Yue’li tosses her money pouch up in the air and catches it, listening to the bitter-sweet clattering of her month’s wages.

“I could get thrice this from a single mugging,” she grumbles under her breath as she strolls down the road towards the square. “At least this is honest money. Meager, but honest.” She re-attaches the pouch to her belt and kicks a stone across the hard dirt road, watching it skip under a nearby merchant’s cart.

The chatter of people and livestock grows louder as the marketplace stretches into view. At the threshold, Yue’li pauses briefly to mentally adjust to the crowd, taking a deep breath through her nose and exhaling out her mouth.

"Just another day."

The roads leading into the city square are packed with vendors on either side. Under the bright light of the early morning, the marketplace seems to shine. Every inch of the ground looks to be covered with stalls displaying all manners of expensive and exotic wares, with throngs of adventurers flocking around each one. The cacophony of bustling life clashes through Yue’li’s ears, but she has long grown to love it.

Yue’li weaves through the crowds with relative ease, her hood pulled low over her head to keep her horns hidden. She likes to watch the adventurers as they haggle and chat about themselves. Listening to the many different accents and seeing a world of colorful robes and fancy armors all around her, the market is the only place in the city that allows Yue'li to feel like she's somewhere else.

Too quickly, she passes through the outer ring of the marketplace and into the commodity section. Here, vendors sell mostly food, perishables, and other household items. This is where the city folk shop, and Yue’li instinctively ducks her head down as she hurries on through. She doesn’t want anyone here to see her, because even if she's spent most of her life among the humans of this city, she has never been anything more than a yaojin to them.

Sure, she’s done her fair share of purse-snatching and petty thievery, but Yue'li has promised herself she's going to leave that life behind her, especially now that Elevena is around. Something about Elevena, about the kind, softness she seems to have about her, makes Yue'li want to be a better yaojin just by being in proximity.

I wonder if this is what having an older sibling feels like.

Yue’li brushes past a group of women gossiping over a stall selling carrots. She recognizes one of them as the local blacksmith's wife and scurries on quickly, cinching the rope binding her tail to her waist tighter.

Yue'li is just about to leave the commodity section when something catches her eye. A group of children is crowded around a particular stall on the other side of the pathway, cheering over something. She goes over to look.

“Hand-made treasures!” A middle-aged stall keeper hollers from behind a table displaying all kinds of pretty knickknacks and hand-made baubles. “Everything you see is crafted by hand to the finest quality in all the kingdom!” The man has a wooden puppet strung to his hand. With a shout, the puppet summersaults high over the children's heads, its knobbly limbs flailing, before snapping back to the man's hand again.

The children applaud.

Yue’li tries not to disturb anyone as she pushes closer. She spots an interesting sculpture on the outer edge of the table and leans in to touch it lightly. It is a little square, dark green, and thin like a piece of parchment paper. Smaller rectangles of charred silver are stuck to its surface and on either side are silvery strings that seem to be frozen in mid-movement. Gingerly, Yue’li picks it up, hoping the stall keeper won't notice.

Sitting on her palm, the sculpture resembles a bug, and Yue'li realizes that the strings are made to look like wings.

“Hey, little girl!” The stall keeper’s shout almost makes her drop the insect. “You break it, you buy it!”

Yue’li looks across the table at the stall keeper. His smooth olive skin shines under the bright sunlight, and he has an expensive-looking scarf wrapped around his neck. The man is giving Yue'li an annoyed look, but the puppet in his hand seems to be laughing at her.

That isn't right, thinks Yue'li, staring back at the puppet. Its eyes and mouth are carved into the wood. It can't be having any emotions.

“Where did you find the things to make this?” she asks the stall keeper, lifting her palm with the insect still in it.

The man shrugs, and his puppet shrugs with him. “I chanced upon the materials in the wilderness. If you’re not buying then make room for someone who will.”

“Yea,” says a little kid next to Yue'li. “We're waiting for the little man to keep jumping!” A few of the children join in.

"Make room!"

"Stop distracting him!"

