[Adelie]

It had struck her as ridiculous when she'd first heard of it, but at the same time, it had her intrigued. Who'd have ever thought of holding a convention in an active volcano? Who would even dare to attend?

Apparently, a lot of people. When the announcement first came out, it had been the talk of social media - people thought it a hoax or a publicity stunt and eagerly shared the post to commemorate the sheer absurdity of the idea. But all publicity is good publicity, as they said, and as more major community figures announced their intent to attend, it became very clear - this was going to happen, and it was going to happen in style.

[Adelie]

She had held out for a while. Tickets were expensive and transportation to such a remote location even more so; while she usually recouped her convention costs by selling merchandise and art there, she wasn't sure what the market would be like in a completely new setting. Most of her customers were Elysium players - if none of them attended, she could very well go home empty-handed.

But when she heard her favorite band would be doing an impromptu concert there her heart was set. Not just a concert - they'd announced a fan meet-and-greet afterwards, and they hadn't had one of those in literal years.

The volcano could freeze over before she'd pass up the opportunity to see her idols in person.

[Adelie]

And right now, she was definitely wishing the volcano would do just that.

In all her excitement about the attendees and the sheer audacity of this production, she'd forgotten that volcanoes were also very, very hot. Sitting in full cosplay at her table, she felt on the verge of both melting into a puddle and spontaneously combusting.

Hubris. Pride in her work had been her downfall - she had wanted to show off all the elaborate embroidery and details she'd spent so much time on, and now she was drowning in stifling layers of brocade and taffeta while her makeup practically melted from her sweat.

[Adelie]

Thinking about this, she accidentally caught the eye of the girl sitting across from her - a girl who was cosplaying the exact same character she was, but who had had the foresight to use her summer alternate outfit.

Now one of them was laying back comfortably in a two-piece bikini, a light summer shawl wrapped around her shoulders, while the other was sweating literal buckets in a full corset and layered skirts. The best part of this was - she had considered doing the summer alt herself, but dismissed it because it would be too revealing.

And now she was seriously considering stripping down to bra and underwear just to get some cool air on her body. Revealing skin was the least of her worries right now.

[Adelie]

Thankfully, her seething - and occasional glares towards the girl at the other table - was interrupted by a young woman pausing at her table.

The woman skimmed over the charms she had carefully arranged, then turned to the prints she had behind her - and then her eyes lit up in recognition. "Are you Japana - er, Japona - "

"Japonaiserie," she supplied. "Yep, that's me - bit of a mouthful, I know."

The woman winced a bit. "Wow, I was way off."

"It's French," she explained. Honestly, she wished her fourteen-year-old self hadn't decided to pretend elegance and pick some complex French term for her online handle; now it had stuck as her 'brand' and she had to watch people stumble over it every time they spoke. "Don't worry about it - I don't get it right the first try some days."

[Adelie]

"Anyways!" she said, brightening up. Awkward conversations didn't lead to sales, after all. "Charms are $7, stickers are $5 a pack, and if you're looking for something specific, just ask me - I've got some leftovers from previous cons I don't have out right now, and I'm doing on-site commissions as well."

"Hmm," the woman mused, in that non-committal way that usually indicated she wasn't interested in anything at all. It was hard to get a read on her and what she was interested in - all she'd shown was she recognized the username, and she didn't hover on a specific character like a lot of her customers did. "You said you did live commissions, right? What do you need for that?"

[Adelie]

Now there was a subject she could talk about. "Yep!" she said, shuffling through her folders until she found the one she was looking for. Flipping it over, she revealed a set of photos showing her posing with various drawings. "These are some examples I did at Jawan Design Fest earlier this year. I'm pretty flexible with what I can draw, but if it's an original character it's best if you can provide reference images."

That non-committal hmm again. "I'm not sure if I have reference images."

"I can work off descriptions if they're detailed, but it might not match exactly what you have in mind," she offered. People invariably missed details in their descriptions, or even occasionally said the wrong things. "It usually takes me two or three hours to finish a commission, so you're welcome to stick around or check in on its progress and clarify any problems that come up."

[Adelie]

Man, this girl was taking forever to decide. She hated people like that - they'd stick around, ask a bunch of questions, baiting you into thinking they were interested, and then decide they didn't want anything at all. Trying to hurry the process along, she prompted, "So, what were you interested in getting art of?"

"Um," the young woman said. Was she going to have to drag an answer out of her? Just when she thought she wasn't going to get an answer at all, the woman continued, "It's an Elysium character, actually."

Finally, they were getting somewhere - and a very good somewhere at that. "Well, that actually makes it a lot easier! If you give me your username, I can just look up your character and use that as a reference."

[Adelie]

The woman seemed about to say something, then stopped. "Ah, the character's name is Gumiho."

She pushed herself over to her laptop, finding the bookmark she had for the character lookup site she preferred. "Could you spell that, please?" People often filled their names with creative letter substitutions to get around username uniqueness requirements - and besides, considering their experiences with her own username, she couldn't entirely trust people to pronounce them accurately.

"G-U-M-I-H-O," the woman responded, enunciating every letter clearly.

She typed the letters in and hit enter before recognition suddenly dawned on her. "Wait, the Gumiho? Cat Mafia Gumiho?"

[Adelie]

She looked the woman up and down, not concealing her surprise in the slightest.

She would've expected Gumiho to be - well, more cute, to start with. A little more fashionable, or at least someone who'd dress up for a convention. And well, probably more Korean.

Not to mention, she sounded nothing like Gumiho did in her videos. There'd been rumors that she used voice editing software to fake a higher-pitched voice, but they didn't sound alike at all - they didn't even have the same accent.

"Ah," the woman said, as if suddenly realizing what she meant. "Oh, no - I'm not Gumiho. I'm just a friend of hers, and I thought she'd like getting a portrait by her favorite artist."

[Wild Pet Found]