The turmoil around the farmer's market was easily explainable by looking at the sky. Everyone needed their groceries, but the clouds, growing darker by the minute, promised a violent discharge in the near future. Clelia stood out among the crowd not just for her unusual getup, which would be the norm, but also by the lack of urgency in her stroll, carrying with her a wicker basket containing peaches and small plums, as well as two jars of cherry jam and a paper bag with freshly baked bread.

Going out for groceries was a first for her, which did put a bit of a spring in her step due to the novelty, but on the other hand the events of the day prior were still on her mind. She had a rain-repellent spell ready in case of a storm, which explained why she wasn't worried about still needing to cross most of the village to get her groceries back home. She would have wanted to get even more stuff, but unfortunately the merchants were not as nonchalant about the weather as her.

She caught a glimpse of something quickly hiding in an alley right before a white haired man with a bushy moustache tried to get her attention. He was dressed exactly like the servants she had seen the day prior at Aunt Lucia's sundowner, with the addition of what looked like only half a pair of glasses pressed on his right eye. A black umbrella hung from his forearm.

"Greetings, Mrs Clelia Neumann," the man monotend in a nasal voice, "my master, your husband's aunt, tasked me with sending you her thanks for participating yesterday and her wishes that you will bless us with your presence again, in the future."

Clelia evaded his impassable eyes and adjusting the temple of her glasses. "The pleasure was all mine."

The man gave her a very formal and profound bow. "It is an honour to hear that." As he returned in his upright position, he continued, "Begging your pardon, my Lady, may I momentarily pester you with a brief inquiry?"

"Uh, by all means?"

He gave her another much more restrained bow. "My sincerest thanks. As unbecoming as it is to hassle you with our own internal affairs, I wish to ask if you, perchance, happened to see a certain someone around this morning."

"Um, who?"

"It is my understanding that you already met her, even spoke with her at yesterday's social gathering. It would be a girl, right around your age, a gangly little rascal with uncouth short hair and a dreadful attitude."

Clelia shrugged. "I've spoken to many people yesterday, I don't remember all of them."

Gracefully caressing his moustache, the man gave a manufactured chortle. "Dear me, I apologise for the confusion. I wasn't referring to one of the guests, she is merely a domestic, and she has gone missing."

"Either way," she shook her head, "I'm afraid I can't help you. Will that be all?"

He sighed. "I suppose so. If I may offer my sincere opinion, that brat is more trouble than she's worth, and if it were my choice I wouldn't be chasing after her, but, alas, my master wills me to. I bid you a wonderful day, my Lady."

He bowed once more and she hesitantly responded in kind. When he turned around to march away, she waited for him to disappear before turning her attention to the nearby alley.

"You can come out now, you know? He's out of sight," she called out.

The girl who broke Clelia's glasses emerged from the alley, wearing oversized overalls again, her bony arms crossed and her eyes glued to the ground.

"I seem to keep running into you," coldly remarked the fairy.

"Ah, this time I was looking for you, actually," the olive-skinned girl tried to explain through the cracking of her throaty voice, as if she was victim of a bad cold.

Unimpressed, Clelia adjusted her glasses. "Well, my congratulations on succeeding."

"I, uh," the skinny girl began, "there's a few things I'd like to say to you, but…" she looked at the sky, "could we find shelter before we do that? I think it's going to pour very soon."

"Don't worry about that, I…" Clelia started saying, when something cold and strangely sharp hit her hand.

It was slow, at first, but the ticking of something solid falling from the sky and hitting both the ground and the surrounding buildings became louder and more frequent at an alarming pace. Clelia froze in place. Her spell did not protect from hail.

Sometimes, noise alone isn't enough to cover up silence.

A worn out wooden washboard sat in the only corner made by the two walls topped a small roof that provided cover over a fountain with running water. The ground outside of that small haven was slowly getting covered in hailstones, and the air was filled with the roaring shower of the hailstorm not giving the slightest hint of slowing down. Standing besides each other and deliberately looking anywhere else but one another, the two girls waited for the downpour to stop.

Even though she occasionally tried to sneak a glance of the servant girl at her left, the crack in her glasses made it difficult. The fact that she was the one responsible for that crack made something between her stomach and diaphragm feel like it was on fire. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to push out the words of anger that the little burglar certainly deserved.

Eventually, an awkward cackle came from the olive-skinned girl at her side. "You know, I… I'm in shock, uh… Mrs Neumann, I guess? I mean, I can't believe you didn't rat me out yesterday, nor today with that old stuck-up grumplord of Agenore. I guess I owe you big time."

Clelia crossed her arms. "Well, you can start by telling me your name. For now, all I know about you is that you tried to steal from us, you threw a jar at me, then today a servant of my aunt-in-law turned up looking for you, about at the same time you showed up. The least you could do would be a proper introduction."

Awkwardly holding her own chapped slender hands together and looking down, she nodded. "Of course. My name is Rosalba and, as you might have understood, I'm in your aunt-in-law's service."

Clelia turned up her chin accusingly. "Would you care to explain why today you decided to come looking for me, of all people?"

