“What do you mean it costs twelve for a fresh loaf now?” Lukas yelped incredulously at the baker’s assistant.

The boy shrugged and said apologetically, “You must have heard: there’s a shortage of grain in the west. The cost of grain here shot up.”

“But there’s a lot of farms here, more than the west would need,” Lukas protested. “How can a shortage on this side of the mountain happen?”

“Not a shortage, really.” The assistant baker leaned over, “I hear it's more the traders speculating on grain.”

“Rotter!”

“I know, right? Well, I'm sorry but I can’t let you have a fresh loaf for ten as before. Though if you want day old bread, I can still let you have some for six apiece.”

“That’s highway robbery.”

“Those won’t last long either.”

“Give me two stale for ten.”

“Eleven and not a penny less.”

“Fine.”

It didn’t take long for the assistant to come back with a couple of loaves. They were hard to Lukas’ touch. He might break a tooth just trying to get through the crust. Maybe he could make some kind of toast with it. If all else failed, he could just soak the bread in water before he and his sister ate it.

“Thank you.”

He only had a copper penny left to his name. Holidays were the worst times in his line of work. If he didn’t get lucky while he transferred his Animus into the jade cartridge, he wouldn’t have the spare coin. He needed to pay Mazer a copper mark every week, otherwise, the interest on his loans would eat him alive.

If he made an extra two pennies per day, he needed to save up five days for it, with two days to spare. But he also needed money to pay for Kiruna’s Atavism Ritual in three years. The cheapest one only cost a silver mark but that would barely boost her initial Animus Capacity. Even with that, he would need to save two pennies a day for a thousand days. And that was if he wasn’t paying for the money he owed, for the loan he inherited from his deceased parents.

And of course, the only reason he could do such sums in his head had to do with his Facet. With a sigh, he started his way back home, through the Lower Ring’s alleys. The sun had set by the time he arrived home. Kiruna was inside their one-room shack, a pile of stitched rags by her feet.

She gained some weight, five HiJins today. Both of them had put on a little weight, mostly from all the stale bread he brought home, though perhaps Madame Francene’s biscuits had more to do with it. The seamstress had given him a couple every time he visited her for work lately though he knew it couldn’t last.

“Here.”

Kiruna jumped and tackle-hugged him as soon as he swept past the curtain.

“Big bro! Welcome home!” Her sweet and lively voice was one of the few things that let him push through the day. Lukas patted her back and smiled.

Stale bread and water for dinner. They only ate half, of course; the other was reserved for the morning. They didn’t eat in the middle of the day, at least not together.

No, it wouldn’t work. He thought to himself. Kiruna made a couple of pennies per stack of five rags. She could make twenty circular rags out of a penny’s worth of cloth leavings and thread but it took her most of the day to make them. She couldn’t sell that much every day though, or buy cloth as cheap every time. With some of the scraps too narrow to make into proper rags, Kiruna made colourful lanyards. The patterns his little sister made were quite intricate and she sometimes managed to sell a single piece for as much as a whole stack of rags. That was a matter of luck though.

Her future was uncertain unless she lucked out and received a powerful Heritage. The chances of that were lower than getting hit by lightning. On a sunny, cloudless day. He was pretty sure that nobody in their lineage had anything the Academies or even the militias would want. So the only way out of their spiral of poverty was if she had a good starting Animus Cap. With that, she could easily make enough money to survive. To make that happen, he would need to pay more for her Atavism Ritual so she could have more of the Catalyst.

How was he to make that much money in less than three years?

Aside from food and the interest on the loans, he also had to pay for the rent. It was a measly silver penny a Season but that still meant a little bit more than a copper penny saved per day.

Lukas had gone over these sums every night, always after dinner. He obsessed over them, over the arithmetic and the estimates. He tried to account for the variance in his earning potential by the day. He actually averaged thirteen copper pennies a day and Kiruna averaged three. Going by that, they had been doing well enough to meet their lowest goal.

But he didn’t account for how the price of wheat and other grains would rise. Would the price of the Catalyst go up too? They were dancing on a knife-edge here.

Tock tock.

