The reek of Dorma’s unforgettable, gladiator-esque musk followed Pamela like a fungal cloud as she rode the horsedrawn trolley back to her home. For the first time, nobody tried to sit next to her. She stared out the small window and watched the twin suns begin their dipping dance below the whoreizonand sighed listfully.

Pamela dreamt for a moment that she was not a sentient being and instead was a fine oil painting worth millions and millions of chickensfeed. Admired by all, understood by few. If any. Yes, Pamela the painting was an enigma, a beautiful one. She’d spend decades traveling from region to region of Caldonia to be admired in numerous art museums, never once finding a permanent home. That is until an art thief would cut her from her frame, roll her up like a pair of tights and steal away to the faraway land of Orwellia, where her beauty would be broadcasted to all of the snobby aristocrats of that nation. Of course eventually Pamela the painting would tire of Orwellia, and not long after that she would get stolen by an art thief from yet another fancy land. How exhausting.

“Suspiciously sourced jewelry for sale! Suspiciously sourced jewelry for sale!”

Pamela glanced at the snaggletoothed street peddler she’d so often completely ignored, and indeed looked upon with disdain. Then again, she wasn’t much a member of the Royal Gourd any more. So what if it was suspiciously sourced? Pamela deserved a treat.

“What’ve you got?”

The peddler looked to her with such wanton surprise that for a moment he could barely himself speak. After finally recovering from the realization that someone wanted to buy something from him, he hastily whipped out a small cigar box and flicked it open, revealing gold and jewels of all kinds.

“Anything strike your fancy?”

“Hmmm,” Pamela squinted carefully at the assortment of garish glamour, “Honestly, not really. Got anything else?”

“Um,” the peddler sighed and rifled through his pockets, retrieving necklaces with pendants and pearls and all sorts of swirls, “How about any of this?”

“Eh,” Pamela shrugged, “Nah.”

She started to turn away. The peddler scrambled to find something, anything the might buy.

“W-wait! Wait!!”

Pamela turned back.

“What about this?” he produced from a side pocket in his ragged cloak a small locket, “It’s a little hot, but—”

Pamela snatched it out of his hands and stared in wonder, tracing its floral engravings with her fingers, “It’s not hot at all. Actually, it’s quite cold. That’s false advertising, you know.”

“I didn’t mean literally hot. I meant…well…I meant hot,” the man coughed a few times. Truthfully, Pamela had no idea what he was trying to hint at, but she decided to pretend she did.

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“So how do you open it?”

“No idea.”

“Huh,” Pamela continued fiddling with the locket, “So how much?”

“Ten chickensfeed.”

“Oh, come on,” she rolled her eyes, “This isn’t worth five chickensfeed.”

“Eight is as low as I’ll go.”

“Six chickensfeed. Final offer.”

“Seven chickensfeed and fifty sub-chickensfeed,” countered the man.

“You know, I could get you arrested for selling jewelry without a storefront. That’s a serious crime. I have friends in the Gourd.”

On they haggled, and for a brief moment, Pamela felt a small modicum of power restored in her life—although it was quickly swept away the moment she ended up paying twelve chickensfeed for the locket.

The sky was fading to a deep, dark purple as Pamela approached the front door of her meager townhouse. Her throat felt incredibly lumpy, no doubt it was from nerves at the impending conversation. She unlocked the door.

“Pam, sweetie! Home so early today?”

Pamela hated when her mom called her Pam. It made her think of canned spam. She used to eat a lot of canned spam when she was younger. Her peers had called her Spamela. And every time she remembered that, Pamela felt her scalp itch.

“Yea, mom. I got some bad news.”

“What? Did you forget to pick up that ramen and cottage cheese for me at the market or something?”

“Oh cockhamnit,” Pamela hit herself in the forehead and stormed up the stairs.

“Don’t you use that fowl language around me young lady!”

“Ugh! Mom! I’m twenty seven!” Pamela shouted.

“Yea, and you could easily pass for thirty with those bags under your eyes and the lack of moisturization on your face! But what do I get for trying to raise your self esteem a little?”

“Mom!”

“Do whatever you want, I don’t care. Don’t get me ramen and cottage cheese, swear in my presence, look super old and strung out and depressing, do whatever you want!”

Pamela slammed the door to her room shut and sat on the floor against it, huffing in frustration. She glanced up at her peeling wall. There hung three participation medals for the Royal Gourd ‘Arresties,’ an annual competition to see how many specially hired goons each member of the Royal Gourd could arrest without using their crossbows, usually held in an auditorium.

Pamela was mouthing the words ‘no more’ to herself when the door jiggled forcefully.

“Pam! Pam, open this door!”

Pamela said nothing.

“Pam, honey, I made you some soup. Well, actually, I made me some soup, earlier, which I was seeing as more of an appetizer to the ramen and cottage cheese you were going to get for me.”

Pamela sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me young lady.”

“How can you even tell I’m rolling my eyes? I’m on the other side of the door!”

“So you were rolling your eyes at me, huh? I see, I see. I see how you treat your only mother. Your only mother, who just came up here out of the hoodness of her fart to bring you some soup.”

“I don’t want soup, mom.”

“Well I don’t care! You look like a dried out lettuce leaf! It’s very disturbing, Pam, very disturbing! But, you know, whatever! Have the soup, don’t have the soup, love your mother, don’t love your mother, who am I to judge?”

Pamela buried her face in her hands.

“Look, Pam, I’m gonna go have some yogurt and cigarettes out on the porch. It was going to be cottage cheese and cigarettes, but, well, you know the rest. I’m leaving the soup here by your door. I’m putting it right to the left, so that if you open the door to get the soup, you don’t knock the soup over and spill it all over the floor and make a huge mess like that one time when you were eleven.”

Pamela tried to hold back her queasiness at the thought of yogurt and cigarettes as she listened to her mother scuffle away, the floorboards creaking like only floorboards succumbing to woodrot could.

It was not much longer til Pamela cracked her door open and took the soup, which she nursed for about a half hour while sitting on the floor and contemplating how different her life might look as a member of the Loyal Gourd.