“Shamrock! You greasy fuck!” barks a shrill, sharp voice from downstairs. “Where are they?!”
“Jubilee!” yells Fresh, leaning around the doorframe from the tiny kitchen and looking down the staircase there, toward the ground floor below. “Don’t always yell at Shamrock!” she calls, waving a wooden spoon out into the nothingness there. She waves it a few times, like a wand.
Jubilee’s face leans in around from below the lower doorframe a second later, as if summoned. Fresh gasps, looking back at the spoon in her hand and wondering if she just did that. “I’ll yell at Shamrock as often as I need to,” barks Jubilee, pointing up at her. “If he keeps eating the merchandise.” Fresh puffs out her cheeks, looking at Jubilee’s intent gaze, and waves the spoon at them a few more times. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m casting a spell on you, Jubilee,” replies Fresh. “To make you less grumpy!”
Someone sighs. “Good luck,” says a snide voice from the side. Fresh turns her head, looking at Basil. The priestess is sitting there, holding a chipped porcelain cup full of tea with both of her hands and lightly resting her face against the side of it.
“I heard that!” yells Jubilee, stomping up the stairs toward the kitchen that everyone is in.
“With ears like those, I’d be surprised if you didn’t hear anything…” mutters Basil.
“I heard that too!” says Jubilee, shooting a cold glare toward Basil, their long, red ears wobbling a little as they turn their head. “We’re missing more candy!” snaps Jubilee, poking a squeaking Fresh with a sharp finger in her stomach. “I know you people. If it wasn’t Shamrock, then it was you!” accuses Jubilee, poking her again. Fresh yells, swiping the sharp finger away from her stomach with the long spoon. Jubilee plants their hands on their hips, leaning in toward her. “Well? Who was it?” asks a high-pitched voice, its owner narrowing their eyes.
“…Shamrock?” asks Fresh, turning to the kitchen. She grabs a pot-lid, lifting it up. Inside the pot is a large, compressed mass of emerald colored slime that looks up her way. “Did you eat the products?” asks the once witch, who is now but a humble cook of sweet and delicious things — the sweetest of which is friendship.
The slime trapped inside the pot swirls around, forming a face to look up at her. “No,” is all that the heavy, deep voice replies with. Fresh nods, having expected as much. She sets the lid back on the pot, looking back at Jubilee. “It wasn’t Shamrock, and it wasn’t me, Jubilee!”
“…Why the hell is Shamrock in the pot?” asks Jubilee, staring past her incredulously.
Fresh shakes her head, ignoring Jubilee’s question as she thinks, scratching her cheek. The girl looks around the kitchen, where her family has collected, her eyes wandering to the window that looks out into the harbor. A black bird flies by, nesting in the gutter below the glass. She gasps, hitting her hand against her palm. “I got it, Jubilee!” explains Fresh.
Jubilee walks past her. “No, really, why is Shamrock in th -”
“- Pirates!” yells the girl, grabbing hold of Jubilee’s shoulders.
“…The fuck are you talking about?”
“Pirates stole our booty!” explains Fresh, her eyes going wide as she comes to understand the situation.
Jubilee looks up at her, lifting their hands and placing them on top of hers. “Look at me.”
“Jubilee. Listen, it all makes sen-!”
“- Shh… look at me,” they repeat, interrupting her. Fresh frowns, pursing her lips and looking into Jubilee’s eyes.
They shake their head. “You know. I really hoped with all of my heart that when we moved here, when we put all of the past behind us, that it’d be good for you,” they explain, shaking their head. “That maybe with some new sights, less stress, and less danger, you’d finally break out of your strange shell and develop into something with a brain.”
Fresh frowns, looking over toward Basil. “Jubilee’s being mean to me again, Basil,” complains the girl.
“Shamrock’s in the pot because we couldn’t scrub out the burnt junk,” explains the priestess, sighing and not opening her eyes or pulling her face away from the hot tea cup she’s smudging it against. “It wasn’t pirates who stole the products. Pirates steal from ships, not shops,” she says, shaking her head. “And Jubilee is a broken gremlin whose only love language left is unpleasantness. You may feel free to ignore what Jubilee says.”
Jubilee turns their head toward Basil. “Oh, big talk from missus ‘I cry when I get gifts,” they snap, looking at her. “’Unpleasantness’ my ass! What other option do I have at this point?”
Basil smiles, opening her eyes as the two of them look at one another. As she sets down her tea cup, the shiny ring on her finger becomes visible in the morning sunlight. Fresh watches the two of them fall into a spout of bickering that, from the outside, just doesn’t make any sense. Both of them seem happy and like they’re having fun, but while they’re arguing?
She doesn’t really get it. But they like each other, and she’s happy about that.
Fresh looks back over her shoulder, letting out a sharp yell as she watches the lid on the pot rattle around on the stove, thinking it's overboiling.
But then, a second later, a green face pops out, wearing the lid as a hat, as the two of them turn to watch Basil and Jubilee bicker like they do every day.
“It’s pirates, Shamrock…” she mutters quietly, looking back down at him.
“It is… within reason,” replies the man in the pot, who is also a slime.
