Haute Couture

When Caspian arrived at the beast city, he began to be heckled by the guards. It seems quite a few people remembered him and his little mate and they were making jokes about Caspian falling out of favor after the beauty pageant. Others were curious as to when they'd see Iris again after seeing her beauty once.

This just made Caspian glad that he was no longer guarding Iris alone. Ember was far stronger than Caspian and it would be good to have an extra pair of eyes to watch for trouble from now on.

Caspian found a good spot to set up his temporary shop and laid a few beastskin down. One would not suffice for the sheer amount of items Caspian had brought with him today.

Caspian carefully arranged all the clothes along the left side and all the leftover gifts on the right side of the animal hides. Then, Caspian carefully arranged the cookies on display in the middle alongside the games with their pieces. In front of him, Caspian had several pieces of beast hide in varying sizes to wrap purchases with.

As soon as people began to notice Caspian's stall, they began to form a long line to purchase from him. This confused Caspian who had previously had such a poor reception previously. However, a rather talkative first guest quickly answered his confusion.

"Oh man! You have no idea how hard I've been trying to find clothes like these! They're all my female has been talking about lately, but no one else in all the nearby tribes and cities had anything like it. You've got to sell some to me. Come on, I'll pay anything!"

Caspian was surprised to hear word of his mate's clothing style had spread so far. Caspian decided to try charging an uncolored crystal per outfit and still easily sold out in no time. Caspian was now quite excited to share with Iris that they had made 100 uncolored crystals just off of her outfits.

The Manacala game appeared quite strange to the beastmen and only a rare few asked about it. When they did, Caspian happily explained how to play the game and he managed a few sales. However, most of the sales of Manacala and cookies did not occur until his fellow tribesmen showed up.

As per usual, Holly and Fawn were some of the first to arrive. Seeing that Iris wasn't here today, Holly's face fell. Still, Holly wanted to support her friend and have the nice items Caspian was selling. Thus, Daniel stepped forward to speak for his mate

"It's a shame you already sold out of outfits. I hear they've been getting quite popular. I'm glad that the games and cookies are still a well kept secret or else my mate would be disappointed. How much are they?"

Caspian easily answered

"The Manacala is one uncolored crystal per set and the cookies are ten per uncolored crystal."

Daniel nodded in understanding and happily purchased twenty cookies and two copies of Manacala. Their family of five would require, at least, two copies to be able to play at the same time. As for the cookies, they'd have bought all of them if they could afford it. Holly simply loved Iris's sweets too much.

The pricing on the game was so high despite the simple materials because it was a novelty item not sold elsewhere. There was no such things as games in the beastworld and the idea for such a thing was valuable in itself. As for the cookies, not only were sweets, outside of honey, non-existent, but they were also a well made good others couldn't replicate.

Besides that, beastmen could only count as high as the number of fingers on their hands. After that, beastmen didn't know what came next and would just start again from one. For example, they might say "I'll take ten and two of those" rather than twelve. This made it easy for beastmen to lose count and get confused at numbers higher than ten.

When it was Fawn's turn, she quickly bought out the last of the games and cookies. Fawn had enough mates that she could more easily afford nice items even if they were barely stronger than Holly's mates.

After that, Caspian just had to finish selling the gifts Iris had not wanted. These items Caspian was more willing to sell at a discount despite them being normal items that sold decently. Caspian simply did not care since Iris didn't make them or want them. Thus, when Iris arrived, Caspian had just sold the last of the shop stock.

Iris was actually being carried by Ember in the same way Caspian always carried her. Even with a stronger mate, it seems Iris could not escape her fate of being overprotected.

Caspian happily stood up and brought the crystals he had learned to his little mate. He proudly exclaimed

"We made a lot of money today. There are more than 100 crystals there. It seems we should purchase extra animal hides and furs today. Everyone seems to want to buy your unique clothing for their mates so I was even able to sell them for a crystal each."

Caspian looked quite proud of himself as he stood with his head held high. Iris was happy to have made so much money, but she still shook her head as she explained

"There aren't enough females around to sell these clothes indefinitely. Eventually they will no longer want the clothes so much that they are willing to pay that high of a price. Besides this, it's possible that other clothes makers might buy our clothes and try to copy the style.

It's better to buy and make the same amount of clothes for next time. Then, whenever sales slow down, we can stop buying more materials until everything sells out.

I can only come up with so many new styles as well. Perhaps it would be better to increase our selection of goods instead. There are more males who need clothes and people who use bags for example. Plus, we could consider some accessories that are more unique than what is currently sold."

Caspian seemed to have stars in his eyes as he listened to Iris's advice. His mate was not only good at making new things, but she also seemed to have good sense. Caspian was more than happy to follow Iris's lead on these things as long as she was happy.

Ember continued to carry Iris around while remaining on guard against others. Meanwhile, Caspian would negotiate and pay for goods that Iris wanted. Iris was, luckily, able to convince her mates to let her lift her hood just enough to see better; even if they still insisted she wear it.

Iris decided to buy another batch of salt the same size as the last time from the Golden Tradesman alongside any herbs she was running low on. Iris was wanting to use the salt to try and make jerky later in the week. As jerky was a luxury in the modern world, Iris felt it would be quite nice to try making some now.

After that, Iris went around to select animal hides for clothes, including some nicer soft furs. Iris quite liked having a varied wardrobe and would often make herself new styles of dress that fit the weather or occasion. Caspian was happy to see Iris taking care of herself and would not complain so long as she kept the best furs for herself.

After buying furs, Iris had just one last shop to stop at. Since Basil returned home with Iris, there was no need to stop by the witch doctor's after all. Thus, it was off to the food market stalls.

The food stall that usually had meat also had other options this time. With sufficient time to gather food resources, there was now more variety. There was the usual meat alongside small eggs and even some fish.

This made Iris quite happy as she liked to eat seafood and more eggs would mean she could bake other types of sweets. Of course, often eggs would be fertilized in the beast world, so Iris would have to chill them to keep them from developing into baby animals.

"Caspian, I want to buy eggs and seafood. I don't know how much they cost, but I'd like to buy a couple dozen eggs, if possible. Since freshness is an issue with fish, just buy enough to add to dinner tonight."

Caspian nodded his head with a doting look in his eyes as he took in Iris's eagerness. Caspian had seen Iris fry up the tiny eggs Holly had brought over during the cold season, but he hadn't realized Iris liked eggs to such an extent.

As eggs as small as these ones were easier to obtain even for non-awakened beastmen, it put their price as lower than larger ones. Still, eggs were much rarer than meat so the best price Caspian could manage to haggle for was an uncolored crystal per six eggs.

Caspian handed the shop keeper eight crystals for four dozen eggs so his mate could have eggs sooner. However, both Ember and Caspian promised in their hearts to collect some eggs themselves for Iris in the future. There was no need for Iris to be deprived of anything when they were strong enough to hunt most beasts.

The seafood had come from a good distance upriver and had to be flown in by a flying beast. As flying beastmen were less common than other beasts, the shop keeper had to pay a premium for the fish. This meant that a pounds worth of fish cost a whole uncolored crystal.

Ember frowned at the ridiculous price that was being charged, but chose not to say anything. Caspian just went ahead and bought two pounds worth, but swore to himself to not let anyone but Iris eat it. Iris doesn't eat much anyway so two pounds would surely be enough for her to eat well for a few days.

After that, everything was wrapped carefully and put into Iris's bag before they set off. Caspian kissed Iris farewell knowing he wouldn't be back until she was already asleep in bed. Then Caspian placed Iris on Ember's back and they took off towards home.