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glitch-demon · 4 years

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Saving Grace

Level Two, Part Two

@whore-of-socks

Ok. Not too creepy.

The marketplace is bright and half-bustling, half-meandering. There is a dragonic couple selling chocolate nearest the entrance, their tails entwined as they bellow “Mellow Sweets, READY FOR TREATS?”. Your low health bar grumbles at you for food, but something about this stall doesn’t seem right to you. It does not help how terrifying they appear. You decide to waddle over and Investigate both their questionable chocolate, and any info they can give on what the h*** is going on in this game. The dragonic lady pleasantly trills at you and her gentlemen smiles warmly down on you. Grace notices their darker scales, and mumbles to herself something about them being from a Nightmare Realm.

“What can we do for you, sweet child? We have a fine selection of chocolate from all over our world; jepsi, edelwood, petalwood, dark, white, you name it! Oh, but if you for some reason can’t have chocolate, we have candy sticks that are just as scrumptious!” They spoke together, each taking every other word without missing a beat. Well practised, in harmony, as if they’d done it a million times. And they probably have! You look behind them. The candy sticks seem to be actual sticks. Oh ho ho ho.

“Hi, can I have a dark chocolate and a petalwood stick, both for the road? Oh, and I love your wing piece Mrs. Mellow!” Grace asks pleasantly, laying the sugar on thick. Huh. You don’t get any option to dig for info before she says that. Oh well. Mrs. Mellow hides into her husband’s chest, “Oh, stop.” He hands Grace what she ordered. The list checks off itself at the same time you unlock an achievement: Never Judge A Book By Its Cover! They both sweetly wish you farewell as you shuffle off into the market ‘street’ again.

“What nice Nightmares. I want them to adopt me.” Grace says to herself, sighing wistfully.

The next closest stall has a very small, very cute duck. Not as small as Deku, but is a dwarf compared to Grace who is about 4’7”. You do not expect the following:

“What do ye want, ye fugly pixie? Can’t ye see am run’n a respectable business here, selling my hunts? Yer scare’n away mine customers!” He says in a heavy, rough country accent. Grace glances up to his stall sign, Gregory’s Predator Produce, looks behind him at the various animal parts, spots a pair of rams horns, and says, “I can punt your sorry tailfeathers all the way back to the human world, Gregory.”

“Oh pa lease. Get out if yer not going to buy somethin’.”

Grace grins her baby fangs at him. The next thing he knows, he has a sword against his ringable duck throat.

“I’ll take your ram horns. Free.”

“O-f course, anythin’ for the lady! Hehe. No need for a duck feast tonight. Hehe.” She lowers her sword a smidge, to let him scurry back to get the horns. He plops them on the wooden counter. Grace sheethes her sword to put the horns in the bag. She takes him by the vest collar, leans in close.

“And you don’t have any customers because you can’t even tell the difference between a flore and a pixie, Gregory.” She pecks him on the bill before shoving him and walking away calmly.

You look around. There is a girl approaching you, a witch? You try to get away from her. But somehow the Game Knows. It slows Grace down, the girl gets faster, practically floating off the ground with her face covered. Another cutscene fast approaching, you get to the other side of the market before she catches you. F***, you pressed the key to throw a barrel!

Grace turns around and smiles at her, “Hi Mia! What’s up!”

Her face is no longer shrouded by the huge witch hat. The first thing you notice is her bright, void eyes. She steps closer, and you see tiny multicolored galaxies stuck in a technicolor beat. It distracts you from her sewn-shut mouth until she starts signing “Hi, bitch.”

Grace squeals and pulls her into a crushing hug.

When the two girls seperated, after much giggling and suffocating, Mia asks why Grace was here by herself.

“Well, I’m not really alone now.”

“That’s not what I mean Grace. Why are you out with no adult watching your every move? Did you sneaky sneak out?”

“You’re half right. I’ve actually run away and become an apprentice since now I can legally make my own decisions.” She bowed her head to show off her soft, dark petals peaking out gently from her warrior styled hair. Mia oo’d.

“So what are you studying? And do you have a good place to stay?”

“Uhh. Uh. I’m studying to take care of magical creatures in the woods, and I guess how to use their magic for stuff? Yeah. Um, this is actually my first day so I don’t have a place yet. My master sent me to shop for new clothes for me and to get it- sorry, uh HIM stuff too.” Grace started to sweat as Mia squinted her suspicion at her. She idly wondered if the Wood Beast cared if she referred to it as a he.

“You can stay at my place for a year, you know. It’s not like you didn’t practically live there for most of your life. You can even sleep in my old room.” Mia offered. Grace noticed that a group of customers were starting to flood past them and took Mia’s wrist to get them out of the way. They watched the swarm of other faefolk march and flit past from a dark corridor between two stone buildings. The deeper into the market, the bigger and sturdier the building merchants sold from. You notice Mia’s face glows neon, stitches bright and smiling wider than her mouth. Her hands have a heart pattern in a line, neon purple lining where her phalanges would be under her fabric-y skin, allowing you to see in the dark what she’s saying.

“I can’t. I don’t want my aunt to harass you. She means well, but you know how she gets when she’s told no. And besides, the last time I was over there my dad was still here. I don’t want to wake up to your favorite Sleeping Poppet and cry because I remember my dad saying she was the ugliest thing he ever saw.”

“She’s not that ugly!”

“Listen, Mia. I love you, but her face could make a Nightmare cry.”

“Stop bullying my daughter, bitch. She works perfectly fine, who cares what she looks like when you’re sleeping soundly all night?”

“Yeah, that’s why you face her away from you before you sleep.” Grace rasps between terribly hidden laughs. Mia salutes her with a certain ‘sign’. The last ropes of Grace’s self control fray, and both girls lean on each other as they belly bellow.

When they settle in a tender silence, Mia leans over to Grace’s wall of the small alley to touch their sides together, to line up from the sides of their feet to the tips of their shoulders. Grace thinks that they fit together not quite perfect, but perfectly right.

“Are you sure?”

“About what?” Grace murmured back.

“About what we were talking about.”

“Yes.”

“Ok.”

The silence resumed. They breathe out of synch, the noises of merchants haggling with their good neighbors wash over them. It was nice. Quiet.

“You said earlier you moved out. Did you get the apprenticeship you wanted?” Grace asked gently.

Mia hmm’d, looking up at the mid day sky in thought, before slowly responding, “Not exactly what I wanted, but I think it’s what I needed. Six moons of Mr. and Mrs. Mellow has taught me many things about candy, but it’s also taught me how to talk to people; with kindness. I believe that may be better than what any professional wizard could teach me.”

Grace hmm’d back, “Oh. But you always were kind to people.”

“If they were kind first. But I mean, even to people who hurt too much for their words to not spill over with hurt.”

“You mean rude ba*****s.”

“...yes.”

“I never could do that. Maybe I should.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Yeah...” Grace sighs.

“Bitch.” Mia signs, stepping away. She takes a pendant from under her shirt and then off from around her neck. It is a cork bottle with a clasp, and she uncorks it to down the mysterious liquid before corking and re-clasping it to the black leather cord. “I’ve been gone too long. I have to zoom. Good luck with your new master, the year will fly by I promise! Juuust don’t bite his head off.”

“Don’t worry, we’re already passed that phase. Probably. Love you!” Grace says somehow through her chuckling.

“Love you too!” Mia mumble-calls through her binds as she gracefully floats from wall to wall, bouncing to get higher as the potion starts to activate. She is gone like a cat across rooftops, back to the start.

You step out into the sun, Grace’s Determination Bar grows. She is ready to get home early.

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