There’s something about autumn that Fresh can’t really put her finger on.

It’s the late afternoon of the next day and she is standing next to Basil, helping run the window as business is particularly wild today. Any traces or inklings of the rain from last night are already gone and taken away, the scorching desert sun having risen to its apex and dried out the world far faster than she had thought possible, given the intensity of the rain. But all of the water has either been drawn deeply into the ground, or pulled up into the air, leaving nothing but the dry, hot sands and stones beneath.

But, at the same time, despite the hot, season-less climate that they find themselves in, it still feels like autumn.

Fresh scoops in another ball of apple ice-cream into a waffle, handing it to the man outside while Basil runs a second row of customers to her right.

“Next!” she calls and listens as the next person in line, a caster of some kind who is wearing a swim-suit, but still wearing a large, pointed hat, makes a complicated, long order that she finds herself surprisingly able to keep track of as she works in a semi-dazed state. Her body runs through the motions of her work, as if it were an automatic process. But all the while, her mind is focused on the autumn.

Autumn is a lot of things. It’s the last ‘green’ season. It’s the precipice, just before the coming of winter. It’s a season in which things are said to die in, like the many leaves of the trees, falling to the ground. But there is also something oddly peaceful about it. There’s an acceptance of the entailed death.

Despite the coming of winter and the harshness that that might bring, there is a peace to autumn that neither the energetic spring or the vibrant summer have. Honestly, she has no idea what she’s thinking about exactly, but by the time that her train of thought finally comes to an end, she blinks and ‘wakes up’, finding herself standing in front of an empty window with an empty ice-cream scoop still in her hand as she stares at the empty spot where she feels like someone should be. But there is nobody there. The line is gone, the customers are finished for the day, having packed up to go home or to hunt crabs longer into the night.

Fresh blinks, turning her head to look at Basil who is slumped down on the floor, sitting with her back against the counter and her arms down at her side, limp, as if she had been drained of every last ounce of both her spirit and strength.

They had sold a lot of ice-cream.

“Get up, you slacker!” barks Jubilee at the priestess.

“We should hire somebody to run the window,” says a clearly exhausted Basil, grabbing Jubilee’s leg and pulling them towards herself. Jubilee tries to shake her off, but fails to do so and Fresh watches in confusion as Basil rests her head against their side.

“That’s literally what we hired you to do, jackass,” says Jubilee.

Fresh scratches her cheek, watching as Basil sighs. “There wasn’t as much work back then. It was easier,” says the priestess.

“I don’t recall your contract ever saying anything about ‘easy’ work,” says Jubilee. “Will you let go of me?!” they snap at her, trying to get away.

“I never got a contract,” says Basil. “We just made a verbal agreement.”

Jubilee shrugs. “We’re adventurers. That’s how we do things. You can always go back to the church if you don’t like it here.”

“Hey,” says Basil, looking up at them with a hurt gaze for a moment.

Fresh closes the window for the day, watching as Jubilee sighs. “Sorry,” says her friend in an unusual moment of relinquishment.

They hadn’t talked about last night and Fresh honestly isn’t sure that they are ever really going to. She’s sure that Basil had taken Jubilee to the side sometime today and let them know, but nobody has spoken to her about it and she hasn’t spoken to them about it and in a way, everything is fine like that.

She knows that they have their reasons and now that the curtain has been drawn wide open and now that they know that she knows, they can come to her at their own pace. She can wait. She has no better place to be and she needs them to see that, even if they might already know it now. She needs them to see it again and again and again, until they finally learn that they’re all friends and that ‘this’ isn’t going to go anywhere.

Taking an hour, they close up the store, restocking all of the shelves and doing some light cleaning to get ready for the next day. Making the new batch of ice-cream for tomorrow is always the worst part, honestly. It isn’t a ton of work, it just takes a lot of time. Well, except for Shamrock, as he is always on shaking duty.

Fresh considers making an ‘ice-cream machine’ out of some magical components, it would save a lot of time. But, maybe tomorrow. For now, she just wants to drag herself upstairs and eat something that isn’t ice-cream.

Opening the door from the staircase, she stands there and lets the others walk past her as she stares at the oddity in their living space. Jubilee’s teddy-bear stands there, outside of their room. Seeing them approach, it holds its arms up and walks their way.

“Fuck’s sake,” sighs Jubilee, lifting a leg to kick it away.

“Jubilee!” yells Fresh, setting her leg in front of theirs to stop them from doing so.

“It’s nice to be greeted when you come home,” says Basil, waving to the bear that walks up to Jubilee and hugs their leg. “I’m a little jealous.”

“Ugh…” Jubilee bends down, picking up the bear with the tips of their fingers as if they were holding something disgusting. “I’ll throw you to the crabs like I did with the other one,” they threaten. The bear stares at them for a second, dangling up in the air. It lifts its arms, trying to steal another hug. Jubilee sighs, throwing the bear over their shoulder and Fresh catches it, yelping.

