Dayroad Park, Yorknew City, Sunday Late Afternoon

[that_oldsaying]

Yorknew City was absolutely amazing but a) they were getting kind of broke and b) they'd been there for a few weeks now and were getting kind of b-o-r-e-d.

Alluka flopped on her back and kicked her heels into the lush grass of Dayroad Park, a juice box clutched in one hand, her bunny flopped beside her. "Ringo," she said plaintively, "have you found anything?"

Propping herself up on one elbow, she glowered at her laptop. "Everywhere I look to go, it says restricted! All the most fun tours are the same! And everything else leftover is too expensive!"

Yorknew was great and all but Alluka didn't want to be stuck bored out of her mind for the next few weeks here! And, sure, she could call home and ask her Papas for money but… but they were doing this themselves.

Which was a really, really big step for Alluka.

She didn't want to ruin it.

[For Ringo! And also open for phone calls/texts!]

Comments

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Uuuuugh. Why's everything fun require special permission?" That wasn't really true, but Alluka and Ringo had explored a huge number of the options that didn't already. There wasn't a lot of Summer left, and it would be a huge shame to let it go out with a whimper.

"Same here," Ringo sighed, looking up from her phone. "But I might have found a way to make some quick money, at least? That way we can at least do one of those overpriced tours or something."

[that_oldsaying]

They had done a lot and Alluka had the souvenirs to prove it in their room. Even if half those souvenirs were just pictures since... money.

Alluka was coming to resent not having a lot of money. Money was hard. But what Ringo was saying sounded good.

"Oh?" she rolled over onto her stomach, sipping at her juice. "Something we can do to make money?"

Because a lot of the jobs that other people had... Alluka didn't want to do.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"I think so?" Ringo chewed on her lip, then shifted over closer to Alluka so she could show the other girl her phone. "There's this thing called, um, Heaven's Arena, and you can totally win prizes for participating."

"Technically, it's, like, a fighting thing, but I bet that we could get pretty far with just AirTrek skills."

Well, 'pretty far' in relative terms, at least.

[myownface]

Sparkle was boooooooooooooooored. Bored, and he hadn't bothered going back to the island to work today, since last week his schedule had gotten all hecked up on account of radio squirrels.

And so, while he sat around doing the finishing touches on the embroidery for Iris' coat, he picked up his phone and dialled a number on a whim. Being Iris' minion kind of made him think about his own, and hey, it had been a while, so...

Ring ring, Alluka.

[that_oldsaying]

"Oooh! I've heard of that!" She peered at it excitedly. "Killua went there when he was little! He spent all his prize money on chocolate!"

[that_oldsaying]

Huh? Huh? Oh! That was her phone!

It had been so long!

"Hihihihihi!"

No, she didn't know who it was yet, but she was totally happy to talk at you!

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo turned and wagged her finger at Alluka. "You are not allowed to spend all your prize money on chocolate. We have plans!"

Well, actually, they didn't, but they were going to make them! Once they had money.

[that_oldsaying]

"I wouldn't!" Alluka protested.

Okay, if left to her own devices and bored she totally would.

"We're going to do fun things with that money!"

[myownface]

"Hihihihihihi!"

Look, with a greeting like that, who was Sparkle to not embrace a good thing?

"Alluka!"

[that_oldsaying]

"Sparkle! Sparkle, hi! How're you? What are you doing? Guess where I am!"

This was a great distraction from the news that everything fun was gated off from her and Ringo!

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Would too," Ringo countered with a giggle.

"But we'll both resist the urge to spend it all on food. There are adventures to be had, after all!"

Ringo shifted on the grass, sitting up before looking at her phone again. "Well, want to go check this place out? I mean, if we're going to do it, no point in wasting any time, right?"

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka was sitting up and reaching to close her laptop before--

"No, wait!" she said. "Even if we've got money, we still can't do most of the fun things! We'll just be stuck!"

With lots of money. The horror.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo pouted. "Not totally stuck," she countered, even though she knew it was weak.

Most of the stuff that they hadn't been able to do wasn't because of money. It was about permission.

"I mean, there's some stuff we can do with just money!"

Just not, you know, the best sounding stuff.

[myownface]

"I'm sewing," Sparkle shared, because that was a shorter mouthful than 'embroidering,' mostly. "Soooooo not exciting. Where are you? Are youuuuuu... on an adventure?"

[that_oldsaying]

She finished off her juice box as she thought about that.

"All the best stuff is still going to be locked away," Alluka complained. "I think we should figure that one out first."

They still had some money!

[that_oldsaying]

"I am!" she said happily. "It took Ringo and me forever to get from Whale Island to Yorknew City, but we made it! And Yorknew City's so pretty and fun!"

And boring, but they were working on that.

[myownface]

"Oh yeah? What's the best thing about Yorknew so far?"

He was willing to wait until she came up with something good.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Yeah, you're probably right." Ringo heaved a disappointed sigh. "But I'm boooored." At least Heaven's Arena was something to do."

"But I guess that money won't really let us do the neatest things, huh?"

[that_oldsaying]

"I'm bored too," she sighed, picking up her bunny. "Let's see if we can figure out how to get around the restrictions and then we'll go and book a train to Heaven's Arean, okay?"

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka giggled.

"Me," she decided. "But also the market. They've got this super, duper huge market of everything you could ever imagine someone selling and you have to bid on things and you might not get what you want, but you might! It's a lot of fun!"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Fine." Ringo nodded decisively.

She stood up and stretched her arms upward, trying to relieve some of the tension in her back. "Why can't this all just be easy?"

A quick glance at Alluka. "Do you think we should keep looking on the internet, or maybe we should go find someone to talk to?" Though she didn't know where to start on that second option.

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka considered that.

"We could look online first," she suggested. "And then, since we're going to be at a station anyway, we could ask there too? They'd probably know. I think Lipa Station's closest, but I'm not sure if that one goes to Heaven's Arena..."

She leaned over her laptop, typing for a few moments.

"Ohhhh, no, Ringo, we're going to have to go to Lingon Airport to get to Heaven's Arena. It's not even on this continent!"

[myownface]

"Oooh, like auctions? That sort of thing?"

Sparkle had never actually been to an auction. Unless you counted ebay. He kind of wanted to try, sometime.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"The airport?" Ringo groaned. "Do we even have enough money left to get tickets?" She leaned back down to look over Alluka's shoulder at the laptop screen.

"Well, I guess that means we should definitely figure out how to get around all of these restrictions before we go. Because no point in going just to find out we spent money on plane tickets and can't do anything there either."

[that_oldsaying]

"Not a formal auction," she said, after a moment. "Not where everyone goes and dresses up and it costs lots and lots, though that happens in Yorknew too. But this is just an open air market--a huge one--where everything has tags on it and you write the price you'd pay for it on it and if other people want to pay more than you, they cross off your amount and write their amount and when the time's up whoever has the highest price on the slip gets to buy the item."