She took a deep breath when she was finally outside the apartment of Mitya. Since his mother started baking cookies, it had smelled like cookies all the time. Thanks to that one cookie she felt like she had eaten enough. She walked slowly back to the shop, that would be boring to stay there and she would first have to go back to her room to put those jewels away without the two of them noticing. She strayed towards the towns board and stared at the jobs here. Since her father and Mary had no idea how long the granny-sitting would take place, she could maybe find an easy job to do before running back to the store. It didn’t felt completely right to do so but she also didn’t want to give up her opportunity at the moment to earn more money. Since her legs had carried her to the quest board anyway, it couldn’t hurt to look around. She stared at the half a dozen quests that were up there. Nothing much interesting, nothing she could do quickly. She finally saw one that she could possibly do and took it off the board and walked to Muramasa family while reading it over for a second time. She didn’t like distracting the village-idiot but well it was at least a job that she could do. Especially after granny sitting, this could only be very easy.

She looked up to see where she was walking as her legs carried her now to the Muramasa family building. She had stayed so long in this town and yet she had never been there before, she doubted if they even knew who she was, and if they did know she was the daughter of the shop owner, she was sure they didn’t know if she was Mary or Phoebe. Even though the sisters looked nothing alike. Mary her hair was a dark brown almost black, Phoebe her hair was black and Mary her eyes were a soft brown while Phoebe hers were lilac. That was quite a big detail. In the small notes underneath the quest, it was mentioned she would not meet up with the family but would have to wait for Leis to go. She jumped on a bench and sat there in front of the castle and she would wait. She would read over the paper again and just stare at the crowd. Some of the guards came to talk to her and she showed him the quest so he knew she was taking it. Now all she had to do was wait, which she didn’t like, what if Mary passed by or her father to pick something up. They would recognize Phoebe for obvious reasons that they were family and for the fact that she wasn’t in the shop or at the job. Finally she saw him arrive in his wheelchair and she jumped up to go towards him so he wouldn’t get to close to the castle. ”Afternoon Leis. I decided to help you around today. Anything you need? Groceries? Fresh air? Someone to push your chair to see the river again? It’s quite beautiful lately, have you heard the rumours about the water spirit?” she rambled on to get him away from the castle.

She was already pushing his wheelchair away from the castle because that was basically her job. The man seemed to be a bit surprised but soon seemed to enjoy the company of someone else. Since most people walked away from him or around him with some great space between them. Normally she would too, especially because of his rambling stories that he screamed towards the castle. She was a hundred percent sure people were going to stare at them now but she would just have this fake smile on her face and go on, there was no beauty in today’s jobs. He was acting a bit strange but also laughing, sort of singing, she wouldn’t call it singing and well she just continued to go on, helped him to buy some fruit because he suddenly came up with that when she mentioned groceries. As soon as they finished doing that, brought some apples and peaches, she continued to stir his wheelchair through the rest of the streets of Orchidia to reach the riverbank because he wanted to see that. She had mentioned the spirit and he wanted to see that, but right before they reached that, the man became quiet and stopped moving around, laughing and singing. He sighed and looked rather sad about something so she stopped pushing it and hunched down next to him, ”What’s wrong Leis? You don’t want to see the spirit?” She was sure it wasn’t there anymore but it was something to distract him with. ”My wife loved to get here.” Oh.. Phoebe was too young to remember her, she had actually forgotten he had a wife, ”Do you ever get here?” But he shook his head immediately and explained he couldn’t alone, the road was too difficult to roll over, he was always afraid to fall and she could imagine, besides he continued it was too tough to get here alone. ”Could you please bring me home?” he said after a while of being silent. She nodded and got up again, dusted off her legs and stood behind the wheelchair and carefully turned it around to walk back into Orchidia’s city centre and back to the Apartments. She was careful to avoid her father’s shop in case he or Mary would look outside. She would walk that way and Leis didn’t say much anymore, didn’t want to she guessed. She let it be, she didn’t want to bother the man, she felt a bit better about him, she would no longer ignore him, this man might use a facade, a mask to get over the loss of his wife.

When she dropped him off, she waved him goodbye and waited for him to be inside safe and sound before she hurried back to the castle to get her reward and hurry back home to the shop, to not be gone for too long.