“Lukas. Good evening. Kiruna.” A middle-aged man with a scraggly, greying beard and side-swept hair peered into the shack.

“Mr. Kincaid.”

Lukas and Kiruna greeted him politely.

“Good evening to you as well. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” Lukas continued as he stood up.

“Ah, well, I’m here to remind you of the half Season’s rent. It’s due on the forty-sixth.”

“Of course sir. I’ll have your five copper marks ready by then.”

“Ah. I’m afraid after this half Season, it would have to be six copper marks.”

A dagger stabbed at Lukas’ heart and he subconsciously clenched his fist. “But… why?’

“I’m sorry, lad. I’m not the one who can determine the rent.”

Kiruna clutched at Lukas’ sleeve, half-hiding behind him. The boy looked at the man incredulously. He was the landlord, wasn’t he?

“Look lad, I may be the one collecting rent but I don’t own it. Somebody else owns this strip in the Lower Ring and it's my job to make sure it nets a profit. I’m sorry.” Kincaid scratched the back of his head. “Well, I could give you an extra week or two to come up with the extra, but after that…”

Lukas bowed his head, to affirm what the man said, and to hide the stinging in his eyes.

“Look lad, why don’t you work for Mazer’s Emporium? He needs bean counters like you. Or maybe one of the other groups? Chaos, I think there may be an opening in my lord’s group.”

“I...well....” Lukas shook his head. “I’ll consider it, sir.”

“You should at that lad. You should. Everyone needs a backer.” Kincaid let the curtain fall close. They could hear his footsteps going into the next shanty, no doubt bringing the same unwelcome news.

“What do we do, big bro?”

“Everyone needs a backer,” Lukas whispered, half to himself. It was only a matter of finding one that wouldn’t drag him even further into the hole. He patted Kiruna’s arm. “I’ll find a way.”

Kiruna hugged him, all smiles again. It made his heart lift and his worries seem smaller.

---------

“How could you?” Krystal gave Yuriko a wounded look. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yuriko rolled her eyes. Krystal had a smudge of cream on the corner of her lips, and even while pouting, her hands hovered protectively at her parfait. “What’s the big deal?”

It was the morning of the Harvest Festival. The celebration would start at sundown, of course, and would be in full swing once the Harvest Moon showed itself. During the day, preparations for the feast would be done and then most people gathered in Faron’s Square, while the younger children, those who hadn’t experienced their Atavism Ritual, would be at the school grounds or the children’s park.

As a child, Yuriko and Krystal attended the children’s celebrations which mostly consisted of eating sweets, playing games of chance and sometimes, puppet light and shadow shows. The shows were on history, epic stories, or adventures. Most prominent was the founding of Faron’s Crossing, something both of them were completely tired of.

After weeks of tension, from her initial inlay to the events in the Shillogu Woods, Yuriko hadn’t thought of the Festival until just a few days ago, when people had started decorating. So it was with a bit of excitement and the anticipation of experiencing something that had been forbidden to her that she woke up the day and couldn’t settle down to do anything. Well, she did try to do her training routine but after a brief run and an even shorter sword dance session, she gave up and got dressed for the day.

She wandered into the Olde Sweet Shoppe and predictably found Krystal filling up with sweets. Krystal had a pocketbook in front of her, too. The faded cover didn’t disguise the somewhat off-colour image of a half-naked man with finely sculpted abdominal muscles and a red-haired woman in a skimpy black dress.

“My best friend, the ice queen, agrees to go on a date with someone and doesn’t even tell me,” Krystal moaned. “Oh, how you’ve replaced us. But I guess that’s what happens when you fall in love.”

“Who’s on a date?” Millie appeared almost out of nowhere. She pulled up a chair and sat down, resting her elbows on the table and staring firmly at Krystal and Yuriko. “Is it Yuri? With who? Oh wow, that’s so unusual. Hihihi.”

“Who’s going on a date?” Yuriko exclaimed almost at the same time before she was startled by the dark-eyed girl.

“So who’s going with Heron on the Dance of the Sun and Moon tonight, huh? He wouldn’t ask anyone else. No wonder he’s had that smug look on his face whenever you weren’t around. Hie hie hie!”

