They finished the walk to town in silence. Surprisingly, Ellie didn't feel pressured to speak, which was new for her. She was accustomed to being around people who felt they had to fill the silence with conversation, that there was no point to being around others without talking. Not Kaz, though. He seemed content to walk together and keep to his own thoughts, which was fine with Ellie. She had things to stew over, too.

Mostly, she stewed over the idea that the Sight was a lonely gift to have. That conversation played in her mind over and over again, each time a little more vivid than the last.

Ellie had never thought of it as lonely, not really. The Sight guaranteed that she, more often than not, always had someone or something around her, so she'd found it almost stifling as a child. It was part of the reason she enjoyed living out in the woods, too. There were spirits out here, yes, but less human ghosts asking for attention or favors or closure. She could only do so much as one person.

Now that he mentioned it, though... Ellie had to admit that there was something to it. There was something to being the only person who could see these things, some kind of pain in understanding that you could see a part of the world that most other people missed. 

There weren't many spirits in town like there were in the woods, though. As the dirt road turned to concrete, electrical power lines strung from pole to pole came into view. Sidewalks appeared around the packed dirt and gravel road. The buildings that lined King Street were sturdy and brick, some with large glass storefronts and others with smaller windows. The entirety of the downtown district was no more than one mile on this one street, but it was more than enough for Ellie. She never liked cities. A mile's worth of a shopping district was as much as she wanted.

"Welcome to downtown Boone," Ellie said with a smile. "We've got a few stops to make. Don't mind if people look at ya a little funny. It's probably me."

Hopefully there wouldn't be too many people around today. It was a long walk to town, but they'd left not long after sunrise. Most places would be busier in the afternoon, when their errands should be finished.

"We're heading to the bakery first, then we'll stop by the Sheriff's office and pop into Mast before we head back."

"Mast?" He frowned. "Like a ship?"

"General store," Ellie said, adjusting her bag. "They've got about everything you'd need, plus a few more things. Not the friendliest of the locals, but they're polite enough if you're paying, and there's not many places to pick from to shop."

King Street had almost everything you might need, but Ellie knew well enough not to linger long. Not everyone was friendly to witches, and even those friendly to most witches were not always friendly to her. There weren't many people out today, so with luck, she wouldn't have to explain to Kaz why people actively avoided her on the streets. However, it was emotionally exhausting to stay out shopping for too long.

Thus, Ellie marched down the street, almost clear to the opposite end. She went past the post office, past the general store, and entirely ignored the meat market in favor of going directly towards the town bakery. The sign on the large glass window read "Jones Bakery" in a beautiful script, with advertisements for cakes, breads, and more painted underneath.

"Emmaline!" Ellie called, the bell dinging as she pushed open the door to the bakery. "Y'all back there?!"

"Ellie!"

A blur with blonde hair shot out of the bakery's back room, launching at Ellie and almost knocking her over with a bear hug. She was short and just a little plump with round cheeks and a kind smile, and Ellie hugged her back just as tightly. Emmaline Jones was one of the kindest souls in town. She and her husband owned the bakery, and they'd always been good to anyone who walked in their shop.

"Hi, Ellie," a masculine voice called cheerfully before a large man stepped out from the back, his dark blue apron covered in flour. "Good to see you."

"Good to see you, too, Tom," Ellie said with a wide smile.

"Oooooo, did you bring a goodie basket for me?" Emmaline asked, eyeing the canvas bag slung over Ellie's shoulder as she finally released her hold.

"Yeah, I guess, if you count a sack full of medicine as a goodie bag," she said, laughing as she put the bag up on the counter, contents clinking slightly. The rucksack was full of medicines and herbs, freshly brewed, bottled, and bagged.

"You know I do!" she said excitedly, clapping her hands together. Before reaching into the bag, though, she paused and turned to Kaz. "Who's this?"

"He's. Um. He's my..."

"Fiancé," Kaz supplied.

Ellie fought not to glare, but even around Emmaline it was best to keep their cover. She was a trusted friend, but she tended to let things slip out of her mouth when she wasn't thinking, and even a small detail that contradicted their story could be dangerous.

Emmaline raised an eyebrow, turning towards a wincing Ellie with her hands on her hips.

"Are you being blackmailed?"

"No."

"Are you sure?" she asked, eyes narrowing.

"Yeah," Ellie groaned.

"Did Jeannie finally win that ongoing argument?"

"Definitely not," she scoffed. "Let's just say Kaz is still... leaning the right human terms for things. Relationships included," she offered. Hopefully that would suffice as a compromise.

"Oh, you're an Other," Emmaline said, nodding as though that was the only explanation she needed.

"Are there many in town?" Kaz asked.

