"You know, you remind me of someone," Jack slurred.
"Who's that?" Cherry asked, her voice crystal clear and sober.
"Mistress Ching. I've only met her once. A bitter old bitch at that point, but she was quite the pirate back before she was blinded. And beautiful too, from what I hear," Jack regaled her. "Didn't age so well, though. Take my advice and leave the seas behind while you're still young. Your skin will thank you."
Cherry took that as her cue to leave. She didn't want her opinion of the man being spoiled by an unwanted advance. "It's been fun, Jack. You're an interesting guy. Maybe think about retiring yourself."
"I could never," Jack spoke wistfully. For once, Cherry felt he was being sincere.
"Keep the bottle, Jack. May we meet again, and not at the other end of each other's swords," Cherry stood and headed for the door without a look back.
She heard the thunk of Jack's head hitting the wooden table as she stepped outside.
'I wonder if he'll be mad when he wakes up…' Cherry snickered to herself.
Any reasonable person wouldn't be angry, being left with a treasure after a first meeting. Jack did not strike Cherry as a reasonable sort of person, though. She suspected he would be very upset when he woke up to find that she hadn't just taken his coin purse when she pick pocketed him.
Cherry pulled out a dinged up old compass from her own pocket and gave it a look over. It certainly didn't look special. It didn't feel special either, now that it was in her hand.
She popped it open to see the inside. Then she stopped walking and blinked at it in confusion.
It wasn't pointing in the direction it had been pointing when Jack had used it; that being, back toward the bar. Now it was pointing off to the other side of town, almost in the exact opposite direction.
"Weird," Cherry shook her head. She already knew that it was a broken compass, so acting odd wasn't really that unusual.
It was going to be a little bit before she planned to meet back up with Will. She might as well wander around town a bit, and where was better to wander than following a broken compass?
So she did just that.
Cherry walked through side streets, crossed over the main street, moved around buildings that got in her way. It was when she started to go around a dressmaker's shop that she had to pause again.
The compass changed the direction it was pointing.
Of course, it had to have done that already once before. Cherry just hadn't been watching it when it did. So she continued on her previous course until she was all the way on the other side of the shop.
The compass was pointing directly behind her. Right at the dress shop.
Cherry frowned. In a flash of blinding movement, she circled the shop a hundred times, kicking up a bit of a gale as she went. Then she stopped at the front of the dress shop.
The compass hadn't deviated from the building even slightly. Even changing the direction of her sprint hadn't budged it. There was no denying where the compass was pointing, nor could she dismiss it as pure coincidence.
A few ideas swirled in her mind as her investigation of the compass reached a whole new level of scrutiny. She came up short, though. It was just an ordinary compass as far as she could tell. Beyond the fact that it had led her here, and that it apparently led Jack to a bar.
Cherry frowned. What was the common thread here?
She wasn't going to find the answer to that question by standing outside, that much was certain. She sighed and opened the door.
A cute little jingle jangled over head via a series of bells. She recognized the workmanship as Will's.
"I'll be right there in a minute, dear! I'm just finishing up a fitting!" an older woman's voice called from a back room.
Cherry busied herself by looking at some sample pieces on display. This was no ordinary dress shop; it looked more like a torture chamber to Cherry's eyes.
Corsets, wire frames, multiple layers. All the mannequins had waists thinner than most women could naturally possess, and she'd be worried about any woman who did have such a thin waist.
She supposed that the quality was good, and that they looked kind of nice. It was just all the rest of it that left her feeling disgusted.
"Hello and good morning!" the older woman came into the storefront after a few minutes. She was positively ancient, stood only about chest height to Cherry, and had a mean hunch in his back to boot. Despite all that, she seemed remarkably spry. "Would you mind doing me a favor?"
"I suppose," Cherry agreed hesitantly. If she didn't like whatever it was, she could just leave, after all.
"Come on out, dear! Let's get a third opinion!" the older woman called into the back. Then she whispered conspiratorially to Cherry, "She insisted against all structural support, if you can believe it! Having another young woman's opinion will help me convince her, if she won't take my word for it."
Cherry instantly decided against agreeing with the old bat on principle.
Then Robin stepped out from the back room. She blinked and smiled at Cherry. "Hello. Is Martha trying to get you to change my mind?"
The old woman, Martha, glanced aside. "I just want another opinion. Maybe my tastes in fashion haven't been keeping up with the times."
"Heavens above, you look amazing in that," Cherry paid the old woman no mind and got a good eyeful of her lover. Without all the faff, the style of dress looked quite nice. It looked even nicer on Robin's figure.
Martha gave her a betrayed look.
"You think so?" Robin gave her a twirl. "You don't think the neckline is too low?"
Robin leaned forward to demonstrate.
Cherry gave her a thumbs up, her eyes locked on. "It's perfect. Let's buy a hundred."
"Wait, you know each other?" Martha griped. "I should have known. Well, too bad! I don't have the time to modify that many dresses in a short time frame. Pay up and get out of my shop!"
Cherry and Robin were swiftly dealt with and shooed out the door with Robin's purchases. She only got three of the dresses, but they were fancy enough not to warrant everyday use in any case.
"You finished drinking way too early in the morning?" Robin asked conversationally.
"Jack's an interesting guy! He's got a story for everything. I think a few of them were even true!" Cherry said with a cheerful smile. "Oh, wait!"
Cherry pulled the compass back out, having forgotten what she was even here for. Robin watched on curiously.
It no longer pointed at the dress shop.
It was pointing at Robin.
"That's not north," Robin commented.
Cherry moved it around to demonstrate.
Robin's eyebrows rose. "Why is it pointing at me? Some kind of tracking device, like a vivre card?"
"I don't know. I didn't give it anything of yours," Cherry said. "When Jack had it, it led him to a bar. I honestly can't think of why it led me to a dress shop, nor why it's now pointing at you."
"Ah," Robin looked up into her eyes with a look that said she knew something Cherry didn't. "You are too cute sometimes, you know that?"
"You figured it out?" Cherry asked. "Tell me! What am I missing that's so obvious to you?"
"I don't think I will," Robin giggled and skipped away. Cherry followed and demanded answers she wouldn't get.