Jesse glances back at the list Aiden scrawled out earlier for them.

His handwriting isn't very neat, but it's at least legible, unlike the two items Gill grabbed the pen from Aiden and slapped onto the paper. It's so crooked and messy and tilted that Jesse can hardly make any of it out, although they're pretty sure they said he wants more bullets.

Maybe.

Maybe it says something about fish.

They actually really can't tell.

"Um, Aiden says we gotta get some potion ingredients, in case we gotta brew our own healing potions and we're not near a town," Jesse says, having to squint at the list a moment later to actually read it.

"Gl- glistering melon, nether wart, fermented spider eyes, rabbit's feet, golden carrots, a pufferfish ghast tears, um, phantom membrane-" Jesse has no idea what most of these things are but dutifully lists them anyway.

Petra lets out a long groan before Jesse can finish reading off everything on the list. "Ugh, typical. He gave us all the stuff to haggle for."

Jesse blinks twice at her. They currently have a rather large bandage stuck on their forehead to cover up the deep bruise forming from basically slamming their face into the ground, the list clutched in their hands and a basket hanging on their arm with Reuben sitting in it and snuffling happily. "Haggling?"

"Yeah. The prices of all these potion ingredients are freaking sky high. Phantom membranes can go for up to ten gold." Petra rolls her eyes at the sky. "Looks like Aiden wants me to negotiate the price lower."

Jesse blinks again.

"One diamond is made up of two emeralds, one emerald is made up of twenty gold, one gold is made of 10 irons, and one iron is made up of five coppers," Lukas offers after realizing they probably don't know what the currency system in Cosmos is made of. "Beacontown is a little more willing to just go for trades and favors- like, 'we'll get you this in exchange for this' and so forth."

"Oh."

Petra sighs again, glancing at Jesse. "Well, great. Looks like we're going to be trying to negotiate most of the time while shopping."

"Well, you're not bad at it," Lukas offers, giving her a faintly amused smile at the annoyed expression on her face.

Petra rolls her eyes at him. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to do it nonstop. Anyway, what else do we need to get?"

Jesse looks down at the list again. "Um, he said we also need to get ten healing potions, five lingering potions of anything, ten splash potions of harm and five of whatever else you guys see fit, some potatoes, some carrots, some apples, dragon's breath... and ten potions of speed and leaping each."

"That complete son of a bitch-"


"I'm sorry, but this potion is extremely difficult to make," the stallkeeper apologizes to Lukas, fingering the phantom membrane and making Lukas wince as it ripples- phantom membrane is, to put it simply, rather nasty-looking. "And these ingredients are the highest quality they can go for; any lower and I'd be losing money."

Petra gives the stallkeeper a frown, trying not to let her brow crease too much. "Really? You can only lower the price to seven irons?"

The stallkeeper gives another apologetic shrug.

Jesse pokes their head above the edge of the stall to look at the phantom membrane, which takes Petra by surprise since her elbow is about two inches from their head and she hastily shifts it out of the way to avoid clonking them on the bruise. "What's that?"

"Phantom membrane," Lukas replies instantly, turning to look down at them as they watch the stallkeeper pause in running his fingers repeatedly over the membrane, which flutters a little.

"What's that do in a potion?"

Petra pokes her tongue into her cheek, thinking this over. "Mm... if you fall off, like, a cliff or something, and you brew it with the right base, you'll fall a lot slower and thus take less damage."

"Ohh." Jesse tilts their head at it. "It looks gross."

"Yeah, uh, simply put the grosser it looks, the better-quality it is."

Lukas gives them a little shrug and a crooked smile when they shoot him the most confused look he's ever seen. "Yeah, it's a bit of a paradox. We don't know how to explain it. It's a mystery."

Jesse shoots him a somewhat wry smile at that. "The world may never know."

He pokes their cheek in response, making them giggle slightly.

The stallkeeper blinks at Jesse, before back up at Petra and Lukas. "... you have a human with you?"

Petra casually pushes Jesse back a step, regarding him coolly. This is probably partially because he's now staring at them and absentmindedly licking his lips. "Yeah. What's it to you?"

"It's just..." The demon leans closer, black hair falling into his eyes as he carefully regards Jesse, red eyes gleaming with interest. "I haven't seen an actual human in a long time."

The stallkeeper regards Jesse for a minute, before glancing up at Petra and Lukas again, almost with interest.

"... you're that October Child guy, right? And the August Girl?"