"Oh be quiet, you brats!" Yue’li snaps back. She puts down the insect and unties her money pouch from her belt. “How much is it, sir?”

The man holds up three fingers. His puppet copies the action and raises one stumpy arm. “Four silvers bits. No haggling.”

“Four?” Yue’li makes a show of being offended. “You should be ashamed of robbing a lady in broad daylight."

"Lady?" The man sneers. "You look scarcely older than these children here, little girl."

"Then you should be even more ashamed to be robbing a child!" Yue'li points out. "Look, I'm willing to part with one silver bit. That's plenty for this item and you know it.”

The stall keeper seems to consider the offer, and then his puppet lowers its arm. "Three then."

"Two."

"You’re not going to find craftsmanship like this for anything less, little girl.”

“Yes, I can.” Yue’li takes out another silver pebble to add to the single one in her hand. “Come on, stop pretending like you didn’t just pick it up off the ground like that. Two bits is plenty for a finder’s fee.”

The stall keeper’s face hardens for just a moment before a tired exasperation takes its place. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to tell lies?” He says, holding out his hand. The puppet looks at it, then at him.

As she drops the silvers into the man’s palm, Yue’li swears she can see disapproval in the puppet’s carved-out eyes. She forces herself to look at the stall keeper. “My mother also taught me to never pay for another man’s trash,” she replies, plucking up the square green bug from the table and carefully placing it into her waist bag. “And yet here we are.” She gives the stall keeper a wink before making her escape.

As Yue’li heads deeper towards the other side of the market, she starts to pick up the distinct sweet-sour aroma of the pomil flower, and she knows she’s reached the spice section even before the multicolored stalls emerge into view.

Yue'li breathes a sigh of awe as she takes in the sights of the countless rows of jars, pouches, bowls, and boxes, all packed with compelling and unique flavors. As she makes her way through, the smorgasbords of dried herbs and spices beckon to her senses and vie for her attention, and Yue'li has to purposefully hold herself back from pausing at any one store for too long, for fear she may not leave without a couple silvers fewer in her pouch.

You need to save this money on more important things, Yue'li reminds herself. There will be time to look at the expensive stuff later when you have all the necessities first.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Before long, Yue’li reaches the outskirt of the spice market. The stalls here are noticeably in worse conditions and have much fewer customers. But in exchange, the prices are fairer.

Yue'li comes to a stop by one particular stall. Unlike the many before it, this stall only has on display a few lonely jars of spice and herbs, and even these are shunned to the side on an old rack as if they’re of no importance to the shop owner. What takes up the majority of the display space on the table instead are rucksacks filled with strangely shaped seeds, nuts, petrified fruits, and many other things of the dried and shriveled kind.

Found it.

Yue'li peers across the table at the sleeping stall keeper, a stout little man clothed in a tattered mage’s robe. He is seated in a flimsy wooden chair with his feet up on the table and a book opened across his face. A great white and silver beard blankets the expanse of his belly, which heaves with each of the dwarf's snores.

“Howdy, Mr. Safir,” Yue’li says cheerfully. “Your beard is at top form as always.”

Safir Silverbeard sits up with a snort, the book bouncing off his belly and falling to the ground. “Momo?” His grumbly voice is thick and sticky, and he has to cough a few times to expel the sleep from his lungs. He looks around his stall, eyes still clouded with the remnants of a dream. "W-who?" When he notices Yue’li standing there, Safir's weathered face lights up with an elated grin. “Momo, m’dear! By Nranhana's belly button, you’ve come back to me!”

Yue’li is quick to correct the dwarf this time. “Not today, Mr. Safir. It’s only me.” She pulls her hood up just slightly to show more of her face. “It's just Yue’li.”

For the briefest of moments, Safir’s face falls, but he quickly regains his senses and smiles. “Yue’ling, my dearest child!” He lumbers out from behind the table to embrace Yue'li. “It’s been oh too very long! How goes my favorite little dragonling in the whole realm? How is your mother?”

“We're both well, Mr. Safir,” Yue’li giggles, enjoying the great ball of fuzzy warmth that is Safir Silverbeard. But she can't help feeling a little hurt that Safir's first thought, as always, is this mysterious 'Momo'.