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Obols, the prime monetary denomination of their home, aren’t a generally accepted currency here on the Vildt continent. Sure, in the harbor towns, merchants are used to seeing them and offer some leeway here and there, but elsewhere, they’re essentially worth only the metal they’re made from. The Vildt, rather than using minted currency, have their own system of bartering with small, magically resonating crystals. The smaller a shard is, the less it’s worth. There’s a whole level of complexity that mixes in together with the color of the shard. The natives understand it all pretty easily, but she has a hard time. Jubilee does the numbers in her place, like always.
Fresh just cooks and makes things for their new store here in this city where they’ve set up their home, and one of the big ticket items are their fake Obols!
As coins, Obols are imprinted with skulls on one side and the value of the coin on the other side. This makes them the perfect thing to replicate — not in an attempt to counterfeit, but in order to make delicious, eye-catching treats!
Fresh bends down, picking up the glinting scrap of foil from the ground. Looking at it.
“This is one of ours,” she says.
The new line of products are candy Obols. They’re essentially compacted disks made of sweet jam and hardened molasses, wrapped in decorative gold foil to look like actual Obols. Candy coins. They have them stored on display in a big treasure chest that they plundered whole from the dungeon here in this city. Back when they just moved in and were low on furniture, they stole all sorts of things like that from the dungeon. One time, they pilfered an entire floor of the dungeon just for the furniture that was used to decorate it instead of actually clearing the floor of traps and puzzles and fighting the monsters. It got so bad that eventually a crying, screaming dungeon-core came itself in place of any monsters and chased them out personally, with Shamrock running away with a giant crystal pillar slung over his shoulder.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
That pillar now sits in the living room, leaning against the wall. It’s very pretty when it catches the morning sunlight.
Fresh looks around the street, down toward the harbor as her gaze wanders away from the gold foil in her hands. Is this some of the stolen booty?
“…Pirates…” she mutters to herself, rising to her feet and pocketing the wrapper. She makes her way toward the harbor, picking up a few more on the way as she follows a trail that eventually fizzles out a few steps past the house, however.
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It is a new day.
Fresh sits behind the counter of the small store, tapping her fingers against the surface as she watches people run in and out, grabbing this or that on their way to work for the day. Crystals clink next to her as Basil makes some change for a customer who had bought some tea to-go. Wind blows in through the open window next to her, behind the counter, circulating around the space.
Their new business caters entirely to the casual shopper market. They’ve stopped doing all sorts of things like making weapons and armor, and now they just make simple, lighthearted goods. Things like colorful clothes, decorative candy, or such. Knick-knacks and snacks — knick-snacks. They essentially run a trinket and sweet shop, mostly visited by travelers from across the sea or from people on their way to work.
A human man walks in, stroking his well groomed red beard as he walks around. No, he doesn’t look piratey.
Fresh watches the next customer — a vildt girl who comes in now and then to buy some candy Obols. No… she isn’t a pirate either.
One after the other, she stands there and watches people move in and out, nobody doing anything unusually suspicious — apart from herself, eyeing them down.
“You’re spooking the customers,” says Basil, nudging her.
Fresh’s rigidly locked, unblinking eyes, which had been staring out after everyone, turn to look toward the priestess. “I’m looking for pirates, Basil.”
“Pi-?” Basil sighs, rolling her eyes. “The missing candies? There aren’t any pirates,” explains the priestess. “Jubilee probably just did the inventory wrong. Don’t make this a thing. Please,” pleads the priestess.
“Jubilee never does the inventory wrong, Basil,” replies Fresh. “You know that.” She sighs, shaking her head, before looking at the next customer who walks in — a regular who comes to them often when he isn’t out at sea. “Hi, Marquiss!” calls Fresh across the room, waving to him. “Hi Bibi! Are you guys back from your trip?”
The salty man, with a beard as patchy as his sun-leathered skin, turns his gaze toward her, his single eye glistening with crystals of salt. His other eye is concealed beneath a black leather patch. His trousers are black and frilled, and his boots are long — the leather has long since cracked from the sea-spray that has also rusted his cutlass, stashed on his hip below a red sash. On his shoulder sits an exotic, colorfully plumaged bird named Bibi.
*Scrawk!* says Bibi. “Ahoy! Ahoy!” says the parrot in a scratchy voice, bobbing its red head up and down.
“Avast, ye landlubbers!” hails Marquiss, grabbing his usual fistful of things before stomping over toward the counter on one leg, the other being pegged, crudely dropping everything down for them to tally. “Long was I out at sea, pilfering and pillaging the hapless fleet of the merchant marine!” he proclaims, heartily laughing, golden trinkets and baubles covered in skulls jangling as his hoarse, well used voice fills the room. Fresh laughs too. She likes him. He’s a character.
“Marquiss,” starts Fresh as Basil counts the man’s purchases. “We have a problem with pirates stealing our treasures,” she explains.
“We do not,” remarks Basil from the side.
“— What should we do?” finishes Fresh, looking at the man.
“KEELHAUL THE BILGERATS!” screeches Bibi the parrot. “KEELHAUL! KEELHAU-” The bird stops, its head turning immediately as it turns to look at the candy Obol he unwraps for it to eat. Fresh laughs again. What a silly bird.
