Accession || Ongoing ||

Seven: Are You Assuming That I Don't Know My Makeup Supplies?

A horribly imbalanced cat-fight at that; those two poor girls would be no match for the former lieutenant.

Before Reiley could do anything, Alyxia grabbed the other girl's hand. "Look, I see better stuff in that stall over there!" She said in a loud voice, before dragging Reiley away from the potential scene of a crime. She was proud of her diss; she had publicly exclaimed that another stall was preferable to the stall of those mean girls, thus reducing its standard in the public eye. When she was sure that they were out of the area of visibility of those girls, she let go of Reiley. 

An indignant Reiley gave the young princess a questioning look as she rubbed her wrist protectively. "What the hell was that for?"

Alyxia held her hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry, but I thought that you were going to attack those girls!"

"If we didn't have a cover to maintain, I definitely would have, " Reiley grumbled as they moved on through the Hipster. "I've seen the price tags on those things up there when you've asked me to get them and nearly died of a heart attack."

Alyxia nodded, remembering the time Reiley burst into her room with the supplies and lamented about how she could have bought a lifetime's supply of her favourite strawberry clear chewies. She almost shuddered at that memory, remembering how genuinely distraught Reiley seemed.

Great, now I'm craving clear chewies.

"How much money do we have left from that bit of jewels we exchanged?" Reiley asked her, gesturing to Alyxia to hand over the bag of moers. Alyxia complied, remembering the look in the pawnbroker's eyes as they handed over the jewels to be converted into moers. 

"We have a fair amount left," Reiley said to her in a hushed voice. "But I don't know how long it will last. It seems that the prices have gone up."

"Maybe due to the change in government," Alyxia mused. "They're hiking prices to cover for administrative changes. That's what the newsfeed said, at least."

Reiley stopped in her tracks and looked at Alyxia with a nonplussed expression. "I hadn't thought of that. But what if it's not administrative changes?"

Alyxia looked back at Reiley "Bribes?"

"Possibly."

"Those must be some extremely costly bribes we're talking about."

"Yup."

"But how would that work?"

"I think I've got a bit of an idea," Reiley muttered as she continued walking in the direction of the alley that would lead them to the base. "But this definitely isn't the place to talk about it."

***

"You've got to be kidding me," Farron breathed as Alyxia and Reiley told him what they thought was going on.

"I wish," Alyxia muttered as she twirled a lock of her hair around her finger, "What I don't understand is that if bribes are being given and accepted, how would that affect the price tags?"

When Farron didn't answer immediately, Reiley looked at him pointedly. "You're the criminal mastermind here. If it were you, what would have happened?"

"Hey!" Alyxia reprimanded Reiley for the jab at Farron, but he simply gave a sarcastic smile to Reiley.

"Why thank you for the compliment, Reiley," He said gleefully. "And one thing that could explain the rise in prices is if the producers and big businesses were forced to pay the government to stay in business, and then they raised the prices to cover the costs. Classic case of cost-push inflation. But we don't know if that's the story for sure."

Reiley nodded in acknowledgement. "But it definitely can't be to cover administrative costs. Military dictatorships aren't very different from monarchies."

Alyxia did a double take. "Are you saying that Aunt Ember is planning on making her claim to the throne absolute?"

"Sure seems like it," Reiley muttered, seeming more grim than usual. "And if I were you, I really wouldn't refer to the woman who's put a price on our heads as 'aunt'." Before Alyxia could open her mouth to argue with Reiley over that statement, the other girl flopped down onto the cot and closed her eyes, ending the conversation on that note.

Alyxia glanced at Farron, who simply shrugged. "Let her get her sleep. We could use a little less nagging around here."

The young princess almost moved to reproach Farron, but she decided against it in fear of waking up the sleeping Reiley. Farron noticed this and leaned towards Alyxia in a conspiratorial manner. "Why are you so afraid of her?"

Alyxia chuckled. "I'm not afraid of her, Farron. Respect and fear are two different things."

"Even then," Farron prodded on, "she's under you. Even if she's your bodyguard/P.A/ whatever the hell she is, she still serves you. You're her master."

"Funny, I would have almost thought that you were respectful of the authorities," Reiley's tired voice rang out from the cot. "Oh wait, if that was the case, you wouldn't even be here. My bad."

Farron looked slightly irked by the announcement. "Weren't you sleeping?"

"I was," Reiley admitted, not bothering to get up from the cot. "But I hear everything. So if the both of you are ever planning on doing something funny, take it to another room."

"Wha-" Alyxia stammered, visibly embarrassed. "Reiley!"

"You never know," Reiley ventured. There was a pause, maybe indicating a shrug that was beyond Alyxia's line of view. "Just had to put that out there for your information."

Placing a hand to her forehead, Alyxia stole a glance at Farron who was visibly cringing. "We'll keep that in mind. Now please sleep!"

Another pause, maybe to indicate Reiley considering the suggestion. After a while, Alyxia could hear Reiley mutter, "If I were you, I'd sleep with one eye open, Lennox." More silence. Then miraculously, a snore.

"She's asleep," Alyxia whispered to Farron. "What do we do now?"

"Let's go steal some lunch from Sylvie," Farron suggested with a sly smile.

"Sounds like a date," Alyxia replied with a smile.

The dynamic duo sneaked out of the room, attempting to be as quiet as possible. It was only after they had painstakingly closed the door with making a single noise that they were able to breathe.

"I'm stealing Reiley's share."

"Don't even think about it!"

***