"Like you? A few here and there, yeah. Boone doesn't require papers from anybody who moves in, so as long as nobody's causing trouble, Others go in and out of town as much as they want." She gestured broadly as she spoke, talking as much with her hands as her mouth, blonde curls bobbing as she tilted her head from one side to the other.

"Generally folks don't like it when we ask, so... we don't. I don't blame 'em for being twitchy when humans outnumber Others five to one, and more in areas like this." Tom shrugged. "Sometimes you can tell by the way someone looks."

"Like me," Ellie muttered.

Kaz paused for a moment, giving her a strange look. "And... me," he said slowly, pulling off the knit hat to reveal his short, curved obsidian horns.

"That'd do it, yeah," Emmaline said with a sigh. "Dragon traits aren't too common, though, so don't be surprised if you get some stares. Sorry 'bout that in advance."

"Demon," Kaz supplied, casually slipping his hat back on his head.

"What's that?" Tom asked, moving behind the counter to wrap up a few loaves of bread.

"I'm a demon, not a dragon," he said simply.

Emmaline's eyes went wide.

Ellie glared. "What was rule number one of the ground rules?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"I was trying to be supportive!" he said helplessly. "And I couldn't let them think I'm a dragon shifter."

Ellie's expression softened, but only slightly. "I appreciate the support, I do," she said, patting his shoulder. "If I could hide my hair and get around explaining anything at all, though, I would."

"L—listen, she's right," Emmaline said quietly. "Don't go sayin' that in town. I trust Ellie, we both do, so if she says you're safe to be around, that's fine. But you're deep in the Bible belt right now, and folks won't hesitate to judge you as harshly as they can."

"Isn't the whole thing supposed to be forgiveness?" Kaz muttered, brow furrowed. "What have I ever done to them?"

"Keep asking that. It's a damn good question," Ellie scoffed.

­­As she and Kaz­ spoke quietly, Emmaline slipped behind the counter, pulled something out from a hidden shelf, and bustled back over to them.

"Here's your cut from the last delivery," Emmaline said, extending a thick envelope towards Ellie. "Tom, honey, you got her bread order?"

The tall man nodded from behind the counter as he held up a large paper bag. Ellie couldn't help but smile a little as she took the envelope from Emmaline, but when she looked inside her eyes went wide.

"Are you sure you're makin' profit off any of these medicines? This seems like way too much..." Ellie said, eyebrow raised as she carefully counted the bills.

"Oh, trust me, we are. You just don't set your prices high enough, so I corrected it for you," she said with an overly innocent smile. "I can't keep your stuff on the shelves. The folks at Mast keep askin' where I get it, but I've kept it quiet like you wanted."

"I'm flattered," she said, shaking her head. "I'm just glad for the extra income. Thank you, really."

"Ellie, you know I'm serious," Emmeline said softly. "This stuff will sell out in a day as soon as word gets out it's in stock. You could make a living doing this, and a good one."

"I'd like to," Ellie said softly. "But you know Jeannie. I need to have Council approval for a business up in our area, and they won't give it to me. Even selling outside the village through you is a bit of a stretch. For now I'm stuck where I am, just helpin' with the gardens and the odd jobs."

"Then move out!" Emmaline huffed, throwing her arms up dramatically.

"And stay where, honey? I love you, but you've got two littles and a husband at home, and you don't need another body in that house."

"We'd make it work," Thomas insisted. "I still say you saved our little girl's life when you treated her flu a few years back. We owe you."

"You don't owe me a damn thing and you know it," Ellie sighed. "There's no way I'd let a little youngin' slip by me who needed help. Y'all were just some of the few who let me help ya."

"Still, she made it through. A lot of other folks weren't that lucky. You don't just forget help like that."

"I haven't once felt forgotten around y'all," Ellie said softly. "You're good folks. I'm just glad to have people I trust in town."

"Just... think about it. Please?"

"I'll think about it." She said that every time. And she did think about it, more than she'd like to admit. However, the possibility was so low of it ever happening that she didn't want to entertain it most days. Maybe if things had worked out with Ben. Maybe if she'd been able to really move out and get away, even just a short ways away...

But that was a bygone dream.

Ellie tucked the envelope in an inside pocket in her coat, bid her goodbyes to Emmaline and Thomas, and ushered Kaz out of the bakery. She turned left down the street to head towards the general store and the Sheriff's office with him on her heels, but her mind was somewhere else.

She wasn't entirely sure what made Kaz jump from "together" to fiancé, but maybe it really was a cultural difference. Either way, it felt oddly uncomfortable, like a sock that slid down in your boot too far. Not so terrible it's impossible to walk, but a damn annoyance all the same.

