"Hey, let’s not break that, alright? Careful... custom made furniture isn’t cheap..."
Trying to direct the general laborers that were moving the various items that Annie and Cici were sending over to the winery was extremely... draining, to put it lightly; they weren’t terrible at their job but I was definitely unaccustomed to ’normal’ people at this point.
All of the workers we bought the contracts for were excellent laborers and had a forced interest in how everything went while theses workers were just normal, everyday people doing this for however many coppers or whatever an hour.
Trusting them to get everything done to perfection on the wages they were on was a fools errand, but I wanted to at least hold them to a certain standard of not breaking my Goddess damned furniture before it could even be installed.
They were setting it in the open space in the middle of the store while the workers we had hired were moving it to the proper spots, getting it ready for the visit from Annie and Cici and otherwise allowing me to see the layout of our store - albeit a rather rough one.
What you envision in your mind about a space and what actually ends up being able to work in that space tend to be two different things, so already I was seeing discrepancies between what I wanted and what was really going to happen, and that wasn’t fun at all.
It meant I needed to redo the floor plan and get everything moved to the right spots to maximize efficiency, which was pretty much how viewable something was and how much space it took up.
Could someone inspect the bottles and get a good look at the liquid inside without being in the way of someone else or knocking into another table nearby?
Those were the questions in my mind for right now, and so much more was dancing around up there as I directed everything in Renna’s absence, the Nymph still making her way over from the apartments after taking just a little too long to ’close out that contract’.
I could feel her getting closer though so I wasn’t too irritated, and if anything I was happy since it showed just how much she was loosening up compared to before; she was living again and actually doing the things she wanted when she wanted instead of drowning in work, though the worry that she was going from too repressed to being too ’available’ was present in my mind.
Not for long anyways since I was back to directing the traffic inside of the store as I waited for her arrival, already preparing myself for the ’unforeseen’ changes she was going to make me do while also completely aware she had some other, actual hidden ideas that weren’t going to come out till everything was almost ready.
Some new product or desire she was going to have that I would need to accommodate... and even though I was mentally lamenting this I had a feeling whatever it was would end up making us a stupid amount of money sometime down the line, so I really couldn’t get that ’angry’ about it.
I could get angry at the tired Ramkin that almost dropped the small shelf onto the ground instead of just placing it there, so that was... interesting...
"Look, I think this is more than enough, is it not? This is the most efficient way to do it, at least in my eyes."
Gesturing loosely at the giant bales of wheat, many baskets of fruits and then at the many baskets of grapes, Inik looked a little tired but also rather fulfilled despite her complaining, meaning I was doing a good job.
I had been intentionally pushing her to see just how much I could get her to do before she reached that point, so now that I knew what amount of field refreshes could get her annoyed at me I was going to have to plan accordingly.
"Two refreshes of wheat, two of the orchard and just one of the grapevines. Then we still have to do the small herb garden... That should be perfectly good. More than enough and we have a surplus of time to sort through everything and make sure it’s ready for Mama to use."
Groaning softly at the reminder that there was still more to do, Inik plopped down into the grass beside her yield with a bit of a dejected look on her face, though the moment I sat down between her legs she relaxed and wrapped an arm loosely around my waist.
"You did good, my love. With this we can figure out the ideal plan for the day and determine just how much we can produce every single day. We’ll multiply it by... three, perhaps? Three days in the fields, two at the market, two completely off?"
Resting her chin on my shoulder and grunting, the Hawkkin gave that as an acknowledgement while hugging me closer, reminding me that we had been working for quite some time already and that we needed a break.
"Are there any sorts of treats or foodstuffs you can think of that would sell well at the markets? Something easy to make and or easy to transport? Something that wouldn’t rouse suspicion for its quantity?"
She hummed and gave me a squeeze, burying her face into my neck and kissing it once before finally giving me an answer as she said "Tarts, pies, strudels, muffins, cakes... to name a few...", causing me to smile wryly since it was rather clear what was on her mind.
"You have a sweet tooth?"
’Biting’ my shoulder and chuckling at her own cheesy antics, my lover grinned at me and made me roll my eyes before I grinned too, unable to hold it in as we shared a laugh at something so idiotic.
Yet it was just so funny to us as we sat here, in the grass beneath the sun after we had worked hard in these fields; relishing the warmth of one another that was cooled slightly by the breeze, enjoying the fresh air while basking in the sun... this was what it was all about, right?