“And it hasn’t been that long,” she says when they separate, “only two months, I think.”

“Aye, tis’ an eternity if one travels the road with none for company but a sickly horse!” Safir’s belly shakes with laughter as he returns to his spot behind the table, pulls out a metal scoop and a handful of snack bags from a box behind him, then starts shoveling all manners of nuts and seeds and dried fruits from his big rucksacks.

“Wait, Mr. Safir! You know I can’t afford all that!” Yue’li tries to stop him, but Safir Silverbeard cannot be stopped.

“There will be none of that monetary exchanges happening between us, Yue’ling,” Safir grumbles as he ties the bulging snack bags together with a generous length of string. “My days of chasing silver are long behind me, and I am not one to look back.” His eyes shine as he regards Yue’li adoringly. “If you want to talk about payment, there will be nothing that I want more than to see you grow up healthy and strong into a great and beautiful dragon, smiting your foes with mythical hellfire from the skies.”

Yue'li laughs. “You know that’s not how it works, Mr. Safir.” As she takes the bags from him, she feels her heart tugging painfully. She stops to look the dwarf in his eyes. "I know I don't say this enough, but thank you for everything you’ve done for me, for the bakery. I will pay you back someday, Mr. Safir, I promise.”

"Bah." Safir waves her sentiment away. "No need to get all sentimental, child. There are things in this world that are worth much more than all the gold in the King’s treasury." He sighs wearily. "I wish I’d realized that sooner, but alas, there are no shortcuts to life’s harsh lessons.”

The atmosphere grows quiet as a shadow passes over Safir's face, but then he notices Yue’li eyeing something further down the table.

“Fancy something you see?" he asks, already getting scoop and bag ready.

“No, no.” Yue’li shakes her head and steps over to the end of the table. She reaches into a small leather pouch that's nestled in a box full of old nicknacks and other junk, and pulls out a round, dark-brown seed.

“I should’ve guessed you might take interest in that,” Safir muses. "That there is a different breed of coffea you've been testing, Yue'ling, though I can't seem to recall what the merchant I won them from called them."

Yue'li holds the seed to her nose. A rich, creamy aroma, inviting and invigorating, fills her senses. "You won them?"

"Aye," says Safir. "There was a merchant riding the same ship as me when I was coming back into Gandolia. From the Shaazaw Isles, he said he was originally from."

As Safir talks, he picks out a dried persimmon from one of the rucksacks on the table and takes messy bites out of it.

"Terrible drinker, the fellow was, but good company. We wasted many hours in the evenings playing cards over a hearty bottle of wine, each trying to rob the other of their silver." He pauses and looks expectantly at Yue'li.

"Let me guess," Yue'li says, smiling. "You never told him you used to be a hustler."

Safir roars with laughter. "The poor fellow thought he was cursed by the Sharn!" He slaps a hand against the face of the table. "Hoho! Now don't think me a scoundrel, little Yue'ling, I didn't let him part of all his stuff." He points to the seed in her hand. "That box you got it from was all I took in the end. That and some other small items."

Yue'li doesn't want to ask how many small items. "Is this the only kind of seed he had on him?"

"Aye," Safir answers with a nod. "I don’t know why he had a whole bag of those, but the fellow was all too happy for me to take them if it meant he could hold onto his sugar cubes.”

Without thinking about it too much, Yue'li tosses the seed into her mouth and crunches it between her teeth. A burst of intense fruity bitterness prickles against the top of her tongue, quickly numbing her entire mouth. She spits out the gunk and pokes her tongue out, moaning in pain.

Safir offers a dried persimmon to Yue'li, who accepts it gratefully. "I fear I may never come to understand your interest in those things, Yue’ling," the dwarf says, shaking his head. "There’s a reason coffea merchants don’t exist."

"But... suppose there is one." Yue’li finishes her strangely-textured persimmon and takes out another seed from the leather pouch. The golden sunlight bounces off its tiny dark body, making it shine. “Suppose I crack the secrets hiding inside these little seeds and come up with a way to make it not only edible, but coveted.” Yue'li glances towards Safir, trying to gauge if she has his interest. “Can you sell it?”

