There are booths for everything- there's fresh herbs, various rare eggs, fruits, cheeses... Clothing for all sizes and body types, pottery... Creature Cuddles, a magic petting zoo... And lotion potions!! Ooh, they have some testers. The clerk is busy making sales... Might as well help myself!

Tangerine Ring- gives you a Halo... Not when I have to work!

Cinnamon Sin- ooh, it gives you dark swirly patterns! I roll up my sleeve, and put a little bit on. It looks like a lacy net of vines...

Morning Glow sounds cool! I put a dab on my arm other... it starts to shimmer and glow faintly, like there's flecks of gold under my skin. I could get used to this!

I try on a couple more, and the scents or patterns don't particularly mix, but oh well... I pull my sleeves over my patchwork arms as the clerk comes over.

"Can I help you?" She asks cheerfully, "did you like the samples?"

"Yeah! They're great. Just out of curiosity... How long do these last?" I ask, turning around a bottle of Morning Glow, looking for a price.

"They last 6-8 hours, there are Magical and Non-Magical variants available as well."

Oh. Maybe I should've tried the non-magical ones... I think to myself, as I find the price... Eep! It's not cheap, I'm definitely not their demographic.

"I think I'm okay for today, but thank you!"

~~~~~~~~

I still have another 20 minutes... I continue meandering through the sea of denizens. There's one person standing still, with a few people ooh-ing and ahh-ing around them, colorful wisps dancing around like fireworks.

I sneak up behind to check out the action... Oh my Elementals! It's beautiful.

There's an Impressionist recreating the scene into one of those moving paintings you see in mansions... I didn't know people could still do that!

I'm mesmerized, and after a few minutes he turns around, "Hey there!"

Caught off guard, I blubber out, "H-hey! That's amazing- your Impression, it's practically alive."

"Haha! Thanks. Try waving at it." he says, and I walk over and look more closely, waving slightly. One of the figures, just a couple abstract brush strokes, comes up and waves back. He's painting the trees as the interaction goes down, they seem to rustle when his brush hits the canopy.

I laugh, "That's incredible!!! Do you show somewhere?"

Before I finish my sentence, he reaches down for a pamphlet-map, "Yep! Come check out my gallery later! They look best in person."

The Impressions on the sheet are stagnant, yet breathtakingly beautiful. Mountains and caverns, places that look out of this world... My sense of time comes back, realizing I can still make it to work on time if I leave immediately.

"Thank you!! I'll see you later!" I say.

"Have a good one!", he waves back, still focused on the canvas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Work whizzes by, and I count down the hours by checking to see if the potion patterns have faded... Some going at different rates than others. All day I doodle, speeding up the time. I wonder how the heck the painting moved like that... It's pure magic.

Before long my arms are bare and the sky is dark... Work ends, and only a handful of shops remain open, I hope the gallery is one of them. With the sun, so go the customers.

I pull open the map. The waxing moon is bright and, and street lights line the modest streets like Will-o-wisps guiding us any-which-way. The crisp Summer breeze seems to come all the way from space, carrying stardust within it's breath. Its cleansing scent tinted with the night-blooming Erebus planted around town. Their dark lace petals shimmer, iridescent as a Morphos' wings.

My feet find a rhythm that carry my spirits in contentment. Its in these quiet, trivial moments that the world seems to sing. Soon I find my goal! Across the street, a light shines forth from the Alchemy Studio Gallery.

Exquisite Impressions and Animates gleam in the windows. The Animates are like moving sculptures, bound to their base but equally alive. One is a fractal flame, morphing fluidly from one state to the next... It seems to have captured all the colors of the sunset at once, showing off its eternal dance. Another is gold like the Harvest Moon, bubbling like lava as it rises, then turns icy blue at the top before floating back down. Joining, separating, and rejoining....

"Woaahh..." I whisper to myself in awe, opening the door, hearing voices chatting merrily in the back.