Zosingh scrambled over her sister's legs and barely avoided tripping over the shaggy mass of fur plopped in the center of the room. Despite her care, however, her small foot still came down on her dog's coal-colored tail.

"Aroo!" the large mammal shouted and stood up abruptly, his large ears perked. As you can imagine, Zosingh was sent sprawling onto the dirt floor.

"Tch! Karuth!" she scolded after dusting herself off. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Karuth's head tilted to one side, causing his now relaxed ears to flop. Despite her best efforts at imitating her mother's stern voice, Zosingh felt a small peel at her lips. "I'm sorry for stepping on your tail," she said. The little girl readjusted her belt while her dog turned his attention from his owner to something much more pressing: the aforementioned "tail".

"You're hopeless," Zosingh muttered with a shake of her head. Her short hair whipped in front of her crow-black eyes for a second as her furry companion began chasing his own tail. She frowned—there surely was something philosophical in the action, wasn't there? Just as she was close to reaching a conclusion to such a quandary...her stomach grumbled.

Food! her body screamed, drawing away her attention. It was useless to argue with herself, which only left her one course of action: eat. Not that there would be anything here. She would have to go to the market first. She shook out her coin purse and counted the tiks as she placed each sliver of gold carefully back in the leather pouch. The stalls wouldn't have the same "fresh" goods as they did on weekends, but she should be able to haggle for bread. While many merchants had steeled their hearts to the sight of starving children like Zosingh, the resourceful child's charisma was extraordinary. And her hands were quicker.

"Daust!" her mother called from atop her perch on the rickety kitchen stool. The older woman tucked a strand of charcoal hair behind where her left ear would have been. It fell back in place and she blew it out of her face while she hammered nails into the aged wood and concrete walls.

"Yes, unchan?" Zosingh replied as she peered her head around the corner into the second room within their abode. Her mom set the rusted hammer down on the bed next to the stove and cast her piercing gaze at her eldest child.

"You're not going to market, are you?" she inquired.

"...no?" Zosingh said while she hid most of her body behind the corner. You had to be ready to bolt at a moment's notice in her house. Running to market was better than staying home and helping cook stew, or being told to watch her little sister. Again.

"Don't lie to me Zoi!" her mother snapped. She grabbed a stained shelf for support as the uneven stool wobbled precariously.

"Fine, yes I'm going to market," she said with a roll of her crescent eyes. "Do you need something?"

"I need my daughter to be back before sundown," the older woman admonished. "You were out past moonrise last week! I want your feet in my house by 6:00 tonight, no later, you hear me?" Zosingh nodded and turned to the door. "You hear me?" her mother called out again.

"Yes unchan!" the little girl shouted before slamming the front door shut. The mother sighed and shook her head, looking to the clock on the wall.

"Back by six," she reminded herself in a whisper.

||||||||||

"That's three tiks," Jaerbuk grumbled from behind his stall.

"C'mon Jaer!" Zosingh pleaded. "Don't you have any old bread for less?"

"Three tiks," the baker replied without looking up from cleaning his nails. Not that the dull knife he was using helped, but the motion was relaxing. Or, it was until the urchin showed up.

"Bread was two tiks last harvest!" the young girl complained.

"Inflation." He could also have said, "supply and demand" or "refugees", and it would have meant the same thing: tough shit.

Zosingh scowled, causing her black eyebrows to caterpillar crawl against her dusty bay-bark colored skin. She had learned those excuses by heart come her sixth birthday; that was five years ago. She was wiser now. Seven hells, she was practically an adult! Not that her mother thought so. Technically she still another six or seven years to go before she was really an adult. But that didn't mean she couldn't get a head start! And what were adults good at? Haggling.

"We both know you can afford to sell it at two tiks," she said. The short girl leaned in closer, holding her breath against the scent of flower and garlic that rose up in waves off of Jaerbuk. "Which you can use to take Hersta out to a nice dinner." The baker immediately looked up and slammed his thick hands down on the wooden stall counter.

"You shut your mouth!" he shouted.

"Shh!" she chided. "Lots of eyes," Zosingh warned. The baker seemed to notice a few refugees had turned their gazes to him. He avoided looking at their sickly pale skin, and turned his attention back to the little girl, who was talking once again. Great. "So how about we do this?" She plucked the dull knife from his loose grasp before he could react. She twirled it between her scarred fingers with practiced ease. Knife play, age eight. "I don't tell your wife about Hersta, and you give me the 'local discount'."

"Fine," Jaerbuk reluctantly consented after mulling it over. Zosingh slapped down two dented tiks with a toothy smile that nearly split her face, and grabbed the loaf of bread from his stall before he could blink.

"Don't take it too hard, okay? Besides," she leaned in, "there are plenty of foreigners to charge four tiks for bread. Five for cakes." And with that, the young blackmailer disappeared into the throng of shoppers.

Jaerbuk leaned back in his uncomfortable hard wood chair with a sigh and mopped sweat from his brow with a used handkerchief.

"Conned by a child," he muttered with a shake of his head. "She's going to grow up to be trouble. Hell, she's already trouble," the old baker said with a snort. Suddenly, he stood up, his forearms bulging as he shoved his chair back. "Hey, you! Pay up or stop breathing your plague breath on my bread!" The Kingdom refugee skittered back frantically and pulled his cloak tighter against his thin body. "Damn refugees..." Jaerbuk grumbled.