Chapter 013: Words Between Worlds
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{FREDAS, SOLYRA 20, 999 – 09:10}
{LUCIAN GILFORD}
Morning sunlight poured through the shopfront window in a long golden ribbon that crept across the plank floor, warming the air and catching on the clear plastic of stacked water bottles. The light diffused through the labels until the whole counter shimmered faintly, like it had trapped the dawn. I'd swept once already, but I did it again out of habit, dragging the broom through the same corners just to hear the faint whisper of bristles against wood. The routine had a rhythm to it—sweep, straighten, inventory, breathe.
The faint smell of oil paint still lingered from when I'd finished the sign earlier that week. Every shelf and crate sat exactly where I'd left it, which, for a man who'd built his livelihood out of bottled water and stubborn optimism, was a small comfort.
I tapped open the Costco app—still surreal, still running perfectly—and skimmed my numbers. Inventory: fifty bottles remaining. Cash on hand: seven thousand nine hundred sixty-eight Valis. No tax, no delivery delays, no ominous messages from cosmic accountants. The little blue checkmark beside "merchant verified" glowed like divine approval, which was either comforting or profoundly worrying, depending on how I looked at it.
A low creak sounded as I leaned on the counter and watched dust float in the light. For a moment, the quiet of the shop settled around me like a held breath. It felt… stable. Not safe—Orario didn't seem like the kind of city that offered that—but solid enough that I could almost pretend this was just another slow morning back home.
The door chime broke the silence—a soft, metallic ting that I hadn't yet grown used to.
I glanced up, halfway expecting Eina again, maybe with another stack of papers for me to sign. Instead, Rose Fannett stepped through the doorway, her uniform crisp, crimson hair catching the morning light in sharp threads of gold and copper. She carried the air of someone who had already been up for hours and had decided the day would obey her schedule whether it liked it or not.
Her eyes swept the room once, cataloging everything with that unspoken Guild efficiency, before they settled on me.
"Good morning," she said, voice even but carrying a faint edge of curiosity.
I leaned an elbow on the counter, smiling in spite of myself. "Ah," I said. "The tutor I didn't hire."
Her expression flickered, not quite amusement, not quite offense—just that quiet narrowing of eyes that said you are testing me, and I haven't decided how to grade you yet.
She didn't even blink at my joke, though her posture softened just slightly as the door clicked shut behind her. "I was assigned to assist with your communication difficulties," she said. "A courtesy from the Guild. It's standard for foreign merchants who struggle with the trade dialect."
"So," I said, straightening. "The Guild sent a language instructor. That's new. Usually, I just get lectures about fees and forms I can't read."
"Then consider this a reprieve," she said dryly, stepping closer. Her tone carried the faint edge of someone who'd had to justify that reprieve three times to her superiors before coming here. "If you intend to stay in Orario, you'll need to learn the common speech properly. Miscommunication in business tends to invite trouble."
"Good to know. Last thing I need is to accidentally sell someone's kid instead of a bottle of water."
The corner of her mouth twitched—small, but noticeable. "Let's make sure it doesn't come to that."
She set a satchel on the counter, drawing out a slim ledger and a short stick of chalk. Her handwriting, when she began to write, was the neatest thing I'd ever seen—straight lines, clean curves, every letter deliberate. "We'll start simple," she said, switching to the local language for a phrase I barely understood. "Repeat that."
"…Bread?" I guessed.
"Greeting," she corrected, repeating it slower, emphasizing the syllables.
I did my best to follow, stumbling over the second sound.
Her head tilted slightly, and though she didn't sigh, I could feel the ghost of one trying to escape. "Better. Try again."
We went back and forth like that—she'd say a phrase, I'd mimic it, she'd correct me with patient precision. I wasn't terrible, but the language twisted through the throat and tongue in ways English never had, and she could hear every tiny mistake I didn't know I was making.
At one point, she paused, tapping her chalk against the ledger. "Your accent will betray you. You pronounce the consonants too cleanly. Relax them."
"Relax them?" I echoed, exaggerating the sound.
"Yes. Like that," she said, almost smiling now. "Unrefined, but understandable."
"Unrefined I can do," I said. "Understandable might take a while."
That earned me a faint, genuine sound—something between a quiet laugh and an exhale. She was loosening up, just a fraction, and for once it didn't feel like I was on the verge of saying something that would land me in a Guild report.