Together was one thing. Engaged was another, and that would be a separate conversation to have back at the house.

"'The Council won't let you?'" Kaz repeated. Lost in her thoughts, Ellie almost missed that he spoke at all.

"Huh? Oh," Ellie said, shaking her head as if to clear it. "How much do you know about witch communities and how they're organized?"

"Some," he said, waving his hand vaguely. "I know there's some sense of overall organization for the purposes of protecting registered witches and witch settlements."

"That's the gist, yeah. Each village has a lead witch, and then villages register with the appropriate Council so everyone can kinda... keep track of each other. Keep each other safe. Well... on the good days."

"What happens on bad days?" 

"Don't get me wrong, I ain't never seen two witch communities fight. There's too few of us not to at least make an attempt at a united front," she said slowly. "But there's definitely a kind of... internal competition, if you will."

"Wanting to be the biggest and best, I assume. Demon communities aren't terribly far off from that in some circles."

"Sort of. Think about as which ones are more powerful," Ellie explained. "Size helps. Sheer numbers can only get ya so far if you're a community of weak witches, though. That's part of why they don't like me much," she said quietly.

"You... I'm sorry, you successfully conjured a demon and they think you're weak?!"

"Keep it down!" Ellie hissed, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone appeared alarmed. Very few people were out on the street, thankfully, and no one was within an earshot, but that could have gone bad very quickly.

"Conjuring takes an immense amount of energy. I know enough to have seen it knock witches unconscious by the time I arrived to answer the call," Kaz scoffed. "Not to mention that the ash blend used is incredibly complex and includes some dangerous components."

"I did fuck up the sacrifice, to be completely fair," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Not really," Kaz said, shrugging. "You caught my attention. I think it worked."

A slow flush crept over Ellie's cheeks as he looked down at her, gaze locked on her face. Something about the way the light made his sharp cheekbones stand out, something about the gold flash in his eyes made her stomach twist in a way she hadn't felt in a long time.

And she cleared her throat, and shoved that twisting feeling deep, deep down.

"A— anyway, I'm kinda the family black sheep. I'm good with medicines, but I can't do much in the way of power display."

"You talk to spirits," Kaz insisted incredulously.

"They want me to be able to conjure fire, control water, make plants spontaneously grow, talk to animals, or anything else flashy that you can think of," she snorted. "Hell, they might even like it if I used the Sight for seances, but I won't. The dead deserve more respect than being called on for cheap tricks."

"No rabbits out of top hats for you?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I am horrible at slight-of-hand tricks. Real spells are fine, though." She moved the canvas sack to the other shoulder as they walked, boot heels clicking on the brick sidewalks. "Any witch can do spells if they've got the energy reserves, the time, and the patience. That's not too hard."

"Can anyone in your village do the... flashy things?" Kaz fluttered his fingers vaguely.

"Jeannie can, a little. She's good with fire. Her divination is pretty shit, though, and she can't concentrate on writing a spell for more than two minutes at a time." Ellie's nose scrunched as she frowned.

"Tell me what you really think, please!" Kaz laughed, a genuine smile on his face.

"I can't a say a whole lot," Ellie said, smiling despite herself. "She's been a good aunt. Had her share of hard knocks, too, like everybody."

"Even Alice?" He elbowed her in the side gently.

"Oh, somebody's got jokes, I get it," Ellie snorted, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, even Alice, in a way. She has a bunch of siblings and she's used to being... a little overlooked at home, I think. Might be why she tries so hard to draw attention to herself."

"That's awfully generous, considering you called her a special brand of bitch earlier," Kaz said, rolling his eyes. Ellie had to admit that he had a point, but that was just the way things worked out here.

"Just because I don't like her don't mean I can't understand her a little," she said with a shrug. "She ain't exactly a friend, but she's part of the village, and if we don't take care of each other, no one else will. It's complicated."

When you only had each other to depend on, whether you liked someone and whether you trusted them not to fuck you over were different things. Even though some days she didn't want to trust Alice, in an emergency, they had each other's backs.

"I get it. I do." Kaz shoved his hands in his jacket pockets as they walked. "I've seen communities of Others do the same thing. They put aside their differences for the sake of survival, though they generally aren't as organized as the witch system."

"Why aren't you living in one of those, then?"

"Let's just say it never felt right."

"Okay," Ellie said, nodding. "I can understand that."

They continued their walk towards the general store in silence, the same comfortable silence as the walk to town. It occurred to Ellie that perhaps it should be an awkward or oppressive silence, but she didn't feel that way at all. She felt welcome to be silent, to understand she wasn't obligated to bare her soul if she didn't want to. It was oddly comforting, and she'd take any comfort she could get right now.