The following morning, when Ruby woke up, Theo was already gone. From her perspective, the situation was a shame, and something she was hoping to fix with time, but that was it. Ruby didn’t feel the same attachment towards Theo like he did with her, but that didn’t mean she would disregard him. On the contrary, the situation made her feel anxious, stressed, and hurt, despite spending the last few days only knitting and doing various chores around the house.
It had been a while since she had someone to call family, by blood at least, so she would give it time. She would give it time and then bring him back to her life, although it seemed easier said than done. The good thing? It’s not like he was gone forever, physically speaking at least. He was only now living in a different spot in town, nothing else. That was good, right?
What did come as a surprise and really hurt her was the fact that he had left the red scarf. Mrs. Sianna saw to give it back to her, considering she was the one who made it and hadn’t made one for herself. The woman didn’t seem like herself today, though she didn’t get why.
Not wanting to make yet another scene, she took the scarf back without fuzz and put it around her own neck, feeling the implicit need to vegetate somewhere.
Aurelia found her not too long after breakfast.
“I heard.”
“How?”
“Layla.”
“Since when does she even talk to you?”
“Never, but she does speak with basically every other human around.”
Ruby sighed. “Word spreads fast.”
“Is it true?”
“Not how most people think, believe me.”
Aurelia stared before sighing as well, slouching on the other side of the table.
“What are you gonna do now?”
“Wallow.”
“In self-pity?”
“And shame.”
“For how long?”
Ruby didn’t reply for at least a minute.
“I don’t know, I-” She paused. “Look, I fucked up and now everyone hates me. Like hate ‘hate’.” She couldn’t help but think about how much of a disappointment she must have been to Theo.
“I just… I’ve been really trying, you know?”
“Hah, I think everybody knows, they just don’t want to admit it now.”
The human sighed, long and heavy. Then, she searched for another position to wallow, the hard wood of the bench not being comfy enough.
“Okay, it’s been five minutes already, my patience has limits. May I?”
Ruby rolled her eyes and gestured with her hand, telling Aurelia to be honest already.
“Okay, you fucked up and feel like shit, deal with it. I mean, let’s be honest. Everyone has hated you for quite some time and that never actually changed. It’s just you were hated a little bit less and now it’s back to normal amounts of hatred. Nothing to wallow for, all things considered.”
Ruby stared.
“What? It’s the truth.”
Ruby stared some more. Then, she relented.
“Fine, point taken. It’s just…” She sighed once more, feeling bad about how they had gone apart. “He left the scarf I made him. I… It just hurt more than I expected.”
“Point taken too, but come on! Ruby, maybe it wasn’t his choice. You think his mentor would have let him keep something you made? You’re the walking Future Breaker. I’m not into weird magic, but even I would have advised him to get rid of it in case of future misfortune. You should’ve seen everyone’s faces when it happened, it was a shitshow all the way.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Anyway, my point is, maybe it wasn’t his choice, or maybe it was. Whatever the case, stop wallowing already. If you feel bad about it, then fix it somehow.”
Ruby had been resting her face against the light brown wood of the kitchen table, just hearing Aurelia out. She wasn’t a fan of her words, but they did make sense. Besides, she had already been thinking about making it up to him somehow after some time. The problem was, she didn’t know where to start.
Had it been karma? Had it been the older Ruby’s vengeance for taking her body? Was she still an influence over her thoughts? She didn’t know, but it just felt shitty to lose a friend – a brother – in this way.
“Besides, Mrs. Sianna would hate you less if you–”
Aurelia kept on pointing reason after reason for at least another five more minutes.
“UGH, Fine!”
“Fine?”
“Fine! yes! I’m done wallowing! Happy? It’s just that I don’t know where to start. Everything is so fucking weird in this place and the onIy thing I can think of, it’s to just... just give Theo some time I guess. Maybe giving him a break from me would do both of us good.” She said her last words more to herself than outloud.
Aurelia gave her a wicked grin.
“Maybe you don’t know where to start, but I do.”
----------------------------------------
“We’re getting awfully close to the bridge. Remind me again why we can’t go through it?”
Aurelia stared, amused at how easy it was for Ruby to just break every single social rule there is.
“Because on our side there’s barely anyone over level 5. People who live their lives in a fair and boring routine within the safety of the walls of the city. Whether they had a great Class or an extremely common one, it matters little for those who are or aren’t awakened. Sure, they might have a few Skills, but that would be the end of it. Across the bridge though? That’s where people get freaky. That, and there’s guilders everywhere, so it’s dangerous for the like of us without even a Class. Didn’t you get all beat up almost to death for stealing a guilder?
“R-right, yeah. I’m pretty sure I still have some bruises from that encounter.”
