Under any other circumstances, Arilee would never have been caught stepping into a fancy jewelry store. She had little use for flashy, expensive rocks. Sure, sometimes they were nice, but they just weren’t her style. Places like that were for people like her late and unlamented step-mother. But she had something she had to buy and it required setting foot in a place she’d never expected to find herself.

Granted, this particular shop wasn’t a big chain, but it still had that air of ‘Oh bling-bling, baby. Watch me sparkle!’ that Arilee particularly hated. With a sigh, she shoved her sunglasses up into her hair and after trading cool looks with the people behind the counter, began to look around. She wanted something pretty and delicate. And different. Something that spoke to her. Wrinkling her nose in distaste at the display cases with their rows upon rows of cookie cutter ring designs, she sighed and ventured towards the back of the store.

A glint of rosy gold caught her eye and she glanced into a dimly lit case. One ring, in particular, caught her attention if only because it wasn’t the usual boring band with a huge plain diamond sitting atop. Delicately sculpted leaves and flowers twined around the band while two tiny, rows of diamonds swooped and circled around a larger stone in the middle. Beside it was a a rose gold band sculpted to look like twining leave with a single small flower set slightly off center. Sure, it had a few small diamonds, but it was clearly pared down version of the first ring. Gnawing on her lower lip, Arilee thought hard.

And then, she signaled an associate and pointed to the two rings. Once they were out of the case, she scooped them up, trying the second ring on her hand and liking the effect. The first ring was a little big, but she was assured that they could resize it there with very little waiting involved. Satisfied, Arilee gave the associate the size she needed along with her credit card. Sure, there were other rings to look at, but these two were absolutely, utterly and without a doubt perfect.

Once purchased, Arilee waited only long enough for the man behind the counter to resize the ring before snatching it and racing home. She had work to do.

Chunnering softly to herself, she grabbed scissors and yellow paper and fired up her computer and printer. Once she had the pictures and fonts picked out and sized, she sent them to the printer while she dismantled the ring boxes, tearing the holders out and placing both rings into a slightly larger box. Humming to herself, she grinned as she cropped and cut out text blocks and glued them carefully into place under the rings.

After that, it was only a matter of turning her homemade ring box into one of Mario’s little gold blocks. And once she was finished, she had to grin and chuckle a little. Ava’s inner nerd would love it.