The afternoon sun hung heavy over Greymarch's merchant quarter, turning the narrow streets into channels of golden light and deep shadow. The market was alive with noise—vendors calling prices, customers haggling, the clatter of carts over cobblestones, children laughing as they dodged between stalls. The smell of fresh bread mixed with spice vendors' wares, roasting meat from food stands, and the earthy scent of produce piled high in baskets.

  Zairen hated crowds. Too many people, too many essence signatures overlapping, too much stimulation for senses that were already working overtime to process everything. But Lira had insisted they needed supplies, and grocery shopping apparently required a team effort.

  "Stop looking like you're hunting," Lira said, nudging his arm. She carried a woven basket over one shoulder, already half-full of vegetables and a wrapped package of dried meat. "You're in a market, not a dungeon."

  "Sorry." Zairen consciously relaxed his posture, stopped scanning for threats. "Habit."

  "Bad habit." But she smiled as she said it. "Come on. We need bread, cheese, and whatever those spices are that Mira keeps requesting. Something about healing poultices."

  They wove through the crowd, Lira navigating with the ease of someone who'd done this a thousand times. Zairen followed, feeling distinctly out of place. The market was so normal. People living ordinary lives, worrying about ordinary things—whether the bread was fresh, if the merchant was cheating them on weight, whether they had enough coin for dinner.

  He'd almost forgotten what normal looked like.

  "Here." Lira stopped at a bread stand, where a woman with flour-dusted hands was pulling fresh loaves from a stone oven. The smell was incredible—yeast and wheat and warmth. "Two of the round loaves," Lira said. "And the flatbread."

  The merchant wrapped them in cloth. "Three silver."

  "Three? They were two silver last week."

  "Flour prices went up. Guild caravan delays." The woman shrugged. "I don't set the price, just pass it along."

  Lira sighed and paid. As they moved away, she muttered, "Guild caravan delays. That's the third vendor this month using that excuse."

  "Is it true?" Zairen asked.

  "Probably. Doesn't make it less annoying." She led him toward a cheese vendor, where wheels of pale yellow and white were stacked behind a counter. "The trick to market shopping is knowing when you're being cheated versus when prices are actually up. Most people don't bother learning."

  "And you did?"

  "Had to. Grew up poor." She said it matter-of-factly, no shame or pride in the statement. "You learn fast which merchants are honest and which ones see poverty as permission to rob you blind."

  The cheese vendor was an older man with kind eyes and calloused hands. Lira haggled with him briefly—more ritual than serious negotiation—and came away with a wedge of sharp white cheese and a smaller piece of something that smelled pungent even through the wrapping.

  "That one's for Gorath," Lira explained. "He's got weird tastes."

  They continued through the market, gathering items from a mental list Lira seemed to keep perfectly organized. Zairen carried the growing collection of packages, playing the role of pack mule, and found himself relaxing despite the crowd. There was something meditative about the routine—walk, stop, haggle, pay, move on. Simple. Purposeful. Human.

  At a spice vendor's stall, things went wrong.

  "I need silverbark powder and dried moonpetal," Lira said, consulting a scrap of paper Mira had given her.

  The vendor—a thin man with suspicious eyes—pulled out two pouches. "Eight silver for the silverbark, twelve for the moonpetal."

  Lira's expression hardened. "Those prices are insane. Silverbark is five silver at most, moonpetal is eight."

  "Not my prices. That's what they cost."

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  "That's what you're charging. There's a difference."

  The vendor's eyes narrowed. "You calling me a thief?"

  "I'm calling you expensive. There's a difference." Lira's hand didn't move toward her weapons, but her posture shifted slightly—nothing obvious, but Zairen recognized the ready stance of someone prepared for trouble.

  "Then shop elsewhere." The vendor started to put the pouches away.

  "Wait." Zairen stepped forward. "What if we buy both? Bulk discount?"

  The vendor looked at him. "Who're you?"

  "Her colleague. We need both items. Surely buying both is worth something to you."

  Suspicious eyes flickered between them. Then, slowly, the vendor nodded. "Fine. Both for eighteen silver total."

  Still overpriced, but closer to reasonable. Lira paid, her expression sour, and they moved away from the stall.

  "You're terrible at haggling," she said once they were out of earshot.

  "I know. But we got what we needed."

  "At a bad price."

  "At a price we could afford. Isn't that what matters?"