“Exactly my point. Which is also the reason why we’re going across the bridge today.”
“Wait, what?”
“Quickly, hide. Patrol incoming.”
Aurelia took Ruby’s hand and dragged her to hide behind a street sign, the wooden board promoting a variety of herbs, for both cooking and medicine.
Apparently, the security to go through the bridge was lax, mostly because whether you belonged to the lower city parts or not, many still had issues, work, or errands to fulfill across it. It was, however, frowned upon for the unawakened like Ruby and Aurelia to go to the other side.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Once the patrol of guards went by, Aurelia dragged Ruby and both were soon on the guilder’s side, hiding within a few alleys.
The guilder’s side of the city was the equivalent to the city’s middle ring, where houses were not that crude and had more room, gardens and even balconies. The stores were fancier, and even more so the closer you got to the inner side of the city, where the nobles and rich merchants resided.
“Lia, I’m not a fan of doing this when I was literally punished for doing this barely a week ago.” Ruby complained, using Aurelia’s nickname to make it faster.
“Correction, you were punished for stealing a guilder, and getting beaten up in the process as well. And as a third reason, and only a small part of it, is because you were here.”
Ruby wasn’t sure of that, but if Lia was pushing her to come here it was for a reason. A great reason? Debatable, but she didn’t think it was ill intentioned or something.
“Fine, where are we going then?”
“To sell you of course. We can’t get to the inner city, but closer to the edge will be fine. We don’t have any money, so we’ll be fine as long as we stay away from the main roads and make sure to speak loud.” She said those last words pretty loudly, continuing her walk across the alley.
Ruby stared quizzically.
“What? We don’t want the shady people to think we’re spying on them. It’s easier to do if we’re just blatantly passing by. Come on.”
“I was actually expecting you to elaborate on the first part? Are you aiming for Slave Trader or what?”
Lia snorted. “I mean, Ruby, we have to get you a mentorship. I knew you were dense, but dude, really?”
“Ahh,”
“Yeah ‘ahh’, I was thinking that with your crazy knitting skills you could like, land a mentorship through the winter. I’m pretty sure someone will take you on for the rest of the year once they see what you can do.”
“Okaaaay. That sounds good, I think. I had a mentorship on my mind for a while, I just didn’t know this was the way to do it.”
“Meh, most people use their own connections, or their families. Got any?”
Ruby shook her head.
“Thought so, hence, we’re doing it Ruby style. Straight and savage.”
“I don’t really think that’s my style.”
It was Aurelia’s turn to stare.
“Fine.”
The plan was… sound. It was basically going to the fancy tailors and stores of renown who could use her talents and give them a pitch of her own skills. There was no such a thing as a curriculum here, everything was based on reputation, popularity, rumors, and your actions, which was both refreshing and terrifying.
As they both went through the different alleys and less common roads, they bumped into several groups of shady people, but because they had been talking loudly and not being secretive at all, none of them gave them trouble. Every time it happened, Lia would just apologize for the encounter and would take Ruby on another path.
According to her, everyone should be aware that they were unawakened, so there was no reason to bother. That, and since they had not a single coin to their name, no thief or the like would even see them as prey.
The further they went in, the more people started to show up. Men and women wearing armor, leather outfits, and robes. Daggers, swords, bows, and wands. The sight was mesmerizing, and just remembering the fact that magic was possible in this world brought some life back to Ruby, who still wasn’t over it.
“This is so fucking crazy…” She said to herself as she kept on gawking.
“Keep walking, crazy girl, we don’t have all day. We have our chores back home after lunch, so we can only stay for so long.”
“Right, yeah.”
Both continued to walk through the back of busy markets, lively plazas and massive tents. This part of the city being nothing like it was in the outer circle. While the number of people on her side of Ronzés was very high, the lower city acted and looked the part as any lower city would. People going through their day trying their best to survive, all scrambled up and with no order whatsoever.
The guilder’s side was different though. There was always something new happening, everywhere. The roads and alleys were bigger and longer, the stores sold wares she had never seen in her life, and the people? Races she didn’t know existed, all wearing the weirdest and bland outfits she had ever witnessed.
They were almost iconic. Sure, the rich had a little bit more of extravaganza going on, but one look at the garments she wasn’t so familiar with and she could easily disassemble how it was made, what kind of stitch was used, and most of the materials.
There were very few exceptions though. There were some people who gave basically a different aura altogether. In one of the plazas they walked by, getting closer to the rich side of the city, Ruby noticed a woman of alabaster skin and hair as dark as night, a pair of long horns diving from the sides of her head towards her neck, both almost touching her shoulders but curved back before doing so. She was wearing a beautiful wine-red dress, much like one you could expect a noble to wear, though simple in design. Ruby, however, could swear the woman locked eyes with her, despite passing behind several people and tents.
