Chapter 91: 92: Round and round she goes

Fresh rolls the glass-marble back and forth over the counter, as she sits down on the other side of it, opposite of Basil. Her head is drooped down over it with her hands outstretched. The marble rolls to the left and lazily strikes against her fingers. With a slight nudge, she rolls it back towards the right just as listlessly. She had made it out of a piece of glass earlier, simply out of boredom. Neither Jubilee or Basil were interested in the jam, so it now sits upstairs in the kitchen, ignored. She sits downstairs, ignored.

The marble rolls to the left again as she pushes it back anew. Her eyes follow it as it rolls over the counter for the thousandth time.

*Thwack*

Jubilee’s leather glove slaps down against the counter, stopping the marble’s roll. “If I have to listen to that thing any longer, it’s going to drive me insane.”

“But I’m so booooored~,” sighs Fresh. “Summer is so booooring~.”

“If you’re bored, go play outside with the rest of the kids,” snaps Jubilee. “I’m sure Basil can arrange a play-date for you.” Jubilee lifts their hands and sets the marble down in-front of Fresh’s face, her chin pressing against the counter-top. The girl sighs and stares downward, watching as her exhaling breath slowly nudges the marble away again.

Basil shakes her head. “Actually, the children are really busy during the summer,” explains the priestess. “They help take care of all the chores, since there are more adventurers coming through the city.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” asks Fresh, confused.

“Well, more adventurers means more of us have work, which means someone else has to do all of the day to day tasks back at the church.”

“Huh…” says Fresh, looking back at the marble. She supposes that makes sense. “Wait. How come there are more people traveling during summer?”

“Because the weather is nicer,” explains Basil, continuing to fan herself. “It makes it easier to travel from outside of the city, when there are no storms.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Fresh’s eyes wander back down to the marble. “But they get time off too, right?”

“Sure, you saw them playing at the park, didn’t you?” asks Basil. “Work is important though. As children, they need to learn that they won’t get food if they don’t work.” Fresh looks up towards the priestess who is leaned against the wall with her eyes closed as she fans herself. “The world just isn’t kind enough for it to be any other way.”

“Huh,” says Fresh again and looks back down to the marble, getting ready to roll it around again.

“Don’t you dare,” says Jubilee, watching her movements carefully.

Fresh sighs and heads upstairs, taking the marble with her.

She closes the door behind herself and lets out a second deep sigh as she leans with her back against it. Going to her room, she sits inside, feeling the cold air against her body, much to her relief. Her room is far, far colder than any of the rest of the house as the golem-core is inside of it. As long as she remembers to use the spell to repair it once a day, it could possibly last forever. Which is great and all, but she’s a little bothered because she can’t use it to cool down the store area downstairs, at least not without arousing suspicion.

She plops down to the ground and starts rolling the marble from side to side again, watching it as she thinks about anything and everything. She wonders if other people get bored too? Maybe not adventurers down in the dungeon. But… the normal people of the city? The other shop-keepers. The barkeeper of the adventurer’s guild. Probably even the orphans. Actually, they’re probably the most bored of everyone. She supposes being a kid was weird enough in her old life. How weird must it be in this world? Especially if you have to live in a church.

She lifts up her head, looking at her vague reflection in the golem-core and mutters. “Boooriiiiing~”

Determined to do something about it, Fresh claps her hands and gets back up onto her feet. If she’s bored, she should do something productive. Maybe she can make something to help alleviate someone else’s boredom too? She strikes her palms against her cheeks, lightly slapping her face a few times to energize herself as she runs back outside of her room, grabbing her bag.

Excited, Fresh runs past her friends again and goes into town to get the things she needs. Fresh ignores their wary gazes on both her way down and her way back up, twenty minutes later, her bag now full of the things that she needs and a few coins lighter. But that’s fine. She has more money than she knows what to do with already, honestly.

Grabbing some materials from the pantry, she locks herself inside of her room and sets to her new idea. Pulling the few pieces of pliant leather out of her bag, she sets them down onto the ground and then starts thinking about how this is supposed to work.

“Uh… it has to… uh…” Fresh grabs one corner and then lifts it up, folding it around a few times to try to get a mental vision of her desired object. “Maybe if this goes here… and if I cut that…” She tilts her head as she runs along the leather with the edge of a pair of scissors, in order to make the marks that she wants to cut along in a moment. This is maybe more of something for Jubilee to be doing. It’s not exactly tailoring, but it’s close. But it’s fine, as a craftsman, even she should be able to do something this rudimentary.

She hopes.

A few minutes later, the sheet of leather is cut into all manner of direction, looking like a splayed out beehive. She vaguely remembers doing something like this in her old life, actually. Back when she was a small child, during some school art project. Grabbing a fistful of a cotton fluff, which she had gotten from the merchant that she always buys her feathers from, she lays it onto the leather and then starts pulling it together, the hexagonal patches coming together and forming it into a round sphere.

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Smiling, she holds the ball up into the air. It turned out better than she was expecting. While the color is still the same tan brown tone as the leather, it looks like a nice, perfectly round ball. Tossing it into the air above her head once, she catches it as it comes back down and spins it around in her hands. With a satisfied smile, she sets the ball down and sets to work, making a few more.

An hour later, beaming with pride, Fresh holds one of them and runs out of her room, ready to show Basil her latest creation, now that she has finished a whole dozen of them. The magical-lantern rises up, trying to follow her, but gets stopped by the chain again. She quietly apologizes to it and closes the door behind herself and heads towards the stairs, where she then however comes to a sudden standstill.

Her eyes wander down to her latest creation. What if they don’t like it? No. What if they like it and they want to sell it again? She fidgets, fumbling with the spherical object. It’s just a ball, so it won’t be a big ticket item of interest, she’s sure of that. But it’s about the principle. Sometimes she just wants to make nice things for the sake of it and not for a profit, but the two of them seem to be unable to really understand that. Or simply unwilling too. Jubilee is a little tight-fisted and Basil has taken an uncomfortable liking to earning so much money. Fresh wonders if this whole venture isn’t actually making her friends worse people?

It’s quiet for a minute as she stands there, thinking.

Eventually though, she shakes her head. Nonsense. She’s just being a worry-wart. Smiling, she opens the door and heads downstairs.

“Baaaaasil~!”

The priestess stops fanning herself, looking up to her. “Yes?”

“I made a bunch of these!” says Fresh proudly, going down the stairs carefully. “I thought maybe you could give them to the kids?” she says, holding the ball out to Basil.

“Huh? Really?” asks the priestess, surprised and reaches out, taking the ball, but reaching a bit too far and her hands touch Fresh’s. “Thank you!” she says with a smile as she takes it and looks at the plaything. “Are you sure?”

“Mm!” nods Fresh excitedly. “They need to play a little too,” she explains, lifting a finger. “It’s important!”

Basil smiles. “I’m sure they’ll love them, thank you very much!” she says, clearly delighted, but then stops for a moment. Fresh opens her eyes again and watches as the priestess reaches over, rather abruptly grabbing her hand. The woman frowns, clearly displeased as she touches Fresh. “You’re always so cold, are you sure that you’re okay?”

Fresh nervously laughs, quickly pulling her hand free. “I’m fine! It’s just the way I am,” says the girl, as she suddenly realizes that she should have waited longer after coming out of her room. Basil continues to frown, looking at her and then back to the ball.

“Okay…” says the priestess, her frown having turned into a smile again by the next time she looks back at her.

Razmatazz

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