It was before dawn when darkness was at its harshest. A blanket of misty cold hovered over the gargling waters below Stillbridge, the wind taking it eastward to the center of Lavros. The cold bit harshly at whatever warmth it touched, and Mishal hissed in reply though it did not make her feel any warmer. She glanced at the path ahead of her; moist undeveloped dirt stretching up to a couple hundred yards where triangle-shaped shadows loomed in wait for the sunrise. Sweat gathered at the base of her neck as the weight of half a log worth of chopped wood rest against her back. Mishal kept a firm posture, careful not to fall.
She passed through a signboard, completely empty save for one piece of paper. The handwriting on it was difficult to decipher beneath the lazy moonlight, but she understood the contents well enough after catching several words.
There have been rumors circulating around this part of the city about a cloaked phantom that walked towards the outskirts with a coffin on his back, his purpose being to place its rightful owner in it. His clothes were tattered at the ends and he teetered from side to side, signaling that he must have been searching for long enough. The message cautioned travelers and passersby not too stay out too late nor go out too early lest the phantom mistake them for the coffin’s owner. Mishal examined the edges of the paper, “No official seal,” she muttered to herself, and then resumed walking.
She stood at the doorstep of a blacksmith’s workshop. It was a small dwelling slightly isolated from the rest of the outskirts with its tall metal rod fences that heavily contrasted the wooden material of the other houses. There was also the unusually large furnace sitting behind the house. Xion’s Smithing Shop, read the sign nailed to the wall. Mishal paused to recollect her breath, then she knocked on the door with her pale knuckles. It didn’t take more than five knocks for heavy stomps to begin approaching the door and swing it open, revealing a girl taller than the doorframe, bending, a snarl ready on her face.
“Good morning, miss Smite. I’m here to deliver wood,” said Mishal, placid.
Bryony went back inside calling for her father. Mishal listened to the sound of floorboards creaking and Xion’s voice scolding his daughter for running around the house. Xion was a dwarf with a perpetual sour expression on his face, framed by a neatly trimmed beard that covered parts of his face squarely. He ushered Mishal inside, looking up at her with his eyebrows knitted together, and the latter obeyed without protest. She led herself to the back where the smell of metal and burning wood smothered the air, lampblack cloths strewn in a basket in a corner, and metal sheets sat in piles on a stone island. Back in the sitting room where a lantern lit up the area in a mellowed orange light, Bryony fussed about breakfast; Mishal hurried placing the wood down as carefully as she could and went back to refuse the invitation.
“Why not?” Bryony wailed and stomped on the floor. Her whining was louder than her father’s chiding and her saurian feet were heavy enough to cause tremors with every stomp. Mishal was about to touch her in an attempt to calm her down but caught herself when she saw that the pads of her fingertips have blackened with soot. In the end, Xion himself had to talk Mishal into staying, if only to appease his daughter.
“I’m grateful for the invitation,” Mishal said. Bryony tilted her head expectantly from behind her father. She was taller by a head or two but her behavior was similar to that of a human child. “But I really must refuse.” Just as Bryony was about to throw another tantrum, Mishal threw out a compromise. “I will join you tomorrow. If that’s alright, Mr. Smite?” Xion nodded, gruffly replying with a grumbled yes. He escorted Mishal to the door while Bryony made do with a cheery goodbye, baby fangs peeking out from her lips. Heavy steps were heard again from inside, and it made Xion breathe out just as heavily. He fished a roll from his pockets and lit it up.
“Things woulda be hell lot more easy if she be the same size as her brain years,” Xion said through a puff.
"She certainly has grown.”
If Xion noticed the impatience showing in how Mishal grinded her boot into the dirt, he didn’t comment on it, and just dipped a free hand into his jacket. Mishal turned her head to the man, tipping downwards, when she heard the familiar dull jingle of copper coins.
“‘Ere.” Xion dropped the shield-stamped coins on her waiting palm, nodded at Mishal’s thanks, and then went back inside, casually throwing the cigar behind him. Mishal counted her money, not including the few ones she left at home. “Eight shields,” she muttered to herself as she pocketed the coins, going on another trip to the local lumberjack’s shack. Four shields would be enough to buy herself a loaf or two and, if she was lucky, three.
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Mishal wondered to herself as she walked, because it was only times like these that she ever allowed herself to think idly – perhaps because she rationalized that she wasn’t doing completely nothing so it was alright. She wondered about the anticipation that sparked within her when she felt the cold sensation of metal against her fingertips; the short, fleeting moment of joy when she confirmed it was money, and then how it instantly crumbled into hollow satisfaction. A wry scoff tore through her lips. She thought, I had worked for it with the expectation of a reward. It was only natural that she satisfied her expectation. Only, it felt like crossing through the finish line just to find out that she had another lap to run, and who knew if she’d really reach the true finish line at all?
