Another summer day had come to greet the people of Era. Manzo included, though he was not a fan of the summer heat, he didn't mind it all that much in comparison to something like the dead of winter, which he hated more than anything. Being hot you could simply deal with, being cold on the other hand made every bone in his body ache. He had always been very vulnerable to the cold, ever since he was a child. Not something he could help or something he could really understand honestly. Though it was pointless to spend to much brain power on something one could not change.

For now he would hit up the shops. Perhaps do some window shopping seeing as there wasn't anything he could think to buy off the top of his head. Perhaps he would find something of interest. Though something interesting was hard to come by in such a cookie cutter city like Era. But there were some parts of this city he hadn't ventured to so perhaps he would satiate his wanderlust by taking the new path. The unfamiliar one, he didn't fancy himself any kind of explorer but that didn't mean he wouldn't try to achieve the same thing as them. See what is rarely seen.

He made his way down an alley he had never turned down before hoping to find something interesting, something that would make today worth it. What he would find was something he could not have ever imagined. It was a sort of antique district, full of old mint conditioned items. This was certainly something new that he didn't expect to find. Perhaps he would find something from his childhood here to spark some warm fuzzy feelings. As he passed by the shop he saw something he couldn't stand more than anything in the world. A puppet shop, what a horrible thing. They cold, lifeless and absolutely terrifying. He would stand there for a minute to see the extent of the horror.

If the conditions that gave way to her appearance at this old shop had persisted for even longer than a day, she suspected herself to have gone mad. It irked her to the bones, drowning any and all sentiments into a frigid cold state that threatened to erupt and fling its vile lashes at anyone that so much as thought to look at Faye the wrong way. It had been two days, fourty-eight hours since she had been robbed of the single most fulfilling part of her life. Faye knew she hadn’t been earning as much as she was spending. Or perhaps the reality was that she had been spending a lot more than she was earning. Stemming from her own obvious inability to manage the expenditure, the ratios over the past few weeks were just not adding up and it now had her taking a drastic step.

Era was a huge, bewitching city that wound its strings around the necks of visitors and urged them to indulge in the fine, exquisite, luxurious things it had to offer. Especially for someone like her who was always in search for only the best materials for her puppets, Era was indeed a tempting punishment she was willing to bear. The only problem was that her pockets protested rather vehemently and sometimes she had to appease it by suffering alongside another friend; hunger. She managed to balance her hobby and life necessities as much as possible. Yet, every time the shimmer of a thread caught her eye, she needed to get it. They are for her beloved puppets, after all, so they are worth it.

And it was all the above conditions that had her standing right in front of this old, dusty shop hidden away from all the splendor of the city and its more polished shops. The outcry of her pockets had grown so big, the companion she thought she didn’t mind was starting to brutally weigh her down that she finally decided she had to cut back and just make do with cheap alternatives. Some of her beloved would just have to bear the pain along with her.

So she pressed her face onto the square glass on the door, resolutely examining everything inside, making a mental checklist of whether it had everything she truly needed. Once it was assured that she would not be completely disappointed, her hands travelled to the knob, ready to jerk it open when her eyes fell on the white haired man looking at the puppet shop with an odd mixture of expressions, none that looked particularly excited. His obvious dislike for the readymade puppets displayed on the shop window made Faye raise an eyebrow. This person had some problems with it?

Armed with both her curiosity and desire to prove whatever notion he had about puppets wrong, Faye made an obviously loud tapping noise with her hand over the wooden frame of the door and called out to him. “Hey! Stop standing there staring at it and come inside. You won’t regret it.” Then without even waiting for a reply she will go inside.

The shop, despite looking old and worn out from the outside, had just the sort of atmosphere she liked inside; dauntingly quiet. In fact, if it was not for the rhythmic movement of his chest, Faye would have completely mistaken the shop owner sitting gravely behind a small counter to be another one of the puppets. “Good day, sir,” she greeted him as if they were old acquaintances.