She went on to explain the rhythm of the language, its verbs and endings, the way polite speech differed from the street talk. I followed along, repeating phrases under my breath until they stopped sounding like foreign noise and started resembling words.
The hours slipped by in the gentle monotony of repetition and correction. My throat grew rough, my brain swam with unfamiliar syntax, and Rose—efficient, composed, relentless—kept at it as if time bowed to her schedule.
Then her eyes drifted from the ledger to the counter beside me, where my phone lay face-up, dim screen pulsing faintly as if half-awake.
"That device," she said suddenly, breaking the rhythm of our exchange. "You use it constantly. What is it?"
I blinked, following her gaze. "Oh. That? It's called a phone. Kind of like a personal notebook, except it can do a lot more."
"A notebook," she repeated, skepticism lacing the word.
"More or less. It keeps track of my orders, inventory, currency—" I gestured vaguely at the shelves. "Everything."
She studied it for several seconds, then extended a gloved hand. "May I?"
I hesitated, but curiosity won. "Sure. Just be careful not to drop it. It's… delicate."
The moment it touched her palm, the screen went dark. No fade-out, no flicker—just gone.
Rose frowned, turning it over carefully. "The light vanished."
"That's… new," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Try tapping the screen."
She did. Nothing. Not even a ghost of brightness.
I took it back, and the display came alive instantly, icons glowing like they had been waiting for me. Rose's gaze flicked from the screen to my face.
"It only functions for you?"
"Apparently," I said. "Guess it's picky about its company."
"Artifacts don't behave like that," she murmured. "They draw from ambient energy. If it recognizes you specifically, that implies a bond—divine or otherwise."
"Bond's a strong word. It's just a phone."
"Nothing in Orario behaves 'just' like that."
Her tone carried more weight than skepticism—it was the sound of someone re-evaluating the man across the counter. I didn't like the feeling.
She reached for it again, slower this time. I handed it over carefully. The result was the same: instant darkness, as if it despised being handled by anyone else.
When she returned it, it flared back to life in my palm.
Rose leaned back, the light from the device reflecting faintly in her eyes. "Interesting," she murmured.
"Convenient," I corrected. "Means I don't have to worry about someone ordering a mountain of bread rolls while I'm asleep."
Her gaze flicked up to meet mine, unimpressed but faintly intrigued. "Or hiding something you don't want found."
"I prefer to think of it as data security."
That earned the smallest huff through her nose, something close to a laugh before she schooled her face again. "You seem remarkably calm for someone holding an artifact that ignores every known law of enchantment."
I shrugged. "I'm alive, hydrated, and not in debt to a god. My standards are low."
For the first time since she'd arrived, Rose's expression shifted from scrutiny to something closer to curiosity. Her posture eased, just slightly; her tail flicked once behind her chair as she regarded me in that careful, appraising way she had.
"Do you even know how it functions?" she asked after a moment.
"I press things until they do what I want," I said. "It's a complex system of trial, error, and swearing."
"Remarkably honest," she said, though her tone softened, the formality beginning to chip away. "You could have told me it runs on starlight and ambition, and I might have believed you."
"It might, for all I know. It's been running nonstop since I woke up here." I flipped the screen to life again; the glow reflected off her eyes, pale and steady. "No power cord, no fuel, no prayer circle. Just keeps going."
She frowned slightly, tracing one gloved finger along the counter's edge. "No device sustains light without power or mana. If it has neither, it should have gone dark long ago."
"You say that like you've seen a lot of strange devices," I said.
That stopped her. For a second, her mask of professionalism cracked; she blinked, and I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of her jaw before she straightened again. "You're not the first strange case I've handled," she said.
"Yeah," I said, "but you paused like I might be the weirdest."
That drew another soft sound from her—barely audible, but real enough to count as a laugh. "You might be."
"Well, that's a first. Usually I just get 'troublemaker.'"
Her lips curved, almost but not quite a smile. "That remains to be seen."
We stayed like that for a few moments—me leaning against the counter, her studying the phone as though memorizing every flicker of its glow. The air in the shop carried that faint clean scent again, the bottled water's subtle sharpness blending with the varnish on the shelves and the warmth of early light filtering through the window.
When she finally sat back, her tone had shifted again—still professional, but no longer cold. "You should document everything it does," she said. "Every change, every response, every word it displays. If it truly responds only to you, the Guild will want a complete record."
