Alice her muscles were complaining this morning as she was stretching herself on her bed in the Inn in Era. She had many things to do and yet not so, it was better phrased as: she had many things she wanted to do. And maybe some where needed. She didn’t have time to go and goof around all the time. Now she wouldn’t say she had been doing that since she arrived in Era but she had taken her moments of solitude and not doing anything much if you looked at jobs. She had protected a caravan from the nothing, yes a couple. Which made her hide her face in the pillows. What was wrong with her. She thought about everything that happened and just wondered what to do, she was so angry and yet she didn’t want to be. She couldn’t help but scream into her pillow but stopped soon when Ophelia tugged on her arm to stop her from screaming and she snuggled her friend and rolled herself up in a ball while Alice followed her example. She thought that just changing her own way of thinking was good enough. To hold on to that feeling and the idea or the prospect of what will happen if she kept in mind that the easy way out wasn’t the easy way in the end. But many things had stopped that from happening, the name Lacie for example had brought back some memories that weren’t pleasant ones and the worst thing was that for some reason she felt betrayed more than anything by someone, she thought she liked. Maybe not in the way of like like, since she didn’t understand that concept yet as she didn’t want to think about it but.. it didn’t matter what she thought, nothing was changing anyway. She stared at the sheets that covered her body and now also Ophelia and thought about the fight that she had at the auction, while all she wanted to do was talk to Selena again and again. That actually reminded her that she would have to tell Selena about Lacie, in Orchidia. She was freaking out too much. That made her kick off the blankets and with a heavy sigh she stood up and headed to the shower without actually looking after Ophelia, the Cleffa had figured out how things worked as she had proven by jumping out of the backpack and avoid being damaged by Selena her water spells. It didn’t all matter. Her back wasn’t hurt because her armour took the damage and well she had done the best she could, thinking about the best situation that she could think off.

Alice walked into the bathroom and simply dumped all the clothes she was wearing in the laundry bucket and stepped underneath the shower as she touched her lips, which made her infuriated again. She shook her head, that moment was over, there was nothing she could change about it. She let her hand drop and stared at the water going away and her long orange hair plastering to her body. This was enough time to feel sorry for herself, and she started to wash her hair and body and not take too much more time in the shower because nothing would come from that anyway.

Wordcount: 550/2000

She had been out could for three whole days, it felt like a repeating of memories. She had been afraid she wouldn’t recognize someone because she was in a place where she knew no one. But reading her diary and rereading her diary every minute of the day was ridiculous so she didn’t do it. She needed to be distracted and do things that did matter, like work. That’s what she was going to do, as soon as she finished showering and had dried her body and hair completely, she went to dress in new clothing. Because she decided to do a job, she picked up a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, her jacket and socks and boots. Her blue backpack that contained her diary and soon Ophelia as she climbed in it herself. When Alice was ready she simply headed out of her room, ordered a sandwich downstairs and ate that while she made her way to the request board that she had seen before. It was easy to find because of that. She let her eyes scan the board as she gave some of the pieces of bread to Ophelia, the backpack in front of her so she could see her little pink pet. She found a job that sounded interesting but she did doubt if she was able to figure it out, mostly because her brain was still unconsciously thinking about many other things. However she grabbed it anyway, finished her sandwich together with Ophelia and headed to the house of the merchant called Gaud.