Lukas nods, looking down at the ghast tears that are resting on the counter next to the phantom membrane. Well, his head tilts down, but he scratches at a knife gouge on the stall as if he's uninterested. "Yeah."

The stallkeeper presses his lips together for a moment, regarding Jesse, who's blinking up at him, and then looking back at the two half demons. "If you guys are with a human, that must make 'em pretty important..."

Another moment of thought, before he tilts his head at them, a strange smirk sneaking across his lips. "How about we make a little deal? We're not Beacontowners, but... this does seem to be a special occasion, wouldn't you think?"

"What, you want to trade the human for the potion ingredients?" Petra drawls at him, sarcastically.

The stallkeeper perks up, eyes gleaming with a sudden interest. "That's an option?"

"No!"

The demon smirks at the fact that both Lukas and Petra chorused this rather loudly and somewhat angrily, enough to have Lukas's head snap back up abruptly, Jesse startledly shrinking back at the raised volume. "Don't worry, I wouldn't risk upsetting either of your lords. No, ah, the actual deal is... I'll give you the potion ingredients you asked for at one iron for each group."

"That is a good bargain." Petra raises her finger, narrowing her eyes at him. "What's the catch?"

The demon crosses his arms, leaning on the counter with a smirk. "The catch is that you've got to have the human brew one potion successfully; else it jumps back up to the regular price."

Jesse blinks at this catch as Lukas frowns. "They've never brewed a potion before."

"Then help them out; I never did say they had to brew it by themselves. But no potion," and the demon mimes a little sarcastic pout, "No deal."

Petra stares him down for a minute, before crossing her arms and glancing down at Jesse. "Well, that's up to you..."

Jesse blinks at her for a moment, momentarily not realizing that she's addressing them, before giving a little "oh!" and then turning to blink at the potion ingredients on the counter.

Then up at the stallkeeper.

"Do you need a specific type of potion? I can try brewin' whatever you'd like."


"I can't believe we managed to avoid paying an arm and a leg for all that," Petra mutters darkly as they leave a moment later, Jesse swatting redstone dust off of their hands.

"Well, we did have to use one of the golden carrots that we bought," Lukas mumbles.

Jesse blinks up at Petra and Lukas, trying not to drop the rather large backpack that they ended up having to stop at another stall to purchase because the potion ingredients were just too much for the basket and Jesse didn't want to drop them.

The backpack is green and they now look like a little turtle.

They're adorable.

"I didn't know brewing was so easy."

"Well, brewing established potions are easy. Making new potions or potions with specific effects can be a massive bitch to pull off, but Ivor's really good at it." Petra gives her head a shake. "He tried to teach me but stopped after he realized I didn't really have the head for it."

Lukas brightens a bit, giving Jesse's hair a little ruffle. "Hey, but that was really good for your first time. You're a natural."

They look at him, before ducking their head shyly. Petra can see the tiny smile forming on their face. "You were helpin'..."

"Yeah, but you really didn't need it that much." He gives their shoulder a squeeze, a smile forming on his lips. "That was really awesome. I'm excited to see if we can teach you more."

Petra can now see that their cheeks are a rather pretty rosy color, but as nice as it is, they do need to get on with the shopping, so she gives Jesse a quick pat on the head before putting a hand on her hip. "Well, we can teach 'em more after we shop for everything. What do we still need to get?"

Jesse checks the list again, still flushed a nice shade of pink as they squint at Aiden's handwriting. "The food and the potions." And they stand on their tiptoes to let Petra better see the list.

"Well, the food's easy," Petra hums after a second, "it's all cheap. That's good, I would've murdered Aiden if he made me haggle for every damn thing on the list."

Lukas gives the redhead a faintly scolding smile. "Don't exaggerate, Petra, you're going to scare Jesse."

"Who said I was exaggerating?"

The blonde half-demon clears his throat, his smile now a bit forced, and starts steering Jesse down the street. "Well! I think it's time we move to the next thing on the list. Jesse, do you want the food first or the potions?"

"I don't really mind..."

Petra rolls her eyes as the half-demon proceeds to ask Jesse about fifty questions about the shopping to take their mind off of her nonchalant comment and trails behind, watching Reuben snigger happily near Jesse's feet as the human bewilderedly answers his questions.


Petra checks the time after a while. "Huh, we've still got about twenty minutes before we have to meet back up with Aiden, Maya, and Gill."

She lifts her head and gives Jesse a little grin. "Which means we can get you at least one extra set of clothes."

