January by the numbers continues (just a day off~)!
From thnidu‘s prompt “Seven silly sausage sellers swilling snazzy sodas;” a story of… maybe Things Unspoken?.

It had been a good day for Dayuved Yura’s sausage-vending franchise. The central square and the park that ran two blocks south of it had been packed with people; the road in between had been busy with people hurrying back and forth between the two places; the bicycle-taxi peddlers were hungry, too, and snatching sausages in their brief breaks between customers – sometimes, they even stopped with a cab full of people, often meaning the passengers all bought sausages, too.

(Bicycle-taxi peddlers always got a discount at Dayuved Yura’s places, and in these situations, his sellers were instructed to quietly refund the peddler the full price of their sausage under the cover of “giving change,” as long as the passengers bought at least two meals. It kept the peddlers coming to Dayuved’s cards, and not to someone else’s inferior meat-in-a-bun wagons.

Now that the sun had set and the nighttime shift had taken over, Dayuved and his six daytime workers gathered ad Amincob Kote’s soda stand to marvel over the day.

“That dancer-” Dayuved started. “Did you see those feathers?“

“Those marchers, with the twirling sticks,” put in his second-in-command. They had the best places in the central square, but today, everyone had been in a good place.

“The heralds,” murmured the most junior seller. “They blew those horns, and it was like everyone was on strings.”

“The woman,” an old man on his fourth job whispered. “She was…”

“Yeah,” everyone murmured. There was little else that needed to be said. But someone, the quiet one, managed anyway.

“Her companions… so shiny. So tall.”

“Who was she?” breathed one of the young ones. But all the old ones shook their heads.

“She sold sausages for us. She made smiles on their faces. She went to the place on the hill. That’s all we know, that’s all we ask.”

“But that’s… that’s silly,” complained the young one again. And the old ones just smiled and sipped their sodas.

“Silly, son, keeps the gold in the cash-box and keeps our heads on our necks. Silly sells sausages.”

“Silly sells sausages,” they all agreed, leaving the young ones feeling that “silly” was some sort of cynical cipher for sensible.

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