Kyu, Meow, Repeat

A Peddler's Miscalculation

The Black Park-Ai Wizard Tower smelled like ozone and burnt sugar, which meant Iona had been experimenting with her staff again.

Theo knew this because he'd been coming here for months now, cart wheels squeaking up the same worn ramp, and he'd learned to read the tower the way he read a customer's face before a haggle. Burnt sugar meant she was frustrated. Ozone meant she was close to a breakthrough. Both together meant he should probably duck.

He ducked. A spark the size of a fist sailed over his head and scorched a neat black circle into the wall behind him.

"You're late, kyu." Iona said, not turning around. She was perched on a floating platform of her own design, white fur bristling with static, staff balanced across her knees like she hadn't just tried to melt the doorway.

"I'm early, nya. You're just impatient." Theo set his merchant pouch and began unloading — cherry tomatoes first, the good batch, the ones that hummed faintly with Blue Moon energy. "I brought the order. Twelve crates, like you asked."

"I asked for ten."

"You needed twelve, meow. You always underestimate how much you use when you're testing something reckless. Plus, president Sejun had some surplus this harvest, so I brought some for you, nya." He looked at her flatly and pointed back at the scorch mark on the wall. "Case in point."

Iona's ears flattened — the tell he'd catalogued a long time ago, right around the same time he'd catalogued the way she always found a reason to be on this floor whenever his delivery route brought him through. 

He'd catalogued all of it. He just hadn't done anything with the data yet, because a peddler who chases the wrong numbers goes broke, and Theo did not intend to go broke... again.

"The Association doesn't need your commentary," she said, hopping down from the platform. Up close she only came up to his elbow, which had never once stopped her from looking him dead in the eye like she was the taller one. Putting her little hands on her hips. 

"Then I'll just take my commentary elsewhere, nya." He huffed feigning offence, yet held out a crate anyway, and she took it, and their fingers — paw and paw — overlapped for exactly one second longer than the exchange required.

Neither of them mentioned it. Iona set the crate down with more care than twelve gold crowns' worth of vegetables strictly deserved, all while she hid her small face under that little black hood of hers. 

"There's a wedding next month," she said, too casually, inspecting a tomato like it had personally offended her. "Reindeer clan, down on sixty. Big one. Everyone's going." her ear twitched. 

"I heard." Teo kept unloading. "You planning to catch the bouquet again, nya?"

"I am a wizard of considerable skill. I don't need to catch anything."

"You broke a chandelier trying to catch one in Zenca. Nearly took Sejun's eye out."

"That chandelier was structurally unsound." She crossed her arms. 

"Iona."

"Fine." She threw the tomato at him — he caught it, of course, years of dodging her sparks had made him fast — and crossed her arms, ears going pink at the tips. "Maybe. Maybe I'll try again. Is that a problem for you, merchant?"

He looked at her for a moment. Really looked, the way he used to look at ledgers back when he thought declining sales numbers were the only thing worth being careful with. 

"No, nya" he said finally, and something in his voice had gone quieter, less like a peddler closing a sale. "No problem at all."

She didn't ask him to elaborate. She didn't have to — the sound of bubbling from potions being brewed in the room had gone very, very quiet, and for once, neither of them reached for a spark to fill it.