a stone too many. [Tori]

Peri had been told by his father to take the early shift that morning at the shop. Normally, he’d refuse but his father was getting old. He was working too much and it was obviously taking its tolls on him. He’d become extremely hunched over from hours spent over polishing his jewels, and his eyes had lost most of their life. Even jewels became unpolished after time. Peri had been volunteering and taking more and more shifts to help him out. Well, that and because his mother had told him too. None the less, the early morning thing was killing him.

Nobody typically ventured into Myler’s Jewellery Shop until noon to late-afternoon so the mornings were spent hunching over numerous little stones wiping away any little speck or abnormality until they were picture perfect. After all, who would want something that wasn’t perfect? Peri didn’t spend too much time on the more serious jewellery. Chains, and silver rings, anything along those lines that didn’t have any gem in them weren’t worth his time, or worth any money in his opinion. Yet, those types of items seemed to be the ones that were bought the most.

Peri huddled around his gems. He took his time cleaning and
wiping each and every single one of them. He scratched endlessly on the sapphire that had a particular spot that just wouldn’t come off. Eventually getting it off, he moved over to the emerald, the amethyst, and then the iolite. On and on, numerous gems to polish, some in jewellery, some just the gem’s themselves. Peri could found himself smiling, if he thought about it, truly his gems were the only thing that made him happy. They each had their own personalities. Which seemed a little bizarre, but you could just tell from the people who buy each one. A Ruby is more often than not sold to a lustful woman where a Lapis Lazuli will often be sold to an intelligent, sophisticated woman.

He looked around the store, it was his home. Of course he didn’t sleep here, but he spent most of his time in the little shop, and his best friends were here. It was home. He loved walking in to the shop to hear the little bell jingle above the door that greeted him like an old friend and the small creak in the door that held the story from the very beginning. Every single person that had been in the and out of the shop ever had used that door. The velvet red carpets covered every square inch of the ground. Peri remembered as a child when he used to run around in his socks. He’d rub his feet against the ground creating extreme friction only to then run around and shock the customers, much to their dismay.

The wooden cabinets held their own little stories as well, little scrapes and splotches from numerous incidents. There had been one case where he’d cracked his head open on the corner of the cabinet that held all the rings. His mother would joke around and say, “I swear your thick head chipped the corner right off!” She often reminded him of that whenever he was being rather stubborn. Which for Peri, was more than often.

Each little inch of this store held a story, everything down to the smallest diamond that they have, has a story. Whether it just be a small quick little story about unpacking a diamond to find a small little chip in it, to the day where his mother came in to the shop and thought they had been infested by rats because of the little jet gemstones that lay on the carpet. But his absolutely favourite memory was of a stone that he had in a small compartment.

Under the gemstone display case, on the cashier side, there was a secret compartment that had housed many small items in its time. But, as of lately, it held only one jewel. As his 16th birthday gift, his father had allowed him to pick one gem of choice to keep for his own. Peri had been eyeing a particular gem for quite a while. In fact, it was the gem he was named after. There was a light green peridot that had been looming in the case for a while, and for his 16th. He had taken it for his own. It was in the form of a ring and it matched his eye colour to the T. His father had even started calling it his third eye, only revealing itself once in a while.

Though Peri constantly took care of the gems in the store, never had he actually owned one for himself, so he kept a close eye on his very own peridot. He only took it out when he was bored, wanted to clean it, or wanted good luck, which wasn’t very often. Today, he was more than bored fiddling around the shop. So he hopped over to the stool in front of the cabinet after finishing polishing. Quickly opening the compartment, Peri pulled open the small little bag that held his ring. He opened the small black puch and pulled out his peridot ring and slipped it on.

It truly was beautiful, he couldn’t help but fiddle it, putting it on different fingers and seeing how they look on each one. Deciding on his left ring finger, he left it there and looked at the clock. Time was passing by ever so slowly this morning. No customer had come in yet and it was half past eleven. He hated slow days more than he hate incompetent career tributes, which apparently District 1, 2, and 4 carried tons of. He was almost curious what was happening in the Games at this point, even though he hadn’t showed much interest this year. But frankly, anything would beat watching the clock and waiting for someone to barge through the creaky door with its welcoming bell. He was growing impatient.