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Spinning her finger in a circle, Eda gave a large smile at her partner when her stand magically set up on its own.
“I told you it’d be easy,” she gloated, waving her hand at the stand. Raine just smiled at her and nodded.
“You’re right, you’re always right,” they admitted with a friendly eye roll, looking over the stand. “It looks pretty good. But I did notice one little problem.”
“Oh?” she asked, moving to stand behind the stand and put some more items on it. “And what’s that?”
“We don’t know what half these things are , let alone what they do.”
“Ahh, but our customers don’t know what any of these things are, or what they do,” Eda pointed out with a smirk.
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this…” Raine questioned, concern on their face.
“We do what I do best - we trick ‘em.” Eda shrugged her shoulders and picked up an item at random. “Like this, a bowl with holes in it. Could be a perfectly fashionable hat in the human world.”
“Eda…”
“Don’t ‘Eda’ me,” she argued. “We have to make money somehow and no one’s going to want this junk if they think it’s just junk .”
“You literally call this your human junk stand,” Raine pointed out.
“Semantics,” Eda waved them away. “This is gonna go great, don’t you worry!”
“I’m not worried about the stand, I’m worried we’re going to get caught, standing in one space.”
“Eh, we get caught, we just have to run. That’s why the stand folds up so quickly. See, I thought ahead.”
Raine just shook their head and sighed. “There’s no winning with you, and I’ve got no better ideas, so let’s do it.”
“Woo! You won’t regret this Raine!” Eda cheered.
Raine regretted this.
There were so many people coming and going, some taking a few moments to stare at them in their cloak, suspicious of the fact that they were trying to hide their face, but they really didn’t feel safe being seen. The town thought that they were dead and they wanted to keep it that way, dammit.
Fiddlesticks chittered in their ear, trying to get them to calm down and relax, but a coven guard had just walked by a row over, so there was no way that was happening. Oh TItan this was stressful. But looking over at their partner, it looked like she was having the time of her life. Currently she was trying to sell off some rectangle with a bunch of buttons on it - they were too far to tell what Eda was telling the customer, but they seemed to be buying it.
At least they were making some money. Raine honestly wasn’t sure if this would work. Sure, most people walked by the stall with a shake of their head, or totally ignored them, but the people who were interested were very interested. And Raine had to give it to Eda, she was a good saleswitch.
“And for only another 20 snails, I can add in this beloved statue of a human hero of legend,” Eda was saying, holding out a kid’s action figure. Raine shook their head, heading into the tent for some peace and quiet. Or at least for some space from all the people roaming the market.
Raine had never realized how big the market was on market days. Their mothers usually were the ones to go when they lived at home, and now, they had to go early or late in the day when the market was quietest to avoid being seen. Though based on what they’ve been seeing, they doubted anyone would even notice them in the crowd if they went at the busier times.
They sat on a crate Eda had filled with human fireworks, and put their head in their hands. They were just… a little overwhelmed. They’d really become a bit of a hermit over the past year or so, preferring to stay out of the eye of the public. Eda often picked on them for it, but they’d never realized just how right she was until today.
After a few minutes of trying to calm themselves to the sounds still fluttering in through the tent flaps, Eda came in.
“You doing okay there, Rainestorm?” Eda asked, placing a hand on their shoulder.
“It’s just a bit… much,” they answered, looking at her with a pained smile. “But I’ll be fine.”
“You can go home if you want, you know. I appreciate you coming out at all.”
“No, no, I said I’d be here for you. I should be helping out, not just sitting on my butt. Just… give me a minute.”
“Take all the time you need,” she offered, frowning. “But really, if it gets to be too much, you and Fidds should just head home. Owlbert and I can take care of it.”
“I’m fine, I promise,” Raine smiled, already feeling a bit better just from being out of the crowd for a few minutes.
After Eda left again, they took a few deep breaths before following her out. The crowd was still fairly large, but had definitely teetered down while they’d been hiding… or, er, checking stock. Yep, that’s what they were doing. One-hundred percent.
