"Hey Emily, what are we doing now?" I ask as we start to make our way upstairs.
"We're going to go sell stuff in the market now," she replies as we climb the stairs to the third floor.
"Oh that's right, how do you sell things?" I ask. I'd completely forgotten I wanted to ask about that until she mentioned it.
"I already..." Emily starts, then suddenly shakes her head. "We just take our things to the market, and there are people there who will buy them from us," she explains it simply. "I'll show you when we get there."
"Ah, ok." When we get to our room, Emily starts filling her basket with things she has collected. I look at my piles of different plants and things and wonder aloud, "how am I supposed to carry these? Hey Emily, what should I bring, and how do I carry it all?"
She turns back to look. "You don't have that much, use this bag." She tosses a small cloth bag over to me. "Those tamarans sell for a good price. Besides that, your wood is a bit small, but you can probably sell it for something. Those herbs and other things aren't worth that much though, not without more of them." I nod and put the sticks into the bag, then pile the tamarans on top. I tie the bag closed with my scrap of cloth and pick it up. It's a bit heavy with everything inside, but not that difficult to carry.
Emily has loaded up her basket as well, so we head back downstairs to meet her friends. They all wave as we walk out the door and we start heading west. There are quite a few other kids too, so it looks like a lot of them go to sell things today too. Well, they are working the rest of the week, so today is their only free time to do it I guess. The same goes for me, I hardly have any time to do anything else since I go gathering every day. I haven't even washed myself in a while. I should probably do that after we go to the market, but I don't know if there's anything else we normally do after. I'll just have to see.
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We travel through the narrow roads in the northwest section of town. I just keep quiet, still vaguely distracted by poking at The Reeb as everyone talks about what they did last week. I guess this is when they all normally catch up on what's happened. Apparently Tony and Robin do a lot of wood cutting in the northern section of the forest where there are larger trees, based on their stories. Jess on the other hand, seems to have trouble getting a lot to sell since she's not much bigger than I am. And apparently, there's an older kid who messes with her sometimes. I keep the name Larry in mind, I'll be careful in case I meet him at some point.
After walking for a little while, we make it to the market. It seems that it's somewhere in the middle of the northwest district, situated in a pretty large plaza. It looks similar to the other markets I've been to, lots of wooden stands where the vendors pile up their goods on their countertops or inside big woven baskets. Large crowds mill about, buying this and that from the vendors. This is a pretty small one compared to others, so it's mostly just food vendors selling various fruit and vegetables. The stalls are lined up in rows so there are a few paths through. It looks like if there's anything more expensive, it's a little further toward the center.
Our group stays near the outside, circling to the right. There's a pretty big stall set up on one side, with a long line formed in front of it. We all take our places at the end of the line. I'd estimate there are about forty people in just this one line. There are a handful of other stalls that seem to attract larger crowds, but none are quite like this.
"Why are there so many people?" I ask.
"This is a stall that buys all sorts of gathered goods for resale," Andy explains from the front of our group, speaking up over the noise of the crowd.. "A lot of people have time to sell their goods on Shanadays, so it's always pretty busy when we get here."
"Why Shanaday?" I wonder.
He calls back, "Shanaday is a day for rest, before beginning the new week. So a lot of people take a break, and a lot of businesses close down for the day to give everyone a day off. The church also encourages everyone to go to the service on Shanaday, so there's generally not much going on."
"Huh, so it's normal for everyone to be off today..." I guess that does make it the perfect day for everyone to buy and sell the things they need. But then, I guess that means Shanaday is the opposite of a day off for the ones running market stalls, since it should be their busiest day. I wonder if they take some other day off instead?
Despite the long line, it moves very quickly. Just during our short conversation, almost everyone ahead of us has gone through already. It's not long until we're up. First Andy goes, then Jess, followed by Tony, Robin, then Emily pulls me to come up with her.
"I'll show you how it's done," she whispers as we walk up to the counter. Emily pulls her basket from her back, piling each item on the countertop one after another. The man on the other side is so large it's surprising. He has arms so thick they look like logs and a chest is as big as some of the trees in the forest. There's no hair growing on his head at all. His attention is on his task as I stand and stare at him.
"Ten mellofruit," he taps one. "Hmm, not ripe yet, forty barr." Is being ripe a good or bad thing? One hand moves on some sort of device while he immediately turns his attention to the next item, counting the pile quickly. It's a pile of brown fallen tree casings, with the nuts still inside. "Fifty five pine nut clusters. one barr each." So fifty five total. I do wonder what a 'barr' is though. It sounds like a 'bar,' but that doesn't make sense. In this context, it must be some quantity of money.
"Forty hoffa, eighty barr. Herbs..." He pokes at the various green herbs she put out. "Ten barr." He continues through each pile of items she empties onto the counter. Ten, twenty, fifty, twenty, forty. She finally finishes going through each of the different items on top.
Emily turns over her basket, letting the wood filling most of her basket pile onto the counter. "And wood." He sizes up the pile, tapping a few of the thicker pieces. "Eighteen barr." Emily just shakes her head.
"Twenty," she says simply. After a moment of thought, the man shrugs.
