Chapter 23: 24: Mirror mirror

Several doors line the dingy corridor that they wander down. All of them seem as forgotten and untouched as everything else inside of the dilapidated building. There are no furnishings in the upstairs hallway, just as with the downstairs area. There is nothing at all to fill the space, apart from the sounds of their dirty boots thudding out against the floors, apart from the floating dust particulate that is held aloft, suspended in vague streams of an evening sunlight, which lazily shines in through the windows, sneaking past the heavy closed, drab curtains. All of those bits of dust float gently downward, drifting down towards the creaking, wooden boards below at a meandering pace, falling so slowly that they appear to be stuck in time itself. Four doors line the hallway on the right side, all of them are closed. The thick coating covering the handles of most of them indicates that these too, are untouched and forgotten. A familiar feeling comes to Fresh as she sees the empty state of this place.

“Here, you can set the bag down here,” says Jubilee, opening the door at the end of the hallway. Fresh steps inside the room, feeling a strong sense of familiarity in herself at the sight of the dingy space. The single window is obscured by the same kind of ugly curtain that is everywhere else in here, the fabric is pulled as tightly shut as possible. The furnishings are simple and unkempt. An unmade bed, standing free in the center of the room, the sheets of which obviously hadn’t been changed in weeks, if not months. The floor is covered in dirt and dust and old garbage. Fresh sets the bag down on top of a heap of old, brown paper. This might as well be her old room. Kneeling down as best as she can, she winces, as she slips out of the straps of the bag and rises back up to her feet. Her hands touch the tender, slightly bleeding spots on her shoulders.

Jubilee drags a heap of green clothes and fabric off of a chair by the door, opting to throw them from the chair to the bed, rather than put them away anywhere in an orderly manner. “Here, sit. Watch out, the legs are a little wobbly.”

“Thanks,” says Fresh and drops down from her own wobbly legs onto the, fairly uncomfortable, wooden chair. But to her body, it’s a gift from the heavens. The girl immediately droops downward, sliding down the back of the chair, her legs press out forward and she exhales, all of the heavy strain and tension leaving her at once. “What a day,” she mutters, somewhat dreamily.

“What a day,” replies Jubilee back, somewhat less soft in tone than Fresh was.

“Thanks for helping me,” says Fresh, still leaning back with her eyes closed. Her arms drooping down off of the sides of the chair. The room is quiet for a moment.

“Yeah,” responds Jubilee rather dryly.

“So, this is your place?” she asks, trying to make some small-talk with her party member.

“Yeah," replies Jubilee, without much enthusiasm.

“It’s nice,” lies Fresh to be polite.

It's quiet for a moment. Fresh feels the air becoming more and more awkward by the second. “Yeah.”

“Mm,” says Fresh, if only to make a noise.

“Hmm…”

The room is quiet. The girl opens her eyes to look over at Jubilee, who is standing there on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall with crossed arms, as if thinking. Her vision is interrupted by the yawn escaping her own mouth, mixed together with the audible growling of her stomach. Jubilee lowers their gaze from the ceiling and looks back towards her. Fresh laughs meekly, she hasn’t eaten anything since the bread that she wasted. But she isn’t going to ask Jubilee for anything else.

“Sorry I yelled at you in the guild,” says Jubilee, looking back to the ceiling.

Fresh tilts her head, sitting back upright, a finger idly scratching her cheek. “It’s okay, I was being a dumb jerk.”

“Yeah,” says Jubilee dryly. “You were.”

Fresh lets out an uneasy laugh and winces. “You didn’t have to agree with me.”

“It is what it is,” says Jubilee and sighs. “You want to eat something?”

“Ah, no! I-“

Jubilee interrupts her, raising a hand. “- You worked for it.” Fresh looks back at them, somewhat lost. Jubilee groans, seeing her vacant expression and explains. “We have forty-four goblin teeth. Five orange caps and two blue caps. A boss-core. Oh, and these-“ Jubilee digs in their pockets with their gloved hands, pulling out a bunch of the rootwood-flowers that Fresh had entirely forgotten to harvest from the boss. The girl’s eyes light up at the sight of them. “The old lady would usually only give a rookie like you one Obol for each of these, but since I know her game, she’ll probably give you two per,” explains Jubilee. “Together with the rest of the stuff, that means we’re at about ninety-seven Obols total,” they say, before wobbling their hand in the air to signify uncertainty. “Give or take.”

Fresh jumps up, the chair scooting back against the wall as she springs to her feet, her eyes shooting open wide. “Ninety-seven?!”

Jubilee shrugs, as if that wasn’t very impressive. “Yeah, so half of that is yours. But if you want to keep some of the stuff to craft, then obviously it will be less than that,” says Jubilee. “You can’t keep the orange caps though. We need to sell the whole bundle of five, otherwise they won’t take them.”

Fresh nods, excited. “That’s fine, the ones back at the guild should be enough for my tests!”

“Don’t talk about that here,” snaps Jubilee at her.

“Huh?” Fresh asks, somewhat perplexed, as she looks around the dark room.