“Jubilee! Don’t be mean to the bear!”

“The bear is creepy as fuck,” says Jubilee. “It’s always watching me.”

Fresh blinks, looking down at the bear. “Well. Yeah,” she explains, squeezing the bear against her chest. The bear however has turned around in her grasp, reaching out towards the person who it loves the most in the entire world. “It’s your bear, Jubilee.”

“It’s almost romantic in a way,” says Basil, getting a kettle of tea ready for the evening. “Red or blue?” she asks, looking at Shamrock.

“Blue,” replies the man and Basil nods, grabbing the blue satchel of tea leaves.

Fresh steps into the living area, closing the door to the stairs behind her with her foot, continuing to hold the bear. She looks down at it, gasping to herself. “Soft…”

“What?” asks Jubilee, taking off their masking and flopping down face-first against the surface of the dinner table. She sits down on her spot, setting the bear down but holding onto it as she looks it over. It’s completely fixed up, having looked pretty rough after arriving from its adventure. But now, even on the new fabric, there are wear marks where hands and arms have been tightly holding it.

Fresh smiles, looking at the bear and then at Jubilee. The bear turns its head around, looking at her and she looks back at it, nodding. She understands. The bear has really been working hard, hasn’t it?

She lifts it up, planting a proud mother’s kiss on its forehead before setting it down onto the table and letting it walk over to Jubilee. It reaches their head and latches onto it with a hug and Jubilee just lets out a long, tired sigh, not bothering to look up.

“Here,” says Basil, pouring her a cup of tea. “Let it sit for a few minutes. It’s hot.”

“Thanks, Basil!” says Fresh and Basil nods.

“Can I ask you something?” asks the priestess, looking over towards Jubilee and the bear.

“Sure thing, Basil,” replies Fresh, nodding. Shamrock sits down next to her.

“Uh… this might be weird, but… is the bear, you know… ‘alive’?”

Fresh scratches her cheek. “It’s as alive as the sheep were, or the lantern is.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t help me understand,” replies Basil. “So… are they alive too?”

Fresh tilts her head, staring at the priestess and then over to the bear for a while. “Are your feelings real, Basil?”

“What?” asks the priestess.

“When you feel something, like, if you’re really happy,” says Fresh. “Or really super sad, is that real?” she asks. “Are those feelings real things that exist?”

Basil leans back on her chair, pulling on her sleeves as she thinks. “Well, I certainly feel like they are when I feel them?”

“Mm,” says Fresh. “Right now, the bear is feeling like it’s alive. So it is.”

“Uh…”

“Witch magic is weird, Basil,” says Fresh. “I don’t get it myself, honestly. But I do know that my results are based on my feelings,” she says. “When I made the bear, I was feeling something strong, so the bear feels that too,” she explains. “I guess it has to be alive, to feel that too?” she assumes. “It couldn’t feel if it wasn’t alive.”

The lantern flies over, resting on the table next to Basil and to Fresh’s surprise, she lifts a hand and rubs it. “Is that so?”

“Mm,” she smiles, looking at them, glad that they’re getting along so well with their gifts. She blinks, turning her head to Shamrock as she realizes something. “Shamrock! You need a cute thing too!”

“No.”

“Pleeease?” she asks.

“I have a sword,” he says, pointing to the sword next to his wardrobe.

“It’s cursed,” says Basil, taking a long sip of her tea.

Shamrock nods. “Yes.”

“How have you been managing that curse anyways?” asks the priestess. “Wasn’t it super dangerous?”

He shakes his head. “It’s taken care of.”

Basil stares at him and then at Fresh, seemingly unsatisfied with this answer, but she sighs and then nods. “Okay. But you better not die in your sleep or something.”

“I will not,” replies Shamrock.

“Yeah,” says Jubilee from across the table. “At least have the decency to die in the dungeon or something,” they say. “I don’t want to have to carry your heavy ass downstairs.”

“Nobody is going to die in the dungeon or in their sleep!” says Fresh, crossing her arms.

Jubilee groans. “Great. Those are literally the two best places to die and now they’re off the table.”

Shamrock throws the entire contents of his cup into his helmet, setting the glassware down before scooting his chair back as he gets up.

“Where are you going?” asks Jubilee.

“Dungeon,” replies the man, walking over to the cabinet to grab his sword.

Fresh stares at him for a while. “That sword must be really low-level for you, Shamrock,” she says. “Should I make you a new one?”

“No,” is all that he says, hoisting the large, two-handed, cursed blade over his shoulder. “It’s cute.”

Fresh blinks, looking at the grim, bone-weapon made out of hundreds of goblin’s teeth and starts laughing.