With a mischievous grin lighting her face, Mei guided us to the counter and set her boxes down in a neat stack. The three attendants bustled frantically, weaving between other eager customers who crowded every inch of the quartered-off section. Mei stretched her arms toward me expectantly.
“I’ll get them for you.”
I placed mine into her hands, offering a brief nod of thanks while my attention lingered on the strange ritual of the purchase.
Across the counter, the surface began to glow, soft at first, then pulsing brighter. The black boxes shimmered, swallowed in a wash of tranquil blue light, and when the radiance faded they seemed reborn, their dull exteriors replaced by smooth shells of bone-white.
Mei must have caught the wonder in my stare, because she leaned closer with a small, explanatory murmur. “The material used to block the energy isn’t exactly rare, but it’s not cheap either.”
That much I could grasp easily enough, but the speed of the change. That flash of transformation with no smoke, no crack, no in-between… held me captive. This wasn’t the blur of magic alone; it edged into alchemy, a discipline of breaking and remaking. Even in this world, it was unlike anything I’d seen.
And for something so mundane.
The box hadn’t melted, hadn’t peeled away its skin to reveal another beneath. It had simply changed. One instant black, the next white.
“Do you know how it works?” I asked, dragging my gaze away from the counter’s glow.
Mei shook her head. “Not really. Something about breaking the covering down to its base parts, taking what’s needed and leaving the rest.”
Before she could elaborate, a male clerk—roughly my age—hurried over, hand outstretched. “Twelve marks, please.”
Wordlessly, Mei produced her card. The clerk swiped it across a panel, but then his hand froze mid-motion, as if he had just grasped something unexpected. His eyes flicked up toward her, startled, then quickly dropped.
With a practiced smile he returned the card, pretending the moment had never happened. “Thank you for coming. Please come back soon.”
And with that, he darted toward another group of clamoring customers, leaving the transformation to unfold again before my eyes, as swift and unexplained as before. When the process ended, Mei scooped up both her purchases and mine, juggling them in her arms with difficulty.
“Let’s open it outside,” she murmured, excitement bubbling in her tone.
The press of the crowd gave me little reason to argue, so I fell in step behind her.
We slipped out and soon found a ring of benches near the storefront. Dropping onto the seat beside her felt like relief, even though I hadn’t been standing long. It struck me then how unused I had become to pressing crowds. Each day in the State of Stars changed me in ways I hadn’t fully noticed, I guess.
“You know which ones are yours?” I asked, setting the bags down and gesturing toward the neat pile of boxes balanced across her lap.
“Of course,” she said with exaggerated confidence, lifting one and inspecting the bone-white cover as though unveiling secrets. “Hmmm… maybe not this one.”
I had no idea what standards she used in this odd appraising, but her intensity amused me. A laugh slipped from my throat before I could stop it, at how seriously she weighed each choice.
“Open it up,” I suggested.
She shook her head with mock sternness, plucked up another box, and pressed it into my hands. “We’ll do it together. You open it like this.” Her thumb pressed firmly into the bottom until a soft—pop sounded.
The lid blossomed upward, splitting into four neat triangular petals that revealed the treasure within.
“Now you!” she urged brightly, still refusing to peek at her own.
I copied her gesture. My box answered with a sharp—pop—of its own, unfolding to display its contents. Together we peered down into our prizes. Two utterly unremarkable stones. Grey, one side jagged, the other worn smooth, indistinguishable from any pebble that might litter a roadside.
“Looks like we didn’t get anything,” I grumbled, tossing the pebble onto a bed of them where a little shrub near the bench lay. Mei mirrored me, grabbing another two boxes and handing one over.
“Only two left now after these,” Mei mumbled.
One of them was the one I’d marked earlier. The one I suspected held a prize.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
With another set of soft pop-pops, two more dull stones sat in our palms, raised to the sun in their complete un-magnificence. Mei gave a small, frustrated sound. Not the deep kind that came from real loss, but enough that I could tell her bad luck bothered her more than she’d admit.
Maybe bringing her here wasn’t the best idea if she cared this much. Still, I was confident in my pick.
“Last one,” she sighed, sounding beaten.
“Yep,” I agreed with a nod.
She passed it over, and with one final pop, both boxes revealed their truth. Mine was no better than the rest: another clean, unrefined pebble, probably scooped up from somewhere nearby. It clattered into the pile with its brothers. Mei, though, just stared into hers.
“Uh… something wrong?”
Her head shook, eyes wide, a small gasp catching in her throat before she stopped herself.
“I… I think… um…”
She looked so doubtful I gave her arm a gentle poke. “Mei?”
“Uh—I won.”
