As she exited the storage, stripping off her apron and gloves, she made sure to do it as silently as possible. She didn’t think she had to be too careful – Max had been wearing headphones as she went in to clean the storage, and she assumed he hadn’t had any real reason to take them off – but she moved slowly and deliberately anyways.

Slowly drawing out her pen, she tapped the tip gently and turned to the wall, the nearest flat surface she could find. It felt strange, like she was vandalizing the wall with her graffiti, but she pushed her pen into the wood anyways.

Max feels a warm breeze on his neck as the low rumble of a gentle fart floats through the air.

Giggling, Ruby tapped the final period twice and watched as the ink dissolved away slowly. Innocently, she walked out of the back, just in time to see Max perk up and watch his face scrunch up in an awkward expression of disappointment.

She realized her mistake as soon as she saw his expression. “Aw dammit.”

Max nodded. “Do you want to say what you did wrong, or should I?”

“Aaaah,” Ruby sighed. “I keep on forgetting.”

“And what exactly did you forget?” Max pushed.

Ruby glared at him for a second before shaking her head. “I tried to include you as a part of my spell.” He was only trying to help her. She knew she shouldn’t be annoyed at him.

“And why exactly was that wrong?”

She glared at him again. Okay, maybe she could be a bit annoyed at him. Regardless, she answered his question. “Because living things are more robust than objects or elements when it comes to magic.”

“Well actually…”

Ruby raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you told me,” she said accusingly.

“And I wasn’t lying, well not exactly, It’s just the specific wording you used,” Max said, shrugging. “I wouldn’t say living things are more robust, per se. Just usually a lot harder to manipulate with magic.”

“Explain.”

Max thought for a few seconds as Ruby stared at him, silently waiting, until he seemed to have found an idea.

“Do you remember the exact wording of the spell you used on me?”

Ruby nodded and repeated her spell. “Rather than Max feels a warm breeze,” she continued, “I should have cast something along the lines of A warm breeze hits the back of Max’s head. Or is that bad too? Should I be taking out ‘Max’s head’ somehow?”

“No, no,” Max said, with a excited franticness that almost surprised her. “That’s actually a perfect fix. You’re in school right? Remind me, what do you study?”

Rather than take the time to be confused, Ruby decided to go along with the sudden switch in questioning without resistance. “Accounting.”

“Really?” Max asked. “I thought you were in medicine or something.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll have you know that accounting fulfills the Asian stereotypes just as well, thank you very much,” she said, hiding the grin that would give away her lack of seriousness.

Max rolled his eyes back at her. “Please,” he said. “If I were going to stereotype, it would be against how Earthen you are. I don’t have the time to learn all the dimensional stereotypes. But seriously, you weren’t in medicine?”

Ruby shrugged. “I had a biology class last year,” she said. “But that was for a required credit.”

Max nodded. “That must be why I assumed, but unfortunately it doesn’t really help my example. Can we just pretend you’re studying medicine for a bit?”

Ruby shrugged.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Okay then,” Max continued. “If I could continue-“

Just then the door chimes tinkled.

“Welcome to Magic Shop!”

“God dammit… Welcome to Magic Shop,” Ruby parroted after a stern look from Max.

“Hello, good friends!” a loud and boisterous voice shouted back. Ruby couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the sight, before quickly reverting back to her professional smile.

She’d never seen a man in a full suit of armour before.

“How is the day treating you today, good sir and madam? Well, I hope?”

Without a hint of confusion in his voice, Max chimed in. “Absolutely, Sir Knight. Well enough to hope to share some of my joy with you. How could we be of service today?”

The Knight laughed loudly, his booming voice echoing out of his closed helmet. Ruby couldn’t help but think about how loud it must be inside. Maybe he simply liked the sound of his own laugh.

“What a pleasant man!” he remarked. “If only I were the one to be doing business with you, just so I could talk with you for a few seconds more, but alas, it is my companion that requires my services, Sir Shopkeeper.”

