"If the universe does not recognize us as observers, then it will associate us with gods."
Spoken by Professor Julian Dipere in a televised interview. Shortly afterwards, he went into hiding and has not been seen since.
The girl had placed her leather booted feet up on the counter, idly reading a magazine while she waited for her next customer. She appeared nineteen years old at the most, her blonde hair framing her slightly freckled face and bright blue eyes in an endearing fashion, and wore a simple black vest over a bright orange button-down with the sleeves rolled halfway up her forearm.
The name she would give, should anyone be inclined to ask, was Jackie Fierro.
She glanced over her magazine, inspecting her wares without moving the rest of her body. Business had been good that day, and the two days before that had also been…satisfactory, to say the least. Four hundred and twelve customers had come to her booth during the convention, netting her a nice $4,352 profit from her venue so far. She might have sold more items if she hadn’t instated a ‘one item per customer’ rule on her wares, but she had more than satisfied with her business to that point.
One guy had found a loophole to her rule of ‘one item per customer’ by having the baby slung to his chest hand her the money, claiming that his little brother was a separate customer. She had been amused by that trick, she had to admit, and she gave the little guy the Star Rod rattle and a hand-written ticket.
Okay, it was mostly because that baby’s puffy pink outfit was too adorable for her to resist.
Smiling at the memory, she peered over her magazine again. There was a girl standing in her booth, looking at the very last item she had for sale. The price tag, much like the ones everything else in her booth had on them, read ‘$11’ in simple but eye-catching script.
“See anything you like?” Jackie said with a straight face.
The girl looked cute when she was excited, Jackie gave her that. Her long, black leather coat was trembling over the awestruck form of the black-haired girl underneath, who seemed on the verge of hyperventilating. The customer’s big blue eyes darted between the item, the price tag, and Jackie herself several times.
Jackie put down her magazine. “Do you want me to give you a paper bag? You look like you’re about to make like Team Rocket and go blasting off or something.” She took her feet off the desk for a moment, reorienting herself so she could reach down to rummage through her personal things. “I think I’ve got one of those somewhere around here…”
Clunk.
Jackie looked up over the counter to see the last item resting on its surface.
“Is this really being sold for eleven dollars?” the girl standing on the other side of the counter asked.
Jackie looked up at the girl. “You did read the price tag, right?”
“Yes, but there’s no way –”
“ – anything so awesome in this booth could be priced eleven dollars?” Jackie finished for her. “I’ve gotten that a lot over the past few days.” Jackie then introduced herself to the girl.
The girl blinked. “Wait a minute. Jackie Fierro? Like the pawnshop owner from that podcast?”
Jackie grinned. “Oh, so you did get the reference.” She put her boots back up on the counter and leaned back. “What else comes to mind when you think of that name?”
The girl noted a bowl of water on the top of a chest-height wooden table, one just wide enough to accommodate the bowl. She went over to it, took off her gloves, and washed her hands in it. She muttered something under her breath as she washed, and when she was done she dried her hands on a nearby towel before replacing her gloves.
Jackie smiled broadly at the girl as she walked back over to the counter. “Nice to see you took the time to read the book, too,” she said.
The girl smiled back, sheepishly. “It was actually how I got into the podcast,” she admitted.
Jackie nodded. “Nothing wrong with that,” she said with that smile on her face. “Nice to see you’ve got good tastes. Now we’re ready to do business.”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. “So it’s eleven dollars for the Keyblade?”
Jackie nodded again. “You know it, girl.” She before she took the girl’s money, she asked for her name. The girl said that her name was “Nicole Mosley.” Jackie said it was a nice name.
“By the way, Nicole,” Jackie said as she reached down into her personal things. “What else do you remember about Night Vale’s pawnshop?”
Nicole put a hand to her chin. “…hmm. Oh yeah. Don’t people who sell their items die for a few minutes while Jackie writes them their ticket?”
Jackie smiled, and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. “Oh good,” she said. She was wearing something Nicole hadn’t seen her wearing before, a red leather glove that hugged her right hand like a second skin. She was using that hand to hold the pen, which was starting to write out her ticket. “Then this next bit shouldn’t come as a shock.”