“You didn’t?” Millie squealed. “I didn’t think you liked him. Wow, what happened in the woods, huh?” She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Despite herself, Yuriko felt her cheeks heat up. “He asked. And since I didn’t have a partner, I said yes.”

“Oh, so if someone else asked, maybe Zeyn or Janus, you would have said yes to them?” Millie asked pointedly.

“Probably.”

Krystal and Millie looked at each other and then threw up their hands.

“Ancestors, Yuri. Why?”

“Why what?”

Krystal collapsed on the table. “I give up,” she muttered.

“Yeah.” Millie sighed. “Anyway, what brings the two of you here?”

Krystal muttered, still with her face on the table, “Relaxing.”

Yuriko shrugged. “Same, I guess. I’m too jittery to focus today.”

“It’s only the Harvest Festival.” Millie shrugged. “Nothing to get too excited about.”

“Easy for you to say!” Krystal got up and continued eating her parfait. Yuriko waved to a waiter and asked for a honey cake.

“It’s not as if the town’s Festival is anything special. You should attend the one in Rumiga City, now that’s a great bash! Here though, hmmp. What, just a lame little circle dance around the Harvest Pole, a little bit of wheat beer for our age and roast suckling pigs?” Millie snorted, “Even Haveena City, backwards as they are compared to us in the Empire, throws a wilder party.”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket.” Yuriko flicked Millie’s forehead with her finger.

“Ow!” The girl’s head snapped back and she pressed her hands on her forehead, glaring at Yuriko with tearing eyes. “That hurts!”

Yuriko blinked in confusion. That was a normal flick. When Millie moved her hands off her forehead, there was a clear circular mark there that was already reddening.

“Oh, oh! Sorry!”

“Ancestors Yuri, what have you been eating that you got this strong?” Millie complained.

Krystal smirked. “The whole hog, if she was given the chance.”

“Sorry, I…uh, I didn’t think it would hurt that much.”

“Oh yeah? Well, why don’t you try it out.” Millie reached over and flicked her finger on Yuriko's forehead. “Ow!”

Millie clutched her finger and stared incredulously at her. Yuriko frowned and reached up. Truth be told, she felt the flick but it hurt no more than if a raindrop had landed on her. Krystal reached over and pinched Yuriko’s waist.

“Hey!” she protested. Krystal twisted, or rather, she tried to pinch and twist but she couldn’t turn her wrist more than a couple of degrees.

“You’re not wearing forceweave, are you?” Krystal asked doubtfully.

“No.” Yuriko wore a blue button-down sleeveless shirt and a pair of brown shorts. “Why would I wear forceweave?”

“Then why is it so hard to pinch you?”

“Huh?” She held out an arm and pinched her skin rather easily. “What are you talking about?”

Krystal reached over and did the same thing. Or she tried to, anyway.

“It must be Strengthen Physique,” Yuriko shrugged.

“I don’t know girl, did you even inlay that technique?”

“No. I used it though,” adding under her breath, “the modified version anyway.”

Millie and Krystal glanced at each other.

“Huh.” Millie huffed, “maybe I should consider that path, too.”

“Speaking of,” Krystal said brightly, “what techniques are you planning to inlay? Now that you’ve got your initial Facet inlaid, you can now inlay the other techniques right?”

“I could, yes, but I haven’t really considered it. My Facet’s doing weird things. I did what Armsmaster suggested and while I could use the old versions, it's not very pleasant. I don’t think I can inlay those techniques.”

“Ah, well, which ones aren’t affected by your Facet?”

“The one for my senses,” Yuriko admitted.

“Well, why not inlay that?”

Yuriko nodded. “I’ll consider it. I need the pattern though.”

“You can ask the school for it,” Millie interjected.

Yuriko nodded her thanks. “What about you Krys? Mills? What are you considering to inlay?”

“Not sure yet. My dad was supposed to teach me Guided Attack but he’s, well, he’s with your dad, so…”

“I think I’ll inlay Empowered Strike,” Millie said. “Can’t go wrong with it.”

Yuriko’s honey cake arrived at this time and their conversation turned away from Animus techniques and wandered into what sweets the feast would provide later. And if the Festival Beer was really worth it.