"Um," I said carefully, looking around me. People whizzed back and forth so fast that they were blurs, Doctor Queller cried out instructions left and right, and nobody paid me any attention. Not even a glance. "Um," I said a little louder, "When can we leave?"

"Just a little more!" cried the Doctor instead, her pink-adorned sleeve bunched at her elbow. She had three brushes in one hand and an opened powder palette in the other. "Katie, the rouge!"

"What color, ma'am?"

"The bright pink-- no, no! Give me the slightly orange and reddish pink!"

Katie (or so I presumed) fished out multiple colors, all of which looked exactly the same to me: orange-ish and reddish pink. But Doctor Queller narrowed her eyes and evaluated each color separately, then selected one that seemed just like the one next to it with a satisfactory smile. "Perfect," she murmured, then turned back to Idel's face. She nodded. "Perfect. Mermaid Pink will look just perfect on you."

I briefly wondered what the names of the other colors were. Mermaid Pink 2? Merman Pink 5? Merprincess Pink 3?

Wait, but that was not the point. I mentally shook myself and raised my voice even more. "Excuse me, when can we go? We've been here for at least two hours."

Queller didn't even pretend she heard me. She dusted off one of her brushes in that slab of Mermaid Pink color and raised it up high in the air, her golden bracelets flashing in the light. "Ready!" she yelled, making me wince.

"Steady!" all her assistants yelled back.

And all together, they roared "Let's pretty!"

The Doctor's arm came down like lightning on Idel's face, and her lips were applied so quickly that I almost blinked and missed it.

Some other assistants were working on her eyes, and only the glinting metal bands around their brushes were signs that those brushes existed in the first place, so fast they moved. Rosa was on the other couch, with five assistants surrounding her, and I slumped down in defeat.

Before we had gotten our treatments, yes, I had been excited to get my skin pampered. It was free! Of course I would be excited! But then Queller got a closer look at Idel and Rosa and suddenly pronounced that she was "greatly inspired!!!" and would like to "experiment with these beautiful faces!!!!!!!"

...which led us to right this moment, as I was bored out of my boots and materials flew around my friends' faces in the two couches next to me. 

When I had complained during a rare moment of relative calm to Rosa (I could actually see Rosa's face again!) that this was taking way too long and wasn't even that fun, she'd only shrugged as per usual and told me, "That's what happens when you hang out with the heroine," which stumped me and made me pause just long enough for an assistant to jump in the way again.

"Powder!" Queller growled in guttural, who-could-imagine-a-pink-doctor-making-such-a-sound levels of gravelly snarl. 

"Quick!" another assistant said.

"Pass me that brush. Not that one, the medium length one. No, not that one!"

"Understand me, you fool!"An assistant who'd been standing next to me suddenly whammed a fist against the wall, right next to my face, and I yelped. "It's missing something," she whispered. "It's missing something!!"

"What is?" I asked, faintly.

She shook her head, finally meeting my eyes, though it didn't seem like she was actually looking at me. Oof, this was getting pretty scary. "Something!" she cried, clutching at her chest. "Something, but I don't know what!"

"I said lavender, not deep royal purple!" snapped Queller.

"Just five hundred more touches, just five hundred more," murmured the assistant brushing some color on Rosa's chin.

"When will this be over?" I moaned, sinking deeper into the couch.

---

Well. 

It did finish, at least. A total of five hours later.

Five. Hours. At Queller's Palace.

I was pretty sure any treatment I got for my skin had melted off of me out of sheer boredom. But the more important problem was, "I'm starving," I whimpered, for so I was.

"Thank you, dearies!" waved the witch Doctor Queller, all smiles and bliss. She looked positively satisfied.

I had to admit that Rosa and Idel had never looked better. They had put strands of some shiny rainbow-y who-knows-what into Idel's blonde hair to make it shine and applied some weird powder thing to Rosa's light brown hair so that it looked like someone had dipped a part of her head in red wine. And yes, Mermaid Pink (whatever that was) did complement Idel's fair complexion in a natural, shining way. 

The most noticeable part, though, were their eyes: Rosa had golden glitter around her eyes to match her golden pupils, while with Idel, her green eyes were surrounded with sparkles too, highlighting the color so that it stood out even more.

Their skin looked flawless, too, and their lips all glossy and pink and nice, but honestly I was not really observational enough to note much changes other than that, or decide how well Doctor Queller had done. All we had asked for was a skin treatment, not a makeover, though Idel's eyes were definitely back to normal now. More than normal.

And great, I was surrounded by my beautiful, beautified friends, and I was still the auburn-haired potato I had lived my life as.

"I'm even more a potato in between you guys," I moped, but Rosa shook her head.

"No. You're not a potato, Fi."

My eyebrows shot up my forehead. Rosa, being nice for once?

"You're a foil."

Foil? Like the aluminum? "What does that mean? I'm a wrapper?"

She looked at me strangely. "Why would you be a rapper?"

My stomach chose to rumble loudly at that point, and Idel peered at me with sympathy in her eyes. "You sound hungry," she noted.

"Thanks for noticing," I sighed, placing a hand on my poor deprived belly. "I am so hungry I could eat Mr. Rowlandson's cow."

"I thought he sold it," Rosa said.

"He did! But that's not the point!" I held a finger up to their eyes and looked at the two of them in dead seriousness. "The point is that we are going to eat right now if it's the last thing I do in this world. But it won't be, because we'll go to the farmer's market after this!" For more food, honestly, but they already knew that.

Idel gasped at my last words and covered her mouth, though that didn't stop her lips from forming a wide, slow smile. The sparkling green of her eyes reached max levels that I took a step back and reflexively shielded my eyes. A sudden attack! I was used to Rosa sparkling, but Idel?! The glitter on her face must be making her extra powerful.

