Friday, September 25, 2020

Prompt 16: Lucubration

 The lalafell looked up from the page presented to him, and to the elezen sat in front of his desks. He took a sip from the glass of water on his desk, organized a few of the other papers he needed to sort through, and prepared to take his quill and ink to the page the elezen had presented.

Frieda smiled nervously, feathered hat clutched tightly in her hands, "Well?"

The lalafell looked up again, and gave a half-hearted service smile, "I believe we will be parting ways, miss Morrow. We'll pay you for your time," he trailed off scribbling a few things on the page, "And perhaps we can work together in the future."

Frieda's heart dropped, her hat drifting from her hands and into her lap.

"Oh." She gulped, trying to find the words to follow up, "Was something wrong?"

The man adjusted his glasses, and tried to sound as polite as possible. It was clearly a trained method of speaking, one that had been practiced for years, "We're running a business here, miss Morrow. It's entirely possible that your piece here is a wonderful bit of poetry. But we're looking for something catchy. A jingle that gets people spending gil here. If it were closer to Starlight, then we'd want more sentimental, so perhaps we'll consider you closer to then."

"B-but," she said, her stuttering ceasing as the man slid his writing across the desk.

"Take this to my secretary. He'll make sure you get paid for your time. Good day, miss Morrow."

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