The bangles were a birthday present. An expensive, extravagant present in their circumstances. No protest was getting them returned. “You’re sixteen now, dear,” her mother said, “You should have something special.”

And they were special. Good heavy things to beat off an attacker, and there was even a slot for materia if she ever wanted to put hers in. She tried it for an hour in the privacy of her room, but she felt naked the whole time and put the sphere back in her hair where it belonged.

It took a while for her to get used to the feel of them, to the light clanking around her wrists as she worked the soil. Tseng dropped by and did not mention them, but she saw him staring, and the little smile and nod he made in self-satisfied approval. She supposed then she should have thanked him, but he was still her jailor, so she didn’t.

Besides, they were rather plain. Boring, hefty things, useful but not much to see. There were bracelets just as handy but with floral etching on the sides, or maybe a bit of filigree. Girly things. Delicate things. Things that were actually pretty.

It was asking too much in the slums and she knew it, even if the secret sponsor was a Turk. So she arranged her practical bangles on her wrist just so, buttoned up her new thrift shop dress, and tied the memory of her mother in her hair with the memory of a boy who didn’t write back.

There was other functional jewelry to go with bangles like hers. Bulky, heavy collars, almost armored things to be studded all around with materia like a guard hound’s ring of spikes. There were softer pieces too, slender chains with engraved pendants, meant to hold one precious sphere or shard in a decorative place.

She couldn’t afford any of that. Even the cheaper necklaces she spied on Honeybees, and customers from the plate, lovely things that were only decoration were completely out of reach. She could scrimp and save and put aside, and with rice to buy and the stove needing fixing, there would be no way to justify unnecessary expense.

She bought a piece of ribbon. It only cost three gil. It was thin and simple, but satin on one side, and black so it would go with everything. She experimented for half an hour before she found a way she liked. It was no silver necklace. She had no locket to suspend. But a wrap and a bow and a little tilt of the head, and she liked what she saw in the grey mirror.

Tseng frowned when he saw it and she brushed him off. What did he know about what girls liked anyway? He never bothered to ask. He could go on being as purely practical as he liked. She had her pretty little something, and it wasn’t much, but it would do.