  Lira looked at him for a long moment. Then she laughed—a genuine sound that surprised him. "You're too practical. Where's the fun in that?"

  "Fun?"

  "The verbal sparring. The satisfaction of making a merchant admit they were trying to rob you. The small victory of winning." She shook her head, still smiling. "Shopping isn't just about getting items. It's about the game."

  Zairen considered that. "I don't think I understand games."

  "Clearly." But her tone was warm, not critical. They continued walking, winding through the crowd. "What did you do before joining us? For money, I mean."

  "Dungeon contracts. Solo work, mostly."

  "No team?"

  "Didn't have one."

  Lira was quiet for a moment. "That sounds lonely."

  "It was efficient."

  "Not the same thing." She stopped at a fruit stand, examined apples with the critical eye of someone who knew what to look for. "You know what I think?"

  "What?"

  "I think you've spent so long being efficient that you forgot how to just... exist." She picked three apples, paid without haggling—apparently the price was fair—and handed one to Zairen. "Here. Try actually enjoying something instead of analyzing it."

  He took the apple, bit into it. It was crisp, sweet, with just enough tartness to be interesting. Good. He realized he'd been so focused on function—food as fuel, shopping as task—that he'd stopped noticing quality.

  "It's good," he said.

  "See? That wasn't so hard." Lira bit into her own apple, started walking again. "This is what normal people do, Zairen. They buy apples, they complain about prices, they argue with vendors over three coppers. It's mundane. But it's also... human."

  The word hung between them. Human. Something he was pretending to be while being fundamentally other.

  "Do you—" He stopped, unsure how to phrase the question.

  "Do I what?"

  "Do you ever feel like you're pretending? Like you're performing a role that doesn't quite fit?"

  Lira's expression grew thoughtful. "Everyone feels that way sometimes. We all wear masks, play roles. The merchant pretends his prices are fair. The customer pretends they can't afford to pay. Even I pretend to be more dangerous than I actually am, because that keeps people from testing me." She took another bite of apple. "The question isn't whether you're pretending. It's whether the performance serves a purpose."

  "And if it doesn't?"

  "Then you're just lying to yourself. Which is the worst kind of lie."

  They walked in silence for a while, finishing their apples. The market was starting to thin as afternoon stretched toward evening. Vendors were packing up early sales, preparing for the evening rush. Somewhere a street musician played a fiddle, the melody weaving through conversations.

  "There," Lira said suddenly, pointing.

  Zairen followed her gaze and saw a man across the market—tall, maybe mid-twenties, with dark hair and the bearing of someone who'd trained extensively in combat. He wore a sword at his hip and moved through the crowd with the confidence of someone who expected people to move aside.

  "Who is he?"

  "Fenris Blackwood. Tournament favorite." Lira watched him disappear into the crowd. "Earth mage, B-rank combat specialist, trained at the military academy. If the rumors are true, he's being groomed for S-rank."

  Zairen catalogued the information automatically. "He'll be in the tournament."

  "Obviously. And if you draw him as an opponent, you'll lose. He's three ranks above you in real terms." She looked at Zairen. "Which means you'll need to be smart about bracket positioning. If you can avoid him until later rounds, you'll have a better shot at placing well overall."

  "And if I can't avoid him?"

  "Then you lose gracefully and hope it doesn't hurt too badly." She said it pragmatically, like discussing weather. "Fighting above your weight class is suicide unless you've got tricks they haven't seen. And given how much you're hiding... I'm guessing you want to avoid showing tricks."

  "Correct."

  Lira nodded, started walking again. They finished their shopping in comfortable silence, gathering the last few items on Mira's list. By the time they headed back toward the tavern, the sun was low, casting everything in orange and gold.

  "Thanks," Zairen said as they walked.

  "For what?"

  "This. The market. The apple. Reminding me what normal feels like."

  Lira smiled—smaller this time, almost sad. "That's what teams are for, Zairen. We remind each other we're human, even when the world makes it easy to forget."

  If only she knew how literally he needed that reminder.

  They walked back together, carrying packages of bread and cheese and spices, just two people among hundreds making their way home as the day ended. For a little while, Zairen let himself believe the performance. Let himself feel almost human.

  It didn't last. It never did.

  But for those few hours, walking through the market with Lira, eating an apple and complaining about prices—for that brief window, he remembered what he was fighting to protect.

  The chance to be normal. Even if he never truly could be.