Seeing Eda dealing with a customer, Raine just stood by the stand, unsure of what to do to help. They picked up a few items that had fallen off the stand and stacked them more carefully, only for Eda to reach over and haphazardly grab something from their pile. They could be upset, but this was expected with Eda’s chaotic mind. They just fixed the stack again.
Eda seemed to be in her natural environment, conning people. Most witches might be turned away from that thought, but Raine just smiled a dopey smile at their girlfriend. Titan, she was perfect.
“Not a bad day,” Eda was saying as she checked her sack of snails. “Much better than doing odd favors, that’s for sure. And way less work!”
“I feel like I just stood here,” Raine admitted, having let Eda deal with all the customers.
“You were eye candy, it was perfect.”
“I’m pretty sure most people thought I was going to kill them,” Raine said with a wince. “They looked pretty intimidated.”
“It’s probably the dark cloak of mystery you insist on keeping over your head,” Eda replied, knocking the hood down and unveiling their face. The two laughed as Eda began moving things in the tent so they could pack up and go.
“This is the stand!” they heard someone call. Raine put their hood back up before peaking out to check.
“Shit! It’s the emperor’s coven,” Raine swore, warning Eda. Eda snapped her fingers and the two hopped out of the tent, the tent folding up into a nifty little sack, the stand folding into it.
“Let’s book it,” she said, hopping onto Owlbert, while Raine hopped onto Fiddlesticks.
“Aww man,” said the guard as they flew away. “I was hoping they’d have some of those little keychains left. My son would’ve loved one.”
“Well, at least they waited ‘til the end of the day to show up,” Raine said as they landed in front of the Owl House. “I’d say overall you were pretty successful.”
“ We were very successful, Rainestorm,” Eda corrected, poking them in the shoulder. “Couldn’t have done it without my eyecandy.”
“I was almost entirely covered by a cloak,” Raine replied with a straight face.
“And it just gave you a flair of mystery! Now c’mon, momma’s hungry after a hard day’s work.”
The two went inside and began working on dinner side by side. Raine took over most of the actual cooking, while Eda handled the food prep - she preferred the mindless tasks so she could focus on other things.
“I’ve been thinking…” she started.
“Uh-oh.”
“Oh har har. I’ve been thinking, maybe I should start a potions business, too. The human junk is fun, but I’m not sure we’ll really make enough.”
“That’d be good,” Raine said slowly, looking at her. “But I don’t really know much about potions, and I don’t want you to be the only one bringing money in anymore.”
“You pretty much were the only one for a while, let me take over. And in the meantime, I’ll show you how to make some of the easier potions! It’ll be win/win.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Raine frowned. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“You’re not, I’m offering. Besides, maybe I like taking care of you,” Eda smirked. Raine just rolled their eyes and slapped her on the shoulder.
“I’m not calling you mommy,” they deadpanned. Eda blushed and dropped the knife she was using, grabbing a dish towel to hit them with.
“Can you not?” she shouted, causing them to laugh.
“Sorry, sorry, but you left that wide open for me.” Eda just glared at them before going back to work chopping. “Aw, c’mon, I said I was sorry. Eda? Come on!”
As she continued to ignore them, they stopped what they were doing to wrap their arms around her waist, being careful of the fact that she was holding a knife.
“Come on, I know you love me,” Raine muttered near her ear.
“Enough to keep you around, at least,” Eda smirked, leaning back against them.
“Hey, I’ll take what I can get.”
The two stood like that for a moment, rocking gently to music only they could hear, before Raine released her, worried about burning their dinner. They got back to work quietly, and Raine focused on the fact that money was going to be okay, even if they weren’t as involved as they wanted to be. There just wasn’t much a bard could do without being well known.
“We’ll figure it all out,” Eda said, noting her partner’s distress.
“Yeah. Okay.”