Any other merchant will have scoffed and disregarded Yue’li at this point, but Safir seems to consider her words seriously, and the gesture makes Yue’li happier than she feels she has any right to be.

"The thing with coffea trees," Safir says while scratching at his silvery beard, "is that while the seeds inside their berries are highly transportable and slow to decay, the trees are not such a common thing to find. And yet, that doesn’t mean their products are considered rare in any sense." He reaches into his rucksack for one more dried persimmon.

Does he sell more of those, Yue'li wonders, or eats more?

"Even if you manage to control its intimidating flavor and poisonous affinity, the seed itself is in the end no more than a spice." Safir pops the dried fruit into his mouth whole, chews, and swallows. "And as with all spices, unless it can compete with the likes of sugar or salt, it is not worth much of a merchant’s carry weight."

Yue'li tries not to let the defeat show on her face, but Safir must've caught it regardless because he changes gears almost immediately.

“Ah, but fear not, child!” He puffs out his chest, making his belly strain against his robes. “For I am Safir Silverbeard, Grand Master of Trades, Dwarf of Fortune, the Hero of Peddlers, and I will willingly travel to the ends of the mortal realm to sell your seeds and make a fortune for the both of us, once you’ve worked it out.” Then with a hint of uncertainty in his voice he asks, “You have worked it out?”

Yue’li shakes her head, laughing. “Nope.”

“Oh,” says Safir, then he laughs too. "I'm afraid I won't be much help to you unless you do, child."

"Don't worry, I have someone who can," Yue'li says. "Speaking of, I should get back to the bakery." She reaches into her money pouch. "How much for the pouch of coffea seeds, Mr. Safir?"

“Yue’ling.” Safir’s voice is stern but kind. “What did I tell you about payment?”

“Okay, okay.” Yue’li fishes the pouch out of the box and adds it to her collection. She can barely hold onto all of them, but putting any in her waist bag will risk damaging the square bug she bought from the puppet man. “Thanks, Mr. Safir," she says, hopping around the stall the give the dwarf another hug. "You really are the best. Abetah and I owe you more than we could ever repay."

“No my dear,” Safir says, clasping Yue’li’s shoulders in his wide, warm hands. "It is I who is indebted to you two." His gaze shifts slightly upwards to the top of Yue’li’s head, where her horns are discreetly hidden under the heavy hood of her cloak. “One of these days, Yue’ling, you will walk these same streets with them out in the open like it’s no big deal. I swear it on my beard.”

Yue’li steps away from Safir and pecks him on the cheek. "See you around, Mr. Safir," she says, keeping her voice light to offset the tenderness inside her chest. "Stop by the bakery before you leave Kesrock. We have a new tart called Citrus Sunrise. You’ll love it."

Safir Silverbeard watches as the little yaojin bobs away, the ends of her cloak almost brushing against the ground. He cannot see it, but he knows that behind that brown cloak is a beautiful tail with scales the color of jade, and it saddens him to imagine the discomfort it must bring the girl to have it tied away.

At the end of the street, just before the crowd gets thick again, Yue’ling Basilona stops and turns to look back at Safir. She waves, and for a heartbeat, Safir sees his adopted daughter waving at him, and the joy he feels in that instant is immeasurable and indescribable.

But she is not Momo, Safir knows and reminds himself. She never was.

He forces himself to smile and wave back. “Bring my greetings to your mother!” he yells.

“I will! And check your pocket!”

Safir taps his hands to his sides, feels a bulge that he does not recognize, and reaches into the suspicious pocket. His fingers brush up against cold, jagged objects, and he already knows what they are even before he brings them out into the light.

With a wry grin, he glances back up the street, but sees only throngs of people now. Not a horn or tail in sight.

Safir sits back down on his chair, shaking his head and chuckling softly to himself.

“Little rascal.”

He holds his hand out to the sunlight, letting the silver pieces resting on his palm drink up the warmth of summer.