The days after the market bled into each other.
Uma threw herself into studying — albeit a lot slower than she would have liked. Turns out determination and a strong will were only half the battle.
Agh. This sucks.
Uma, currently surrounded by books arranged in a loose circle around her like she was conducting some kind of ritual, threw herself flat onto the library floor and stared at the ceiling.
I can't understand any of it.
She pouted upward for a moment. The forge work wasn't going much better, either. The number of times she'd thrown up near molten metal was more than she'd like to admit. Her muscles filed for asylum on a daily basis. On the plus side, she was getting stronger. On the minus side, it hurt to sit down.
She sighed and flipped onto her back.
A shadow fell over her face.
She looked up, and there was Vivi — standing directly above her, hands clasped behind her back, wearing the smile of a girl who had absolutely no intention of letting Uma read in peace.
Vivi had been coming around more often lately. Mostly to fawn over Serosa, but also — Uma had noticed — to deliver a steady supply of herbal rubs and oils, which Vivi applied to Uma's sore muscles with or without Uma's consent on account of the fact that Uma could barely walk most days.
Uma sighed, picked up her chalkboard, and wrote:
HI VIBI
Vivi looked at it, smiled, erased the B, and replaced it with a V.
Uma sighed again — louder this time, on the inside — and tossed the chalkboard aside. Then immediately got up and retrieved it, because she needed it to talk.
"Hi!!!" Vivi said, waving at Uma like she wasn't three feet away.
It's gonna be a long day.
Uma erased the board and wrote:
Werts Up?
"Wanna hang out!"
It sounded more like a statement than a question, but hey.
Uma had managed to upgrade her grasp of the local dialect over the last week — largely by sitting in the middle of the market looking awkward while Serosa took an unreasonable amount of time doing errands — so she was fairly confident she'd heard correctly.
What do you wanna do?
"Dirt!"
Uma paused mid-write.
...I — what.
She couldn't tell if dirt was a dialect thing or just a Vivi thing. She turned the board slowly around.
Dirt?
Vivi nodded like dirt was a completely reasonable answer to any question ever asked.
Uma tried to write something. Couldn't figure out what that something was.
She didn't get time to dwell on it. Vivi grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the door.
This is my life now, I guess.
The door swung open before they reached it.
Serosa stood in the frame, holding a new ring — gold, thin-banded, with a small blue stone.
Uma clocked it immediately.
Gift from sugar daddy Hamaron. She tried to hide her smug smile and failed spectacularly.
"Hi, Lady Serosa!" Vivi's eyes lit up with that same unhinged devotion.
"Hi, Vivi." Serosa's gaze slid over to Uma with the expression of a woman who could tell precisely how voluntary this outing was. "Where are you two off to?"
"Dirt!" Vivi announced, at volume.
Serosa stared at her for a full second. Went through the full thought process. Arrived at the same place Uma had a minute earlier.
"...How fun."
Vivi nodded enthusiastically.
Serosa's eyes moved to Uma, and then to the dress Uma was wearing, and then back up to Uma's face.
"Not ruining that dress."
That's literally all you have in this house, Uma thought, shrugging in a what else is there way.
"One moment, love." Serosa pried Uma from Vivi's grip with practiced ease and led her upstairs.
They came back down a few minutes later with Uma in a leather top and trousers.
Uma did a small twirl. Mostly for herself.
Now this I can get behind.
Vivi's mouth fell open.
"So pretty!"
Uma felt her face go warm and waved her off dismissively.
Stop. It's too much. Though she was smiling in spite of herself.
Then Vivi grabbed her hand and dragged her back toward the door.
"Bye, Lady Serosa!"
Bye, Mom, Uma thought, waving over her shoulder.
Vivi did not stop dragging her, and after a while Uma simply gave up and let herself be dragged.
The houses disappeared quickly as Vivi pulled her over a bridge and into the forest.
The smell hit Uma the moment they crossed the tree line.
Clean. Green. Nothing like the corporate smog her lungs had grown up in. She made a point of actually breathing it in, properly, the way she'd forgotten people could breathe.
The plants here were a beautiful shade of green. If there was one thing Uma genuinely appreciated about this world, it was the color. Everything looked like someone had turned the saturation up.
She was dragged into a relatively large clearing. There was evidence of previous digging scattered across the ground — shallow holes, overturned earth, the general look of someone's ongoing project.
What are we doing here?
Uma tapped Vivi's shoulder. Vivi spun around with a manic smile.
"Dirt!"
I still don't know what that—
Mud hit her in the face.
Vivi had already dropped to her knees and started digging with her bare hands, completely unbothered by the mud war she'd just started.
...Ah. I see. Dirt.
Uma wiped her cheek and sighed with something approaching fondness.
After a moment, Vivi sat back on her heels and held something up.
A flower.
Similar in shape to the one she'd given Uma at the herb shop — but this one was a deep, vivid blue.
They both stared at it.
"It looks like the sky!" Vivi's voice had gone soft with genuine wonder. "This is the first time it's come up blue — look, it's so pretty."
Uma pulled out her chalkboard.
Different colors?
Vivi nodded vigorously. Then dragged Uma around the clearing, pointing to each hole, listing off the colors she'd found in each — purples, whites, a gold one once that she'd sold to a traveling merchant for an obscene amount of money. She rattled off what sounded like medicinal properties and growing conditions and cultivation terminology at a speed Uma had no hope of parsing yet.
Uma pulled a small notebook from her waistband — one Serosa had given her — and started writing everything down.
This only sent Vivi deeper into overdrive. She launched into an even faster round of information.
Eventually, Vivi moved over to a fresh patch of undisturbed earth and started digging again.
...I feel like she just brought me here to watch her work.
Uma looked around. Shrugged. Got down on her knees and started helping.
Vivi lit up like Uma had just told her the best news of her life. She immediately flung a celebratory scoop of dirt over both of them.
They both laughed.
One loud.
One silent. Shoulders shaking.
Neither of them heard the sound coming from the trees.
Slow.
Steady.
Shuffling.