Chapter 94: 95: Inner warmth

It’s a sleepy day. The air is still glowing with heat, but somehow the world just feels a little calmer than usual right now, just a little quieter. But not in a foreboding way that makes Fresh think anxiously about their profits or about all of the things that she still has to do. It’s simply quiet, in a calm, peaceful fashion. As if she were sitting on the bank of a gentle river, listening to the sound of the water babbling with a crystal shimmer and the songs of the many creatures of the forest around herself.

But none of that is actually happening, she’s just standing inside of the store, tearing out another board from the walls. It’s early in the morning, still somewhat before their opening hours. Fresh smiles, as she wipes her dusty forehead on her sleeve, getting rid of some of the grime and sweat that has collected on her face already this early in the day. But it doesn’t bother her. Today, she feels light. Cathartic.

Looking back on last night, she feels rather stupid, honestly.

Fresh grabs another old, rotting board and pulls it free so that she can replace it with a fresh, straight one and so that she can pack the hollow space in the walls with a layer of the thick insulating fibers that she had bought for exactly this purpose. Jubilee had thanked her for the bear and told her to stop being such a crybaby. But Fresh didn’t stop crying, not until after Jubilee had gone back to their room and she herself had fallen face-first into her own pillow. She isn’t even sure why, really.

The hammer thuds as she strikes it against the wooden board, jamming the new thing into place. Fitting it snugly into the corner of the world that it belongs in.

Maybe she is just a crybaby. Or maybe she was just relieved that she’s finally been able to make something to pay Jubilee back. Even if it is just something stupid like a teddy-bear. She supposes that she’s just thinking with her own ‘goo-brain’, as Jubilee calls it. But it seems like a good present, as far as she can tell. Jubilee gets unsettled by the storms and they also seem to be just as lonely a person as she herself is. So maybe it’ll be nice to have something there in the dark of the long nights that seem to fall over the world so often.

The front door opens.

“Good morning!” says Basil. A draft of warm air, born of the summer morning comes in together with the priestess. The soft wind tussling her hair as she steps inside, blowing through the store and carrying with it a soft smell like that of a light, floral perfume.

Fresh waves with her hammer-hand, seeing her friend arrive for the day. “Good morning, Basil! How are you?” She tears out the next board. “Did they like the balls?” asks Fresh, feeling a little nervous at the question actually.

Basil closes the door behind herself and walks towards the counter to get things ready for the opening soon. “I’m fine, thank you,” replies the priestess with a smile as she heads to her spot, setting down her things below and pulling out the ledger. “They were very happy,” she says, setting the book down and smiling with a kind smile, her eyes never traveling up towards Fresh. “Thank you, and you?”

Fresh nods, satisfied. She hopes that they get to play a lot with them and that they don’t have to work too much. “I’m fine, just putting in some work before we start. There’s always more to do,” says the girl.

The pen scratches as Basil writes in the ledger, drawing up everything in preparation for the day. She stops, and looks to the side, down to the row of teddy-bears sitting against the wall. “Aww, what’re these? Did you make these? Are these a new product?” she asks, lifting up one of the small bears, looking into its glass eyes.

Fresh shakes her head, returning to her work. “Jubilee made those. I guess they’re to sell?”

“As if anyone wants to buy some freaky stuffed bears,” barks a voice coming down the stairs.

“Good morning, Jubilee!” calls Fresh from around the corner.

“Good morning,” says Basil.

Jubilee waves both of them off, adjusting their mask with their other hand as they come down the stairs. “We’re probably gonna throw them in the trash, honestly,” says Jubilee, coming over to the counter to inspect Basil’s early morning work.

“Huh?” asks Fresh, somewhat surprised at Jubilee’s statement. They had just spent all night making them together after all.

Basil looks at the toy bear in her hands, somewhat taken aback. “Really? These are really nice though…” The priestess is quiet for a while, her eyes wandering up and down the bear in her hands as she musters up her courage. “…If you’re going to throw them away, is it okay if I take them?”

“Aren’t you a bit old for toys?” asks Jubilee, rolling their eyes.

Basil shakes her head. “Not for me. For the children. A few of them are a little more frail and I think they’ll appreciate them a lot. Ah -” The priestess looks up towards Fresh, lifting her hands as she explains. “The balls are really nice! Thank you! It’s just…” the priestess fidgets, playing with her long sleeves. “- Some of them aren’t very physically able.”

Fresh’s eyes widen a little, as she watches the scene unfold across the store. Her mind races as it tries to process the events. She hadn’t even thought about that. Jubilee shrugs indifferently. “If you want to unload our garbage onto them, feel free,” snaps her friend, not looking up from the ledger. Basil smiles, squeezing the little bear in her hands as she grabs the rest of them, gently tucking them into her bag.

Fresh tilts her head, watching as Jubilee doesn’t lift their face from the book, but she sees their eyes wander to the side and watch as the bears are carefully set into the bag one by one. Then she understands. This was Jubilee’s devious scheme all along. For whatever reason, they aren’t just able to tell Basil that they made these for her wards to start with. But by ‘being Jubilee’, they can set things into motion just like they want, without risking the emotional vulnerability. Jubilee is a little manipulative and deceptive as always, but maybe that isn’t always a bad thing, thinks Fresh. Some people just need more distance than others.

Smiling, she turns back to her work before Jubilee can catch her staring and with new vigor, tears out the next board.

Soon enough, they open the store and the usual crowd arrives. The early morning adventurers, coming to unload their loot by the bagfuls. Sales are starting to pick up again, especially repairs, now that people seem to have gotten into the rhythm of this summer life. It’s still less chaotic than the lively spring, but there is a gentle action that continues all day and is passed through everyone’s happy demeanor.

“- and then I blasted him!” says the red-wizard excitedly, bouncing on her feet up and down. Her bag, full of potions, jostles loudly on her back. “You should have seen it! There were bones flying everywhere!”

Jubilee nods, handing her back her change. “Yeah, twenty-four is a real mess. Good job,” they say, thinking for a second. “Hey, do you still have the boss-core?”

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“Yeah?” says the red-wizard, pulling on one of the straps of her bag.

“You know what you want to make from it yet?”

The wizard thinks for a second. “Uh… I was hoping to get a new pair of boots, actually.” They lean in towards Jubilee. “Mine are getting a little tight around the calves…”

“Cloth?” asks Jubilee.

“Yeah,” nods the red-wizard.

“Want us to make some?”

“Huh?” asks the wizard. “Can you do that?”

Fresh watches as Jubilee shrugs. “We’ve never done it before so I have no idea. You’d be the first customer. Because of that, we’ll only ask for ten percent of the core.”

The red-wizard thinks for a moment, looking around the store as she ponders. Her eyes move over the many items lining the shelves, going from the potions to the weapons to the glass-chickens. Nodding, she opens her bag and pulls out something that Fresh has never seen before. A round, crystalline sphere with a roughly jagged surface. The hollow inside is filled with a swirling, cold, blue fog.

“I’ll trust you with this then!” says the wizard, smiling at Jubilee.

“Great!” Jubilee snaps their fingers up at Basil, who looks down in surprise. “You! Measure her feet.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, go!” barks Jubilee at Basil, who quickly runs off around the counter, taking the wizard with her.

Fresh carries the next load of armor away, thinking. A boss-core? She’s never tried to work with anything like that before. They seemed like very powerful items. But if the wizard wants cloth boots, that seems more like something that Jubilee is going to end up making, as a tailor.

Still, that makes her happy too. Her friend, just like their store, is really coming together into something whole.

Razmatazz

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