Lucky Rabbit

Lanthorne Court was beautiful. Oh, not in the same slightly glowy and romantic way it had been in Gacha Love, but in the way that only a place full of energy and color can be. It was a bit like being back at the festival where Pandy had had her unfortunate encounter with a truck, but since she wasn’t here to act as security – and really, what had made her think that she could help other people stay safe? – she could relax and just enjoy it.

Pandy liked people both individually and theoretically, but not necessarily in aggregate. That is, once she got to know someone, she was usually glad she had. She also liked the idea of people, of all different kinds, just living their best lives. Unfortunately, when human beings gathered in numbers greater than two, something…happened to them. They started trying to impress each other, which almost always seemed to involve bossing around or putting down anyone who was lower in the social hierarchy than they were. And Pandy spent her time hanging out around the very bottom of that hierarchy.

She let the first ten minutes slip by as she wandered around. She didn’t try to speak to anyone or enter any shops, just enjoyed walking among the bustling crowds and looking at the items displayed on the counters of the small, free-standing booths. To her immense relief, no one tried to speak to her, either, since there were plenty of shoppers who obviously did want to talk.

In Gacha Love, there was some kind of large event every month, in addition to the smaller events that happened every weekend and sometimes during the week. One of the large events was the Petal Promise Fair. It took place in early spring, after the murders began, but before anyone realized they were murders, and that they were connected.

The Petal Promise event was a bit like Valentine’s Day, except that the couple was expected to go to the fair together and buy gifts at the event. The more similar the gifts were, the more the lovers were said to be ‘in tune’, and the higher the resultant Affection score would be.

Jewelry was most popular, but Bastian gave Clara some kind of cooking implement, while Edgar got her a book – and not a book of poetry or anything frivolous like that, either. The trick was to go around and ask the vendors if they’d seen whichever boy you were there with, and they would give you clues as to what he might have purchased. Of course, the number of vendors you could speak to depended on your Stamina, and you had to hold enough back so you could watch the lighting of the lanterns and dance with your partner as well.

While the shopping part of the event was during the day, the rest took place at night, and you couldn’t actually wander the stalls, just click on the ones you wanted to investigate. But now Pandy looked. She saw stall owners chatting with their neighbors as their children played. She saw people smiling even as they seemed to argue, with customers telling vendors everything that was wrong with their products, and vendors explaining why the customer would never again find such an amazing product for such an amazing price. She saw neatly arrayed earrings and brooches laid out on velvet pillows, and baskets of glittering trinkets for people to paw through, searching for a treasure. Brightly colored cloth hung from weavers’ stalls, flirting with the fruits and vegetables next door every time the wind blew.

It was, in short, much like being at a farmer’s market in her world, except that there were no phones, no cars, and no smog. She did step in what she was fairly sure was chicken poop, her foot almost sliding out from under her as she cringed at the squishy feeling. She tried to wipe her foot clean on the stones, but was quickly distracted as a whole herd of shrieking children chased a pack of barking dogs, but both children and dogs seemed happy enough with the situation.

Eventually, with only seventy-five minutes remaining on Shifting Faces, she was forced to approach an older man who was seated on a bench, gently tapping the sole of a boot with a tiny hammer. Another man stood by, twisting his hat in his hands as he waited, toes curling in heavy woolen socks against the warm stones of the square.

“There you are,” the cobbler said, sliding his fingers over the repaired boot, whispering something that Pandy would have needed a rabbit’s ears to hear. The polished leather of the new sole visibly softened, shaping itself to the contours of the boot, and when the customer slid his foot into the shoe, he grinned.

“A perfect fit, thank you, Mr. Shaw,” the man said humbly. Mr. Shaw nodded, a satisfied smile on his face, and repeated the spell on the other boot, which sat beside him on the ground. When his client had stomped both shoes firmly into place, money was exchanged, and the two men shook hands, looking pleased.

Once the freshly booted man walked away, Pandy stepped up, and Mr. Shaw sat back on his bench, gazing at her with an expression that wasn’t unkind, but wasn’t encouraging, either. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, a practiced eye running over Pandy’s stiffly ornate dress. “I only make and repair boots. Boots made for work, if you catch my meaning.”