Before she knew it, she was already standing outside the lumberjack’s forest. There was a dirt path that had clearly been walked on more than a hundred times. Beside it a fallen sign read in bold strokes, Mack the Lumberman. A little farther along was a clearing where a lone cottage stood in the middle; a cart was sat next to it and beneath the cottage flooring was a makeshift stable for one horse.
Mishal found the lumberjack on the stairs outside and upon closer inspection, immediately covered her nose. He reeked of liquor, his clothes have been thoroughly tousled, and one of his hands was caked with blood. Besides his disheveled appearance and the evidence of violence on his fist, the lumberjack did not seem to wear any signs of losing whatever rumble he had gotten himself into the previous night.
Mishal wasted no time, quickly spotting the stack of wood she had slaved over the previous day, and then tied them snug into bundles. By the time she was done prepping for the second phase of her delivery work, the lumberjack was missing from where he lay half an hour before. He was normally a dismissive person if not passively rude, and that was certainly better than a man who can only speak when his words are littered with curses. So, Mishal decided against going through the bother of knocking just to greet him, which she reckons would’ve been a bad decision after all, considering the state he was in. She did not need her ears bleeding before deploying herself to a place where there was a lot of that.
Her boots, worn and rugged, was met with the harder but perhaps more comforting state of the dirt path she took on her way to the blacksmith. The sun had already risen and the looming shadows have begun to take color. Life was only starting to wake within the city. Mishal passed by the signboard again, and saw one added piece of paper nailed onto the wood. Unlike the other with the warning about a coffin phantom, the new paper had a seal below where the message ends.
> This month’s market day has been marked undecided as Damai’s merchants fail to respond to Lavros’ letter once again. Prices for milk and butter are expected to rise due to lack of resources.
Mishal grimaced at the news even though she hasn’t drunk milk nor tasted butter in months, much less had the fortune to possess either. But she remained dismayed nonetheless, since it only meant that her chances of ever affording one just took a deeper dive.
Market day was an event held at every end of the month at the town plaza. Merchants and peddlers visit towns in hopes of selling what they have, preferably all of it. Mishal heard that in the bigger cities where the inhabitants are wealthier, market days can stretch to two or three more days because the merchants would bring with them more than a dozen coaches’ worth of merchandise. Jewels, jade crockery, the finest cloths. They say there were some items that could only be bought with gold coins. Not that she could afford what treasures they offered.
When the foreign merchants come to Lavros, Mishal would wait until the end of the day to scour what’s left of their products, bargaining for less of its original price. They’d want to get rid of all their items so they’re more inclined to agree. It was one of the rarer days when Mishal would talk without being prompted to, but it looks like there won’t be any need for that soon. As much as that comforted her, the loss of items bought for cheap was too disappointing.
The townspeople shared her grief, Mishal noticed, when she overheard a conversation about the announcement, their tones clear dripping with displeasure. And then somehow, their conversation shifted to monsters rumored to be hassling Damai, which made correspondence difficult for them. Mishal walked faster then, and went to work. The previous week they had speculated that it was because of a feud between the leaders of both cities and just yesterday, the owner of the local bakery talked Mishal’s ear off about her own theory – the reckoning of Ozio, or so the missus worded it.
The sun finally rose up, and so did the rest of the Lavrosi. Mishal only had one more house to deliver to, which was bad news. She still had one more delivery to make, and it just had to be the most impatient of her customers. The bandana tied around her head to cover the lower half of her face hung as tight as she did on her shoes, patiently enduring the profanities Mrs. Portia spat at her. The woman had on an angry face even before the moment her eyes laid on Mishal, and it seemed as if seeing the girl was what made her frustrations finally boil over. Her son took pity upon Mishal and tried to coax her into letting the girl go but he was replied to with a ladle against his head. Mrs. Portia laid her anger on him next, calling him in different variations of scum and lazy. All the while, Mishal stood there, just waiting for it to end so she could receive her pay. A hand pat her on the shoulder, and she turned to see Mrs. Portia’s wife. The woman quietly handed her two shields.
“Best you leave now.” Mishal was not given the opportunity to thank her as the other missus hurried her to go, still casting worried glances at her own family. So instead, Mishal nodded and then left. In the distance, she heard Mrs. Portia calling her wife a bitch, followed by a shrieked “Why did you pay her?”
It would be nice if Mishal could just stop delivering to her, but that was akin to accepting starvation and wearing old clothes until she eventually outgrew them. Mishal wiped at her sweat and thought, all this just to finish one lap.
She walked into a shop for souvenirs, and left with a sack filled with wooden sculptures and a paper in hand where a list of recipients and their residences were written. It was only the beginning of a long day.