THE TOWN DAILY
RESIDENT INTERVIEW · No. 10
Cori
Merchant
"Last time. I mean it this time."
You hear the star-liner's whistle before you see her — and by the time you reach the dock, Cori has already unrolled three crates of things nobody knew they needed. She arrives like weather, leaves like a rumor, and has announced her final departure roughly forty times. This reporter has learned not to say goodbye, only "see you next season."
The Town Daily: Everyone says you're leaving for good this time. True?
Cori: Absolutely. I've said my goodbyes, sold my last salt, coiled my last rope. The liner leaves at dawn. — Though I did notice Kiko's shelf is looking thin on cardamom. Rude to leave a man short. One more crossing. Then that's it.
The Town Daily: You and Kiko — friends or rivals?
Cori: Yes. He haggles me down to the copper, I mark it back up on the next tide, and we both pretend we won. He keeps a little book of everything he could've had. I keep the horizon. Between us we've got the whole map — his half is 'not yet,' mine is 'out there.'
The Town Daily: What's the one thing you never sell?
Cori: The news I bring June. Headlines from six ports away, still warm. I hand those over free — a merchant who charges for gossip gets no gossip back. And gossip, dear, is the only currency that appreciates when you spend it.
The Town Daily: If the town's so small, why keep coming back?
Cori: Small? Old Ben knows every tide by name, Marta feeds the ones who can't pay and dares you to mention it, and Nib's well-pump plays a tune every seventh bucket. You don't get that out there. Out there's just... big. Don't print that. Print that I'm leaving.
Resident file
- Temperament
- Breezy, mysterious, allergic to standing still — charms a room in one breath and is gone by the next.
- Obsession
- The horizon, and the delicious lie that this trip is the last one.
- Relationships
- Frenemy-in-trade with Kiko; free courier of outside headlines for June; secretly, hopelessly fond of a town she keeps threatening to abandon.
As seen in the Town Daily
- MERCHANT ANNOUNCES FINAL DEPARTURE FOR RECORD 40TH TIME
- STAR-LINER DELAYED; CORI 'JUST TOPPING OFF KIKO'S CARDAMOM'
- EXOTIC 'SEVEN-PORT SALT' SELLS OUT; OLD BEN UNCONVINCED IT ISN'T OURS
Cori will remember you
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