Chapter 16 #2
“Well, I don’t know where your ice is coming from, but if you’re not worried, then give me that scoop. And for the gods’ sakes, take four coppers from me.”
Nomi takes his money and passes him the ice cream while I try to follow the transaction.
The man stares at me intently. “Next time you need another pair of boots, you know where to find me. I trust they’re working out for you?”
This man made my shoes? Or—maybe he just sells them? But given the forearms on this man I can’t imagine him as only a merchant and not a craftsman too.
“Perfectly,” Zan replies while I flounder. “Yora will be showing them off all the time.”
“Damn right. I should get back to Sunani. You all have a fine day, now.”
His presence disappears as abruptly as it arrived.
Already this is in no way what I expected.
The next customer huffs a “finally” when she gets to the front, and rather than talk to her and risk punching her in the face I step back to watch how Nomi handles the various steps of actually giving her the ice cream.
Apparently aware of this, when the next person comes to the front, Nomi hands the scoop to me.
“How long have you had this recipe?” they ask excitedly.
Uh oh. Yesterday is probably not the answer they want.
“Yora’s been experimenting with the local berries since she arrived in town,” Zan supplies smoothly. “She went through six different versions before settling on this one. So this ice cream will be even better than the one yesterday, if you tried that.”
“Oh, I did! Amazing, I can’t wait. Can you really keep this going? I love ice cream, and its lack is the actual hardest thing about living in Crystal Hollow in my opinion.”
Everyone laughs, like this is a joke, and not like living without ice cream wouldn’t objectively be the worst, and we reassure them and I scoop and then we move on.
“What’s this flavor called?” the next woman, old and with sharp eyes, asks.
I blink. “Blackberry?” Then pause, remembering how Zan emphasized that it was local. “Evermore Blackberry?”
The woman huffs. “Well, at least you can learn. Listen to Nomi and Teren, they know what they’re about when it comes to marketing.”
“Aw, thanks Gisa,” Teren says with a big smile. “I knew my color palette would bring you around eventually.”
He knows all these people, and they know him.
“Hush, you,” Gisa says with amusement. “If you’re going to stick around, you’re going to need your own shop. Do you know what you’re going to call it?”
I freeze.
She lets out a crack of laughter. “That’s a no, then. Think on it. Nomi and Teren have you off to a fine start here, using their connections, and starting with a low-cost giveaway to get the word out, but you’ll go farther when there’s a name people can associate with your ice cream.”
Gisa takes the scoop of ice cream out of my panicking hands and idles off, whistling.
I turn wide-eyed to Teren. “What do people call shops? What is yours called?” I try to duck around him to see the sign on the stall, but he pulls me back.
“Nuh-uh. Don’t copy me. Anyway, it’s clear what your shop should be called.”
“It is?”
Teren gestures around us with a grin, but waits until the next customer has reached the front of the line to loudly say, “Is this not a Triumph of the Chill?”
Groans echo down the line at the pun.
I turn to Zan, point at Teren and just say, “No.”
“You tell him, lady,” the next customer says as Zan collects her payment. I hand her an ice cream and we exchange a nod of solidarity before she heads off.
Zan looks amused. “No? Are you not Freezing the Day?”
A bigger groan down the line, along with some snickers.
I gape at him. “Not you too?”
He lets out a sharp grin.
I mutter to myself and start scooping for the next customer, only to see there are two people together.
“Oh, let me help with another scoop,” Teren says. “After all, One Good Churn Deserves Another.”
The customers crack up.
“Really though,” the first of them says, already having licked a taste, “this is honestly the best surprise. Ice cream is always amazing, but this flavor is astonishing. We hope you stick around.”
They leave while I’m still struggling to figure out how to respond beyond ’thank you’.
“She really nailed it, didn’t she?” Zan says in a proud voice to the next person in line. But before I can be warmed by his praise, he looks at me with a smirk and adds, “In One Fell Scoop.”
Teren about falls over laughing.
“I’m doomed,” I mutter, causing the next customer to snicker.
And that makes me blink.
I made them laugh.
Is that what Teren and Zan are really doing? Trying to distract me, get me to relax—
“Wait, wait,” Teren gasps. “It’s My Churn now.”
I roll my eyes. Never mind.
“You should call it Churn Back Time,” Teren says earnestly. “You know, because of your prodigious age.”
I freeze again, but only for a second, because the people in line are laughing again.