"The farmer's market?" she breathed out, and I nodded, lowering my hands but still squinting.

"Why, have you never been there?"

She clapped her hands together. "No, never! I've always wanted to go to one-- let's go!" She turned with a swish of her skirt, dragging the two of us with surprisingly strong force.

I only had time to yelp, "Wait, Idel! Dinner first!"

---

I sighed in content.

Rosa patted her stomach. 

Idel... Idel just breathed normally.

"That was some good chicken," Rosa said, and I nodded in agreement. She was emitting a lot of sparkles at the moment, catching the eyes of many people around her, though of course she didn't notice. 

"I never knew chicken could be fried in such a way," Idel said, dipping her glamored head into an elegant nod. Quite a few people were watching her, too. Did she notice? I wasn't sure.

But then she laid a hand on her cheek very daintily, almost coyly, and the satisfactory smile on her face convinced me. Yep, she knew, and she was enjoying it. 

"How much longer to the farmer's market?" Idel asked, and the way she turned her head made her hair fall just so around her shoulders, and I thought, heh. She totally knew what she was doing.

"Um, ten minutes? We should be almost there," Rosa answered, checking her wrist (? Why? Rosa always did this, then seemed to cackle to herself in joy, but I never understood her.) before looking at the sky, probably to check the sun's position. "The day's still long. We have three hours or so before it gets dark."

"Doesn't Ribdus have a farmer's market too?" I asked Idel. 

"They do," blushed Idel, "but my mother is very protective, so she never let me go."

"Even in Midelus?" I raised an eyebrow. "I've heard Midelus's farmer's market is better than anywhere else."

She nodded, playing with her fingers. "Well, in Midelus we were much too busy to go to the market." Her smile took on a sadder note. "Though I remember," she murmured, stretching her arm to look at her hand, "Paul once went with his father and brought back a little trinket for me." I bit my lip, and she looked at me with gentle laughter. "That's why I really wanted to go to one, you know. It sounded like so much fun."

We fell silent for a few paces, then started sniffing simultaneously.

I exchanged knowing glances with Rosa. "Isn't that--"

She nodded. "Yup, that will be--"

Idel gasped, shaking Rosa's arm next to her. Her eyes were wide and glittering. "The farmer's market?"

"The famous farmer's market crepes," I corrected, a smile widening on my face. "And you are about to eat the most delicious thing in your life!"

We whooped together and started running, though not long afterwards we all kind of ran out of breath and settled for speed walking instead. 

And so we ate crepes. And grapes. And waffles, and sausage bread, and slices of pizza. We even had some kind of strange lamb meat combination wraps, which tasted beautiful. 

"This is heaven," Idel said through a mouthful of chilled ice, savoring the moment. "I'm in heaven."

I took a bite of mine and fervently nodded. "You got that right."

Rosa frowned. "What? You got dad's light?"

I rolled my eyes and didn't answer. We were standing a little away from the stands to escape the milling crowds, and I welcomed the calm.

"Oh, speaking of the light," Rosa said, turning to Idel, "did I tell you about the time I calculated the distance between my house and Filian's? Well, Filly's house is the restaurant, or at least upstairs..."

I tuned out as Rosa bragged about her mathematical skills again (this particular story, I had already heard too many times) and focused on my cup of chilled ice instead. Mm, heaven indeed.

"...those three."

My ears perked up. Two low voices near us were talking, in the darker alleyway behind me.

"You mean the two beauties and their lackey?"

I went rigid. Um, excuse me? Lackey?!

"Yeah. One of'em's that girl."

"From Boss's orders?"

"Well, duh."

"You think he'll give us somethin' if we bring little girl to him?"

"Why else would I be talking about'er?"

I narrowed my eyes, slowly spooning my cold treat as I strained to hear more, tense. "Rose," I hissed, who paused shortly in her anecdote to give me a curious glance before returning to the story.

I barely heard the man's deep voice over Rosa's loud retelling, but the words were clear enough. "Let's grab her."

I held my breath, ears trained at the footsteps behind me. Closer. Closer. 

Closer.

I whirled around in an instant and threw my cup and spoon at the closest man's face, who stumbled back more in surprise than in pain. Four men stared back at me, and Rosa and Idel stopped talking.

Four men, dirty, one bulky and large, the others fairly thin. The one I had thrown the cup at wiped away the melting ice dripping on his face, growling in disgust. 

I backed away slowly, taking Rosa and Idel's hands. A moment of absolute stillness. The loud noises of the farmer's market seemed much too far away.

"Run."

The three of us turned and fled, and the men gave chase behind us. I let go of my friends' hands as I willed myself to go faster, though the skirt really wasn't helping.

"Rose!" I panted, thudding through the cobblestone roads. "You have your knife?"

"Yeah," she said shortly, eyes trained forward. 

Idel was gasping and stumbling, and I cursed within my head. We wouldn't be able to go long after this-- we all weren't used to running hard, but Idel probably had it the worst out of all three of us.

"We should go towards the crowds," I said. "They're after one of us."

"Too risky, what if they have weapons?"

"Well we have to live somehow, don't you think?" I snapped.

She still shook her head. "Who're they after?"

"Either you or Idel."

The men's footsteps were getting louder and louder behind us. "Quick!" I cried, stealing a glance at the men closing in on us. I sped up. "We need a direction!"

Rosa looked at me, her hard golden eyes glittering in the dim light. "I have a plan."

---

A/N: I'm not late. Three days haven't passed since I last posted. I haven't binged read a webtoon for ten hours. Stop lying to me.