“I’ve really been feeling a lot better these last few days,” replies the familiar orc. Fresh nods, glad to hear it. It looks like Basil’s medicines have had a positive effect.

She leans down to the side, pulling out a bottle of vitamins. It’s a little glass jar with a pop-off lid and a hand-drawn label. “I’d suggest trying these,” says Fresh, opening the item’s window for the orc to read. “If you take one a day, they’ll really keep you pepped up!”

The orc thinks for a second. “I don’t know, I feel better now. So…”

Fresh nods, understanding. “Sure, but how much revenue did you guys lose because a cold went through your group?” she asks, tapping the lid of the bottle. “A pinch of prevention beats a fistful of cure!”

“Hmm…” the orc turns to look at her party-member, the cloaked man. He considers it for a moment and then nods. “Ten percent across all stats is a pretty big boost…”

“Right?” asks Fresh, shaking the little glass bottle. “And you can share a bottle. There are thirty-one tablets in each.”

The two of them look at each other and then nod, accepting the sale.

(Fresh) sold 1 [Vitamin Bottle](Excellent)

for

[{89} Obols] !

“Thank you, come again!” she calls after the two of them as they leave. They’re hooked now. Once they get the ten-percent stat boost from taking a vitamin each every day for ten days, they won’t want to lose it. And since they’re sharing the bottle, she essentially made three sales at once now. She recalls their party having three different members in it.

“Pretty slick,” says Jubilee, having seen this exact scenario play out as well, as they throw her coins into the till.

Fresh smiles, leaning against the counter with her elbows as she waits for the next person to come inside.

“Having a family is expensive, after all,” she says.

Jubilee rolls their eyes and closes the till, which is full of rattling coins.

“We’re going to the festival, Muldrich!” says Fresh as the four of them walk out of the house. “Wanna come with us?”

“No, thank you,” replies Muldrich, standing there, standing straight ahead.

“Okay, well… have a nice night,” says Basil, waving to the man. The priestess has recovered from her illness as well. It’s the evening, the store is closed for the day and the festival is coming to a close with the big bonfire event happening tonight.

Fresh is glad that Basil managed to get healthy right on time. She was really looking forward to going to the festival with them all before it closes. They never really get to do stuff like this because they’re always so busy with their work.

“It’s all because of this,” says Basil, holding out the small peridot stone. Fresh beams, glad that it helped after all.

Jubilee waves her off. “Fuck off, Basil. It’s a rock.”

Basil puts it back into her pocket. “You need to have a little faith sometimes, right, Shamrock?” she asks.

Shamrock nods. “Belief is a powerful tool.”

Jubilee sighs. “The only thing I have to believe in is that you people are going to drive me into ruin.”

“Oh, please,” says Basil. “As if that isn’t where we dragged you out from.”

“You’re doing the thing again,” says Jubilee, shaking their head. “The thing where you pretend that you’re a part of my life.”

“Huh…” says Basil, fairly indifferently, grabbing Jubilee’s hand as they walk towards the start of the festival. Jubilee curses, trying to shake the priestess off. But has less success than they did removing Fresh the other day.

It is darker now, later in the evening.

The streets of the festival ground are lit alight by the gentle glow of hundreds of soft, orange lanterns that adorn the many stalls, vendors and booths. People are strolling around in all directions, stopping here and there to look at things or to try on new clothes and scarves, to try out new simple foods and drinks. The atmosphere is light and happy.

Snow falls down from the sky, drifting lazily as it finds its way to the ground. The white veneer of the flakes obscuring the flashes of smiles and the glints of happy eyes as they pass them in brief seconds. Even after those flakes of snow fall to the ground, they seem to still carry the imprint of those emotions all around them, as if the banks of growing snow were a form of insulation, keeping the warmth of the people here trapped between themselves.

Fresh smiles, taking a long drink of her steaming hot mug of fruit tea. Though, it’s really more of a syrup than a tea, given how thick and how sweet it is. On a night like this, she realizes that she misses chocolate.

It’s kind of a random desire to pop in her head. But she can’t help but think, as she walks through the festival together with her friends, that right now, she would really like a big, steaming mug of hot chocolate to share with them.

Oh well, this is really good too.

They had spent the last few hours just wandering around together. Fresh convinced her friends to play a lot of games with her. They played the crossbow shooting game again, but her favorite was a padded sword fighting game, even if Basil did whack her on the head a few times.

Shamrock wasn’t allowed to play that one.

They’ve eaten a lot of junk food, far more than is perhaps reasonable. But there’s only one winter-festival a year and Fresh can’t help but consider that this might be the only one she’ll ever get to see here, knowing their history. So she really tries to make the most of it and tries to get her friends to do the same. Though, they seem to be on board themselves.

Jubilee and Basil had gotten something alcoholic to drink and are busy bantering with each other again. So Fresh and Shamrock are in charge of being the adults today. So far, it’s been going well.

