‘Julie’ bows at ‘Blue’ and then turns to April. “Can you let go of my leader? Still need her for now, maybe I’ll give her back later.” It’s the same teasing Julie always does.
This ‘Julie’ looks like a grown up version of her Julie, she still wears the same hairstyle. Her eye colour has changed to white though.
April blushes and quickly lets go of ‘Blue’. “Ah, ehm sorry.”
“It’s fine, leader is very touchable and squishy, isn’t she?” ‘Julie’ laughs.
In return April just blushes more.
“Huh, you’re a cutie too, I see. Anyways gotta go, see you later.” ‘Julie’ waves as she grabs ‘Blue’ and leads her towards the window.
“Wait! I wanna go with you!” April says as she reaches out with her hand. Before she can reach anything the world disappears.
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Blue opens her eyes and sees that she has returned to her own body. She sees that Julie, April and Vince are sitting around the fireplace and already eating.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Julie teases as she looks at Blue.
“I thought you needed some rest, you end up sleeping the whole night.” April laughs.
‘So looking through them drains my energy?’ Blue thinks
Vince heads over to Blue and hands her some bread. “Here, have some bread!”
Blue looks at Vince and takes it. “Thanks.”
“So, what are we going to do today?” Julie asks no one in particular.
“Now that we have those masks we can go outside easier. Blue and me can try to get some food at the church maybe. Or at least look around to see what works, since we want more people and all.” April answers.
“I see, you can try near the river too. There might be some fishers drying their fish outside, and if not there’s always berries.” Julie mentions.
“Hmm that’s a good point. What are you going to do?” April asks.
Julie smirks. “I’m going out to scout some more. There’s something I want to find out so I’ll be working on that for a while.”
“That’s very mysterious, what are you hiding?” April stares at Julie.
Julie shrugs. “Who knows, it’s just a personal issue though so don’t worry about it.”
“Hmm alright, Vince what are you going to do?” April drops it and moves on to Vince.
“I’m going to get more flowers and put them around here!” Vince hops around excited.
“Okay, stay safe though. I recommend wearing your mask, you don’t know who is walking around here.” Julie says as she stands up and marches towards the door.
April grabs a mask and throws it at Blue. “Let’s go, alright?”
Blue catches the mask and tries to put it on.
“Oh, let me help.” April stands behind Blue to tie the mask.
Blue looks away. “Thanks.”
April laughs and heads out.
Blue quickly follows and together they walk off.
“So let’s visit Nicolas first, that’s always gonna be a nice and easy way for food.” April leads the way to Nicolas.
Right before they reach it April stops Blue. “So do you want to distract him or steal the bread?”
“Ah, I ..uh..I’ll steal.” Blue mutters.
“Alright, I’ll go out there and keep him busy. When you see that he’s distracted casually walk to the bread, don’t make it look too obvious. There are bags right beside the bread, so just grab one or two and fill them” April explains.
“Got it.” Blue declares.
“Alright, I’ll go now. Don’t just go right away, he might look around first since last time.” April quickly moves away.
Blue follows her with her gaze, April stops near a guy who looks to be around his twenties.
“Hey there Nicolas, I’m here to thank you for the bread!” April happily says.
“One of these days I’m going to hire guards against you thieves.” Nicolas sighs.
“Come on, you’re letting us take it cause you’re kind right?” April teases.
“I don’t get enough money to just let you take it. I’m just trying to get by myself and you have to ruin that!” Nicolas snarls.
“Hey, we’re also trying to get by. We just have different methods, besides we can’t even use your method and this is all we can do.” April remarks.
“Are you trying to distract me? Cause why else would you hold this pointless conversation with me?” Nicolas looks around to see if he can see anyone busy stealing. When he can’t see anyone he shakes his head.
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“No? I’m actually here to thank you for helping us survive, is that a bad thing?” April says in an innocent tone.
“You’re trying to make it seem like what you’re doing isn’t bad.” Nicolas sighs.
Blue decides to casually walk towards the bread.
“Don’t think so black and white. No one is completely good or bad, and we’re all just doing what we can to survive.” April claims.
Blue gets a bag and shoves bread into it. She realizes it’s easier than she had thought and gets another bag.
“You don’t have to steal for that, why not take an actual job? There’s tons of people out there looking for extra hands, you know?” Nicolas suggests.
Blue fills the last bag and walks back to the alley. It is a successful trip.
“I know, but I can’t just do that. I have my reasons which make it impossible.” April sadly laughs. “It was nice talking to you, but I’ll have to go now. I’ll try begging at the church, I guess.”
April runs off to the alley.
Nicolas lets out a heavy sigh and goes back to work.
April pats Blue’s back. “Great job, let’s quickly head back to drop this off before continuing.”
They head back and drop the bags in the hideout.
“No one’s here, guess everyone else is still busy.” April mutters. “Well anyway, let’s go to the church. I know the way, since Julie took me there before.” April quickly adds.
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The church is one of the biggest buildings in town. They obviously spent a lot of time on the church to get it where it’s at now. It has one big tower with a bell in it and a large clock below it.
Blue can’t read the time, she doesn’t feel like it’s needed either. She just does things when she wants to.
April makes dramatic motions to the church. “And here is the great church, the only one in town.”
“So what now?” Blue questions.
“Maybe we can get some meat from them. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.” April dreamily stares at the church.
“Get? Are they going to give it to us?” Blue wonders.
