Fresh stands behind the counter, next to Jubilee and bags some items up for a customer.

“Thank you, have a nice day!” she says to the man, who takes his bag and leaves without replying.

“You don’t have to say that to every single person, goo-brain,” says Jubilee. Fresh stares at her friend for a moment.

“But then how will they know that I want them to have a nice day?”

Jubilee places their hands on their hips. “They don’t care.”

“I care,” argues Fresh. Jubilee just rolls their eyes. Fresh looks over them, towards a pair of adventurers walking inside, their bags on their backs. “Jubilee!”

“What?”

“We should make bags.”

“We already have bags, goo-brain,” says Jubilee, pointing at the stack of tote-bags.

Fresh shakes her head. “No, I mean, bag-bags.”

“You mean rucksacks?”

“Yeah! We wanted to make them before, remember?” she leans down, whispering into Jubilee’s ear. “- In the north.”

“I mean… I guess, but why? Everyone has a bag already.”

“We’ll use the crystal-drakonium!” exclaims Fresh excitedly. “I bet we can make some really interesting, stretchy, lightweight bags!”

Jubilee thinks, considering the prospect for a moment.

“Excuse me?” asks a familiar voice from the side. Fresh and Jubilee both look up at the tired-man who is standing there with what appears to be a cold herbal-tea in his hand.

“It tastes like plants,” says Jubilee, before he can ask his inevitable question.

The tired-man blinks, staring at Jubilee for a second, before turning his attention to the bottle in his hand. “Ah, no,” he says. “I wanted to ask if you managed to make that item?”

Fresh beams with pride as she reaches down below the counter and pulls out the thing she had made for him. “Ta-da! One anti-dream ram!”

He stares at it, looking confused. “Why is it a ram?”

“Huh?” Fresh looks at the ram in her hands. Why wouldn’t it be a ram? “It’s an anti-dream ram,” she explains, pointing at its horns to convey her point.

“But -” starts the tired-man.

“- Don’t go down that road,” advises Jubilee, cutting him off. “It’s not going to get you anywhere. Two-hundred Obols,” says Jubilee, tapping their finger against the counter. That’s over four times the price that Fresh wanted to charge.

“Jubilee…” whispers Fresh into her friend’s ear, trying to get them to change their mind. But she just once again gets shushed for her efforts.

The tired-man sighs, reaching into his pocket. “You’re really mean,” he says. He doesn’t sound offended or anything like that. It’s just a statement of fact coming from an exhausted mouth. “You’re just like someone who I used to know.”

“Did the mattress help you?” asks Fresh, looking up at him as she recalls his last purchase.

“A little,” he says, placing the coins onto the counter. She hands him the ram. He and the button-eyed thing, that he’s now holding, exchange a long look with each other.

“Keep it by your bed at night and it should stop you from having any dreams,” instructs Fresh.

“Even good ones?” he asks, making sure that this is what he wanted. Though, perhaps he should have done that before paying. Jubilee doesn’t give refunds.

“Even good ones,” says Fresh, nodding.

The tired man sighs in relief and looks at them. “Thanks, I’ll try it out.” Grabbing his bottle, he turns around and leaves without getting his change from Jubilee. Sparing a glance over his shoulder to them, he looks like he wants to ask something.

“No,” says Jubilee plainly, pointing at him. The tired-man laughs and just walks out of the store, apparently at least, as a satisfied customer. After waving goodbye to him and to her precious ram, Fresh rubs her head, not able to figure the man out. Let alone what his problem is, if he even has one to begin with. He seems nice enough though, just a little sleep deprived.

“Jubilee? Why are you always so mean to him?” asks Fresh. “He seems nice.”

“It’s banter, goo-brain,” explains Jubilee, pushing the change drawer shut.

“’Banter’ seems mean. Besides, you charged way too much.”

“He has the money.”

“How do you know?” asks Fresh. “What if he has a family or obligations that he needs that money for?”

