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You are Charlotte Fawkins, dashing heroine, detective, adventuress, heiress, sorceress, etcetera. Three years ago, you drowned yourself in a quest to find a long-lost family heirloom; nowadays, you're just nobly c̶a̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g solving problems with the help of trusty retainer Gil and MIA snake/maybe-father Richard. Inexplicably, many people tend to "dislike" you, though you've never done anything wrong in your life.
Right now, you are deep inside a wintry dreamworld created by the friendly-ish local hivemind Us. Having just completed a negotiation with Us, you have set forth to, in some order: locate Gil, identify a mysterious third party, protect your sworn rival Pat from the clutches of the sinister Management, extract all of the above from the dreamworld without causing too much damage, and find and eat a roasted leg of some type of bird. Ever the overachiever, you have already made great progress towards the last of these. Hurrah!
Your method was simple. Being that Claudia had a bird leg in hand already, and it was not much eaten, it must've come from a nearby source. Being that roasting meat smells strongly, particularly when one hasn't eaten meat in months (if not years), it should pose no difficulty to track this source down. And thus it did, and thus it did not, and thus you found yourself in a short line. You justified the wait in this line with the reasons that it was short, and it was warm near the turnspit, and smelled good, and— and also the known and indisputable fact that heroic vigor requires hearty fuel! Yes! You were merely preparing yourself for the trials ahead. Also, you were waiting to see if Gil would come find you. He didn't, yet, but it was a worthy endeavor all the same.
It is true that you did not entirely anticipate the actual process of the purchasing of the bird leg. When you at last came to the head of the line, it took you several moments to notice, enough time for the leg-seller to recognize you. "Hey! Back so soon?"
Huh? What? You never— but Claudia was just here. Damnit. "Uhhh. Indeed."
"Just couldn't stay away, eh? What can I do you for?"
The leg-seller, harshly backlit by the open fire behind him, had a rather sinister aspect— enhanced by the roasted bird-corpses trussed up all around. You wavered. "Um..."
"Goose leg? Same as last time?"
Oh! It was goose? You know about geese. And it was true also that the string of lights around the tent, like tiny yellow glorbs, could be considered charming. "Y- yes. Please. One goose leg. Um, and do you have sauces...?"
Maybe they didn't have sauces 200 years ago. Maybe they were invented recently. Maybe you've just committed a huge dream-shaking error, and it's going to wake up Us again, and you're going to have to explain to it what sauces— "Sure do," said the goose-seller. "You want that with plum, peppercorn, or— lessee— persil?"
Good: Us knew what sauces were. Bad: you didn't know what sauces were, apparently. "Uh... what's the last one?"
(1/3)