Pandy did, and she also knew it was a lie. During the Petal Promise Fair, Clara broke the strap of her shoe, and a man who looked just like this one gave her a beautiful pair of shoes to replace it. Yes, the shoes were technically boots, but they weren’t anything like the sturdy workboots the previous customer had purchased. The delicate little boots were part of the best outfit in the game, at least if you were chasing Edgar or Kaden. Both boys liked a polished, elegant Clara, though Edgar preferred if she was also Intelligent and well-read, while Kaden liked a high Eloquence stat.

“Oh,” she said, looking down shyly, just as Clara did in the game. Ms. Wellington wasn’t nearly as beautiful as Clara, nor did she look as sweet and innocent, but Pandy was determined to try. “The heels of my shoes broke, you see, and I couldn’t wear them anymore.” She lifted the hem of her dress, revealing her bare, dirty feet, then used another of Clara’s lines. “I only need to get home. It doesn’t matter what they look like.”

The man looked down, eyeing her feet. For a moment, it seemed like he might give in, but he just shrugged, and turned back to the vaguely foot-shaped protrusion sticking out of his bench. He slipped a heavy boot over it and began prying up the worn sole. “Can’t help you,” he said, not quite impolite. “Try one of the fancy shops around over there.” He tilted his head toward a row of expensive-looking storefronts, and Pandy bit her lip. This wasn’t going well.

Mr. Shaw continued to ignore Pandy, and Pandy continued to watch him, until another man sidled out of the crowd, looking nervously between them and clutching not one, but two pairs of run-down boots. At this, Pandy decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, hiked up her skirts, and revealed her bare feet to everyone nearby. Gasps sounded all around her, but she ignored them.

Lifting her chin, she said, “I suppose I’ll just go home like this, then, since I can’t afford anything from those places, even if I wanted to shop there.” She glanced around, until her gaze caught on a stall where a young girl was weaving something like sandals out of stiff stalks of grass. Honestly, they looked more comfortable than the high heels waiting for Pandy in Ms. Wellington’s closet, not that that was a high bar. Dropping her skirt, she turned toward the girl, only to stop when he felt a calloused hand close on her own. 

“Did you mean that?” Mr. Shaw asked, watching her closely. “You look like a lady who’d fit right in in those shops.” His eyes flicked upward. “Except for your hair.”

Pandy’s hands flew to her head. What was wrong with her hair? Was the pencil slipping? She found a few loose ends and tucked them behind her ears, feeling her toes cross as they tried to hide beneath her skirts. “I…just started a new job,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s at a really nice place, and I have to look like I belong there. But all of my shoes are,” she held thumb and forefinger three or four inches apart in a gesture anyone familiar with women’s shoes would understand. “My feet hurt all the time.”

The cobbler hesitated, then sighed and stood up, moving slowly as he pressed a hand to his lower back. He dug around in his stall – which was really just the back of a cart with canvas stretched over the top and hanging down on the sides – and brought back a box. It wasn’t nearly as dusty and banged-up as it would be in three years’ time, and there was no mistaking the delicate pink rose painted onto the purple surface.

“I had a lady come into my shop a while back. I told her I only make boots, but she insisted that she wanted comfortable shoes, not just pretty ones. She gave me three gold, and said she’d give me ten more when she came back, if she liked them.” He touched the box lid, but didn’t quite lift it. “I spent a lot on ‘em, and more time than I care to admit. I hoped she’d tell her friends, and they’d come to my shop, too, eh? But she never came back, and now I’m stuck with these.”

At last, he revealed the shoes, and they were everything Pandy had hoped they would be. They were boots, more like the kind of thing a girl of this world would wear before she put on long skirts. In fact, they strongly reminded Pandy of Eleanor’s delicate little footwear. These had a more mature style, however, with an elegant cut to the leather, and pretty ribbons for laces, rather than leather or cord. They were also a beautiful pale fawn, almost a gold color, with a deeper tan around the toes and heel. The edges of the darker leather were embossed with an understated pattern of leaves and flowers.

But as beautiful as they were, what Pandy was most excited about was the fact that the heel was, at most, half an inch high. Coming in a close second was the fact that the toe was delicately squared, not pointed like all of Ms. Wellington’s shoes. She looked up, smiling so broadly that Ms. Wellington’s face felt like it might crack.