Jubilee leans in forward with some agitation in their eyes, present there perhaps because of her naivety. “This house isn’t cut-off,” says Jubilee, gesturing to the room. “In the guild space, nobody can hear you, if they aren’t inside with you. But if someone were so inclined to listen to us, they could do it here.”

“Oh, sorry,” says Fresh, understanding now. Her mind drifts back to the other topic at hand. If she has money now, then maybe some actual food would be a great idea. With a smile she looks at Jubilee. “Will you come eat something with me?”

“Huh?”

“Do you want to go eat something together?” asks the girl, beaming as she leans in forward with her fists clenched down low next to her sides.

Jubilee tilts their head and looks at her. “No.”

“Oh…” replies Fresh, somewhat let down. She rubs her arm and looks away. Was she being weird? Did she read the room wrong? “Sor-“

“If you’re hungry, I have some stuff you can eat here,” says Jubilee. Fresh looks back up to them. “You shouldn’t go outside with one health point,” they say, walking past her and out of the door, waving idly. “Stay there.”

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They vanish down the hallway, heading into the first door by the stairs. Fresh looks around the room and sighs, it really does evoke familiar feelings in her, being in here. In a weird sense, it’s making her nostalgic. She looks down at her pale hands that are shaking from weakness. It’s hard for her to explain to herself, but she has been working so hard from the start to become someone else, someone better, that she had entirely suppressed this part of herself. In her frenzy, she had entirely forgotten who she was for so long, that person she was for so many years. But being here, here in this dark room brings back that old, familiar feeling. It makes her realize, in an odd sense, that she almost misses the sadness and melancholy that had been overpowering her for years. It had been a part of her for so long and in a sense it still was. Is that weird? She isn’t sure.

Something catches her eye as she looks around the room, trying to decipher Jubilee a little more. A faint glimmer of sunlight somehow manages to breach the darkness for just a second, as the curtain is shifted by some vague draft, seeping in through the thin walls. The sparse ray of light, that dies in a heartbeat, manages to bound off of the fragments of a broken mirror which is nested in the corner of the room. Jagged glass shards lay everywhere in the darkness, covered in a thick caking of dust that almost seems to absorb the light entirely, as if suffocating it. The curtain falls back into place and the darkness returns.

Jubilee walks back inside, carrying a small tray. Fresh looks at the little pink-flower on their belt and blinks coming back to her new self. Even if that sensation of sadness was a part of her for so long, she’s going to get rid of it. Even if it felt, in a sense, like cutting off a part of her own body, she was going to do it. She’s sure of it.

“Here,” says Jubilee, holding up the tray to Fresh.

“Thank you!” she beams in return, as she takes it and looks at the bounty. Adorning a small, wooden-plate are a few slices of some old bread, some cured meats and an array of various colorful, apparently preserved, fruits that she doesn’t recognize. She looks at it, realizing something.

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” asks Fresh curiously.

“No. I’m not hungry,” says Jubilee and walks off, going back to the same spot as before. A loud growl breaks the silence. Fresh looks down embarrassed, but realizes a second later that it hadn’t come from her. Jubilee clears their throat and stands on the other side of the room again. Looking at them, somewhat lost, Fresh holds the tray out towards them. But they wave her off. She thinks for a moment, wondering why Jubilee doesn’t want to eat. She looks around the room, somewhat unsure of what to do.

“Eat before you die. I’ll get something later,” says Jubilee. Fresh narrows her eyes. If they were friends now, then that obviously won’t do. Besides, as party-leader, it’s her obligation to make sure her party is taken care of, right?

Her eyes scan over the unmade bed in the middle of the room, before she looks down to the tray in her hands and thinks.

“Ah!” The idea hits her. Setting the tray down, quietly thanking the universe for giving her some extra brain power during her leveling, she takes the plate off of the tray and sets it to the side.

“What are you doing?”

Fresh doesn’t answer, she takes half of the food from the plate and places it onto the tray. Getting up and carrying both, she sets the tray down by Jubilee.

“I told you I don’t wan-“

“I won’t look,” says Fresh with a smile as she raises a finger into the air.

“Huh?” asks Jubilee dryly.

Fresh grabs her own plate and walks around the bed, sitting down on the floor on the other side of it, with her back leaned against it. Her finger waves in a circle in the air behind her head. “I promise!”

The room is quiet.

Looking at the food with hungry eyes, Fresh picks up a piece of the bread from her plate. It’s a little dry and old, but her face beams at the sight of it nonetheless. But she doesn’t start eating, it would be rude to start before everyone is seated, after all. The girl kicks a shard of mirror glass carefully away with her boot.

The bed shifts, as a small body pushes against the other side of the mattress, sitting down on the floor there with their back to it as well. Jubilee didn’t want her to see their face, they didn’t want to take their mask off. Even if they’re hungry too.

Fresh smiles and bites into her bread with delight, saying between chewy mouthfuls - “Let’s work hard again tomorrow, Jubilee!”

“Will you shut up and eat?” asks Jubilee, their mouth clearly full as well. “We’re going to get your class tomorrow, so you can finally start pulling your weight.”

Razmatazz

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