Because of course, none of them know that I’m actually over five hundred years old.
I just look like a young, innocent girl who’s being tortured with puns by her comrades.
“It would be the Churn of the Century,” Zan deadpans.
“You’re both dead to me.”
“Well there you go, now you have a shop slogan too,” Zan drawls. “’If ice cream doesn’t solve your problems, we can try murder’.”
“Too real, Zan,” I tell him primly, only for more people to laugh.
And in that way, the morning passes. Nomi leaves us soon after to do her own work with a rueful nod of acknowledgement—that Zan is very much not isolating me—and with Zan’s support and my own gift for learning, I quickly don’t even need her help.
No one is more surprised by that than me.
Most people who come for ice cream are lovely. On the occasion that I do want to lash out at someone, Zan redirects them or me—mostly by whispering sexy puns in my ear.
It turns out puns involving the word ’cream’ are legion and distressing—before the day is done, he’s hit me with Lucid Cream, Cream Power, Spice Cream, and the one that gets me to glare at him only to see answering heat in his eyes: Churn Me On.
Because of course, he barely has to try with me.
Nomi was right about one thing. It is different to actually see people enjoying the ice cream I made.
To see their joy; to know that I caused it.
And more than that, to see people reacting to me—and to him—like I am a person. The same kind of person they are.
This is more humans than I have ever interacted with on a single day in my life, but I understand why Nomi thought I needed to be here.
With Zan at my side and Teren supporting me too, it’s...
Fun.
It’s a lot, but it’s fun.
Who knew I could enjoy this? Definitely not me.
But as the day goes on, it’s not only the possibilities that begin to illuminate themselves to me, but also the challenges.
People are wary of opening themselves up to ice cream, to joy, only to have it taken away from them again. They have no reason to believe my ice supply will last, after all.
People are talking about priests being seen in Crystal Hollow—priests who didn’t seem impaired.
People are wondering about the dampening field weakening. So far no one has tried to climb the mountain, but it’s only a matter of time.
No one is speculating about sages—with the godsdamned pretty bow in my hair, no one can see my true eye color, and anyway, no one but Zan thought the Sage of Wrath was still alive. The priests don’t exactly share their information with the public.
The line does eventually slow, and only after I have slumped back against Zan, who wraps an arm around me to hold me up like it’s a thing he does every day—and couldn’t it be?—do I realize it’s because people are starting to pack up from the market.
“For these vendors, mornings are for selling, and afternoons will be for getting ready for the next market day,” Zan explains. His voice is quiet, next to my ear, and I suppress a probably inappropriate shiver.
“You did great,” Teren tells me. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you this, but staying on your feet and actually interacting with people is the best way to make sales. Not that it mattered in this case,” he finishes with a laugh.
“And you’re in your element here, aren’t you?” I ask thoughtfully. I would have assumed he was most at ease at home, but here—with a steady stream of people to welcome and set at ease and help make choices that bolster who they are—Teren really thrived.
He smiles as he carefully folds the remainder of the crafts on the table. “I enjoy knitting, but market days are a rush.”
And he’s probably gotten an extra rush today making me more comfortable—and not even using his magic to do it.
“Here.” I turn back to Zan, who’s holding a cup of ice cream.
I blink.
“You still haven’t gotten to try your latest batch yet,” Zan says gruffly. “I saved you a scoop.”
My eyes abruptly prick with tears, and I blink them away furiously.
How dare he be this thoughtful, making a point of seeing me and protecting what I care about, and still be planning to leave me.
Impulsively, I hug him. Just for an instant, not long enough for him to freeze or return the motion or have to think about what to do about it and then grab the ice cream from him.
I close my eyes as the creamy, sweet blackberry flavor hits my taste buds.
I will never get tired of this.
Or of him.
I swallow over a tight throat and look back at him intently.
Zan’s eyes darken.
I’m not telepathic, but I wonder if he can’t read my mind on this anyway.
“Excuse me?”
I turn back to the front of the table and am for a second struck speechless at the person I see there.
With the exception of Zan, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more naturally beautiful person in my life.
Despite the bow, my power flares out, licking at her with my magical senses.
But she isn’t a dragon, or a sage.
Just a really, really pretty person.
Wide, liquid brown eyes, gleaming straight mahogany hair, about my and Teren’s apparent age... I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is that makes her so arresting, but it’s undeniable.