Prompt #3: What is your main character’s most embarrassing memory? Has it affected the things they do or the ways they interact with other characters now?
Ollie and Ben are never in good terms as long as he can remember. his brother was always sick and their father was always concerned for him more than anything. Ben was healthy and he had all the love and attention from his grandfather. Ollie was going to be the heir for the merchant business of the family and to make up for his lack of health he made up with his brilliant intellect and there was no dispute about how much smarter he was compared to Ben. He was analytical and thoughtful. it was admiring how calm and collected he was all the time despite he’s just 2 years older than himself.
There was a time when their father was taking his sons to the market to teach them the art of barter and appraisal of goods. Ben accompanied his father and his brother as if he was an appendix because his father’s gaze was always on Ollie rather than at Ben, teaching him the basics of reading the scales and talking to fellow merchants. Ollie was spared from doing small errands as his frail body won’t last if he was running around the market area so it always fell on Ben’s laps.
One time he was watching deal of some precious metal trade and the man was passing around the object to inspect them. their father was reminded the two boys to pay close attention. they were weighing the ingot on the scale and the father was holding it to inspect it and requested the merchant whether his boys can have a look at the ingot themselves.
the father gave the boys his own ingot about the same size and explained about using your own reference to do the deal. so both of them were able to hold the ingots on each hand to compare. When Ben held them, there was this weird tingling sensation on his fingertips that he couldn’t express with his words. Something about the two ingots were different. It was about the same size and same weight. both had passed the scratch test to see if it was simply coated or the real deal. But something was off in Ben’s hands as if something was not natural about it. Ben said they’re different and the merchant’s ingot felt unnatural.
The merchant laughed off and wanted to rush to close the transactions.