Welcome to Gaia! ::

Mason had actually entirely forgotten about the ad for custom woodworking he'd posted online toward the end of his senior year. With everything else going on - graduating, starting DCU, and oh yeah, becoming magic, it had fallen all the way off his radar.

Until he got a little notification, anyway, asking him to meet at a little cafe. He was actually utterly thrilled - in a surprising twist, after the whole...giant skeletal sea monster thing...he'd been craving anything resembling normality. Dr. Z had been right; these things maybe did have a way of working themselves out.

He spotted her easily - his first client! - doing some handcraft of her own that Mason was unfamiliar with, but it involved a needle and thread, which meant it was way out of his league. He just didn't have the patience for anything like that, which was why Madeline was in charge of fixing their clothes and he was in charge of trying not to get his clothes to a point where they needed fixing.

"Alice?" Mason said, giving her a smile as he approached. When he was sure he was in the right place, he sat down across from her and pulled out his own sketchpad, along with two small wooden boxes that clattered slightly as he set it on the table - chip samples, to pick what kind of wood she wanted. Stained and unstained, the whole thing. The second box contained finished samples beyond what he'd posted in his ad, just on the off-chance she found something she liked pre-made already.

"Thanks for reaching out," he said with an easy smile. He flipped to a blank page of his book and clicked his mechanical pencil, then looked at her curiously. "What didja have in mind?" Mason paused. "Sorry, was that too straight-to-business-y? Do you want me to grab you a coffee or hot chocolate or something? Sorry, I've never done this before - professionally, I mean. Obviously I've whittled before, but just like - for fun, or for little presents for people, that sort of thing."

Mason decided that he probably wasn't meant for the business world, if this was how he was handling his very first client ever.

Mason grinned sheepishly, but before he could actually try that whole pitch thing, she was sharing her idea with him, and his eyes lit up in spite of himself.

"Oooh," Mason said, leaning forward excitedly to study the sketch. "That's so cool," he said, gears already turning in his mind. "That's very, very cool. I love the boots," he said. "This is for you, right? I'm just thinking, for height purposes. Are you going to be using it as a walking stick, have it on your back, or just a prop you carry?" Weight could be an issue, he mused; presumably, unlike his own stick - his shillelagh, now stored safely in whatever little pocket dimension it went to when he wasn't Blarney - it didn't need to actually have enough heft to do damage, since it looked like maybe this was a costume or cosplay of some kind, though Mason had no idea for what purpose. He also didn't really care; he was mostly thinking about different types of wood and what kinds of varnish might look best.

"When did you need it by? Do you want something simple or more complex and detailed?"

He didn't have any high-powered machinery, not really; Mads wouldn't let him have anything he might lose a finger - or a hand - on, so it could be slow going sometimes, but it also let him do a level of detail work that he didn't think most machines could offer. He began sketching lightly, showing different lengths - all the way from a hand-held wand to a classic walking/wizard staff.

Mason nodded, his hand already flying across the page. "Sure, that shouldn't be a problem at all. Did you want me to fashion you a back-holster thingy for it? Probably not out of wood but it shouldn't be too much trouble to find some leather or something..." Mason was mostly talking to himself, as he sketched out some basic ideas.

"Is it for, like, a convention or something? Do you need to be able to take it out and put it back in easily and quickly, or would it pretty much live in the holster?" Mason asked. "'Cause if it would mostly be in the holster, I can put the detail stuff where it would actually be, yanno, seen by other people, but if you're able to take it out and walk around with it, I can put it wherever, even if it would be covered up a bit by the back holster. Does that make sense?" Mason looked up at her and gave her a wide, reassuring grin. "It's gonna be awesome, don't even worry about it. Do you have any symbols or figures you want included in the detail work, or just something that matches the vibes?"