"Well, uh…" Rosalba faltered, "I didn't thank you enough yesterday for not ratting me out with my master. And… you deserve an apology, at the very least."

Clelia had the distinct impression that, for the girl next to her, pulling those words out of herself was a titanic effort. Also, the longing glances that Rosalba kept on addressing to the food in her basket did not escape her attention. Her overalls were patchy and worn out, and her body was scrawny and emaciated, almost as if she hadn't eaten in weeks. Thinking about it, when a couple of night prior she intruded in Clelia's and Damian's house, she didn't go looking for anything but food.

Clelia stared at Rosalba for a few interminable moments, then shook her head. "Here, take this."

She took a big loaf of bread out of her basket and extended it to her left.

Rosalba gasped. "Milady, I can't accept…"

"Fine then," Clelia interrupted, pulling the loaf away from her interlocutor, "but I'm not sure if you're in any position to refuse my generosity right now."

The other girl gulped. "I… bumbely accept your gift, Milady."

"It's 'humbly', not 'bumbely'." Clelia pointed out, reaching out to her with the bread once more.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Rosalba scarfed down the food offered to her at a speed that would put to shame a ravenous Bone Crackler in the midst of a cemetery. The fairy decided to hand a plum to her too, which suffered the same fate as the bread.

"Now that that's settled," Clelia started again, "let's sort this out. Aside from your thanks and apologies, I think I at the very least deserve an explanation. Was it bad luck or bad judgement that led you to try to steal from a fairy's home?"

The servant girl cackled nervously again. "It was uh… bad luck, I guess?"

Clelia's eyes narrowed. "What a stroke of bad luck, indeed. There are, how many, fifty? Sixty individual houses in this village? And, all the way from Aunt Lucia's farms, you traversed most of the village to choose exactly that one house to come and rob? What are the odds?"

Once again, the rumble of drops of ice relentlessly falling all around them became the only audible sound. Eventually, nervously tapping her foot on the ground, Rosalba admitted, "Well, I had heard there was supposed to be a fairy in there, but I… sort of didn't believe it. I thought it was merely rumours."

"I see," the fairy acknowledged, her voice becoming a little gentler than before, "but this still doesn't fully explain why you decided to come to us specifically, nor why you felt the need to rob someone in the first place."

"All right, all right," she sighed deeply, "the thing is… I was being punished. I, uh, I lost something of value a couple of days ago while I was out on errands, so they had me skip meals again. On the master's property, they keep track of all provisions, so they'd know if I helped myself from any of it. I just… couldn't bear the hunger anymore, so I came to the village at night."

Now, Clelia was the one who sighed. "I see."

"I, uh…" her voice cracked particularly hard, so Rosalba cleared her throat, "I'm very sorry I threw that jar at you. I'm glad you appear to be unscathed, but that could have hurt pretty bad. I was startled. I didn't know what to do."

Hidden beneath the illusion, the bump on Clelia's forehead still hurt a bit. She grasped at the cloth of her skirt and squeezed tightly.

"Apology accepted." Clelia groaned defeatedly.

The human girl cleared her throat again. "Would you get angry if I asked you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"Why didn't you expose me in front of my master yesterday? You were very clearly angry… I see why, don't get me wrong, but… when the master came and spoke to us, from how angry you looked, I thought… well, I thought I was toast, that's the gist of it. I still cannot believe that you…"

"I didn't feel like causing a scene," interrupted Clelia. "It would have been quite rude of me to do that at my first appearance to that kind of meeting, after all."

The righteous anger with which she had planned to carry over the conversation had long since hidden back somewhere beneath her diaphragm, and now the fairy found herself unable to keep it up. A new silence started, and this time it was Clelia the first to become restless. She still had questions, but how was she supposed to ask them now, when she no longer had the momentum on her side?

Eventually, Rosalba pulled up one of her sleeves. "See this scar under my elbow, Milady?"

Clelia furrowed her brows. "Why would you show me that?"

"This," continued the servant girl, "is from another time I was made to skip meals as punishment. I had yet to find a safe and, well, somewhat quiet way to break a window, so I got me this. I don't envy whoever had to clean up all that mess. But, at the end of the day, I never felt all that sorry for it. People here in the village can prosper: they have a house of their own, they get paid, they have food. Their children can go to school and play instead of working. I imagine it would suck even for them to have to clean up all that broken glass, especially with it being covered in my blood and all, but when they were done they still had food on the table, you get me?"

Clelia stared at her, her arms crossed to protect them from the cold she was starting to feel due to all the ice that surrounded them.

Rosalba continued. "Well, if they asked me to apologise I would. But my heart wouldn't be in it, you know? So, uh… basically I wanted you to know that with you it's different. You've been very kind to me, and I almost hurt you a lot, so this time I do actually feel very bad about what I did."

Clelia gritted her teeth and stomped her foot. "Well, you should feel sorry."

