Faust woke with a white paste upon his lips, both of them withered to crinkled versions of what they should be. The corners of his mouth ached with his room-swallowing yawn, the skin made less flexible by dryness. Whatever happened last night has taken every ounce of fluid his body could spare and then some he couldn't. It was a burn that didn't go away, but instead grew steadily stronger and harder to ignore as the day went on and the sun beat on his back and neck. The more drops of dew that formed on his sun-kissed skin due to perspiration, the more the hunger for the liquid lost overtook him and overthrew all of his other senses one at a time. Faust's sight blurred in the singeing heat and made his eyes watery with visions of imaginary mirages. The sense of smell completely craved anything but the drying dirt and cut grass. In fact it craved the smell of stale ice melting in a cool glass of a drink that beads on the outside. The tongue gnawed at the roof of his parched mouth and the thick roughness of his taste buds only increased until it was unbearable to stand any long. The throat was dry and sore; every lungful of hot hair robs more water from his body. There was a pain at the back of my head that threatened to grow into a powerful migraine, a sure sign that dehydration isn't far away. It he had a liter of water right now he'd drain the whole thing, but as it is he had none and it was a long walk home to get some.

Sleep comes like the falling of an axe. He knew it must come but he fought it with everything that he had. Those defenseless hours, oblivious to the surroundings are enough to light up his whole body with fiery sparks. Faust was utterly wired until that time when he cannot fight it anymore and the sleep is as instantaneous as it is unwelcome. He had some warning though, when his thoughts become intertwined with random ideas, impossible ideas, he sought for his shelter and wrapped in thick bear fur. It could be sometime before he was with the world again. In our sleep, we are children again. We dream of things past, things that will never be again. In our dreams we have comfort, freedom and love. Sometimes we can be visited by those we lost and for those perfect hours of sleep we are whole again. Then on waking we scramble to write it down, just in case there is wisdom in the randomness. It's not that we think they're really talking to us, mostly, but our subconscious minds can send these people we esteem with solutions. Of course sometimes it's all garbage or too obscure to figure out. Sometimes they are nightmares, but those are getting fewer and far between now that life has settled back into a rhythm. I truly look forward to turning in at night, we have thick duvets and and the finest pillows, heck we have everything luxury. By the time these supplies run out we need to be fully self-sufficient, that's what makes our days so busy. Otherwise we'd just live on truffles for the next decade and then starve.

He was plain bone-idle lazy. On account of him being so slow he was given less work than everyone else. Even then he did less than half of his list and moaned and griped the whole time. The after everyone finished they'd each have to pick one of his jobs and get it done on top of our own. Leaving work that should have been done today until the morning was never an option, not anymore. He was sitting bleary-eyed and unshaven at the table, munching his way slowly through a mouthful of cereal. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he stopped munching. His jaw went slack. Milk dribbled out of his mouth. His eyes glazed over blankly and his head nodded forward. Next thing - whomp!- his head landed right smack in the bowl in front of him. He was extremely tired as hell, weary with the burden of long-closed eyes; he could of easily pulled off being a walking zombie, dead on the inside but subconsciously awake. It was sickening but it was what it was.

Alas, it was time to work. Expensive rum was being shipped to Hargeon and Reagan wanted it. Because of a previous job, Faust stayed in connections with the old man. The target this time was shipped about in a rather minuscule box, something that Faust didn't think would be so simple. At the dock, he spots a bunch of banana crates. They were decorated with but a banana on the box, something like a kid would do. The artwork was disgusting beyond all means. In time, he moved the multitude of boxes, settling with only a simple and small box. One shake of it and he knew what it was, there was no way this could be anything else. With it in his hands, he walked to the edge of the port, towards the rest of the town. There he saw Reagan. The man threw the jewels at Faust before he decided that Faust should take the booze to Balthazar. So that's what Faust did. In the end, Reagan was but a lackey.



*Note: Grimoire Heart members have a skill that gives them 10% off on quests.