"Sure, twenty." He taps at the thing next to him, then says, "three hundred forty five barr." I mentally nod at his math.
Emily places five small metal balls on the counter. The man sweeps them into a tray of some sort, then places a small pile of odd looking black circular things on the counter. Emily takes them, counting them one by one. I watch, counting thirty five in total. Three hundred forty five doesn't divide evenly by thirty five, so... maybe if the small balls she gave him were each worth one, that would make three hundred fifty that he owed her. If that's the case, the thirty five black things make sense if they're each worth ten 'barr' each. Emily slides them into a small cloth pouch she has tied to the side of her basket.
"Your turn," she says, moving aside a bit so I can approach the counter. It's a really low countertop, much lower than most of the stalls I've seen, probably to account for so many of his customers being children like us. That puts it at the height of my chin, so I can actually reach the top of it. I empty my bag onto the counter like Emily did.
"Ten tamarans, underripe, fifty barr. As for the kindling..." He frowns a bit as he sizes it up. "I guess I can give you one barr for it. That's fifty one total." He places five of the black things on the counter, followed by one tiny gray ball. It looks like my guess was right earlier.
I take the money in my hands and stop dead. These things! As soon as I touch them, I can tell there's something about them. They feel vaguely similar to the divine gear and divine totem. Well, the feeling is pretty different, but I can immediately tell they are special somehow. The man raises his eyebrow when I hesitate. I don't have time for this now. I hastily bow and say, "Thank you," before beginning to move away from the counter. Since I don't have a little pouch, I tie my scrap of cloth around them to keep them together. I'll have to investigate the strange objects later. "Good job, Aria," Emily immediately praises me as we walk away.
"Well, it wasn't actually very difficult, since you showed me first." I grin, bringing my thoughts back to the present. "Anyway, what is a 'barr' exactly? Some amount of money?"
"Have you ever used money before?" I shake my head. "No? Well, our currency is called barr." She digs in her bag, pulling out one of the tiny gray balls. "A tin is worth one barr."
"Tin?" I ask, "what's that?"
"This!" She seems exasperated as she just waves it at me.
"Oh, sorry, I meant what is 'tin' exactly? It kind of looks like metal?"
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Oh, that's what you meant," she giggles slightly. "Tin is just some metal, it's really common and not very useful," Emily explains. "The government decides what money is worth. They say this bit of tin is worth one barr, so it is."
I try to wrap my head around that idea. If the metal itself doesn't really matter, it's just being used as a kind of placeholder for some monetary value. Like what just happened earlier, people might not agree on the value of some goods. Since everyone agrees on the value of money, if you get a barr worth of money from one person it will always be worth one barr of value to anyone else. Barr is essentially just a word to put a number on the value of a thing. I guess that's all money really is, a way of agreeing on a value to make trading things easier.
"Aahh, I think I get it..." I say slowly. Actually, besides everyone agreeing on the values, a tiny ball of metal is a whole lot easier to carry around than a big pile of sticks and things. I guess it also helps to concentrate a lot of value in a small amount of things to carry with you. Like when I went shopping with Marrianne. She had enough money in her little money bag to buy all of the food and supplies we picked up that day. On top of that, the black coins are worth ten of the tin balls, to concentrate the values even further. "What are the black things called?" I finally ask, really wanting to know.
"Nuvrite coins," she answers simply, not elaborating at all. By now, we reach Emily's friends who were waiting off to the side.
"And nuvrite is... another metal?" I ask one last question, trying to get some more information about them. I guess they're called coins too? Though I'm not sure if the word has any special meaning.
"Yeah, just another common metal," she nods, but doesn't offer anything new that might explain why they react like the other strange objects I've seen. I want to ask more, but I'm out of time.
"Sounds like you're teaching Aria about money?" Tony asks as we join them. "Is it your first time here?"
"Yeah."
"How much did you make?" Robin chimes in.
"Fifty one barr," I respond. I'll have to ask for more information later. Everyone glares at Robin a little for some reason.
"Not bad for your first time at the market," Robin says, suddenly looking nervous under everyone's gazes. "Better than my first time here," he grins and pats me on the back. Everyone's glares soften a little.
"Stop being a bad influence," Emily sighs. "Aria, it's rude to ask someone about how much money they make. Don't follow Robin's example," she instructs me.
"A-aahh..." I say nervously.
"Anyway, is there anything you want to buy now that you have some money?" she asks.
"Actually, I was thinking I should get a piece of cloth, since I owe one to the orphanage for the one I took."
"That's a good point..." Everyone chuckles together, though they sound kind of nervous for some reason. Using my first money to pay back a debt doesn't feel that good, but it's the most important thing I can think of to do quickly. I can worry about getting tools I need once I don't already owe what I do have to someone else...
"In that case, there's a place that sells cheap cloth over here," Andy says, pointing. We all start walking.
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We're still around the outer areas of the market, but it starts getting pretty crowded and we need to push our way through. I'm in the back, so the bigger kids in front really help by clearing a path I can walk through.
