Her Beasts

Shopping

After buying her prized salt, Iris was ready to explore more of the marketplace. Caspian slowly walked around with Iris in his arms, allowing her to take her time viewing what was on offer.

Besides the Golden Tradesman shop, there were shops dedicated to clothing, food, medicine, and miscellaneous trinkets. Most of the temporary shops were not nearly as meticulously organized as the more official shops and their selection was rather sparse.

Iris glanced down towards one of the temporary shops before glancing away. There were mostly just common medicinal herbs, animal hides that had been processed, stone bowls, and the occasional trinket. A few flowers and jewelry made from stones and animal bones would occasionally be on offer, clearly meant to appeal to the numerous males who wanted to earn a female's favor.

"You seem a bit bored with the selection here. Maybe the official shops will have something you'll like better?"

As Caspian said this, he turned to face the shop buildings. However, Iris was too distracted by a flash of black darting past them. Taking a closer look, it appeared to be a rather cute fox beast. His fur was mostly a beautiful shiny black with a whisper of white on the tip of his tail and along his paws. His chest also had white running down it. Iris couldn't help but want to chase after such a cute critter but before she knew it the fox disappeared into the crowd.

Soon Caspian had walked them over to a booth that seemed to be themed around clothing. Looking it over, all of it was very basic. There were some tube-style tank tops and dresses as well as skirts for both men and women. Seeing that Iris did not look impressed, Caspian chuckled before leaning close to her ear to whisper,

"Not your style huh? I'm afraid most clothing is like this. No one else can sew as well as my talented mate. If you'd like, we could buy some nice furs and more sewing supplies."

Being so close to Caspian felt rather intimate to Iris and despite growing used to being carried, she couldn't help but shiver as his warm breath caressed her ear.

"That sounds like a good plan. I'll have most of the cold season for such activities anyhow."

With that, Caspian haggled with the shopkeeper to sell him all the fish bone needles, sinew, and nicer furs they had. Bunny, fox, and chinchilla fur was rarer but also softer and prettier than most other prey. Anything else could easily just wait until Caspian caught more prey.

Besides the clothing, there were numerous animal hide bags and pouches. Caspian was going to purchase one to carry the new furs and sewing supplies, but Iris was quick to snatch the items up and stuff them into her special animal hide bag.

Caspian just blinked a few times in shock but quickly gave up. No point in arguing about where items were kept anyway. If his mate wanted to keep everything in a bag that suspiciously never seemed to run out of room, then so be it.

As for the shopkeeper he was just happy to have been paid the two colorless crystals. Why would he care about a cute female acting willfully?

The next few shops that they walked through had various trinkets. There were many large stone pots and bowls as well as more processed furs and hides. These seemed to be the most common goods for sale.

However, occasionally there would be nice items like intricately carved stone boxes and pots with lids. The stone boxes reminded Iris of a jewelry box and as such she decided to get an especially pretty one with flower and vine-like patterns carved on it.

This same shop also happened to have several more delicate pots that appeared to be made from clay. Looking at them carefully, Iris confirmed that definitely must be the case. It was likely that it was either Lacustrine or Alluvial clay from the lake or river nearby.