At six-thirty bells, Marron packed up her cart, calculated her day's earnings (another good day—nearly two gold profit), and headed home to clean up before going to The Silver Cleaver.
She changed into clean clothes, made sure her Guild pin was visible, tried to present as "professional chef having a discussion" rather than "desperate collector begging for magical tools."
"You're overthinking your outfit," Mokko observed.
"I'm appropriately thinking my outfit," Marron countered. "First impressions matter."
"This is your third meeting with Petra. First impressions are long past."
"Fine. Third impressions matter." Marron checked her reflection one more time, touched her shortened hair self-consciously. The wolf cut Jenny had fixed still felt new, still made her look like someone who made deliberate choices rather than defaulted to safe ones.
Maybe that was good. Maybe that's what she needed to look like for this conversation.