She took off her glasses, which caused them to exit from the illusion. "This is what happened when you threw that jar at me. You know what it feels like to barely be able to see at all? I've lived my whole life thinking I'd never be able to rely on my eyes for anything. That is, until I got this thing here. I've had it only for a few weeks and now it's already broken, and I cannot fix it, even with my magic. And how am I supposed to let my husband know that I've already broken his wedding gift to me? It's a miracle that I was able to cast an illusion to make it look like it's fine. But it's not fine, it's not fine at all."

Clelia sniffled and looked away, fighting back the tears that were trying to emerge. Even though letting it all out of her chest felt good, she couldn't ignore something niggling in the back of her head, telling her she was being petty.

When she put on her glasses again, she could finally see Rosalba again, covering her own mouth in shame. "I-I'm so, so sorry…" she stuttered, "I had no idea. Oh my gosh, is there anything I can do for you?"

Trying to sound angry still, Clelia muttered, "You've done enough."

Why did it keep on pouring down? Couldn't the hail at least turn to rain? She would have been able to just cast the rain-repellent spell and go back home, far away from that scrawny, starving servant girl. Clelia looked away again. She really couldn't fight back the feeling that she was being petty toward Rosalba, especially after she admitted that she didn't even reliably have food to eat, but, even so, every time she was about to say something, that something turned into another burst of anger.

Once more, she actively regularised her breathing. She used the "tide" to fight back that lump of fire that kept on trying to creep up her throat and escape from her mouth. Breathe in, breathe out.

Clelia tried to change the subject. "You still didn't explain it, you know?"

"What?"

"Why you chose our house. You said that you didn't believe I was actually a fairy, which explains why you didn't avoid it, but it doesn't explain why you specifically chose it."

"Oh, that, hahah…" Rosalba massaged the back of her neck. "Boy, how do I say this without sounding creepy?"

She hummed awkwardly to herself for a little while before carrying on with her explanation. "So, you know how women in small villages are, right? When they meet, it's all gossip, most of the time. Well, let's just say that the servitude in my master's properties is no different. I heard about master Damian's wedding, and, let me tell you, I was very surprised. After all, he does have a number of admirers, and also a well known history of ignoring all of them, but, aside from hearing about her being a fairy, nobody knew anything about the bride. And, as I said, I paid no mind to the idea of you really being a fairy."

Clelia shook her head. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"I'm getting to it. So, a couple of nights ago, when roaming around with a pit in my stomach, I thought to myself hey, there's a newly wed couple in town. It's only been a few days, so I figured that, during the nights, you guys would be… busy, you know? Or, better yet, exhausted from getting busy, if you catch my drift."

Clelia's face started burning harder than the pits of hell, as her cheeks flushed of a red brighter than the sunset.

"So, yeah, I wasn't expecting for you to show up while I… made a visit to you pantry." Rosalba completed.

This time, it was Clelia's turn to cackle awkwardly. "We, uh… we barely know each other, you know? We only met twice before the wedding." Then, she got serious. "Besides, he's… he has been a little distant since we got married. He… he barely speaks to me, I don't think that…" she covered her blushing cheeks with her hands, "getting busy, like you eloquently put it, is anywhere close to being in his mind."

Rosalba shifted her weight and crossed her arms. "Hm, how odd. Sure, as I said, he has never been very involved with girls, but, knowing him, I never thought he'd be cold to someone he marries."

Clelia raised one brow. "You know him? Personally?"

"To an extent," the girl clarified. "It's been a while since the last time we spoke. When he was little, he and his brothers came to the master's farms pretty often to play with the master's children, their cousins. For some reason, master Damian was often left alone, so he'd play with us, the children of the servitude. He was a quiet kid for sure, but didn't strike me as someone who'd ignore his wife, once he got one. You guys had a fight or something?"

Finally, the rumble all around them started quieting down, as the hailstorm slowly turned into a drizzle.

Clelia shook her head. "No, he's generally nice to me. He's never been rude or said anything bad to me. In fact, if I had been a guest in his house, I'd think he was an ideal host."

Rosalba nodded, her brows furrowed. "I see, I see. He's definitely up to something, or at least he definitely has something on his mind, but heck if I know what."

The skinny girl tormented her lower lip with her finger, lost in thought, then snapped her fingers. "Hey, I got an idea."

"What?"

"So, you know how I'm kinda in your debt for not snitching on me despite hurting you when trying to burglerise you? I thought maybe I could help you getting more friendly with master Damian as a way of making it up to you!" beamed Rosalba.

Clelia caressed the temple of her glasses. "How do you plan on doing that?"

She shrugged while making a vaguely "I dunno" hum with her mouth closed. "We can figure it out together. If that's ok with you, of course."

Now, only the gentle ticking of a thin sprinkle of rain surrounded them, with small fragments of ice still covering the ground as the only clue of the previous storm. Clelia summoned her wand and, with a flick of her wrist, activated the rain-repellent spell. Dismissing her wand, she walked out of her cover and all raindrops stopped before reaching her, as if she was protected by an invisible bell. She turned back to face Rosalba, who was gawking in awe at her.

Clelia smirked, raising her chin proudly. "I accept your offer, human girl. How about we discuss it while on our way home? There's plenty of space beneath my spell."