But apparently there are kids doing the same thing coming from the other way. Because suddenly a smaller child slips between Andy and Tony, traveling in the other direction. I'm just a half step behind them, so we nearly run right into each other. We both raise our arms, hands actually clapping together as we both stop each other at the last moment.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he starts to stammer quickly. I blink a couple times, I recognize him. It takes just a moment to remember.
"Jeff?"
"Wunay?"
We both ask at the same time. "It's been a while, how have you been? Did you get your voice back?"
"Yeah," I say while nodding. It's surprisingly nice to see him again. Him and those other kids really helped me out.
"I guess your hair isn't all pretty and white anymore though?" he tilts his head while looking at it.
"I guess not," I giggle, but it actually bothers me a bit. I'm still trying to keep the knots out by running my hands through it all the time, there's nothing I can do for how dirty it is since I almost never wash it. And the more dirty it gets, the more I have to fight to keep the knots out. It felt really good when it was all nice and clean.
"Hey, what's up?" Andy asks. It looks like everyone is turning around as they circle back a few moments after realizing they lost me in the crowd.
"Ah, I just met someone I know," I explain.
Jeff turns around, "Oh, are you Wunay's friends?" I suddenly go stiff as a board, my heart jumping into my throat. Even if I didn't realize it before getting a real name, that is literally just calling me by my rail unit identifier. I can't let anyone know I'm a rail unit, so there's no way I can just let him call me that. Not to mention how many questions about my past it will create!
I grab Jeff, spinning him around so we face away from everyone, and whisper, "I-I forgot to explain, I changed my name to Aria."
"Changed your name?" he doesn't seem to understand. Do people not change their names? Probably not? Why would they?
I ignore the questions my spinning mind spits out. "Wunay was a weird name and I didn't like it, so everyone calls me Aria now," I try to make it simple. "Aria."
"O-oh, ok then." I turn us back around.
Everyone wears questioning expressions. "Wunay?" someone mutters. They all heard. It's too late, there will be no escaping the questions.
"This is Jeff," I start talking to delay them. "I met him a while ago and he's really nice." I have no idea what I'm going to say to keep talking. "He helped me out a lot. Where are the others today? Are they not with you?" The words are coming out of my mouth with no thought or planning. I know I'm just delaying the inevitable.
"It's just me today, I got sent to the market to pick up some stuff. What about you? You on some errands for Marrianne or something?"
"N-n-n-not exactly?" I start stammering and sweating nervously.
"Hmm..." he leaves it at that and changes topics. "So who are your friends?" He turns to look at everyone, all still staring at me. They look kind of annoyed that I'm dragging this out.
"Well... This is Emily." I introduce her. "These are her friends." It's not like they're my friends, so I introduce them as hers. "Tony, Robin, Andy, and Jess." I point to each one in turn.
"Hi, I met Wunn-naria," he aborts mid-word, slurring the two names together, "a little while ago." I twitch nervously under everyone's gazes.
"Oh, how did you meet?" Emily asks with a sweet smile with her annoyance and anger at me showing right through. Wait, what dangerous details are there in this story exactly?
"We found her crying and lost in the northeast district one day," he says pretty simply.
"Lost?" Emily raises an eyebrow.
"I told you I wasn't lost," I try to deny it. I did tell them I wasn't lost, even then.
"Well you looked lost, crying alone in the middle of an empty street..." he shakes his head and shrugs. "Sounds like a lost child, right?" he asks. 'Yup, sounds exactly like a lost child,' they all agree. "It was wash day, and it looked like her parents never washed her, so we took her with us." Everyone visibly flinches, myself included. Then their eyes fall on me. Harsh, angry, hurt. Do they think I lied about being an orphan?!
I bury my head in my hands, I can't look at them right now. "Jeff, I never told you I'm an orphan, did I?"
"You're an orphan?! B-but didn't Marrianne say she was looking for your parents?"
"I lost my voice, remember? I couldn't tell her." I finally look up from my hands. Everyone looks a little guilty for jumping to conclusions because of a misunderstanding. There really isn't any helping it though, they hardly know anything about me since I can't tell them anything.
"That's right... I'm really sorry about that..." Jeff looks away a bit. "Does that mean you live at the orphanage?" I nod. "And all of you?" They nod too. "Oh man, I'm really sorry I said all that. I... I should get going."
"Y-yeah... I have some stuff to do too. It was nice seeing you though, tell the others I said hi?" I try to at least give him a good send off. "Sorry I didn't explain things properly earlier."
"It's alright," he shakily tries to laugh it off, "I'm just glad you're doing better now. You're much more lively than you used to be." He grins a little and pats my head before he leaves.
Argh... there are so many bad interactions in my past from before I had a solid hold of my emotions that just keep coming back to haunt me...
I turn around slowly, only to be met with annoyed grins from the others. "We have questions..." Emily says menacingly. I can only lower my head.
Thankfully, they hold their questions just long enough for us to pick up the few things we need at the market. As it turns out, a small scrap of cloth like the one I have costs five nuvrites. Just like that, the five strange coins disappear, leaving me with just a single tin, in exchange for the bit of cloth. Now I won't be able to study them more... Why is cloth so expensive?