Get creative but keep it short- I want to read a little about the weird, wonderful and fantastically dressed citizens of Subeta HA world.

it is criminal that this thread has gone unnoticed in the three months since you posted it. i think it's a great idea; after all, it's basically a continuation of what i'm doing in the HA Contests & Games forum already.

anyway.

"Do you have the card?" I ask her. I know it's a question that doesn't need to be said. is the fastest, the most discreet, the best black-market dealer in Ziara City. Everyone knows it; no one says it. And you don't earn yourself that kind of reputation by making idle small talk.

But what can I say--I'm nervous. I'm desperate. I've been trying to get by cardless for two months, and the paper trail (or lack thereof) is finally starting to catch up with me.

She nods, once, firm, and I try not to let it show how much I go boneless with relief. My hands shake as I give her the money. She looks at it once, doesn't count it--of course, she must be an expert at gauging trinkets by weight--and tucks it away in her voluminous upper-class capelet.

Then, finally, with no fanfare, she produces the card from a different pocket and slips it from her palm to mine. I study it closely. It looks legitimate; it looks like everyone else's digicards, at least based on the sparse glances I've been able to get, watching people pay at food pods, get paid at the mines.

It'll work.

I look up, and she's still standing there, just...looking at me. I clear my throat.

"Uh, thank you."

She smiles. I realize, with a dizzying swoop of desire, that she's beautiful. And I'll probably never see her again. And I've never so much as heard her speak.

Trying my luck, I ask, "So...what're you doing now?"

She starts to turn away. Transaction over, I guess. But as she leaves, she says softly, in a voice like a gramophone, all flute-lilt and crackle-hiss--

"Babe, I'm just dancing 'til the world ends."

((sorry if this was too long for your "keep it short" rule! but hell, your HA got me Inspired™, and that tends to make me wordy.))

EDIT: god damn it, i forgot to do the Rate portion of the Rate and Narrate.

i love when an avatar feels like a well-fleshed-out person, with a past and a story. even if it's not an OC or whatever, even if it's just something you put on for the day, i love when an avatar has...cohesion.

and obviously, from the prose i was able to derive from your HA, i think you did a fantastic job at that. but can we also talk about the color scheme? like, it's not in the least matchy-matchy (which i often fall victim to--see my current HA for an example lol). but the delicate muted earth tones of the skin, the underside of the capelet, even the stone of the snowy graveyard, all flow together so well, and they all beautifully complement the blues present in the clothing items, which themselves mesh perfectly with the dingy-brash color of the Ziaran background.

anyway. 10/10. now i'm off to look at the item list--thank you for making that public on your profile, by the way--and try to puzzle out what the hell is making that swirly pattern on your head lol.

It has rained relentlessly for months now. Homes, belongings and even some of the more weak of us have been swept away by the storms. It was tasked to me to find anything to stop the downpour. Word of a young sun god traveled the lands almost as swiftly as the flooding waters. Tales have spread like wildfire of their ability to grow any crop in an instant, so maybe they have other great powers? Only the simple name of is known, and I just HAD to find them.