For if the sweets she loves are taken,

Her anger you all shall greatly waken.

-prophecy of the duskbringer

Guppy jumped out of her narrow bed and pounced on the slumbering form of her sister.

"Stalia wake up, it's already well past the fifth bell".

"Five more minutes" Stalia groaned.

Guppy frowned, why did Stalia always make starting the morning so hard?. Guppy fixed an extra big smile on her face and promptly tipped Stalia's small mattress over.

Very shortly a hissing, furious mess of blankets, hair, and person erupted out of the disorder.

"I. Was. Getting. Up. In. A. Minute!" Stalia yelled.

She huffed, but when Stalia saw how high the sun already was she quickly de-blanketed, threw on her light blue work dress and starting to run a brush through her tangled hair.

Watching her, Guppy sighed in envy. Stalia really had won the gene lottery from their heritage. At sixteen years old Stalia had inherited their mother's looks with smooth skin, delicate arching cheekbones and eyebrows, pitch black smooth hair and bright, cheerfully sparkling blue eyes.

For crying out loud she even had dimples that appeared when she smiled. Stalia had always charmed others easily, and her recently blossoming figure turned many a head as she passed.

On the other hand, Guppy might be a slender seventeen year old but her muddy brown-blond hair and eyes could not be plainer or more common, on top of that her skin was browned and roughened from hours in the sun growing up and physical work. Even her height was taller than average, not a great feature for a Dareshian maiden.

'Nothing about me is appealing to men' Guppy pityingly thought, 'Not that I'm looking for one.' she reaffirmed to herself.

Guppy gently shook her brother Kyle. He had somehow slept through the racket his sisters were making, but he quickly turned over at the touch and smiled blearily at Guppy before throwing his blankets back and stretching his lanky limbs.

Guppy sighed, even her younger brother Kyle was doing alright, he was a little skinny and tall for a fourteen year old but was already packing some wiry muscle on his frame. Unlike Guppy, his hair was a rich curly brown, which no matter how messy it was just somehow worked for him.

'Just like dad,' Guppy thought.

And maybe it was Kyle’s green-blue eyes, or his sheepish grin he showed when he talked, rare as that was, but he already had girls flirting and chasing him. Attracting them like street suk’s to a meaty bone.

'Not that he would notice' Guppy mentally snorted as she made sure he was presentable, 'he's always daydreaming, his mind never entirely all present.' she had observed over the years.

Some folks called him a fool. But Guppy knew better, Kyle was in fact quite a smart kid, and as she had discovered, extraordinarily talented with repairing magitech items.

One night four years ago, when the lamp had been broken by Stalia’s carelessness, which prompted a fight between Guppy and Stalia, he had sat quietly in the corner and taken it apart, reconfigured the magic circuit and put it back together.

Then calmly put it back in its place on the dining table, and turned it on. His sisters had broken off the fight to turn and stare, and they had eagerly shown their mother when Esmeralda returned from work.

At the age of eight, Kyle could do what most sixteen year old apprentices could not. Her mother had realized this and taken him to get tested the next day.

There at the magic affinity testing station they found that he had not one, or two affinities, but all four primes, fire, water, wind, and earth.

Knowing he needed some backing if he was to have a reliable future Esmeralda took him then and there to a master magitech crafter, none other than John Mithrilsmith, and after a round of incredulity on the smith’s behalf, an apprentice contract was quickly struck for when he turned fourteen and came of legal age, now just a few days past.

Guppy heard the sixth bell start tolling, Interrupting her absent minded recollections.

"Fudgeknuckles" she swore, "we're going to be late. Stalia, I’ll take Kyle to work today. There's some leftover bread on the table under the cloth, we'll get something on the way. I'll see you after work."

With that, Guppy grabbed a sleepy, but prepped, little brother and charged out the door.

She emerged into the noisy morning streets of Nolusberg, and even here in one of the many little side streets it was crammed with people pushing and shoving as they went both ways.

Yet street vendors still found space and plied their wares wherever they could, further adding to the din by extolling the value and prices of the various goods they offered.

Guppy wormed her way through the crowd, pulling Kyle behind her as she refused vegetables and mystery meat pies that were offered her for a few coppers.

She smacked away the hands of children who went for her coin purse, and after traveling down a couple streets in this fashion, exited the traffic flow to dart into a bakery located on a corner.

Letting out a sigh of relief and then taking a deep breath Guppy inhaled the delicious scents that wafted through the shop. After enjoying the aroma’s for a moment she called out to the proprietor of the establishment.

"Uncle Bombas, how are you this morning?"

A rather large, and definitively rotund man in a white apron bounced over.

"Ah, if it isn't my little Guppy. What can I get for you today?"

Guppy smiled at Bombas, he was one of the few genuinely good people she knew. Shortly after their mother had passed, and Guppy’s small family were struggling for food. Bombas would always slip a little extra into their purchase. It wasn't much, but to three semi starving kids, it made all the difference.

Guppy had heard through the local gossip that Bombas and his wife had lost a child years ago to the wasting flu, a disease that ate away at the bearer's muscles until their heart gave out and stopped beating. Since then, Bombas never could stand seeing a malnourished child before him, and often invented small chores for them to do in exchange for a heel or two of old bread.

Guppy smiled back at the beaming tub of lard, "Two barley rounds please, and a small wedge of Harry's cheese to go with." she ordered.

"Good, good little Guppy, we need to fatten you up for your suitors, seventeen years old is an important year for such a lovely child after all!" Bombas chortled while Guppy blushed.

Most girls were married or pregnant at seventeen round here, something she was far away from, not having a single suitor to date.

"None of those around," she murmured, as Bombas's mountainous mass glided with a surprising grace across the floor to the cooling racks of the morning’s freshly baked bread.

Shortly he returned with her order wrapped in some brown paper. It felt heavier than it should and Guppy made sure they both thanked Bombas properly when she handed over a few coppers in payment. She silently called on the 12 divines to bless this gentle man with peace and grace for his generosity.

"How's your sister faring at the Five Legged Murgoat?" inquired Bombas as he handed over the parcel.

"Quite well, thank you," replied Guppy politely, "they finally promoted her from cleaning girl to a full time waitress. Also they've now got a decent bouncer, Rade from the docks got laid off recently and they snapped him right up."

"Rade you say?" Bombas's chins and jowls wobbled as he grinned, "good strong lad that, he'll keep those drunken louts off Stalia, she's too pretty for her own good these days, like a noblewoman she is."

"And doesn't she know it!" Guppy complained, "If I had a silver noble, or even a commoners copper for all the boys chasing her, I'd be ordering your delicious jam donuts every-"

Just as she spoke the half bell sounded.

Paling somewhat, Guppy hastily ducked her head in a half bow and bid farewell to Bombas. She grabbed Kyle, who was staring at the roof while muttering a series of numbers to himself, and ventured forth once more into the busy streets.

The din and stench of too many people too close washed over them as Guppy set her shoulders and proceeded to shove her way through the traffic once more.

As they left the immediate crowding and walked up wider streets, Guppy carefully peeked inside the wrapped package. She saw the usual two loaves of rye bread with an accompanying slice of cheese for each, but what confirmed her suspicions and made her grin was what was tucked below them.

A small jar of Bombas's homemade berry jam revealed itself in all its sweet, delicious glory.

Now Guppy loved her brother Kyle with all her heart, but that jam was hers.