"Sure," I said. "I'll keep a log. Right after I figure out how to conjugate 'buy' in your language."
Her ears twitched—humor or exasperation, I couldn't tell. "Then let's continue with your lessons before you start conjugating anything else incorrectly."
And so we did. She returned to the chalkboard slate, writing phrases in neat rows while I repeated them, my accent wobbling between passable and tragic. Each time I got something right, her tone softened; each time I butchered a word, the faintest spark of humor flickered in her eyes.
Hours passed like that. The morning light moved across the counter, crawling from one end to the other until it caught on the glass bottles, scattering it into prisms that danced over the floor. Outside, the street sounds grew louder—the market opening, merchants calling prices—but inside, it stayed slow, rhythmic. Just words, corrections, quiet laughter, and the subtle tension of two people trying to understand each other across more than just language.
By the time she finally capped her chalk and gathered her things, I'd learned a handful of phrases that might help me buy something more complicated than bread. She turned toward the door, hesitating as she glanced back at the counter.
"Keep that device close," she said. "I don't think it enjoys being handled by anyone else."
"Yeah," I said. "I noticed."
"Good," she said, and then, almost as an afterthought, "You're improving, by the way."
I smiled. "That's teacher talk for 'try harder.'"
This time, she didn't hide her smile. "Then take it that way."
When the door shut behind her, I stood there for a long moment, looking at the faint glow of the screen in my hand and thinking that maybe—just maybe—being here wasn't all bad.
When the bell above the door gave its little half-hearted ring and the sound of Rose's boots faded down the street, the shop felt too quiet again. I let out a long breath I hadn't realized I was holding and leaned against the counter, staring at the space she'd just occupied. The bottle she'd opened earlier still sat beside the register, condensation clinging to the clear plastic. A sixteenth of it was gone—barely a sip—and yet it already looked unsellable.
I slid it aside, muttering, "Display model, I guess," before pulling my phone from my pocket. The screen lit with its usual, familiar glow—no divine spark, no mystical hum, just the gentle warmth of backlight. My thumb tapped open the warehouse app, and the little spinning icon greeted me with the same cheer it always had, as if nothing about this world were strange.
It took a few seconds for the homepage to load, connection pinging off whatever impossible signal the device still used. When it did, I went straight to search: spices.
Scrolling through the list felt almost nostalgic. Familiar labels, bulk packaging, and those smug, smiling photos of families enjoying food that never went bad. Black pepper, cinnamon, salt, crushed red pepper, garlic, minced onion, paprika—simple things that could turn a pot of boiled whatever into something worth eating. I glanced toward the shelf behind me, mentally mapping space. Half the top rack would do.
Each item got tapped, added to cart, the total at the bottom climbing with every click. I did the math as I went—four hundred here, five hundred there—and tried not to think about how every purchase was another stone pulled from the small pile of coins I'd built. When the total hit 3,000 Ʌ̶ even, I added one more order beneath it: five more cases of Kirkland water. The app tallied everything, cool and efficient, and prompted: Confirm order? 4,495 Ʌ̶ will be deducted from available funds. Estimated arrival: Solyra 22, 07:00.
I hesitated only long enough to check my remaining balance—3,473 Ʌ̶—and tapped confirm.
The order blinked, processed, and the receipt appeared with its usual quiet professionalism. For all the insanity of this world, Costco still delivered.
I set the phone down on the counter and rubbed my thumb against the wood, tracing faint grooves left by the previous owner's knife marks. The shop smelled faintly of fresh paint, dry dust, and the subtle mineral tang of the open bottle nearby. Outside, the street murmured with passing voices—adventurers, traders, maybe even a few from the Guild already whispering about "the human with the strange clear water."
Fine. Let them talk. In two days, the shelves would smell of spice instead of wood, and maybe, just maybe, people would start calling this place something more than the weird bottle shop.
For now, though, I pocketed the phone and went to fetch a cloth to wipe down the counter. The screen in my mind still lingered on that balance—3,473 Ʌ̶—and I couldn't help thinking how absurd it was that an interdimensional warehouse ran on the same economics as a neighborhood grocery. Somewhere, some cosmic accountant had to be laughing.
But if the universe wanted to let me shop in peace, I wasn't about to complain.