“It’s going to start soon, guys!” says Fresh, dragging Shamrock after her. Shamrock holds Basil’s hand and Basil holds Jubilee’s hand and they’re all dragging each other around the fairgrounds like several segments of a snake as they head towards where the giant bonfire is going to start soon, to signal the end of the festival and the breaking of winter.

Winter isn’t over yet. But this is the turning point. Tonight is the night when slowly but surely, the cold will begin to die down day by day, until in a month or two from now, the spring is to return. She can hardly wait. She hopes that spring will be as nice and as beautiful as it was last year.

Fresh stares up as they reach the center of the marketplace, as they reach the giant stack of wood, towered high in the middle of a circle of stalls.

They’re still a little early, so they find a nice spot near some stalls and make themselves comfortable as they wait, sheltered here from the wind but still present within the warmth of the outdoor festival.

Fresh takes a long drink of her mug and then sets it down onto a table, staring over towards the unlit bonfire. Children run around, carrying baskets as they prepare for the event.

A year will soon have come to pass. A year since her arrival here. A year since the first day of her new life and as Fresh stands there, watching the breath leave her mouth, she isn’t sure what to think.

She’s happy, but she’s terrified. What if this happiness is just fleeting? What if it’s just a temporary, ‘for now’ thing? What if in a year from now, this will all be… gone?

Her gaze wanders over to her friends who are discussing the logistics of simply flooding the dungeon with an army of summoned spriggans, as she remembers the words of her patron, the fountain.

What if it’s all just… fake? What if their friendship with her isn’t even real? What if she’s holding onto something that doesn’t exist? Like a sleeping person frantically clawing onto a happy dream as they begin to wake up again to a new dreary, sad day that is inevitably to come?

A horn blows off to the side.

“Oh, it looks like it’s about time,” says Basil. People start moving towards the bonfire, the crowd starts to fill in to the plaza, which becomes noisier and more active by the second. It’s like a waking hive, beginning to stir.

One of the children from before walks up to their table, holding up a basket to them.

“Thank you,” says Basil, taking one of the small candles out of it for each of them.

It doesn’t take much longer than that. Soon, the square is full of people. Adventurers, crafters, some politicians and some soldiers and guards, some children and some mothers and some fathers, some brothers and sisters and some vagabonds and some people who are just here by themselves. It feels like everyone is here.

Fresh isn’t sure what the ceremony here really is, but it seems to explain itself. A man walks out from the other side of the circle of people with an already lit candle. He holds it out to the first person next to him inside of the circle. That woman then holds her lit candle out to her left and to her right to light those of the people next to her who then in turn do the same.

Slowly, like the spreading of a wildfire, the small flames begin to grow all around the circle with exponential speed as two people light four candles and then those four people light the candles of those next to them.

Within a minute, every candle in the circle of some hundred people is lit. Fresh turns her head, looking down the streets, watching as the flame seems to travel down them, setting the entire festival alight as if the glow were blood leaving a beating heart, pushing out into a dry vein.

A bell rings.

The first man throws his candle into the wood. Nothing happens. It’s just a candle, the wood won’t burn from just that. One by one, the circle moves in towards the unlit bonfire, they place their candle inside, wedging it anywhere there is space between the wood. Some throwing theirs together, some lodging theirs as high as they can, others simply placing it at the foot of the thing.

Fresh, Jubilee, Basil and Shamrock look at each other and then each find a spot for their candle that they find is most fitting to their own tastes before they step back and watch as the crowd moves in.

From one candlelight becomes two, from two becomes four, from four becomes many. The collective glow of a thousand small candles begins to collect and soon enough, the wood starts to burn.

The people begin to throw their candles in now and the wood begins to burn higher, faster, hotter.

The flames rise up towards the night-sky that seems to hang so heavily over them, as if the fire itself were the only thing keeping the darkness from crashing down onto their heads.

There isn’t much festivity now. There aren’t any cheers or hollers apart from a few drunks who are quickly shunned and silenced by their peers. This is a sacred moment and is held to be so by the people here, given their quietness, given the thousand stares that gaze longingly towards the fire that they had collectively made, towards the good-thing brought into life by their collective, small, minuscule efforts that are on their own, next to unnoticeable.

Fresh stands there, quietly understanding herself why the center is different from the outside.

It isn’t wealth, it isn’t seclusion, it isn’t power.

It’s because it’s a collective of people who are different in their backgrounds, makeups, beliefs and practices. But importantly they are homogeneous in one thing, their collective sense of belonging to this place, to this place belonging to them. That’s the key factor. This city isn’t just a city that people of different make-up live in, this is something that these thousand faces and then some all consider a home.

That’s what makes the difference in their efforts, in their actions, in their words and ultimately, in the results.

This is a place where people, for better or for worse, feel that they belong.

The fire grows, rising up higher and higher towards the night, towards the darkness, towards that bubble that covers the city, the shield that nothing at all seems to be outside of.