Chapter 168: 169: The help

“Do I really have to do this?” asks Veli, looking around nervously.

“Do you want to keep your job?” asks Jubilee, threatening him once again. Veli gulps and nods quietly. “I thought so.”

Jubilee lifts their hand, pointing with their thumb to the small ‘doll-house’ that Fresh had made, which sits on top of the counter. It isn’t very magical yet and it doesn’t float and it’s not even fully furnished, still being very much ‘in progress’. But the fairy-house isn’t what Jubilee is after. It’s just a convenient place for the fairy to go, so that he doesn’t have to undress in public. This privacy is what Jubilee had described to him as a ‘decadent luxury’, one that was not afforded to many adventurers.

Veli had countered that he wasn’t an adventurer.

Jubilee had then countered that that meant he was lower than dirt and that he should shut up and go inside of the doll-house. Their task for the day was to tailor a fairy-sized set of clothes for him. “Not only do you look like shit, but having you flying around all day wearing that makes us look like shit.”

Fresh scratches her cheek, sparing a glance at Jubilee’s glass-shredded heap of fabric, before then turning around to gaze at Shamrock in his giant set of scarred armor, which could use a polishing, honestly. She and Basil at least have on some clean, matching robes. But they aren’t exactly ‘professional’ attire either.

Then again, she doesn’t really want to wear a work uniform. Though it could be cute…

Fresh shakes her head. She has her doubts that she could convince Jubilee or Shamrock to wear matching outfits with her. Maybe in some far off dream-scape. She sighs, taking over Jubilee’s work at the counter.

A man comes over, setting down a large crystal-drakonium mattress and a bottle of cold coughee. She looks up at him, recognizing him as the tired-man, who often comes to speak to Jubilee for whatever reason.

“Hello,” says the tired-man.

“Hi!” says Fresh energetically, doing the math in her head. “Uh…”

“Six-hundred and ten,” says Jubilee, not looking away from the doll-house, as they stand there with crossed arms, waiting.

Fresh nods. “Six-hundred and ten Obols, please,” she smiles at the tired-man who nods back, yawning. She’s surprised that he isn’t asking her what something tastes like today. Though she supposes that by now, he has tried his way through everything that they had in store. The man starts sleepily digging through his pockets. “Say, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you always so tired?” asks Fresh. “Do you have a lot of work?”

The tired man rubs his eyes with his free hand as his other one rummages through a mess of noisily jangling coins in his pocket. “I try not to sleep too much,” he replies, setting down a heap of coins that Fresh starts to count through.

(Fresh) sold:

[Crystal-Drakonium Mattress](High)

[Coughee](High)

for

[{610} Obols ] !

“Bad dreams?” asks Fresh, pointing to the sheep floating by. “We have something for that. You want one?”

“It’s not free,” snaps Jubilee over from the side, leaning back forward to tap against the window of the doll-house. “Hurry up!”

“I’m almost done!” says Veli, his face peeking out of the small window.

Fresh notices now for the first time how tall the tired-man actually is, but he’s a real sloucher. Then again, she notices that her own posture is always fairly poor. Especially when compared to Basil, who stands next to her on her other side with an immaculately straight back and neck. Fresh always thinks the priestess looks rather elegant because of that. She shakes her head and finishes counting the coins.

“No, good dreams,” yawns the tired man.

“Huh?”

“Do you have anything that stops good dreams?” he asks.

“Good…? Why would you want to stop good dreams?” asks Fresh, curiously.

“Ghosts,” says the tired man, grabbing the bed-roll and his bottle of coughee. “There are too many ghosts in them,” he says, rubbing his face on his elbow, before turning to walk away.

“Huh?”

He slouches out towards the door, nodding with a smile to Jubilee who lifts their middle finger his way.

“Jubilee~!”

But the tired man just laughs and walks out of the door. Before he walks out of earshot, Fresh shouts after him that she’ll think of something to help his dreams. Though she doesn’t really get why the man wouldn’t want good dreams or how ghosts factor into any of this. Still, he doesn’t seem so bad. Just a little tired, which makes him a little wobbly in the head, apparently.

She pulls open the drawer and sorts the coins inside, realizing with a smile that this was the first of her mattresses that she herself had sold.

