Hey all, it's been quite some time! ^^

Peachie: thanks! and as for what Allen is, you'll find it out in this chapter, too!

teamBLAZE: I'll let you decide who's the second Elizabeth: Reine or the yet-to-be-introduced one. ^^

Ever since Reine took over the general store, Hana had more time to do other things. She walked towards the cupboard and opened it; bright light came out when it happened. She reached in and took a tapestry, a part of it, which was woven entirely with red threads, but of different shades of red.

Hana ran her finger on the tapestry carefully. Even with her aged mind, she still remembered when and how she weaved each thread into the tapestry; some threads had gone a long way before finding its place here.

People knew of her sisters: the one who spun the thread, the one who measured it and then the one who cut it—the beginning and the end.

No one seemed to pay particular attention to what happened in the middle, so they didn't really know her. However, she had heard it often, some people just claimed that they were 'fated to meet'.

That's right—it's fate.

And it's her real job as the fourth, the unknown Moirai Sister: the one who weaved people's threads, bringing their fates together.

Her fingers stopped over a certain weaving of two threads—one was dull while the other was bright. Her sisters had told her of the… unique circumstances of the dull red thread, which was why she decided to weave it with this certain bright red thread.

However, not even she would know what would come after this.

There it goes again… Reine noted inwardly as she saw the line of customer in front of Neil's stall—all females. She noticed it since day one; why wasn't she surprised that those girls didn't come over to her stall?

"Excuse me, Miss?"

Reine jerked up and turned to face her new customer. "Hi, may I help you?" she immediately asked.

"Can you get me these things on the list?" He gave her a piece of paper.

"Oh, sure," Reine replied, taking the paper and skimmed it. She then took a paper bag and began to fill it with the things written down on the list: flour, rice, curry powder, oil and wine. After rechecking the amount, Reine folded the tip of the paper bag carefully. "The total would be 2140 G," she told him.

The man gave her the money and Reine counted it again before smiling and handing the bag over to the customer. "Thank you for your purchase. Please come back soon," she said with a practiced tone.

The customer smiled back at her. "Oh, right, before I forget."

"Hm?"

He gave her another piece of paper, smaller than the first. "In case you open a delivery service,"

Reine took a look at the paper: a phone number. "Wait, but we don't—"

Too late. The customer was already gone.

The pinkette sighed and shoved the paper into her drawer; she didn't realize that the said drawer was already half-filled with similar kind of papers. It had been a week since she settled down in the small town and everything seemed to run smoothly—very smoothly, in fact—with customers coming from inside and outside of the town. Many asked her—suggested, even—that she started a delivery service.

Perhaps I can start thinking about that…

"Reine!"

Reine looked up and saw Gwen walking up the path towards the town square carrying lunch boxes. Gwen grinned at her as she jogged the rest of her way and put the boxes on the counter. "Care to guess what's on the menu today?"

"I sure hope you don't only put vegetable rolls in…" Reine replied less enthusiastically. Unlike Gwen, an aspiring vegan (a good thing, actually, noting her illness), Reine identified herself as an almost-carnivore (even visiting Rio's farm and seeing her food in their living form didn't bother her of her choices, actually).

Gwen laughed. "I'd like that, but I don't want to see you on hunger strike either."

The two sisters walked over to a nearby bench and Gwen opened the lunch box: rice balls with vegetable rolls, rolled egg, and tempura. "Looks nice," Reine commented while reaching for her chopsticks.

The sisters enjoyed their lunch together, just like any other day, under the shade of the tree. "Neil's store sure is popular," Gwen commented as she took a bite of her roll.

"Not for quite the legit reasons, I guess," Reine quipped. "I think he can be a host at night for extra bucks and he'll still get the same customers."

Gwen grimaced wryly. "I never thought you imagine him—"

"That's not quite hard to imagine," Reine interjected, taking another bite of the rolled egg. "He's okay-looking, I'll give him that."

"Right…" Gwen trailed off unsurely.

While munching on her egg, Reine's mind began to wander off. She noticed that actually, she never saw Neil eating his lunch. There was always a queue on his stall and he's actually a kinder merchant than he's letting on by not letting his customers to wait for too long—so long as they meant real business.

Pity—yes, she believed it would be pity that made her called out to him. "Yo, Neil!"

Even with her one eye, she knew Neil's customers turned to glare at her when they heard her voice. However, what she didn't see—figuratively—was the animal dealer finally leaving his counter to walk over to where she was.

"What's your business? If—"

"—you are here just to look around, feel free to walk away," Reine continued seamlessly. "It's so easy to memorize that line."

Neil rolled his eyes. "I don't have much time."

Reine took the lunch box and offered it to him, much to the surprise of both Neil and Gwen. "I'm feeling nice, so I'll let you take my share of the vegetable roll."

"Reine!" Gwen pouted. "You're just—"

Neil opened his mouth at the same time. "I'm not hung—" he was interrupted, not so gracefully, by the loud rumbling sound of his stomach. Gwen turned with her jaw slightly open at Neil while Reine smiled smugly at the blond. "Not hungry, eh?"

"You don't seem to be the type who would go on diet."

Reine rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, will I give you vegetable rolls if I'm ever on diet?" she quipped. "I'm not a big fan of veggie rolls, so it's a win-win deal for both of us."

Gwen grumbled under her breath; Reine always had a way to not eat the vegetable rolls. However, she didn't feel comfortable letting Neil go without any food now that she knew he was starving.

But, no, she wouldn't let Reine off the hook not so easily this time.

So, Gwen put on her best smile and told Neil: "You can take the rolled egg, too—all of it, actually."

Reine glared at Gwen—how could she?! —but the words said couldn't be unsaid. Gwen smirked back at Reine.

Neil took a vegetable roll and bit it. He then turned around and walked back to his counter without saying anything else—not that Reine expected anything from him, anyway (don't get her wrong, she still disliked him badly, but not bad enough to let him go on starving).

Reine heard him sighing in-between the munching.

But she didn't see the smile that began to bloom on his lips.

His body felt warm as a new surge of strength ran through its veins. Allen could feel his cheeks became hotter and the color of his skin brightened up. Yes, his body temperature would be closer to humans now, although it would never quite reach that point ever again. Allen straightened his back and saw at what he had left: a dried piece of carcass.

Poor bear… but he had no choice.

It had been some time since he… followed his more natural instincts. He had trained hard to satiate himself with human food and found that he quite liked it. It made his nose became way more sensitive to blood—now, he could roughly guess one's species from the smell of his or her blood—and it worked to his advantage up until now. However, he had decided that he had to tame his nose quite a bit.

Allen ran a thumb over the trail of blood on his chin and licked it.

He wondered what Neil would do once he learned about this.

The shortest way into a man's heart is through his stomach...

Will that be the case this time, too?

A/N: No, Tailor of Our Hearts, I won't go all Twilight although our beloved self-aggrandizing redhead is a vampire.