It didn’t take long for her to find the house even though Era was much bigger than Marigold, Baska or even Oak. She had only been in Crocus, the one city that seemed bigger than Era. But that didn’t matter right now, she actually started to like the city, if you ignored what drama all happened since she arrived. Which she tried her best to do. She sighed as she knocked on the door and not much later got in and showed the piece of paper with the request to the man that opened the door. He thanked her for taking it and invited her to the living room to talk about the plan. Well it seemed that the man had already thought about a plan and he showed her some wares that were worth absolutely nothing, she found the necklace and bracelet, including earrings rather beautiful but this only showed that she had no eye for the real thing. Mostly she didn’t care anyway, she remembered stealing a bracelet with Yu and Yami back in Oak, something she wouldn’t do anymore but this wasn’t fair. This wasn’t a bad job, this man was stolen from and his insurance didn’t protect him so all he got to do was get that money back, she was willing to help him with that. She listened in to the plan and tried to think about how she would handle it, the merchant Gaud would have to keep an eye on Ophelia because she couldn’t take her with her on this job. So she made a deal about that and got on with the plan. She took the jewellery with her and left to go and find a better outfit to wear if she wanted to come off as if she really had expensive jewellery. She wasn’t one to have expensive dresses, she wore some but they were easily bought for a few jewels in the shop. She went to look around if she could rent a dress, even though this job didn’t give her that much money, she found the reason behind it more important than simply trying and make sure she would fail. She rented a dress with a split that almost reached her right hip, she wasn’t really comfortable about it but she didn’t mind it either. She looked at the black dress that started with a sweet heart line and ended close around her ankles except that there was a split, would make her able to move around on the party or well that’s what the woman in the shop said. Well she didn’t care, it was only rented and she needed to make sure the dress would survive otherwise she would have to eat dry bread for a long time. She swallowed with difficulty as she headed out of the store.

The merchant Gaud had told her where the conman probably would be based on what his interests were and based on what Gaud had found out about the man. She put on the jewellery right before she entered the party. She wasn’t feeling comfortable because she was alone. She was already getting used to seeing and being with Ophelia for far too many days. She took a deep breath, hold on to the clutch that she had rented as well and entered the party as if she was one on the list, she wasn’t on the list but people didn’t even try to think she wasn’t. She was too pretty dressed up for that and apparently her boobs did the work for her. Which would have annoyed her on a normal day but this was for the job, this would make it easier. She got a description of the man that she would have to con and that would make it a lot easier for there were a lot of people. Only one that didn’t seem to be properly dressed for the people here and thus would make a target. It was the man, his face was peculiar so she could easily make her way but she had to play this safe otherwise she would never get that money back. It was obviously that the man had an eye for jewellery only not if it was real or not. It was just pretty and well she found herself a pretty model for it as well. She played with the earrings, the bracelet and the necklace from time to time, just to be careful. It didn’t take that long, or well it would have been nice if it would have been within the hour but food was for free now. He finally took a step towards her to give a compliment about her looks and ask her about the jewellery. She talked to him and told him about a made up jeweller, the whole story. She had talked to Gaud about everything, everything that would make this Jarjar interested in the jewels. Again after talking for quite a while he finally took a move and asked if she wanted to sell her jewellery for more money and so on, she decided to pretend if it was a difficult option. He took her aside and showed her some money, she knew where to look to make sure if it was the real deal. This wasn’t but she couldn’t say that, she pretended to think a bit longer before she took off the bracelet, the necklace and the earrings. She planned to get this man arrested as well but she didn’t know exactly how, ”By the way I would like the real money.” she said as she handed it over and held on to his wrist. If only she had a dagger or so but she didn’t have that in her dimensional pocket. She warned him in a whisper that she would call the knights on him because some where here to guard the party of the high nobles. Especially after the mistakes that were made and she shivered shortly and uncontrollably. She hoped he didn’t notice because she didn’t feel like risking this dress. She watched though how he pulled himself free and made it for a run, ”Out of my way!” She yelled as she summoned her straight spear and slung it after him to pin him in his fake tux to the wall behind him, knights came running but she first had to get that money and thanks to the split in her dress and the fact that she was always able to run on heels, she was there quicker, ”Give me the money and I’ll say it was just a bet.” He nodded and quickly gave her the real money and she did a step back with a grin on her face, ”Are you alright ma’m?” The Knight asked and she turned with a sad smile to the knight and said the conman had touched her on inappropriate places and she watched him been taken away by the knights. She waved him goodbye and quickly headed out of the building herself to bring the dress back to the shop and the money to the merchant called Gaud. So she got her own money from the job and even extra because she told him about the dress rental and she hugged Ophelia, well that Jarjar was at least of the streets for a while.

Wordcount: 2034/2000