You’re snacking on In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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“News From Around Your World”:
Investors of Nuts and Bolts woke to a shock this morning, as the Normalized Chest Value (NCV) of the upper-quarter-trending treasure plummeted overnight. The 10-era Starharbor yield fell 17 basis points, to 1.18%. Strategists at court predict an even greater drop in the coming days, as the industry moves to fasteners with a lower production cost. Most enchantments performed with Nuts or Bolts have been rendered ineffective.
Yesterday, the king condemned bean factory ‘protestors’, who used inflammatory language to describe the bouncer response amid increasing damaging protest events, according to a source present at his last council. “There is no room in this monarchy for naysayers to the brave men and women who bounce our streets. Those champions of law and reason deserve only our utmost respect,” admonished the king. The line received blank stares from the council, the source said.
Residents of Smithersfield and Briar Chafing have been soiled by more than three days of torrential jelly rain, as communities begin to survey the wreckage of devastating jelly flooding that has left the districts preserved and suspended. The ground and basement levels of over 1,700 homes and businesses have been completely submerged. Starharbor officials could not be reached for an estimated drainage time.
The grey eyes turned away from the personalized text. The grey hands folded up the newsparchment; grainier in texture than the stock used in a Regional Justice Center word machine. The grey head looked up.
Mr. Grey stood on the curb of a broad street. If you could call it that… the ground showed not one puddle of jelly over its surface, not a jiggly drop in sight. Instead, people hustled back and forth over an easy thoroughfare of motley material. Some people crunched across gravel. Some kicked up little clouds from the packed dirt. A few tapped out a rhythm on scattered, mossy paving stones. Sometimes the road became indistinguishable from a field left to fallow, with tall grass growing in rampant profusion, heedless of the feet and wheels which daily trampled it. The travelers - decked verdantly like chives and emeralds and lush limes - adjusted their step to the terrain. And to their business. Some carried woven baskets of speckled candy, either in their arms, on their backs, or balanced atop beehives of hair. Others led wide, flat cows, parting the crowds of people before them like ships cutting the water.
Despite this busy and diverse traffic, and the odd cadence of the accented babel, Toscamo rush had a softer flavor than Starharbor’s. Children, many children, rushed hither and thither with broad smiles. They played all manner of local games: chasing feral, rolling tumblecats down alleys, dueling with rubber toy mallets, competing to see who could chug the most water in the shortest time. Pedestrians parted for these games and for each other, without grumbles or shaking fists. Travel seemed free of cares in Toscamo.
On either side of the traffic, houses and shops rested their foundations on square platforms of reedy wood. Every building had walls of thin, stretched leather, which slid on tracks for doors and windows. Their roofs were thatch. Mr. Grey had asked Tom several times if he was sure that Toscamo was the capital of Wine Medo, and inwardly doubted after each affirmation. Where were the towering skyscrapers and stilt houses, or the enormous workers’ prison complexes? He’d seen no stone bridges of stupendous archness spanning any canals. Instead, long, rickety, narrow bridges swayed over the rivers veining down the great hillslope on which Toscamo lay. These waterways filled the town with ambient, giddy trickling, and made mists of wine which condensed on any stone. Two-man gondolas poled the rivers, or let the current carry them where all streams joined a pale lake. The city even loosened its belt and let itself sprawl into this body of wine. Long dock and fisheries stretched far into the fermentation.
Mr. Grey turned away from the busy street and faced Tom. As they’d walked into town the two of them had gained many moments of daylight. The sun must have felt sluggish, for he moved across the sky at his leisure. It was now bright, hot noon again, on the same day. Tom dabbed at his face with the soiled handkerchief while haggling with a pawnbroker. He wanted to make a few pebbles from the leather whip he’d taken off one of the bandits.
“Do you think we might…” Mr. Grey began. Tom silenced him with a flat palm. The big man kept his eyes on the pawnbroker. He and the surly man stared at each other. Neither one blinked. Neither one spoke. Mr. Grey thought it an odd form of barter.
Mr. Grey glanced at the adjacent shops. Another odd thing about Toscamo was; he saw no enchanting services. There were, however, many other kinds of shops. There were newsparchment vendors. There were bookstores brimming with foreign magazines and art prints. There were rows upon rows of flower shops - full of rows upon rows of flowers - which filled the air with a local perfume Mr. Grey called ‘Dangerous’. Nor did the shops sell the flowers solely for decoration. They offered flower poultices, flower medicine, flower pills, everything that could be distilled from the petals of a plant, these shops kept in stock.
And there were the candy shops. It seemed to Mr. Grey that candy took the place of beans in Starharbor. Most of it came in the shape of shells or coral patterns. Most of it, like the flowers, had a distinct, concerning aroma.
Mr. Grey looked back at Tom. The warrior still had his eyes attached to the vendor’s. Mr. Grey looked down at the manilla rectangle in his dry hand, a remaining bit of mail after disposing of the newsparchment. It was an envelope addressed to him. The senders were a firm that sounded familiar: ‘Blackjaw and Slake: Finders for Hire’. Mr. Grey threw that into a nearby wastebin as well. He took it for spam.
Mr. Grey sent his eyes once more roving the crowd, then back to the shops, then to the distant lake. All the while the crowd loomed nearer to his spot on the curb. The sun seemed positively crawling to Mr. Grey. Perhaps it was slow; he had no way of telling with his broken ticker.
After unknown eons of passing time, Mr. Grey turned firmly on Tom. He said, “Can we find Honeydew now?”
Tom waved dismissively at the surly pawnbroker and turned away from the stall. He raised a thick hand to shade his eyes and looked along the road for potential buyers. To Mr. Grey he said, “Why are you always rushing?”
“I have to locate her, sir.”
“Is she not able?”
“Oh she’s marvelously talented. Believe me. But I’m the one with all of our visa documentation.”
Tom rubbed at his bristles while searching the crowd. He thought for a long moment. “The road bandits took your things.”
Mr. Grey suddenly realized that Tom was completely right. Mr. Grey had no visa.
“Oh dear Mr. Tom. I just don’t know what to do. This is all so strange,” Mr. Grey, though downcast, was beginning to pick up on the local accent. He unconsciously formed his words into the vernacular patterns, rather than stumbling onto comprehensible sentences by accident.
“You should relax then. We sell the lash, make treasure. Then we buy candy. I’m thinking bon bons.”
“Is the king even known here? Is there government?”
Tom mused. “The Starharbor Embassy. You could seek help there.”
Mr. Grey had been despondently watching the passing crowd. At Tom’s suggestion, he looked sharply at the big man. His face wore its stony facade, not the mix of hope and exasperation he felt. Tom, who had been examining the same crowd for a whip buyer, looked back at Mr. Grey.
“Tom. Why didn’t you mention a Starharbor Embassy to start with?” asked Mr. Grey, forgetting to form his words neatly. “That’s exactly the thing I need… Not that I blame you, of course. I suppose I should have known…”
Tom said, “...So is there a plan?”
“We’ll go to the embassy. If you’re still coming?”
Tom sighed. He wrapped the whip around his shoulder and nodded. Together they entered the traffic of the street.
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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