“Yarr…” mutters Marquiss, looking at her. “The proper term is ‘privateer’ Lass,” says Marquiss. “…There are no more pirates in these here waters…” he says, his eyes narrowing and shifting around the room back and forth a few times as if anyone were considering questioning his very insuspicious statement.
“Well, privateers are stealing our booty!” cries Fresh, hitting the counter.
“THOSE SCOUNDRELS!” replies Marquiss, his fists striking the counter too and everything rattling on it.
“…Please don’t encourage her,” sighs Basil from the side, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
The man laughs, and the parrot on his shoulder tilts its head back, mimicking him and laughing too in its own shrieky parrot voice. “Aye. Here’s what you do…” he says, leaning in and waving her over so that he can whisper to her.
Bibi the parrot makes a series of hissing noises, pretending to whisper too.
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It does seem a little excessive. But Marquiss seems like a sharp and worldly man. She trusts his judgment in such matters.
Fresh wipes off her forehead, sweat dripping off of her face as she adjusts the small cannon and aims it toward the midnight painted door. It weighs a lot, and it was a hell of a lot of work to push it all the way up from the harbor to here after she bought it.
With a content smile, Fresh sits there behind it, aiming it at the entrance to the shop.
She has sworn off violence ever since they escaped the western continent. But she hasn’t sworn off scaring someone to death, especially a privateer! Fresh nods, narrowing her eyes as she stares at the front door. The shop has long since closed, so only a person of ill intent would try to enter the store now — to steal their Obols!
…One or two at a time…
Fresh thinks about this for a while, not understanding the logistics of piracy, or, uh, privateeracy? Privateering? Privateerery?
“What the hell is that?” asks a voice from the side. Jubilee. Fresh looks at them. “What the- Is that a fucking cannon?!” they yell.
“SCALLYWAGS ARE STEALING OUR TREASURES, JUBILEE!” explains Fresh, realizing that this probably looks pretty bad. She screams in terror, fumbling around as Jubilee grabs the mop — she knows what comes next.
— Wood clacks as she grabs hold of the broom, the two weapons meeting between them. “Are you trying to get us expelled from another city?! Dumbass!” snaps Jubilee.
Fresh pushes back against the mop handle, the two of them striking at one another, wood clacking out around the store. “I don’t want to walk the plank again, Jubilee!” argues Fresh, fighting for her life as her friend tries to whack her on the noggin to make a point. “That’s why we have to catch the pirates! I mean privateers!”
A heavy series of cracks rings out, one after the other, as Jubilee goes on the offensive. Fresh yelps and loses her ground, getting backed against the wall with nowhere to go, only barely able to fend off the attacks. “There. Are. No. PRIV- FUCK! - PIRATES!” yells her friend, hitting the broom out of her hand.
Fresh cries, covering her head with her hands and instinctively flinching as she prepares for the blow to come.
— A loud fluttering sound fills the air.
Confused, Fresh carefully opens an eye, not sure what the noise is. She and Jubilee turn to look, watching as a bird lands on the treasure chest display next to the two of them. “…The fuck…” mutters Jubilee.
The wild bird snatches a foil wrapped candy coin and then flies back out over the shelf, over the counter, and out of the window behind it that is still open, now well into the middle of the night.
“Fucking bird stole my god-damned merchandise!” yells Jubilee. “WHY IS THE WINDOW OPEN?!” they bark, turning back toward her.
Fresh laughs quietly, scratching her cheek. “I didn’t want the store to get stuffy, Jubilee…” she admits, a long, thin shadow looming over her head.
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Fresh winces but doesn’t cry. Privateers don’t cry, she assumes.
Basil tsks, pulling another splinter out of her head. “Like you mean it!” she repeats. “You can’t just hit people!”
Jubilee groans, sitting at the table and rolling their eyes. “I’m sorry that I hit you with a mop,” they say again.
“Honestly…” sighs Basil. “Sometimes Shamrock is the only one here who I can rely on not to cause any trouble,” says the priestess. “Thank you, Shamrock,” she says, looking at the large slime, who is sitting in a wobbly mass on the table.
“I am… content,” replies the giant, who isn’t allowed to wear his armor inside the house due to space constraints.
“Look at them, Basil!” says Fresh excitedly, wincing as Basil pulls out another splinter from her head. The girl stares out of the upstairs kitchen window, not out toward the harbor but down below toward the gutter, in which a family of blackbirds has made a nest that is lined with sparkling gold foil. “Sky pirates!” she says. “Skyrates!”
“Sky rats, more like,” mutters Jubilee. “New rule, close the window downstairs!” they bark. “Now what the hell are we going to do with a cannon?” they asks. “How much did it even cost?”
“How about we stuff you into it and light the fuse?” suggests Basil.
Jubilee rolls their eyes. “I’d say we put you into it, but you’d hardly fit as wide as you’ve gotten,” they reply in a dry tone.
Fresh listens to the two of them snip at each other as usual but pays them little mind as she watches a mama bird puke out a spew of the fruit candy she had made in order to feed its young.
Families and privateering are both very complicated matters.