Jesse immediately pops their hands up and flails them a little, shaking their head. "Oh, no, you don't have to-"

"Nah, if we ever do laundry we can't have you just wearing your footie pajamas. I mean, imagine if we're out in public." Lukas gives them a little grin as they turn rather pink at the prospect. "Plus, your clothes do look kind of big on you. Most demons aren't as small as you- no offense," he adds quickly.

"None taken, I'm tiny."

Petra stoops down to rub Reuben's head and hide the grin that spreads across her face at that comment.

"Uh... well, yeah, but we can probably find you something that fits decently in the shop. Plus, if we get you a jacket or something, you can blend in with most demons a bit more. Your clothes are a bit..."

"Colorful?" Petra chimes in, grinning at Lukas.

"... I was going to say bright, but yeah, that works. Compared to what most demons or half-demons wear, uh," Lukas glances at their overalls and the brightly-colored shirt underneath, "yeah, you're practically a literal ray of sunshine."

Jesse nods, taking this in. "Okay... so get me a jacket, a shirt, and some pants, basically?"

"Yeah. Man, I kinda wish Maya came along, I'm no good with clothes." Petra shifts back into a standing position, hand on her hip as she regards Jesse. "Least it's just going to be a simple three articles of clothing."

"Don't ever say that in front of Maya; it's going to take twelve hours to get said three articles of clothing," Lukas teases back, grinning at her before looking at Jesse. "... hm, should just get a black jacket, a red shirt, and some dark pants. It'll do wonders for blending in, and you can put the jacket on over your old clothing, too."

Jesse bobs their head as Petra nods as well, before glancing at the clothing store nearby.

There's a long pause before she looks over at Jesse. "Jesse, you go and pick what you want."

Lukas gives her a long look, the blindfold hiding most of his expression except for the fact that his lips are in a straight line. "... the clothing store is not going to eat you alive."

She swats him.

Jesse giggles at the exchange before ducking inside the store, Reuben galloping behind them and slowing to a trot as they start poking through several racks of clothing.

Since they're only buying three articles of clothing and they don't really care about the design or the fit (since they can tell from a glance that most everything is going to be gigantic on them if they get anything larger than an extra-small and even that's a bit baggy), they just grab the first thing they like and is available in an extra-small (which is nearly everything, somewhat unsurprisingly).

They do find a nice fuzzy black jacket, though.

They like fuzzy things.

After finding a red shirt that looks plain and not like someone has run it through a blender and some pants that are just as nice and plain, they scoop everything up and head to where a demon with a nose ring and about thirty piercings is at the counter, some other demon already standing in line and chatting to the cashier. Being shy, they don't really want to bother the cashier, so they stand in line and wait, still holding their clothing.

About what feels like three minutes of waiting later, they become aware that something is tugging their hair slightly, although not enough for it to be really painful. In trying to turn around to look at it, the tug abruptly becomes painful, so they give up and peek into a nearby mirror.

Right behind them is a small white llama happily chewing on their hair, scarf hanging around her neck.

"Oh! I'm sorry, sweetie." Stella tugs the llama (Lluna? Jesse's not really sure) a few steps away from Jesse to avoid having a llama chew on their hair, giving them an apologetic smile. "Are you buying clothing along with your supplies, then? I was just stopping in to check something."

Jesse nods, holding the black fuzzy jacket they found to their chest, along with the red t-shirt and slightly overlarge dark blue jeans.

(And an extra belt. There's no way they're going to be able to wear these pants without a belt.)

"Yeah, I'm just waitin' for the cashier." Jesse points at the demon in front of her, who is still chatting away with the one in the first place in line.

Stella hums, thumbing the corner of her mouth as she glances at the cashier, before rolling her eyes. "Sweetie, they're just socializing."

Jesse glances back at the counter. Now that they're listening more closely, they can hear the cashier talking about some machine in Yurin that sounds remarkably like a computer to Jesse. Their cheeks pink.

"Oh."

Stella regards the demon ahead of them, before giving Jesse a pleasant smile. "You know what, sweetheart? I'll handle it."

"Oh, no, you don't have t-" Too late. Stella's already breezing up to the counter, humming something sweetly to the demon behind the counter, who looks vaguely annoyed at being interrupted for a minute before her scowl softens.

Stella wraps an arm around her loosely, tugging her into a loose hug and giving the demon a coy smile before leaning forward and murmuring softly into her ear, softly enough that Jesse can't catch any of it.

The cashier gives a huff of laughter, cheeks pinking as a huge smile spreads over her face, before beckoning Jesse forward and taking the items, ringing them up as Stella keeps chatting with the cashier idly, something about "how's your day going, sweetheart?" and complimenting the one that the cashier was talking to, that demon shuffling his feet sheepishly and blushing at the comment.