“You won?” I asked, feigning surprise.
She nodded quickly, still hardly saying anything, then pinched delicately into the box and lifted a small purple stone into the light.
For a heartbeat she just stared, frozen in disbelief. Then—
“Eee!” A squeal burst out of her as she leapt up from the bench, clutching the stone to her chest. Her sudden grin looked like it might split her face. She spun toward me and tugged hard on my arm, practically bouncing in place.
“It’s you! You’re my good luck charm!” she declared, the words full of genuine conviction, as if this tiny win had rewritten her past.
I just blinked at her, half-dragged forward, half-amused. Honestly, she might’ve been the only person to ever say that to me with complete seriousness.
“Wait, hold on. Isn’t it only three per customer?”
She didn’t even slow, tugging me harder, her voice spilling out in a rush. “That’s only for one table! We can go again on another! Or we could go to another shop!”
“Right, sure,” I said, trying not to stumble as she pulled, letting the boxes fall to the floor. “But how about you just tell me what this is first? We can always come back another time. Think about it—who knows how many tries it’ll take to get another hit? And do you really even want anything from the other sections?”
That gave her pause. The frantic energy bled out of her, fingers still curled tight around the stone. The empty boxes scattered at our feet, so I crouched to gather them up, giving her a moment to breathe.
“…No. I guess not,” she admitted, softer now. Then, almost stubbornly: “But I’ve never won before. Doesn’t that mean we should keep going?”
Definitely a bad idea to bring her here.
“Well, what is it then?” I asked, pointing at the rock, dodging the question she wanted me to answer.
She shrugged, still glowing but trying to play it cool. “I don’t know. But it’s nice, right?”
She pressed it into my palm, letting me weigh the little stone that was no bigger than the first knuckle of my thumb.
“Yeah,” I said with a faint smile. “It is nice.”
With my passive abilities open, I caught the faint, pulsing heartbeat of Animora, each thrum radiating a ripple of Force too. A mineral steeped in elemental and life energy. The sight of it stirred something deep within me for some reason.
“You think it does anything? Some hidden ability?” I asked, almost reverently, before handing the stone back.
Mei accepted it carefully, clutching it close to her chest like a secret treasure, though she shook her head faintly. “Maybe… but unlikely. Something this small is usually just a pretty curiosity. If it were alive like a beast, able to regenerate its own energy—then maybe…”
Her words triggered a sudden flash of memory that pierced sharp: a stone within the trials. The final trial. A stone that pulsed with purpose, scanning, displaying talent. “If it were alive,” I echoed under my breath, caught in the thought.
“What?” Mei tilted her head.
“Nothing,” I dismissed, shaking it away. “Just strange, isn’t it? That something carrying life energy still wouldn’t be considered alive.”
She paused at that, gaze drifting toward the direction we had come from. “Some people have wondered the same thing. But so far… no sign. Rocks don’t respond.”
She resumed walking, so I fell in step beside her.
“You don’t like the Gates, do you?” she asked suddenly, glancing at me over her shoulder as I caught up.
I smirked, trying to hide the edge of unease. “Was I that obvious?”
Her soft laugh slipped free, light as she brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “A little bit. Don’t worry. It isn’t far back, so we can walk.”
I bumped her shoulder playfully. “Especially for people like us, right? When you transform, even I’d have to go all out just to keep pace.”
“Want to race?” she shot back, her body already tensing, coiled like a spring.
I nearly protested that it wouldn’t be fair. I didn’t even know the way, and I was burdened with half her expensive new clothes. But… saying no felt wrong. With Vel too.
Even at the price of a little humiliation, to give them just a bit of a break from all this, wasn’t that worth it? In this cruel, cutthroat place, I wanted to steal whatever moments of fun I could too.
“You sure you want to lose to me again?” I teased as she steered us toward a quieter, emptier stretch of road.
Her eyes narrowed, gleaming with challenge. “I can’t wait for our rematch.”
Then, before my eyes, the change began. Her hair spilled longer, a silken cascade sliding down her back. Her pupils tightened into predatory slits, catching the light with an uncanny gleam. Nails sharpened, curving slightly as she flexed them like miniature blades. And behind her, a tail unfurled, lashing once with pent-up energy.
It was… mesmerizing. Unbelievable. I had seen her transformed before, but never the shifting. To watch it emerge step by step, breath by breath, was something entirely different.
And somehow, even dressed in claws, fangs, and a tail, she still looked like a stubborn kid brimming with delight, desperate to prove me wrong.
Then, with no warning and no chance for me to react, her voice rang out in a rush: “Three-Two-One—GO!”
Little cheater.