“That would never happen, they decided to start this whole business plan for money and they aren’t just going to give it away.” April laughs.
They follow a crowd to get inside the church. Blue holds onto April to make sure they don’t lose each other. “I don’t like so many people in one place.” Blue states.
The church is quite busy, with people happily looking around for anything they need.
“Sorry, it’s just the best time to not get noticed.” April gives Blue a sad smile.
April gets a bag from one of the stalls. “Now let’s see what we can get.”
A nearby stall has a woman complaining to the priest. “These prices are terrible! Aren’t you supposed to be kind and give all of us food in the name of God?”
April taps Blue’s shoulder and whispers. “See that, it’s a great distraction, let’s go.”
“Miss that’s not how it works! If we give it away for free we wouldn’t have the money to stay here, that would be disrespecting God. Not being able to have enough money to be sure we give the right image of God to everyone!” The priest is quite loyal and fights hard for God.
“You’re just giving everyone the image that God is greedy and only wants to look great!” The woman shouts.
Everyone circles around to watch the fight. April and Blue sneak through the crowd to get near the stall.
“We’re working hard here in the name of God! We didn’t have to make sure everyone has access to food without having to gather it themselves, even the people who can’t hunt or don’t have a garden can have the nice food now! We also learned how to make clothes and grow our own cotton here, do you even know how much time and work goes into that? We don’t get all that for free!” The priest won’t let the woman insult his church.
Blue whispers to April. “The priest has a point, are you sure we should take from them?”
“We can’t just ruin Nicolas’s life forever, we’re doing this for our good. That woman complaining? She has enough money for fancy clothing, I wouldn’t worry about her lacking food. Those are the fakers that act as if they have nothing to get it for free, they are bad. We’re actually needing this, and they won’t miss what we take.
If we’re ever getting rich you can donate whatever you want to them to pay them back for now, alright?” April calmly explains.
“I guess.” Blue hesitates.
‘Should we ruin things in order for us to live? Is that worth it?’ Blue thinks.
April swipes some stuff from the stall unnoticed and heads back.
The woman is still shouting at the priest. “Then get volunteers to do it! Get people to donate it to you!”
“We are volunteers miss! And nobody is going to donate that to us, and the few people who do aren’t enough for everyone!” The priest keeps coming with facts to fight the woman, but she isn’t taking it.
“Let’s go, this should be enough for now or it will just get rotten.” April whispers to Blue and leads her out. “Maybe we’ll check out the river tomorrow, today has been quite enough.”
One priest stand near the entrance, April waits near him to get a chance to leave.
Another priest arrives and waves at him. “Hey Brother, are you free tomorrow morning?”
The priest sighs. “Nah, I’m on dock duty tomorrow. You can’t even guess what people try to smuggle in…”
“Really? What do they bring in then?” The second priest asks curiously.
The first priest thinks silently. “Hmm, there’s this one merchant, I think he’s known as the traveling merchant. He once tried to bring in a living animal, a weird bird or something. He said it was a job from some noble, so we couldn’t stop him.”
The second priest stares at the first, his mouth open to show his surprise. He quickly closes his mouth once he realizes it’s open. “Uhm what? A bird? Nobles sure throw their money away, what do you even need that for? That merchant sure has it easy, the nobles throwing their money at them.”
The first priest sighs out of frustration. “I’d like to catch him red handed for once. I’m sure he’s smuggling some other shady goods for the nobles. Actually, I think he’s supposed to arrive tomorrow morning… What excuse can I use to search his ship?” He ends with his fists closed in determination.
The second priest leans close to whisper to the first priest. Blue is close enough to still listen in. “You know, I heard these rumours about the traveling merchant. They say he made a deal with the Little Market, and he’s supposed to deliver ‘The Meat’ or something. I’m thinking they’re not talking about actual meat…”
“Wow, that actually explains a lot. I was wondering how the Little Market gets their goods, since if they leave the place we can actually arrest them. But to think he actively participates in black market deals, how shady can this guy get.. We can’t touch the Little Market, since the nobles protect it. But he’s outside of that, just need to find a reason to search him..” The first priest looks slightly angry.
The second priest sighs. “Well, tell me everything tomorrow. Good luck with your work.” He waves and walks off.
April quickly moves while the priest is looking at the other priest walking away. Blue runs after her as she tries to keep up.
The sun is close to setting. Soon it’ll be dark again.
‘Today sure passed fast, although I started late I guess.’ Blue thinks.
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They get back to their hideout.
“Welcome back!” Vince happily announces.
Blue looks around and see there’s flowers everywhere. There’s garlands and banners made of them on every wall.
“I see you worked quite hard on this.” April remarks.
“Of course big sis! It has to be pretty!”
April laughs. “Well done.”
“Yeah great job!” Blue smiles at Vince.
Vince laughs embarrassed. "He he, thanks sis!”
“Now look at what we got!” April shows off the bread and meat she has.
“Oooh, that’s delicious.” Vince is already drooling.
“We’re definitely eating this when Julie gets back.” April declares.
They all patiently wait for Julie to come back.
Finally there’s a sound. Julie slowly walks in.
“Welcome back!” Vince says again.
Julie doesn’t respond at all. She takes two more steps and falls over.
“Julie?!” April shouts and runs towards her. Blue quickly follows.
April desperately looks at Blue. “She’s bleeding, what do we do?!”