“They’re lovely,” Pandy exclaimed, already reaching for them. Then she pulled her hands back, as she realized there might be a problem that the game-Clara hadn’t had to deal with. “But will they fit me?”

He gestured toward the bench, with something of a challenge on his face. The wood was old, and stained in places with what was probably polish. A lady of this world would definitely hesitate to sit there, fearing that either her clothes or her reputation might be damaged, but Pandy didn’t care about either of those things. She sat.

The cobbler held out a hand, and Pandy placed her dirty foot into it without hesitation. He didn’t even flinch, just reached over and pulled a knitted tube that was probably supposed to be a sock out of a box sitting nearby. That went onto Pandy’s foot, followed by the beautiful shoe. As the shoe slipped on, Mr. Shaw leaned over it, softly whispering, “Size to suit and soften tight. Soles made strong and fit just right.”

Sure enough, the shoe shifted around Pandy’s foot, growing a little tighter in the arch, and a little looser around her toes, extending just a bit to allow her feet some space. She wiggled her toes, ignoring the scratchy socks in favor of the joy of just wearing a shoe that didn’t pinch her feet.

Seeing the expression on her face, the cobbler repeated his actions with Pandy’s other foot, and she finally placed two well-shod, comfortable feet on the ground. Something about it made tears come to her eyes, and she felt like a real person – herself, and not someone else, with something that really belonged to her – for the first time since she’d been reincarnated.

Reaching down, she tucked her hands into her skirt and summoned the purse from her inventory. It was still packed full, but when she opened it, both she and the cobbler could see that most of what it contained was copper and silver. Her face burned as she fished through it, trying to find the few gold coins, and he laid a hand over hers.

“Copper and silver spend as well as gold, my lass,” he told her. “The shoes cost me five gold to make. That’s fine leather, that is.” He gestured toward the shoes proudly, then flushed a bit. “But that lady already paid me three gold, so that only leaves two more.”

“But you must have spent so much time on them!” Pandy said, starting to turn the pouch over onto his bench. “They’re worth at least ten gold coins, but I don’t have that much right now. I’m sure I can-” The coins that had seemed like so much money when they were bulging out of the small pink purse now looked rather sad. Most of the gold coins had been the square ones that the…that Augustus had taken.

Mr. Shaw wasn’t that old – fifty or so, perhaps, with a good amount of brown still mixed among the silver in his hair and beard – but the knuckles of his hands were swollen, and the skin rough, with several small cuts and ragged cuticles. She watched those hands as they counted out almost a hundred coppers, as well as nine silvers. When he handed back the bag, it was much deflated.

“That’s enough,” he told her, tucking the coins into one of the many pouches riveted to his leather apron. “Tell your fancy new friends where you got them, eh? I’m here every weekend, but I have a shop on Patch ‘n Peddle Way. Maybe some of the folks you work with will want shoes like these.”

“I’ll tell anyone I can.” Pandy’s only friends were six years old, and while Eleanor might have money, none of the others did. Still, if anyone actually talked to her long enough to ask where she’d gotten her beautiful new shoes, she’d tell them. So she smiled, and thought,

Casting of Minor Heal successful. Seventy-seven uses remain before next level.

Healed Tom Shaw for 20 HP.

She was glad to see that no Corruption Points were necessary, since Lanthorne Court was an event location in the game. But still… Pandy frowned. She’d expected to heal the nicks and cuts on his fingers, as well as maybe whatever was wrong with his back, if it wasn’t just age. But where had twenty points of healing gone? Whenever she’d healed someone else for that much, they’d always seemed pretty injured, but Mr. Shaw looked fine. she thought again.

Casting of Minor Heal successful. Seventy-six uses remain before next level.

Healed Tom Shaw for 17 HP.

As she placed her remaining funds back into her inventory, the cobbler turned away to greet his next customer. He stopped, hand already outstretched to accept the boots the young man was holding out, and flexed his fingers. The joints were noticeably less swollen, and he stared as he wiggled them back and forth. Then he bounced on the balls of his feet, swinging his arms to twist his back, a huge grin erasing the creases between his brows and digging through his cheeks from nose to mouth.

He looked around, but Pandy was already ducking out of sight, behind another stall, then another. She’d really felt rich on the way here, with her bulging money bag, but now that she’d made some room – a lot of room – it was time to claim her reward from the dungeon.