The encounter had been not even a second long, but enough to be engraved on Ruby’s head the rest of the way.
Distracted as she was, it came as no surprise when Aurelia woke her up from her reverie.
“Okay, time for the battle plan.”
“We have a battle plan? How’s that different from the normal plan?”
“I’m not a guilder yet, but I will. Every guilder has a battle plan, which is different from the plan. Always. There’s the plan, and there’s the battle plan.” She gestured with her hands as if she were holding two completely different things.
“How do you know that?”
“How do you know how to knit like that?”
“Point taken. Okay so, what’s the plan?”
“Battle plan.”
Ruby rolled her eyes.
“Okay, what’s the battle plan?”
“Right, listen. Round the bend there’s the Alma plaza. It’s basically the heart of the city and where you’ll be going over your case. People around these parts shouldn’t know your fame, so if everything’s fine, you should find a mentorship. Besides, I brought you here cuz’ it’s where you’ll find the fanciest stores you can get access to, I think.”
“Okay… so, which store are we starting with?”
“Oh, wow there, wolf pup. You’re going alone on this mission. I can’t come with you.”
“What!?”
“I’m not coming, girl.”
“Yeah, I heard that, but why?”
“Look, Ruby, I think you’re great. I’m all-in rooting for you actually, but this is your fight. I just led you here.” Her tone was solid and determined, leaving no room to argue.
The human took her time to understand that.
“R-right, yeah. Of course. I.. eh- Thank you? Yeah, thank you! I really appreciate it.” It was a bit of a shock, but nothing she should worry about. She could do this. High school-level nerves were strong, but in order to achieve your goals you have to be able to push through.
Aurelia in so far had been a great blessing and someone far more chill with her reputation than anyone else. She was right, she couldn’t rely on Aurelia for everything. This was something she had to do on her own.
“Okay, tits up Ruby, you can do this!” She said to herself, fire in her eyes now.
Lia smirked at the expression, determined to use it as well in the future.
Right after that exchange both went through a few more details of the so called ‘battle plan’ and Lia left, leaving Ruby to her own devices. The beastkin had been secretive about where she was going, but Ruby thought it had to do with her own mentorship.
Since both were on the track of finding someone who could teach them and prepare them for the next winter’s solstice, Ruby got to work. No more wallowing. She wasn’t the most outspoken nor the most extrovert person, but if she had to fake it to land a job that could jump-start her career in this world, she would.
----------------------------------------
Her first target was a clothing store sat across the plaza. She was able to discern the store from the rest by the sign right next to the door, a drawing in it depicting a noble woman.
“The Brown Hattery.” Displayed the wooden letters above the entrance.
Steeling her resolve once more, the young human made her way towards the store, back straight. The display window was much different from the ones she was used to seeing on her side of the city, as this window was much more clear and transparent than others, the glass being a much better quality.
Getting closer, she was finally able to note the kind of garments this store was selling. It was mostly appropriate for female clientele, and while it did have a variety of dresses up for sale and hats, they lacked distinctive patterns or flourish, the designs were basic… at best, and the colors, while vibrant, didn’t seem to exist in different shades.
Would she learn anything from working or getting a mentorship from someone who worked here? Yes, definitely yes. Would she love it? She would rather not answer that question.
Having decided to go in, she stopped right before the door, giving herself a moment to pick her hair into a bun, very unlike the famous ponytail that was typical around these parts. Once her hair was out of her face, she took a business-like stance and went inside, ready to go strong.
Ruby didn’t even make it three steps in before she was kicked out by one of the clerks. Apparently, she wasn’t dressed the part for a store like theirs and was clearly “not from these parts”.
While she had been game for a debate or a conversation where she could at least sell her skills, it was completely useless as there was no game at all. However, that was no reason to give up. This kind of experience was not a surprise for Ruby, though it was a first being kicked out for what she was wearing.
Deciding to try again, she went to another store. She learned the bad way that there was no room for her in this side of town, as it didn’t take her long to get rejected again and again.
Most of the time was because she wasn’t wearing something fit for the store’s own reputation, not letting her in for what their clients might think. Very few gave her the time of day, though pushed her away with the excuse they had no room for more apprentices. Another two places said no because they were just branch stores, focusing only on the selling of wares instead of the confection. The one place that truly made her mad, however, was where an old man told her that ‘silly girls can’t learn such a fine trade’.
“Fuck this, people are insufferable in this place. I need to find an alternative.” She told herself, giving up in getting a mentorship within the plaza. Soon after, she went home as the sun was getting high in the sky and it was soon going to be time for lunch.
"Though I think I know where I should look..."