CH25- Thera’s Perspective

After waking up Thera wiped herself down with a warmed bucket of water before getting dressed, donning her cloak, and preparing to start her day. Having made her promise with Falk she headed over to the shop and prepared to spend the morning with Ben at the market as he tried to sell his wares.

Honestly, she was a little excited for it. It wasn’t often that she would actually go to those sorts of things since there tended to be more people around than she could deal with, but the few times she had been to one in her homeland she had fun seeing all that was available. Of course, as a local market it would be smaller, with people selling their foods and handicrafts and whatnot, but it would still be a new experience.

She also didn’t want to admit it, but she was beginning to enjoy the company that Ben provided. Having worked together for a month now, it was the longest she had ever lasted in a party, usually once other members saw how she struggled with her magic or heard the rumors about her they would be quick to drop her, leaving her to adventure alone even if that was more dangerous. But Ben had stuck it out. Sure he had an agreement with her uncle, but for the most part he seemed to be enjoying himself, and it was nice to have the company.

She was still a little worried that he was being affected by her presence, even if it was nice, just receiving two small gifts was enough to put her on edge. But if Falk insisted he was fine then she would believe him for now.

But Uncle should be done with his project in another month or two, so I guess he’ll go back to being the one to make me staves. I guess that means we’ll stop working together. Although he also said I need to adventure with his apprentice until I can find a new party to join. Gods know I’m not going to have any luck with that in this town.

So maybe they would be working together for a while longer still. As these thoughts floated around her head she entered the shop and found Ben, sweeping the floor with a dead look in his eyes.

“Um, Ben? Are you okay?” She didn’t know why she asked, he clearly wasn’t at the moment, but she was caught off guard and didn’t know what else to lead with.

Hearing her voice he jumped up and threw on a smile, as if he were going to greet a customer instead of talking with someone he’d been working with for a while.

“Thera! Good morning! Sorry I was lost in thought and wasn’t expecting you here so early, didn’t we have plans to meet up after noon?”

“Uncle Falk asked me to come help out with your table at the market so I came early. Are you alright?”

“Oh yeah I’m good, I just didn’t really sleep last night so I ended up getting too focused on my cleaning, but I would love to have the help. I actually just finished loading a cart if you want to come set up with me, I was told there would be plenty of chairs there so I don’t think we need to grab any.”

“Alright sure,” It looked like her uncle was on to something, but she was no good with these sorts of things, she would just have to try and find a way to broach the subject as the day went on.

With him already packed and ready to go they headed out to the town square where the event was being held and found the table he had been assigned and started piling his items on top of it.

About a dozen yoyos, thirty or forty frisbees, three small lutes and a bucket of tops were placed on top of the table, with the kites being stored underneath to save on space. Once that was done he started piling up the sculptures he had been making in his spare time, there must have been around fifty of them, all around the size of a hand, with the details more well defined than what he had given her after his first attempt.

“You’ve gotten better at this,” She expressed after picking one up and giving it a look. “Though I’m not sure what this is supposed to be.”

“Thanks but my actual technique has only improved a little, I’ve just cleaned up the ones you see with a file and a small chisel to get some of the details right. As for that…” His expression slipped again. “It’s an elephant, I guess there aren’t any around here.”

She looked at the little sculpture to examine it. While there were similarities to other creatures it definitely didn’t look like anything she was familiar with, having a round body, thick legs, large thin ears, and one of the most unusual noses she’d ever seen. “How big are these supposed to be? Is it like a pet?”

“Ha oh man I can only say probably not, I’m sure there’s probably some eccentric out there that would keep them but they’re way bigger than I am, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to look after one.”

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“Are all of these creatures from your homeland?” While plenty resembled animals she was familiar with, there were also a few that were foreign to her.

“Some are, some are just from stories.”

She saw the sad look come to his eye again and decided not to put it off any longer.

“Ben what’s wrong?” Now that her uncle made her notice it was more and more obvious something was going on with him, and before she knew it the words had slipped out.

“Hmm, nothings wrong though?” He told her, giving a confused look.