To say that the fairy is taken by surprise is an understatement. But that’s fair, the same could be said of Fresh, of Basil, of Jubilee and especially of the strangers who are surrounding Veli, who all look her way in confusion.

“Veli! Veli!” beams Fresh. Of course, she can’t just snatch somebody small like Veli and grab them in a hug, for risk of hurting him. So instead, she clenches her fists and starts excitedly bobbing up and down on her feet.

The fairy has grown in many ways. His hair is longer, his thin, small arms are now healed as well as fuller and well trained, together with the rest of his body that is hidden behind an adventurer’s outfit that Fresh recognizes as belonging to a higher tiered adventurer. A small rapier hangs at his side, pure silver.

Veli seems to have indeed done very ‘welli’.

“Oh, hey, wow,” replies the fairy, looking at her in surprise. “You guys are here too?”

Fresh nods.

“Do you know her?” asks the dark-elf next to Veli. Fresh can’t help but notice that the woman has her hand on the hilt of the small hatchet on her waist.

Veli nods, lifting a hand. “These are the people I told you about. From the west.”

“Oh,” says the dark-elf, letting her arm fall slack again. She sizes Fresh up and down and then shrugs with an expression of a somewhat colder disinterest, turning to walk away again.

“Veli!” says Fresh excitedly. “We tried to find you, but you already left.”

“Ran away is more like it,” barks Jubilee from behind the counter.

“Jubilee!” snaps Fresh, looking over her shoulder.

The fairy buzzes there for a while. “I got sick of the mountain air,” he says, turning to look at Shamrock. The two of them nod to each other once. “Anyways, uh, I gotta go,” says the fairy, lifting a hand as his group has already turned to walk back out of the door without ever stepping another foot into the store. “It was nice seeing you again,” says the fairy, but Fresh isn’t really sure if he means it, given the tone of his voice and the quick departure of the people who he seems to have a closer connection to.

The fairy lifts a hand and waves, flying back out of the door, not sparing a second glance over his shoulder, leaving a confused Fresh standing there all by herself as she watches them quickly vanish away into the city.

Muldrich looks inside.

“All good, Muldrich,” says Basil and the man leans back out, returning to his position.

It’s later in the evening. Business had picked up considerably today, but no matter what task was ahead of her, no matter what question was asked of her by a customer, no matter what issue or challenge had arisen during the day, Fresh could only think about the fairy Veli.

“Are you fucking done yet?” asks Jubilee.

Fresh blinks, lifting her gaze to look at them. They’re all sitting at the dinner table. She looks back down towards her plate. She has been playing with her fork absentmindedly this entire time and her baked tubers and vegetables have been mushed into a goop by her constant scraping and prodding with the utensil.

“Sorry, Jubilee,” says Fresh, scooping some of the food onto her fork. Jubilee had cooked tonight. “I just keep thinking about Veli.”

“Veli’s dead to us, just like he was before,” says Jubilee. “Nothing’s changed.”

Fresh sighs, receiving a consolatory rub on her back from Basil, who is just coming up the small staircase to the platform with a new pitcher of cold tea to drink with their dinner. “Let’s be happy that he’s doing well and that he’s found some people,” suggests the priestess.

Fresh nods. “I am, but why didn’t he want to talk to us?” She thinks for a moment, returning to her previous smushing of her food. She quickly lifts her gaze, having a thought. “Do you think he knows?” she asks sharply.

Jubilee shakes their head. “No. Veli was never near any of that stuff.”

Shamrock nods. “It’s simpler.”

“Simpler?” asks Fresh.

Basil sits down, pouring some new tea into their cups. “It’s just awkward. Running into people who used to be a part of your life.”

“Why would it be awkward?” asks Fresh. “I was really happy to see him.”

Basil smiles and nods, continuing to pour the tea. “Sometimes, people change and grow in such dramatic ways that they don’t like to be reminded of where they came from,” explains the priestess. “He looked very strong.”

“The results of hard work,” states Shamrock.

Fresh watches them for a moment, before looking back at her plate. “So we’re just a bad memory?” she asks. That kind of hurts, especially considering that the fairy is still likely wearing the heartstone-necklace that she had made for him, so that he can persist outside of the mountain all day every day.

“It’s uncomfortable,” says Basil. “When you’ve buried the dead and then they come back to life.”

“Fucking understatement,” throws in Jubilee. “Don’t worry about it,” they say. “Like I said. Veli is dead to us and we’re dead to him. It’s better that way.”

Basil sighs. “I wouldn’t put it so harshly, but…”

The dinner table is quiet, except for the renewed scraping of Fresh’s fork against her plate. Feeling Jubilee’s eyes on her, she catches herself, clearing her throat and setting her fork down, so that she can’t play with it anymore.

It hurts, in a lot of ways. She wants to sit the fairy down and tell him everything, she wants to set the record straight and explain to him that what happened in the past was a mistake of theirs.

But it doesn’t look like that’s an option that’s available to her and even if it was… apparently that’s just not what the fairy, Veli, wants for the life he has now chosen to live.

Fresh supposes that she understands. It would be like one of Jubilee’s old friends from their past life just appearing in front of them in the middle of the street on a random day in spring.

It would be quite a shock.

“Aaah~” sighs an orc in relief, holding one of the hot-water bottles against his neck. “These are really nice.”

Jubilee taps against the counter. “You bet your frozen green ass they are,” they say. “Ninety-nine Obols and you can keep it.”

Fresh sighs. Jubilee will always be Jubilee, she supposes. Though, maybe there’s nothing wrong with that. The customers don’t ever seem to mind the ‘banter’. Adventurers really are a different breed than the normal day-to-day customer.

The man considers it for a moment, looking at the squishy little rectangle in his large hand. “Can you make them bigger?” he asks.

“Huh? Bigger?” asks Jubilee. “I mean, I guess?” they look towards Fresh who nods.

She supposes that’s a reasonable request. “How much bigger?” she asks, assuming that he means perhaps double, so that it can fit in his big hand better.

“I’m interested in the spell,” he says. “The rechargeable heating element,” explains the orc. “Can you make one that’s just… bigger?” he asks. “About the size of a small child.”

“That’s suspiciously specific,” says Jubilee, raising an eyebrow.

The orc nods. “It could be great for my family business,” he explains. “We run the central-forge, up by-”

Before he can finish his sentence, Jubilee has already slammed the till shut. “A small child?” they ask. “We’ll fucking make you one the size of a dragon.” They cup their hands by the mouth. “Store’s closed! Everyone get the fuck out!”

Fresh blinks, staring, looking for a moment at the orc, noticing that he has an orichalcum ring around his finger.

The man examines the heating bundle closely, apparently having an idea.