Pointing to the side, Ruby finally noticed a bespectacled man standing beside him. Though he was actually quite tall, which surprised Ruby in the fact that she hadn’t noticed him until now, she excused herself by the existence of the Knight, whose gleaming silver armour contrasted quite starkly to the plain plaid and jeans combo that the bespectacled man wore.

“Hey Max,” he said. His voice deep and slow, the man sounded extremely tired.

Max looked surprised, as if he was just noticing him for the first time too. “Hey yourself, Tim,” he said a bit absentmindedly as he looked between the him and the Knight. “So… who’s this?”

“New apprentice- don’t,” he quickly said, pointing a finger at Max’s face, interrupting him before the question could come out of his open mouth. “I really, really don’t want to talk about it,” he said harshly.

“I’ll give you a discount.”

“Yeah he’s my new apprentice,” Tim said, reverting back to his tired voice in an instant. “What do you want to know?”

Ruby couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden switch in demeanour. Tim turned his eyes toward her, as if noticing her for the first time.

“Seems like you have a new apprentice as well,” he commented.

Ruby felt like she should correct him, but Max beat her to it. “Nah,” he said, waving his hand. “Ruby’s just a part-timer. Plus, you won’t get off so easily. Don’t try to change the subject so casually. She’s not nearly as interesting as that fellow over there.”

“Hi Ruby.”

“Hi Tim,” Ruby replied distractedly. If it were any other scenario, Ruby might have been offended by Max’s comment, but she couldn’t hope to claim to be more interesting than the fully armoured man in from of her. Though she couldn’t see his expression through his helm, he didn’t seem to mind being talked about so openly, judging from the way that he posed and flexed his nonvisible muscles.

Max and Ruby both stared at the awkward spectacle for a few seconds, letting the room fall into silence par for the soft clinking of metal plates as the Knight switched poses.

“His name is Darch. He’s loud and boisterous, but overall a nice kid, even though he’s incredibly annoying.” As if to accentuate this fact, Darch reached over and held up a finger to Tim’s ear, bending it to make a strained sound that suggested that particular joint hadn’t been well oiled in a while. Tim ignored him. “Despite how he looks and acts, he’s decent in the kitchen.”

“Kitchen?” Ruby asked.

“Tim’s a professional cook,” Max quickly explained. “Though he cooks things that requires a bit more of a magical touch.”

Ruby gave him a small “ah” of understanding.

“Which brings me to my business here. I heard you recently came across a good ingredient?”

“You mean the dragon egg?” Ruby asked, recalling the dragon’s egg that she’d recently bought from the young farmer. Though she didn’t even know if such a thing was even edible, it seemed like a good guess.

Thankfully, Tim nodded, saving her the embarrassment of being wrong. “Yeah that’s the one. It’s a sapphire-gold, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s enough, Ruby,” Max said, cutting her off before she could ask Tim to clarify. He turned to the cook. “Tim still hasn’t earned his discount yet,” he said, motioning his head towards Darch the Knight, who was still flexing in the middle of the room. “So why’s he wearing the armour? Did you manage to get an apprentice from Terria?”

Though she could only guess what Terria was, Ruby couldn’t help but remember that she was in fact more intrigued at finding out the answer than at selling the dragon egg.

“No actually,” Tim said. “He’s from Earth. UK to be exact. This is just a hobby of his.”

“Tis a lifestyle, my liege,” Darch spoke up from the middle of the room.

“His birth name is also David,” Tim continued.

“Ah, curses! My true name!” Darch, or David, shouted, bending backwards and clutching at his heart in mock pain. “You slay me, you wicked fiend. Et tu Tim?”

“Wrong culture, David,” Tim said, his voice deadpan as he ignored the following groan of mock pain that followed. As David bent a bit too far back, causing him to lose balance and crash onto the ground, Tim ignored the clanging sound that resulted, tapping on the counter instead.

“So how much of a discount are you giving me?”