40. Mad Onion Skills Demand Respect
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Rosa and I were currently fighting.

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Ha! Totally is not."

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

Fighting like children, to be more exact. And about what, you ask?

Rosa huffed. "Becca is still too young to be dating!"

Becca's new boyfriend, of course. Or, at least, her right to have one.

I rolled my eyes. "Ro, I was thirteen when I had my first kiss, and you were twelve when you first had yours."

She sputtered. "Well, we had a purpose!"

I only raised an eyebrow at her. "Hmm?"

"We were doing it for the sake of extracting relevant data in order to prevent the worst case scenarios from happening and--"

"Ha!" I barked, incredulity filling me up. "Relevant data? Stop kidding yourself! You were just as interested in Little John as I was in Philip!"

Rosa reddened as she glared at me. "So maybe I was! But, but--"

I patted her on her shoulder. "Give up already. And leave Becca alone. She isn't going around kissing boys like we have."

She shrugged me off, looking aghast. "Excuse you, I have never gone around kissing boys. I've only kissed one, and you know it."

Laughing, I went to the back of the bar counter to start wiping it down (which I was supposed to have done an hour ago, but then Rosa came in, and, well, that didn't seem so important anymore). "Fine, but even you were interested in boys at 10. And she's not, like, dating the guy. I think it's just like a mutual crush. Like, puppy love, you know?"

Rosa didn't answer, so I took the clean rag in my hand and began cleaning, humming to myself. "I wonder if Ryan will--"

"I can't stand it!" she suddenly roared, scaring me into dropping the rag.

"Ro-ose," I complained, stooping down to pick it up again.

"Wait here! I'm going to go give that little boy a piece of my mind and I'll just, just rip his head off!"

I gasped. "Rosa!"

She glared at me, her hands fisted and her shoulders tense. She would've looked like an angry ogre if not for her sparkles that made her anger still look, somehow, pretty. 

(Many times in my life, I constantly am reminded of how thankful I should be for being now immune to Rosa's sparkles. I shuddered to think about how I would live if I was dazzled every single time Rosa turned around and faced me. Horrible.)

Rosa stood there, breathed hard, chest heaving and looking like she was close to broiling mad.

I sighed. Looks like she needed some cooing. In my gentlest voice, I held out a hand to her and said, "Rose, stop worrying! Becca's going through life just like we have. We'll--"

"Quiet!" Rosa snapped. Leveling me with her strongest glare, she growled, "I hope you know that Philip is the ugliest butcher in all of Durova!"

I gasped again, almost physically recoiling. "How, how dare you! I mean I know he's not that pretty anymore, but he was still my first love!" And yeah, he did get into a bad fight and lost his two front teeth and grew a really lame beard that made him look, well, lame, but what disrespect towards someone with such fond memories! "Philip doesn't deserve your hate!"

"Well," she sniffed, stalking out the door, "we both know your tastes can be more than strange."

I inhaled sharply, disbelieving my ears. "Strange? You call my tastes strange?! Ha! Look who's talking!"

All Rosa did in response was flip her hair over her shoulder and hmph.

My eyes narrowed. That Rosa-- I leaned over the counter and hollered at her back. "Says the one who can't even chop onions!"

She snorted. "Yeah well who cares about onions!" she yelled back, and the restaurant door swung open and closed with a bang.

"Ohh, you nasty piece of work," I muttered to myself, glaring at the closed door. I shifted my focus to the rag again, aggressively wiping down the counters the best I could. "If I wasn't your friend I would hate you so much that you would beg me to leave you alone. Ugh, Rosa Chesterfield. You deserve to be one of those horrible nobles. Ugh."

I heard the door open again. Without looking up, I charged myself up with the highest level of sarcasm I could and said, "What, back for more?"

The silence I was met with clued me in on that this was definitely not Rosa who'd just walked back in. I raised my head, my hand pausing briefly. "Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else. Hi, Paul."

Paul clutched his bag and smiled at me a bit nervously. "Um, did I interrupt something?"

I forced myself to smile. "No, nothing like that. Come on in! Here for the afternoon shift, I'm guessing."

He nodded, though he still gave me a wide berth. Yeah, I probably had some flames coming out of me at this moment. That was the safe thing to do. I resumed putting all my weight into wiping the counter in quick, rough motions.

Cook lumbered out, a saucepan still in his hand. "Filian!" he barked.

"Mm?" I answered, looking over.

