Rimas, oblivious as ever to her surroundings, rushed into her bookstore.
Her bookstore was the definition of a failing business.
If you had been thinking "now how could someone like Rimas run a store?"
Well, the answer is "badly".
But today, she had reason to rejoice, for a customer was buying a book!
Real, honest cashflow! The lifeblood of any independent storefront!
Or, it would be, if the owner were not rushing in with the blinders on.
Lorraine was right in the middle of making pleasant conversation.

Rimas was of a single mind, though.
The wind had knocked most of the foam off of her by this point.
But the faint smell still clung to her.
The stereotype about skunks smelling bad had been ingrained in her mind.
It consumed her childhood. It colored her every romantic relationship.
It influenced how she was treated professionally.
It influenced how she was treated socially.
She was mocked, cast out, fetishized, and bullied over her species.
She, almost obsessively, could not stand smelling bad.
If she so much as caught a whiff of someone else's body odor, she would shower.
Nothing else mattered.
Not the fact that she had achieved a life-long goal of using magic correctly.
Nor the fact that she only got to see her brother once a week.
Nor seeing Frost's recording of Ikal achieving the unthinkable.
Nor her store making an honest sale.
Nor her friends showing an interest in her life and immediately noticing her.
No one had even commented on her smell. But she was convinced everyone was thinking it.
"There goes a skunk who smells bad."
She showered twice a day and washed her hands obsessively.
Before and after eating. Before and after using the rest room. When she exercised.
When she felt she hadn't washed her hands well enough just then.
When she noticed there was a little bit of gunk under her nail.
Whenever she felt bad about herself.
She turned off the TV whenever an advertisement showing something that stunk came on.
A part of her brain had become so obsessed with this idea that she might smell bad,
that she was convinced even seeing a depiction of something that stank
might rub off on her, and make her stink too.
She actually used to smoke, you know. When her girlfriend fell into a coma.
She needed it to take the edge off her nerves.
But eventually her reality, her situation, caught back up to her.
Smoking made her smell bad. And she couldn't have that.
She gave it up because it turned her into the stereotype. A skunk who smells bad.
She brushed her teeth four times a day and flossed twice a day.
She gargled with mouthwash and avoided eating foods that would give her bad breath.
She used scented shampoo, floral deodorants, body washes and lotions.
Because smelling good, in her mind, was the most important thing to a skunk.
It was the only way anyone would ever want to be around her.
It was the only thing that mattered when people were near her.
A tiny 4'10" woman who was lucky enough to be born with built in pepper spray.
But she had her scent glands removed when she was 21.
Right now, she was a skunk who smelled bad.
And Rimas would rather die than be a skunk who smelled bad.

It's funny that she would rather die than smell bad.
Not like, in a comedic way. No.
Funny in an ironic way, at this point in the story.
Because off in the distance was someone who very much wanted to make her dead.