Fresh hums, sitting on the floor of their room as she works. The others are out getting breakfast and she’s sitting here by herself, pulling a little ribbon around a small box. It isn’t much, but it’s a token of her affection. This one is for Shamrock. Jubilee’s and Basil’s are already done and hidden under the bed, which is honestly the only hiding spot in the entire room.

Smiling, she ties the ribbon and then shoves the little box under the bed, with the other two.

It’s the winter-time and she wants to give her friends some small gifts. Not that she doesn’t always want to give them stuff, since she’s always excited to see their expressions and reactions, but now she wants to give them something for a different reason.

Fresh blinks, staring blankly at the wall across from herself.

It’s odd, she realizes; how mesmerizing it is for her, the expressions of her friends. She could just sit there and stare at their faces for hours. The twitching of their lips when she does something that they find funny, but that she is still going to get scolded for. The theatrical rolling of eyes when she or Shamrock make a joke. The effect that a person has on another.

Fresh lowers her gaze, looking down at her hands. She has an effect on people. It’s an odd thing to think about. But her actions, her choices, the things she does and doesn’t do and even just the way how she does or doesn’t do these things affect the faces of the people she cares about. It’s as if she were a painter and could decide that today, her friends are going to have a smile or a frown.

She’s never considered it before, but it’s a very large responsibility, having friends, having a family. They’re all counting on each other for so much, for so many large, life-defining things. But also just for the little stuff. Breakfast. A smile. Who gets to sleep in the middle two spots of the bed, which are objectively the best. All of these things fall under the burden of being a friend, of being a member of this family that they have made.

Pressing her fingers together, Fresh closes her eyes and says a quiet thanks to the fountain, for bringing her to such a warm and happy stage of her life. Sure, it isn’t perfect everywhere, but it’s perfect in the places that matter.

The door opens.

“We’re back!” says Basil. The other two walk in after her.

“Welcome back!” says Fresh, beaming at her favorite priestess. It looks like today they’re going to have a real, warm breakfast, judging by the bags of hot bread and toppings that they’ve brought with them.

Okay, so, well, a ‘warm’ breakfast. It counts if the bread is warm.

Basil shivers, taking off her boots and heading over her way. “It’s so cold out there,” she says, sitting down across from Fresh on the floor. Basil stretches out her leg, touching Fresh’s foot with her icy toes. Fresh lets out a shocked yelp, but sits there and bears the chill, for the sake of her friend who needs to warm up.

“Yeah, yeah,” sighs Jubilee. “I’ll have a jacket done tonight, you baby,” they sigh, kicking off their boots. “Let’s eat,” they say. “We’re going on a walk after this to look for a place to set up shop.”

Shamrock sets down a large, foggy container of hot tea. He’s gotten the hang of his new armor and seems to be having much less difficulty moving in it now. It’s certainly an odd sight for her. She’s still used to the cobalt of his armor that she had always only known him to be inside of. He looks rather dashing in the dark-silver armor though. It’s very… heroic, almost. “We will find something,” he says. Fresh nods. She’s sure that they will too.

The smile that she has had on her face continues to stay there all through their breakfast, much to Jubilee’s annoyance. Then, after breakfast, as they get ready to go and look at a few houses, she still has it on too. Because she’s excited about what’s to come. Because she’s excited about giving her friends their gifts later. They’re just little things, little tokens of affection. They need to be a little frugal now, even if they have saved up a lot. Every Obol saved counts though, if they want to buy a whole house.

“Do we get to choose again?” asks Fresh as they walk down through the street, towards the dungeon-plaza.

“There’s more on the market than I expected there to be,” says Jubilee. “Apparently, a lot of people aren’t coming back to the center anymore.”

“Because of the bubble?” asks Fresh. That’s kind of sad. “Is it okay for the city to just sell their houses?” she asks. “What if it drops in a week and they come back inside?”

Jubilee shrugs. “Not our problem.”

Fresh frowns. This doesn’t sound very happy. But, maybe this is just the universe opening a door for her again, just a smidge, just enough to let her get a foot inside so that she can take another step forward in life. It’s just another one of those convenient circumstances that always seem to follow her wherever she goes.

The dungeon gate itself is a little different than the others they had seen so far. Sure, it still has a stone exterior of sorts. But really, it’s mostly contained inside of a series of overlapping roots of the giant tree, that almost look as if they had grown over the old stone construction and flattened it a little, into a rounder, shorter archway.

