of my faeries. It's a lucky number, and it hasn't failed me yet. I can get you a half-cage for eight bits, but that's as low as I can go. For six faeries, however, the price remains. Twelve. Bits."
The delectable, hideous creature's throat sac swelled indignantly, drooping low over the moldy tunic that barely covered her bulging midsection. She spat a glob of sticky ooze onto my workspace and snorted with a curled lip, "Well it's failing you now. Twelve bits—Ha! What a load. I'll just take my perfectly reasonable seven bits elsewhere."
"What a relief. And here I was thinking I was going to have to stand here arguing with you, staring at your ugly excuse for a face for who knows how long! I'll have to pick up something later to sweeten my sleep to keep the sight of that out of my nightmares!" It's a policy of mine to stay more polite than my clientele only for as long as it takes to make a sale, but if the customer decides to take their business someplace else, the policy expires. Simple as that.
It seemed the amphibian's throat sac was going to pop, the way she was blowing it up; but finally she just spat again, deflated herself with a long, scornful croak, and stomped off with her big flat feet. For several moments I seriously considered going after her and having my dinner early, but before I could another customer appeared before me. I very nearly couldn't believe who it was, but it was unmistakable. His facial features positively reeked of nobility, and his ivory skin, pale hair, and golden eyes marked him an elf of the highest breed. Dressed in menacing black leather from neck to toe, a violent red sash about his waist tied together the ominous ensemble. The fact that the two dark crates he hefted, one in each hand, each bore the blisteringly bright Silverlance seal of war helped the effect on nicely.
He blinked at me, his coal-dusted eyelids flashing down but once, before setting down his crates with two impressive thuds and giving me a brief—very brief—smile.
"P-Prince Nuada!" I spluttered, accidentally slipping into the human tongue in my surprise. The long-exiled prince didn't seem to mind.
"How much would it be to fill these two crates?" He asked in Elvish, his visage polite as he gestured at them with a hand as pale as the full moon.
I could feel the tips of my ears becoming nearly as red as my choppy head of tousled fox-red hair, but I refused to be cowed. Such is the nature of a demon like me. So I met his question with my usual introduction.
"Jinks is the name, business is my game. As for those two crates, it depends on if they're poly-dimensioned. Are they as big as they seem?"
He nodded slightly and looked me straight in the eye as he answered, "These crates are duo-dimensioned. Twice as large. How much is it to fill them both?"
I pretended to look as if the answer eluded me for a moment as an excuse to break eye contact with the elf. It was unsettling, to lock gazes with a once-prince. Eventually I turned back to him, careful to keep my eyes away from his own, and gave him his answer. Not about to miss a beat, he untied a small pack from his hip and tossed it onto my table, uncomfortably close to the bubbling glob of amphibian spit still sitting there.
I swiftly grabbed the purse and judged it to be at least four-dimensioned, and nearly every inch of it was filled with pieces, which are worth a number more than bits. I could tell it was exactly the amount I had named, but I wasn't about to ask how the once-prince knew my prices, so I held up a finger, indicating I needed a moment.
"I'll have your order out in a minute, uh…" I wasn't sure whether or not to call him by his title, seeing as he was supposed to be in exile and all, so I just trailed off and turned around to pull the rough black clock off the massive cage behind me.
At once a screeching, chattering cacophony added to the usual Troll Market din as my assortment of tooth faeries were startled by the sudden light and sound. It was a silencing cloth I'd thrown over them, to keep them calm. Their little periwinkle bodies crashed against one another as they wildly careened about, their ragged wings beating the air as they swirled as if thrown by a torrent.
"Just a moment," I told the once-prince politely again—and then I threw open the cage door. With a flick of my first two fingers the dark crates opened wide their maws to take in the streams of little blue creatures I was directing toward them with my other hand. They were unable to fight my telekinetic ability, and soon—to my surprise—the cage was empty and the one-prince's crates were crammed full, rattling slightly only now and then.
"That's an interesting skill you have," he said softly before taking up his crates, one in each hand, again and making to turn away.
"Pardon me," I said with a politeness that usually only graced my most likeable customers, "but if you don't mind my asking, what is it you need so many tooth faeries for? Some kind of infestation you need them to eat off or something?"
He kept his back to me, and for a minute I thought he wasn't going to answer, but finally he half-looked over his leather-clad shoulder and replied, "It's in return for something I am going to take back. Something that should've never been given in the first place."
That sounded just a little too…ominous, for my liking, but I nodded as if I understood completely and watched as he, his dark crates, and his red sash disappeared into the crowd. I looked suddenly to my right to find a misshapen host staring at me with wide eyes, holding to his chest what looked like the beginnings of an infant tumor.
"What?" I asked innocently enough in the human tongue, grabbing the coin purse and stuffing it into the pocket of my human-made suit jacket.
He shook his oddly-shaped head, grimacing in a way that revealed his rotting remnants of teeth beneath lips that looked like dried caterpillars, and told me in a hoarse, nasally voice, "You chouldn't do vhat I know choo are going to do anyvay, Chinx. Just let it be!"
I shrugged carelessly and wiped my hands free of non-existent filth on my white, human-made, long-sleeved shirt before saying, "I don't have a clue what you're talking about—seriously. Your tongue must be swelling again, because I didn't understand a word you just said. Better get that checked."
The host clapped a wrinkled green-black hand over his mouth, being careful to support the tumor at his chest, which was still staring at me with adorable brown eyes, and hobbled off into the never-still throng of Troll Market consumers.
"Don't have a clue what you're talking about," I mumbled again to myself as I picked up the silencing cloth from the ground where it'd fallen and shrunk to the size of a placemat. I tucked the black material into the same pocket as my fresh cash, to silence the pieces jingling merrily against one another, and then hastily hung a Closed sign on the empty cage. The masses would just have to get their faeries somewhere else today, because curiosity was calling my name once again.
Find out what the once-prince is up to! It demanded of me, taking the leg of my human-made jeans and forcing me to take a step in the direction of the vanished elf. My bare toes gripped the filthy floor as if to protest another step, but I decided to give curiosity a chance to satisfy itself and moved on ahead.
I hope I know what I'm doing, I thought futilely as I pushed and shoved a path for myself through the press of bodies. Already I could feel the adrenaline saturating my veins, keeping me sharper than a never-dulling knife.
Jinx is my name, mischief's my game, and I never know what I'm doing until I'm doing it.
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A/N
Ah, I love the smell of fanfiction in the morning! Except, well…it's night and I can't smell the internet, but anyway…
I decided to do the poly-dimensional thing because there's no WAY the number of faeries that attacked HB and the crew fit into two little crates. Unless tooth faeries breed super fast or something.
I'm gonna try EXTRA SUPER hard not to mary-sue this character, Jinx, but this's all gonna run through the movie and stuff. That's right, I have a good deal of time on my hands.
If there's anything you need to tell me, concerning grammar, spelling, technicalities, plot, or whatever, PLEASE tell me!!
Jinx, I don't know if I said this in the text, is a female. You'll get more on her physical appearance later. Gawd, I hate mary-sues. Please tell me if I'm MS'ing my character, and I'll correct it in whatever way you tell me to.
Notice the host there with the baby tumor? Yeah, it's adorable, isn't it….The tumor's not fully formed in this scene, just fyi. Jinx owns a lot of human-made clothing…
Review? Please?