S a l e t é I I

XVIII - Pieds - Cinq

The day's trip had been a rather fruitful one, with a total of no less than seven bottles of pinkish red acquired once all was said and done - the best haul they'd had for a while - and Cassia was content with the titbit of information she'd received to top it all off, the proverbial cherry on top. With a little luck, the following day would be just as good. 

Saying things like "the following day" or "tomorrow" in Lower Merveille always left her with quite a strange feeling, considering that there wasn't a way to gauge what time of day it actually was. Something along the lines of "in the next twenty-four hours" felt more fitting, as for all Cassia knew, tomorrow might have been anywhere from ten hours away to ten minutes away.

She'd relayed what she'd heard to Monet once the girl in red had joined her again, as they'd continued on their way back up the old street, and it was then that Cassia put forward her question involving her attendance on the next trip as well, despite its consecutive nature.

"Seeing as we actually have a tip off, I don't see why not." Monet had replied, much to Cassia's relief.

"I'll stay behind an extra day afterwards, to make up for it." Cassia added, wanting to restore some balance once the matter had been seen to, and it was an idea that Monet appeared to more or less agree with.

It hadn't taken them long to come across Klavdiya, who had been making her own way down the street from where she'd begun up near the housing district. She revealed that she'd managed to get a hold of two bottles during her search, which paired with Cassia's pair and Monet's three to make their total of seven.

As they started to make their way back up the curved path that served as an easier route than the slope itself, Cassia had gotten into wondering about things again, her mind free to do so now that all of their pressing matters had been addressed, her possible fears put to rest for a while as a result. She felt comfortable asking questions of both Klavdiya and Uliana, as they were often happy to fill her in on things - as was Zisel - and she'd even begun to feel like her queries weren't too much of a bother to Monet recently, even if her unchanging tone was sometimes a tad daunting.

"How do people even get all of these bottles of Honey anyway? Does someone in Lower Merveille make them, or something?" She asked as they followed that winding road, bringing up the rear as Klavdiya walked between her and Monet.

"Every seven or eight days, the Sabre depot on the other side of the underground puts out resources that people can use, for a fee of some sort." Monet replied, to which Klavdiya nodded, even if the younger girl didn't look entirely sure about the matter, that element of uncertainty suggesting that she'd not seen it for herself.

"Honey is just one of the things included in the deal."

"But I thought that they didn't like Jouets...?"

"They don't like rogue Jouets." Monet clarified.

"Yeah, if you have an owner, the Sabre folks leave you alone." Klavdiya said, sounding a little peeved now.

Owner was certainly an odd term to use. Was that what Esmund would have been to her, in their eyes? Her owner, not her father? It sounded so... Unfeeling? In a way?

"It doesn't make a whole lot of a difference though. They might not be chasing you or anything, but that doesn't mean they're going to start being nice." Klavdiya continued as they reached the top of the slope, her pace still steady and confident as they began the next phase of the trip back, through the largely empty shopping quarter.

"What do you mean?" Cassia asked, somewhat confused.

"The Sabre people always used to look at me funny even when I had an owner, and when I had both my legs. It doesn't matter how proper you are, or whatever, they always look at you like you're a weirdo."

Cassia had spent a good while looking at herself as if she was some sort of utterly bizarre being, after she'd first witnessed certain black lines and grooves, but... Surely Sabre would have been used to Jouets? Didn't they see them a lot?

"Sabre members are unpleasant at the best of times, but those of them stationed down here are doubly so. To them, this place is the short end of the stick, so to speak. I'd wager that none of them would choose to be here." Monet began, earning the attention of both girls as she spoke.

"Their frustrations are magnified, and any ill temperaments rise with them. We just so happen to be ripe targets for them to air their grievances."

Cassia was about to comment on how horrid that sounded, when her own memories quickly returned to her. She'd had one such experience, of course. It was like Sleeves had pointed out on one occasion - the two officers up at the station had lumped her in with Uliana, viewing her as some sort of pest, despite the radical differences in their appearances and conditions. Apparently, the fact that she'd been a Jouet, by herself, had been enough for them to view her with not only suspicion, but aggression, even if that aggression was only riled up because it had already been stirred into being by their pursuit of Uliana herself.

It wasn't polite, it wasn't thoughtful, and it absolutely wasn't right. Uliana certainly wasn't to blame for their unruly behaviour, either. 

"That's why we stick together all the way out here, it's the best place for us." Klavdiya announced, glancing back at Cassia for a moment, the latest member of their party now feeling as if she understood the setup she had become a part of recently to a better degree now.

"It's like I said, the Sabre members don't wish to be assigned to a place like this. They don't put in much effort to their duties because of that, which is why they commonly hover around their depot without going too far out." Monet added upon hearing this, though she didn't look back, her attention fixed upon the way ahead as usual.

"Do you think there's a place where there are no Sabre people?" Klavdiya asked, her earlier irritation having faded now, curiosity taking its place, and it was a question that Cassia found quite interesting.

"If you can walk there, fly there or swim there, then Sabre will have officers stationed there." Monet replied, a slight change in that tone of hers suggesting that such a remark was some kind of saying, and not of her own thoughts. It appeared to be a comment that the younger girl agreed with, a look of resignation coming to her face as she heard it, though she managed to largely shrug this off as she continued to follow the teenager.

What Monet had said probably wasn't far from the truth. Cassia couldn't help but wonder - were there any Sabre fellows up in that complex on the surface of the moon? If so, maybe they really could end up anywhere.

The way home was largely quiet again, with the only real sounds of note being carried by echoes that rolled across the underground from the districts in the distance, which granted a meagre notion of actual community if nothing else - people, somewhere, were working and living, even if they couldn't see or hear them directly. There were a few stragglers near some of the old store buildings, though today they were only individuals, with no pairs or groups being present, threatened or otherwise. 

One man was taking a moment to rest against one of the walls of a building further down one street, whilst another man was looking through the destroyed windows of another structure further ahead.

The warehouses were one thing, but the roads that once served as a network through the old shopping quarter always carried an especially lonely feeling, even if Cassia was with the other girls. It was a place that was supposed to be both lively and colourful, with friends of families buying all sorts of things, having a nice day out, all that good stuff, and yet...

The old street at least captured a good chunk of that missing spirit, what with all of its activity and business. Having the hollowed-out shops only a stone's throw away only made them feel more saddened. Cassia would have asked why the stall owners who frequented the old street itself didn't come to the empty shops to make use of them, seeing as they'd clearly been left, but then most of them were in those awful states, with some having collapsed in places entirely, sections of walls of floors crumpled, broken or caved, and repairs didn't seem practical in most cases - especially when she considered the basic nature of much on the construction work elsewhere.

Maybe she should have been glad for that, seeing as it largely served as a quiet stretch during their trips, but she couldn't shake that lingering aura of lost potential that hung in the air, maybe because it extended beyond one simple district. Maybe it simply didn't matter.