Outside of that is the market-plaza, covered in many stalls and vendors. Though now with the winter’s chill being here, many of them only ever seem to be open for a few hours during midday, as most of the people didn’t seem interested in staying outside in the cold all day every day to hawk their wares. Only the ‘house businesses’ stay open all day.

Despite that, the plaza has a very cozy, homey atmosphere. The many stalls are tightly packed and adorned with many colorful, soft things and all around the plaza is a tight ring of timber-framed houses with warm, orange glows behind the window, as if building a wall around this entire plaza, as if they were all huddled together to keep the warmth present here trapped in their midst.

“So we have one over there,” says Jubilee, pointing to the left side of the dungeon-gate. “And one over there,” they say, pointing towards the right.

“Only two? I thought there were more?” asks Fresh.

“There are only two by the dungeon, which is a lot already, goo-brain,” sighs Jubilee. “The others are in the city. Good to live in, but bad for business. They’re too far off.”

“Ooooh,” replies Fresh. That makes sense. The four of them head around the plaza, the snow crunching under their boots as they stand outside of a house.

They stare at it for a moment, before looking at each other.

“It’s certainly… cozy,” says Basil, looking back at the structure.

Pressed between two larger houses, is a thin, tall construction. The sturdy, dark-wooded front door is up two small steps. Hanging over the front door is a small nook from the second floor, with a large veranda window that looks out over the plaza and then there’s a third floor on top of that. The roof is steeply slanted.

“Can we go inside?” asks Fresh.

“After we pay you can,” replies Jubilee. Fresh frowns.

“I kind of like it, honestly,” she says. “It’s super cute!” Shamrock nods, agreeing with her.

“I don’t know if it’s good for a store though?” asks Basil. “We won’t be able to fit in many shelves.”

“We’ll just make a super cute, tiny store!” explains Fresh. “We can sell super cute, cozy things that match the winter-time, you know?” she asks, framing the house with her fingers. She could see it working. It’s basically an exact contrast to their last, giant ‘supermarket’ of a store. This one could be tight and cozy, like a small, comfy book-shop or a tea-store.

“I’m not convinced,” says Jubilee, rubbing their chin. “This one is cheaper though by about fifteen thousand.”

“That’s a lot of money,” notes Basil. “Let’s look at the other one.”

They make their way across the plaza, past the dungeon-gate towards the other house. Fresh points at it. “It’s crooked!” she exclaims, pointing at the objectively, very witchy house. It’s the last house on the right side and one half of it is nested against the roots of the giant tree. However, during some phase of their growth, they seem to have pushed against the stone and the house has been modified to ‘fit’ together with the giant tree. The structure has a solid base, but then the second floor is crooked, literally leaning towards the city and then the third floor pushes back out again, allowing the large root to rest on the lower stones, as if the house were cupping the tree.

Despite that, it’s wider than the other one, having a ‘normal’ width for a home in this part of the city. The strong, ornate front door looks just as secure as the other.

“This one could be easier for the business,” says Basil. “There’s certainly more room.” Fresh isn’t convinced that that’s a positive, honestly, given her previous idea of a ‘cozy shop’.

A loud exhalation leaves Shamrock, who is standing next to her. “It’s connected with nature,” he says, running a hand along the base of a piece of root, sticking out of the ground.

This ‘witchy’ house certainly offers interesting possibilities as well. It isn’t as cozy as the other one, but there is a certain charm to it that she can’t quite place. She feels like it would be particularly well suited to naturey things. An alchemist’s or a herbalist’s shop, maybe? A plant store? Medicine? Hmm… Her eyes rise up to the crooked roof. It’s an odd house, but it doesn’t look like a bad one.

“These are our options,” says Jubilee. “We’ll sleep on it for a while and then we need to make a choice.”

“Sounds like a plan,” says Basil. She pulls on her sleeves, leaning over to Jubilee. “Can we afford these?” she asks quietly.

“Just about, with what we saved over the year,” says Jubilee. “But we should go into the dungeon and make some loose change, or we’re going to be eating spriggans for a long time.”

“I don’t want to eat spriggans,” argues Fresh. “They’re cute.”

“I do,” says Shamrock plainly. Fresh blinks, turning to look at him. Feeling her gaze, he turns to look at her. “They’re good.”

“Pakew…” says Fresh in memory of the many spriggans that are going to leave their lives so that they might live for another day.

“Let’s go, people,” says Jubilee, waving for them to follow as they head towards the dungeon. “Our house isn’t going to buy itself.”