Busy Sidewalks // WT

Serendipity starts losing money on the fourth day, which is frankly about two days longer than Aranica expected them to hold out. They left the second ledger wherever Illario keeps it, a secret even from her and Kette; that was the only option, but the moment they agreed on that, she knew the numbers would get messy. Even on an ordinary week, Illario walks a delicate tightrope—a task he learned to manage without training and with minimal help, through painstaking trial and error and the occasional reluctant gamble. He does it better than Aranica ever could have demanded of him, but opening up shop at Ratmas Markets was as harebrained an idea as the one that launched the whole project. She can hardly blame him for struggling to keep his balance without dropping all the brand-new variables in his head.

So when he warns her about the dip, she shrugs, smiles reassuringly, and changes nothing—not the prices, or the hushed side meetings, or the way she casually overpays people just enough for it to look like bad business sense. Perhaps she'll have to work harder later to make that travel permit look viable, but they'll blame the losses on underestimated transportation costs and untangle things at home. In the meantime, it hardly hurts her cause to have a recorded, auditable reason to pull a little more money from her Victor income than usual.

Her days fill too quickly to waste time on worrying, anyway. Between the heavy moments ("No names," says a steely-eyed woman from Seven trying to finance exactly the kind of rebellion that Aranica used to think was too dangerous to get involved with, "not until I know you won't turn me in.") and the sweet ones ("This is four hands against one!" she shouts through laughter as Vibeke and Rune pelt her with snowballs, two hours before Mace is due to drop by with the rest of the family), she barely seems to have time for the perfectly mundane chores that make up most of her every year. Every time she looks up there's something new to do, even if it's as small of fixing a pile of linens that someone left scattered over a table.

That's where Kette interrupts her: tucked in the corner of the stall, using the edge of the table to even out the creases as she folds. "Here, I'll take that off your hands," she says by way of greeting, then grins. "Hand?"

"Still not funny," Aranica says, rolling her eyes but not bothering to hide a smile. Kette raises her eyebrows playfully, but snatches a towel and shoos her with it instead of arguing. "You're already helped so much—" Aranica starts, and Kette waves the towel harder, her expression suddenly and oddly intense. "Alright, alright!"

She's not sure what she expects as she steps out of the clothing racks. Not Peacekeepers, Kette would have warned her about that, but some sort of trouble, perhaps—an unruly customer, or a nosy reporter, or someone looking for information that they don't know Kette doesn't have. Instead, she finds Katelyn Persimmon browsing quietly.

After brief consideration, she busies herself at the register, letting Katelyn meander past household goods and the board full of buttons. It's hard to tell whether she wants to be noticed; her movements aren't exactly furtive, but she does nothing to draw attention to herself either. If she wants to be left alone, Aranica has no reason not to do so.

That doesn't mean she's not relieved when Katelyn does step forward a few minutes later, a bundle of what look like cookie cutters cradled in her hands.

"Aranica right? Mace spoke highly of you, but I don’t think we’ve met."

"Yes," Aranica says, smiling easily. "Katelyn?" Out of habit she starts to raise her hand to offer a hug, then checks herself and uses it to lean against the register table at her right. "Not except maybe in passing, I think. But it's good to meet any friend of Mace's. He's talked about you, too." She hesitates for half a breath before adding, "And it's good to see you safe." As safe as any of us ever are.

There's a moment, under the soft metal clink of cookie cutters, where she thinks about asking. She doesn't, and after a few beats Katelyn says, "Hell of a thing, this quell twist, isn’t it? Feels like I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Fuck, tell me about it." Aranica shifts her balance off her hand so she can reach up to hold her rock. "Not to mention the shock for the kids. And I can't b—well. I wish I could say I can't believe they're still making them register, but if wishes were horses, right?" Here, in public but away from cameras, she lowers her voice but bothers to school neither her tone nor her grimace. "How are Carmen and Faux, do you know? And the rest of you?" She knows Kirito only vaguely through Mace—he showed up for Arbor's birthday, joking one moment and thoughtful the next; she'd been glad for both—and Harbinger barely at all, but then, she's never set the boundaries of her concern at the people she knows. She's not exactly planning to start now.