Fresh supposes that she has been afraid to use any of her curses for a while now. Not since the north. Maybe because of the mental connection to the somewhat traumatizing events that had taken place there, or maybe because she just doesn’t want to cause any trouble for her friends or to upset this life of theirs any more than she already has?

But as she stands there on the balcony, during the early morning, looking through the telescope at the brightening sky spreading out over the world, she considers that maybe it’s time for her to get back to her roots. Again, she doesn’t know how she got this idea.

Maybe it’s because she feels like she and her friends are healed in some intangible way, or maybe because she’s bored, or maybe because that cloud right there looks like a crab with a witch’s hat? That might be it.

Fresh sighs. She wishes she had a pointy witch’s hat. But maybe it would be too on the nose? Maybe she could get a pet crab instead? Then again, crabs don’t seem like they would like it on the mountain and…

Fresh blinks. Wait. Do crabs even exist here in this world?

She turns around. “Jubilee~?” she asks.

Jubilee, sitting at the table, looks up from their book. “What?”

“Are crabs real?”

Jubilee stares at her. “What?”

“Crabs,” explains Fresh, lifting her hands and making a pinching motion with the two of them. “Are they real?”

Jubilee stares at her, before looking over at Basil who also stares, equally confused, over from the kitchenette. “What the fuck kind of question is that? Of course crabs are real, dumb-ass.”

“Thanks! I wasn’t sure for a second there,” laughs Fresh, turning back to the notebook that she has been sketching things down in. Would telling her friends that she’s from another world make things weird?

Maybe.

Is it worth keeping as a secret?

Probably not.

But, things are comfortable now, so why rock the boat? If she fell off, the crabs might get her.

Fresh looks up at the sun, rising on the edge of the distant horizon. “Can we go to the ocean? I wanna see a crab.”

Jubilee sighs loudly, lifting their book higher to block their view of her.

Basil chimes in from behind. “The ocean is pretty far away. It isn’t that easy to get to from here.”

“Oh,” says Fresh, disappointed. “Where is it?”

“The nearest one is in the east.”

“In the desert? That’s super far,” groans Fresh. “Isn’t there one around here?”

Basil shakes her head, knocking the spoon in her hands against the pot. “No, west of here is just more forest for a good two or three months by foot. “The east is about a month away, if you take the road. But that’s kind of a long vacation for us.”

“We’ve never taken a vacation,” argues Fresh.

Jubilee shakes their head. “Because we’re trying to make money, dumb-ass.”

“For what though?” asks Fresh, half-sarcastically. Her inventory is chock full of floating coins. She hasn’t even bothered to look at the ledger in ages. She has more money than she knows what to do with. Though, she has always been a frugal spender. It’s not that she doesn’t buy things that she likes, it’s just that she kind of already has everything. Some hot food, some nice drinks, a roof over their heads and she’s happy. Maybe a bottle of dragon’s milk now and then as a treat.

She sets the telescope and her notebook down, deciding that she’s seen enough. Though she isn’t quite sure what it is that she has seen.

Fresh runs downstairs. “I’m going to the basement!”

“Good, stay down there where you belong,” calls Jubilee after her. Fresh laughs. Jubilee is just being extra ‘bitey’ today to make up for the embarrassment of their softness last night, she knows it and Jubilee knows that she knows it.

“Crab~ Crab~ Crabbity crab~!” buzzes Fresh to herself as she goes downstairs and into the basement. Shamrock is down here as well, making some slimes at the workbench. He turns his head over towards her as she approaches. Fresh lifts her hands into the air, pinching her fingers as she scuttles sideways towards him. “Crab. Crab~” she says, explaining the purpose of her actions in so few words.

Shamrock seems to simply accept this for what it is and turns his head back to his work without saying anything.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Making slimes,” he replies.

“Neat!” says Fresh, grabbing his arm with her pinched fingers as she looks over at his work. “How do you feel about crabs, Shamrock?”

“They are acceptable.”

“Mm!” laughs Fresh, having expected this answer. “Let’s look at crabs sometime, Shamrock!” she says.

“The ocean is far away.”

Fresh sighs. “I knooow~ Basil already told me it’s by the east.”

Shamrock turns to look at her disappointed face as she turns to gather her tools, so she can start working at the free spot next to him. “Sometimes, the clouds look like crabs,” he explains.

Fresh gasps, pretending as if she hadn’t seen exactly just this phenomenon herself only a minute ago.

As she works, carving a piece of glass into a little glass crab, the two of them spend the morning hours before they open talking about different animals. Though, this is mostly just Fresh talking about different animals while Shamrock occasionally throws in a sentence of acknowledgment now and then. He’s really a great listener.

“- I’m not annoying you, am I?” she asks, stopping herself after almost a full hour of talking about frogs and lizards. She isn’t sure why she has animals on the brain today, but she blames the crab-cloud.

Shamrock shakes his head and Fresh beams, continuing her ramble while she carves the crab into shape.

[Craftsman: 8] [Glass Crab](Excellent) A small glass statue of a pinchy crab. The intricately worked glass shimmers with prismatic beauty.

Quality Effect:

While within 8m:

Reduces all taken PHYSICAL DMG by 1

Weight: 0.4kg Value: ???

Fresh’s eyes open wide, seeing that she’s finally leveled up her craftsman sub-class. Immediately, she starts jumping around in excitement before devolving back into the crab shuffle. Shamrock stares at her as she does this and then, apparently being unable to resist the horrible witch of the north, he lifts his hands and starts crab-walking around the basement together with her.

“Crab!” cries Fresh.

“Crab,” says Shamrock.

“Crab!”

“Crab.”

“Hey, you shit-heads. We’re about to op -” Jubilee stands at the half-way point of the staircase, looking down at them as the two of them scuttle around the basement. “What the fuck?”

Fresh looks up towards Jubilee from down below. “Crab!” she exclaims excitedly, turning her gaze over to Shamrock, who nods back down to her, immediately understanding her plan. The two of them start scuttling towards the bottom of the staircase and up towards Jubilee.

“Fuck off!” barks Jubilee at them as they work their way up to them, pinching their fingers.

“Crab!” calls Fresh.

“Crab,” repeats Shamrock, as they make their approach.

Jubilee gets crabbed.

“Guys?” asks Basil, popping her head around the door to look downstairs. “Veli’s going to be here soon, come on. We need to get the store rea- IAH!”

Fresh’s hand shoots out of the darkness behind the door where she has been waiting.

Basil too, suffers the crabbing.

A little while later, all of them emerge from the basement. All of them covered in red-spots and light bruises from pinching each other, except for Shamrock who is immune to such things, which Fresh thinks is a bit unfair. But that’s just how it is.

“We’re never going to talk about this again,” instructs Jubilee.

Basil rubs her sore arm, laughing quietly.

Fresh nods, not really understanding, but feeling accepting of the way things have turned out.

Today is going to be a good day, she can feel it.

She sets the little glass crab down onto the counter. “Crab,” she whispers.