“He doesn’t anymore. Why do you think he wanted something to stop good dreams?” asks Jubilee, folding up a few more bags from beneath the counter and stacking them neatly on the pile behind them both.

Veli zips by with a cloth in hand, going to polish the sheep’s button eyes. He stops, sparing a second to wipe Shamrock’s helmet off, before flying further. Fresh blinks, staring at Jubilee, clearly confused. Seeing this, Jubilee doesn’t even sigh or shake their head anymore, perhaps having expected their interaction to go this way.

“He’s the magistrate of the city,” explains Jubilee.

“Huh?!” asks Fresh. The tired-man is the guy who runs the city? It’s no wonder that he’s tired. “Wait…” mutters Fresh, realizing something. “‘He doesn’t anymore’. What does that mean, Jubilee?”

Jubilee tosses her a handful of bags to fold. She catches most of them, but a few fall down to the ground at her feet. “His family went to the south,” explains Jubilee. “He’s probably still dreaming about them and doesn’t want to anymore. Good dreams can be more haunting than bad ones, you know?”

There it was again, that phrase, that place, ‘the south’. Fresh looks at the bag in her hands, wanting to ask what it was, what that phrase meant. The south seems like a really bad place. Why would people go there? Didn’t Shamrock say once that the other two witches lived in the south? So it couldn’t be that bad, right? Or is it bad because of them?

But…

It seems like a weird thing to ask at this point, doesn’t it? It seems like it’s something she should know already. Like Jubilee’s gender. She’s been here too long and talked about it too often. To admit that she doesn’t know what it is now would just be awkward.

Is that sensible? No. But it is what it is.

She shakes her head, focusing instead on a different idea, as she stacks the tote-bags. “Veli?” she calls, beckoning the fairy over. Stepping to the side, to get out of earshot from any customers, she asks him about the forest and if a lot of fairies were staying there.

He seems hesitant to answer at first.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” says Fresh. “I’m just wondering if -” clasping her hand by her mouth, she leans in and whispers her idea to him. “Do you think it could work?”

Veli thinks for a moment, considering it. But then he nods. “I can ask.”

“Thanks, Veli!” beams Fresh. “Jubilee!” she calls to the side. “I’m going down to the basement!”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Jubilee, waving her off.

Smiling, she heads into the basement and closes the door tightly behind herself, before going to her workbench.

“Magical floating fairy house,” says Fresh with renewed determination. First things first. She slides the wooden construction, which she had adjusted to Veli’s critiques before, over towards herself. The little ceilings of the doll-house are now higher than they were. Grabbing some thin slices of crystal-drakonium, she sets to work, setting them carefully inside of the little, hollow, wooden walls as insulation. The forest is cold and it will get even colder as autumn progresses. The fairies, not being able to make a fire in these houses, will need all the help that they can get.

Her plan is to continue with the fairy houses. Veli’s remarks were all true and on the mark, they would never work inside of the city. There are too many monsters inside of the walls. But outside of it, in the forest, there are no monsters. The fairies are ironically safer there and a lot of them have already realized that at this point.

It’s a simple scheme, really. She’s going to make a few of these cozy, little, furnished houses, outfitting them with crystal-drakonium and iron-weightlessness rings so that they can float, attached to the treetops, where they’ll be hidden from sight and from the elements. Then, the fairies could live in relative comfort. It’s certainly far better than living in a hollowed out tree, as far as she sees it.

In return, if her plan works out, she’ll have the fairies gather some resources for her, for a few coins. Herbs and berries mostly, things that are plentiful in the forest. With a bunch of gatherers, she could start making a lot more things like medicine and her snacks and Basil would certainly appreciate the plants for her items as well.

It’s a win-win. They get resources to work with. The fairies get homes and employment and most importantly of all, even if the plan doesn’t work out, her conscience will at least be clear, because she at least tried to help them.

“Magical~ float-ing~ fairy~ house~!” hums Fresh to herself as she works.