“Is this okay?” asks Veli, stepping out of the door of the small house, holding his good arm out to the side. Fabric droops down from his sleeves and torso.

“No, you still look like shit,” says Jubilee, poking him once in the gut. Fresh is always surprised how wobbly and fluffy and soft the fairy’s hair is. So much so, that it seems to bounce and bob with every movement of his body. She’s a little jealous actually she realizes, after feeling her own fingers on her hair. “Hold still, let me make some markings,” says Jubilee, grabbing a pen to mark where the adjustments should go.

“Hey Veli,” asks Fresh to the nervous fairy who finds himself in Jubilee’s clutches. “Is the house the right size?” she asks.

“Huh? Uh,” Veli turns his head around. “The ceiling could be a little higher,” he says. “Right now, I can feel my hair brush against it.”

Fresh gasps, her fist striking her open palm. She hadn’t accounted for the fairy’s fluffy hair in her architecture.

“But uh…” Veli stops for a moment, as if considering his words. He looks up at Jubilee before turning back to her. “I don’t think the others will like it, honestly,” he says. Fresh stops, already having been on her way to the basement to continue her work.

“How come?” she asks, somewhat distraught at this news.

“It’s very… cagey,” explains Veli, as Jubilee tugs on his shirt to get him to take it off. Embarrassed, he runs back inside and throws the shirt out of the door a second later.

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“It’s a house though?” asks Fresh, leaning over forward to look through the door at him. But he is hiding around the corner, out of sight.

“We don’t live in houses,” explains the fairy.

“You don’t have any houses to live in,” she counters.

Veli doesn’t say anything, peeking around the corner with his head at Jubilee, who wags with a finger, still waiting for the rest of the outfit. Embarrassed, he hides back inside. A moment later, the new pants come flying back out of the door too.

“They aren’t safe,” explains the fairy.

“Safe? Safe from what?” asks Fresh. “There’s insulation, so it will keep you warm and dry and the wood is really thick, so it’s very sturdy.”

“Sturdy enough so that somebody can’t stomp on it, if it's on the ground?” he asks, getting straight to the point.

“Huh?” Fresh blinks, staring at the doll-house.

“And if it floats, is it safe enough that it won’t burn if some drunk throws a fireball at it?”

Fresh looks around at the others, who don’t seem to say anything, despite clearly having heard this conversation. Are these really common problems for the fairies here after not even a few weeks? Getting stomped on? Getting blasted out of the sky by the random chaotic spells that always filled the night? Or were the spells perhaps not even random to begin with? Were people really targeting them, just because they were small? Just because nobody would come to defend them or to seek justice for their sufferings?

Her fists clench as the thought comes to her again, like the sound of the running water outside of the door. She really does hate this world sometimes.

Fresh lets out a long sigh, relaxing her hands as she realizes that she had let her childish naivety get the best of her again with this idea. She was so excited to make something that people would like, that she didn’t even think if it was something that people needed to begin with, let alone if it brought any value to their lives.

The houses would just paint even larger targets on the fairy’s backs.

She smiles, nodding to the worried, embarrassed face that peeks out of the door. “Thank you for your honesty, Veli. That helps a lot!” she says. “You’re really a big help around here!” she praises the fairy who quickly hides back behind the door.

“Thanks…” says a timid voice.

“Don’t over-inflate his little ego,” says Jubilee, noisily snipping the shirt with some scissors.

“I’m going down to the basement for the rest of the day,” says Fresh. “I need to rework my idea and then get some stuff ready,” she explains, looking around. There aren’t many customers here now anyways.

“Mhm,” nods Jubilee, waving her off.

“Basil, I think I’ll need your help later. If you have time, please,” says Fresh. Basil nods to her.

“Sure thing!”

Fresh smiles as she heads down to the basement. The harvest-moon will rise tonight. She has to rework her ideas and she has to come up with something new. Though, she already has a few things in mind.

She stops on the stairs, looking at the washroom door for a moment, before shaking her head and going to her table.

Razmatazz

-) The fairy-house idea isn't dead yet, but there's still a little spark missing to make it 'right' =)

-) To clarify a question from last chapter, Veli gets a silver Obol a day, which is worth 100

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