He nodded towards the kitchen. "Sheriff's here to see you."

"Sheriff?" That was random. "Okay," I said, leaving the rag behind the counter and walking to the back door in the kitchen.

Sure enough, Sheriff waited out the backdoor, pacing back and forth. "Hi, Sheriff! What's up?" He practically jumped at my voice, and I tilted my head. Why did he seem so... jittery?

"Filian," he smiled, though it didn't last long. "How have you been?"

I smiled back. "Great so far, thanks to your help. Oh, are you here because of that? Mom and I have been saving--"

"No, no," he interrupted, shaking his hands. "It's, well, it's something else." He glanced over my shoulder, and I looked back as well to see Cook nearby. Sheriff cleared his throat. "Could we, could we take this someplace else?"

My eyebrows shot up my forehead. "Uh, sure. I have some time." But really, what was up with him today?

We walked together to one of the nearby alleys, and Sheriff waited until we were more hidden inside the alley than outside. I turned to him with my arms crossed. "So? What's up?"

Sheriff appeared a bit more relaxed now that we were more obscured from the streets. "Filian, there's something I wanted to discuss with you," he said in a low voice. "And it can only be you."

"Oh really? What is it?"

He looked around and shifted a little closer to me. In an even lower voice, he said, "It's about Avaleen."

"Mom?" I instantly became serious. "Why, is something wrong?"

"No, no no, nothing of that sort. It's just, last week, we went all together to the apothecary."

I nodded. Mom had told me that Sheriff and his wife had come by for her yearly check-in with the apothecary, courtesy of the couple. 

"Now listen carefully. We didn't tell Ava, but the apothecary told me that his brother at Midelus heard from his friend's cousin whose father-in-law has a nephew who is to be married to the nurse at the Academy1Sheriff flexing his superior memory--" he took a deep breath here after saying all that in one breath-- "that they may have made a new medicinal cure at the Academy that could apply to your mother."

I was speechless for a moment. "...wow," I managed, both at Sheriff's memorization skills (kind of useless at this point, but anyway) and at the news. "Is it magical?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea. But I got to thinking that this could be good for Ava."

I blinked a few times, processing all this information. "Why not ask Rosa? She's at the Academy now." Well, not now, since we'd only just finished an argument here in Minstia, but still.

"I was going to, but my wife told me that she wouldn't have access to the research division of the Academy because that's only reserved for the university graduates. But I've heard that the research division lets commoners come in sometimes if they agree to be research subjects, and they even give some compensation."

"Research subjects?" I frowned. "That sounds kind of scary, though."

"It's usually not that hard, from what people have said to me. And you know me, I'm the Sheriff," Sheriff said, puffing out his chest. "They tell everything to me."

I grinned at him, but my mind was busy with this new prospect. "So you're saying," I said slowly, "that I could apply to be this commoner research subject person and get into the research division so that I could maybe get mom a new treatment?" 

"That's right."

"But what would I do even if I get in? Steal the medicine?"

Sheriff shook his head so fast that the flabs of his cheeks jiggled. "Of course not! Filian, I'm a Sheriff! I can't encourage any law-breaking."

I laughed lightly. "I know, I was half-joking." Half.

He narrowed his eyes at me, but he let it go. "I was thinking more in the lines of you making connections there. You're a very likeable person--"

"Aww, thanks, Sheriff."

"--and you could use that to your advantage. Appeal to some nice researcher there. They might be willing to make your mom a test subject too."

I made a face. Mom as a "test" subject did not sound good at all. Still, "Thanks for letting me know, Sheriff. I'll try and see what I can do."

He nodded at me, satisfied, and he patted his large belly. "Anytime, Filian, anytime."

We smiled at each other one last time and emerged from the alleyway laughing and chatting as we always did. "Just don't let your wife see you eating those pies," I joked, and then we parted ways.

I almost immediately bumped into someone right around the corner. "Whoa," I said, just barely catching my balance. "Sorry, didn't see you there!"

I looked up to see Lindent, staring back at me silently with blatant suspicion in his eyes, which felt strangely familiar. "Lindent!" I greeted, flashing him a smile. "How have you been?"

He didn't answer, only nodding at me once as he turned around and giving me another suspicious glance before going on his way. I watched him go, my smile turning wry. "Exactly what I expected from him," I said aloud, feeling not at all let down by his reaction. 

After all, all we'd done was defeat bandits together. Nothing special, right?

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