Seira was still lying in the bed of her hotel room as the sun was slowly rising above Orchidia. Today was her fifth day in town and yesterday had been more of a relaxing day for her, where she would simply visit the city and the areas surrounding the town without much to do. The young woman did not plan on staying for more than one week and although she had already found some work and earned some money she decided that there was most likely more left to do for her. Seira wasn’t a lazy person, certainly not, but at the same time she prefered simple jobs in comparison to more difficult ones. They didn’t pay her quite as much money as anything else that required her to use actual magic, but at the same time she wasn’t in any position to complain about that. Some people would consider such things “boring” but at the same time Seira would rather earn money for doing little to no work that didn’t require physical strength whatsoever than earn the exact same amount of money while going all out and having to fight people. She was, after all, somewhat a pacifist and didn’t enjoy conflict at all.

During yesterday’s stroll through the outside world Seira had spent the mission board a visit to see what fliers were up and what jobs were available during the next few days. Although she wanted to leave eventually, probably to Nanuq Town—a place she had never been to—as long as there was still something for her to do here in Orchidia she would stay. Seira had picked up a flier the other day and her client’s name was Mitya Noran. She had never heard of him before but that didn’t matter anyways. The purpose of his quest was rather endearing and sounded relaxing and simple enough so Seira decided to take this one for herself. It seemed that his mother, who went by the name of Rynah, was an elderly lady who had seen better days. According to what was written on the flier there was not really anything wrong with her, she was friendly, sociable, definitely not handicapped in any way, but her memory was slowly getting worse. Of course that was nothing unusual for old people, but it seemed that her usual caretaker couldn’t visit her today and so the son had to find someone else to watch over his mother.

Apparently there had been an incident a while back, where Rynah had almost burned the entire house down by forgetting to take some cookies out of the oven but fortunately a disaster was avoided. Seira could understand that the man, Mitya, didn’t want his mother to be alone for even a day after that and thus she slowly got out of bed, went through her morning routine and packed some stuff she planned on taking to the older lady with her. From experience elderly people were awfully talkative sometimes but Seira could survive it if it was only for a day. The address was about a 20 minute walk from Seira’s hotel away and as she arrived and knocked on the door the young sorceress was greeted by a tall man with dark hair wearing sunglasses. He reeked of smoke and alcohol and he was quite obviously still a bit tipsy. Seira and her hungover client didn’t exchange many words at all—he had written the entire explanation on the flier probably to avoid unnecessary conversation—and he led her inside to introduce her and his mother to each other before he left for the day, saying that he would return in the afternoon.

Rynah was, as expected, a lovely elderly lady. She was kind, soft spoken, very considerate and not annoying or exhausting at all. Seira enjoyed her company, helped her in the household and watched her as she did some knitting and talked and reminisced about some stories from her past. She spoke about her younger days and how she had not always lived in Orchidia Town, but traveled through Fiore instead. She used to be quite the wild girl, according to herself, and even though she apparently suffered from memory loss she could very clearly recall some of the things she had seen in places such as Era and Magnolia—things that were still there in the present, as far as Seira could recall. Perhaps it was only Rynah’s short-term memory that was impaired after all. After finishing some knitting a scarf and two pair of socks (she was incredibly fast and skilled) the elderly lady started doing some cross word puzzles with Seira’s help but she also eventually grew tired of that. Rynah then announced that she wished to bake some of her favourite cookies and Seira, of course, was just fine with that. She followed her into her large kitchen and watched with fascination as Rynah started throwing ingredients together like she had never done anything else in her life. Seira herself was a passionate cook and loved to bake as well, but of course her skills couldn’t match up with a master and so she watched carefully and followed every step Rynah was doing.

She whipped up the dough in record speed—her technique was out of this world—and added what appeared to be blue crystals into the mixture as well. Seira was unsure about what exactly she had witnessed, but assumed that it was some sort of secret ingredient that would make the cookies taste even more fantastic. She eventually finished up her work and put the cookies into the oven, where she would end up forgetting them just like she had before but Seira, who was too curious to wait and sat in front of the oven almost the entire time to watch the cookies noticed when the time was right to take them out and removed them from the oven once they were ready. Rynah, who had made the cookies for her son, was kind enough to share some of them with Seira and as soon as she finished eating them she felt a strange, magical energy, very light but still noticeable, rushing through her veins. Rynah eventually admitted that the secret ingredient she had been adding were crushed mana crystals and Seira had to promise not to tell anyone about it. Just like that the day ended, Seira bid Rynah farewell when her son arrived and he let her go with her reward, since nothing else had happened.

[1081]
Quest.