"That'll, um," the cashier gives a giggle, offsetting the appearance of the piercings and tattoos quite effectively as she glances down at Jesse. "That'll be four iron."

Jesse fishes four iron that Lukas handed them for change and quickly press it into her hands, where she then puts it away, folds the clothing up quickly with Stella still wrapped around her in a hug, and hands them to Jesse. "Thank you for shopping here."

Stella gives a sweet laugh and presses a little kiss to the demon's cheek, which makes them flush an even brighter pink. "Alright, I'll be back later. Alright, sweetie?"

Jesse would probably watch this exchange more, except Lluna decides now is a good idea to butt her head into Jesse's stomach and steer them around to the front of the store.

They're nearly at the door when Stella catches up, giving Jesse a breathtaking grin. "Well! That was easy. I thought I was going to have to bribe her with more."

Jesse can spot Lukas and Petra talking ahead as they exit the store, but they give her a grateful little smile. "Thank... thank you. I didn't realize your girlfriend was the cashier," Jesse timidly hums, holding their new clothes to their chest in a little hug.

"Oh, that wasn't my girlfriend. I've never met her before," Stella says cheerfully, before nodding in Lukas and Petra's direction. "I have to go check on something else before tonight; would you mind letting Lukas and Petra know I said hello?"

They look back to see Lukas waving and beckoning Jesse with a smile, while Petra develops an interest in the ground. "I think they saw you."

Stella glances back. "Ah. So they have." She waves back cheerily before giving Jesse another smile and a little pat on the head. This makes Jesse blink owlishly up at her. "Well, I'll see you later tonight, sweetie."

Jesse bobs their head. "Okay. Have a good time with whatever you're checking on."

Stella gives a sigh, still smiling cheerily. "Rather unlikely, but thank you." And off she goes, in high heels that Jesse would immediately faceplant in with Lluna clopping along next to her.

"Was she in the store with you?" Petra asks, scowling as Jesse draws even with the two half-demons.

Lukas gives her a rather unimpressed look. "Yes, as Petra said, hello, Jesse."

Petra gives him a playful smack as Jesse gives a sheepish little smile. "Yeah, she helped me get my stuff purchased." They lift the bundle of clothes carefully.

"Ugh. I hate her guts."

Well, at least Petra's honest about it.

"Well, fun fact about Stella," Lukas mumbles to Jesse amusedly as Petra glares at a nearby wall, "she's the only baron in Cosmos who's a succubus. She's the first baron in Cosmos ever to be a succubus ever, actually."

Jesse's eyes widen. "Really? That's... that's really impressive."

"I have no idea how the world decided she was a good choice." Petra scowls at the floor. "She fucking flirts with everyone and is all touchy-feely with every demon she meets and she never takes anything seriously. She's an arrogant airhead who I absolutely abhor with every atom in my being."

"Hey, that was kind of alliteration."

Petra smacks Lukas again.


A/N: Why is this chapter the longest one so far despite being literal shopping fluff...

Welp, that's that chapter! Next one is... actually one I've sort of been looking forward to. (You'll see why, I guess.)

Responses to reviews!

Darkbeast Dend: Thanks! I'm glad it makes sense. xD

CrazyNinjagoFan1: Ahhhh thank you! I love it too, haha.

NinaNaranja: Eh, she's got her reasons. / Indeed xD / Well, keep in mind they've been taught that crying will result in getting punished, so... / (pats) / Ahhh, you're... welcome, I suppose xD

TheAmberShadow: No, I know that, but on the map of Cosmos, Duomoon is on the complete other end of Hizelk, in the North. Cassie Rose wouldn't have anything to do with roses; the flowers in Cosmos sometimes resemble roses so that's what Jesse calls it. / Indeed xD / Well, humans ARE a delicacy, so... it's kind of not weird. Also, they're adorable. / A succubus, in October Children's definition and in some general definitions, are female demons that feed off of love or sexual attraction. Hence why she literally thrives on physical touch and attention.

Toni42: Yeah, although it's less of a thing in Narvid- there you have traditional cremations, Yurin you're turned into machinery parts, Enchantra you become an enchantment booster, and Jupin you can pick however you want to be remembered- some people choose to be crafted into weapons, or added as an addition to their weapons. / Yep, enough to have a bandaid slapped on it. xD / xD Ye

cel: I'm really glad you're enjoying it so far!

That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!

x.X. A.L. X.x