Yesterday she had done a couple of jobs but right now she didn’t feel the need to do anything. She had stayed up late reading in a book about some self centred power and blabla, it had not been that interesting but for some reason she couldn’t stop reading, hoping to yet find some answers that would fix her issue. Persephone had not made it any easier by talking on and on how such a nonsense this was. But there were many things that Phoebe wanted to change about herself and she wouldn’t be able to do that in a day or a fortnight so she had to start and keep holding on till it worked. The thing was that emptying yourself was very difficult, she was aware of that. The thing was that she was so furious about the last actions and over thinking her own for the last months that it made it easier, simple because she didn’t want to feel that. She didn’t want to feel like a miserable shape of a human being. She had to convince herself that she wasn’t and that there were positive things how she could turn this situation towards her own hand. For example by using this frustration and power to get more magical potential, to train more spells and make spells together with Persephone, just as she had done before in Domus Flau. It had been an interesting day, surely amusing but it had annoyed her and it had been her own fault. She wouldn’t say it was a bad thing but she would have to keep a friendly facade to be able to use people later. Victor had given her a game that wasn’t finished playing and she would extend it to her own wisdom and needs.

And yet all she wanted, was to calm down. Go home, see Mary steal her clothes, watch her father’s store or him take care of the customers while she would make dinner. No one else, just the three of them, no half siblings from Sin that had showed up with the news. No need to tell Mary, no need to tell her father. All she would do in Orchidia was make sure that the town took great care of the plants, she could offer her help for the voluntary work that took care of it, with Persephone that would be great. She would have to go home to show Perspehone how it looked. It made the Goddess interested, the story she heard made the two of them wish that whole Fiore could take care of nature like that or let nature take over but these things were not possible. Human beings and other races would always try to be on top of the chain, have the structure of the story in their own hands and shape it like they want to. This made Persephone grew in her anger against the world and Phoebe now so easily vunerable for that, could only agree.

People were bastards, they didn’t care about others and especially not about things that they considered without a life source, which was bullshit and again everyone knew that but it was not that nature could talk to people to proof the pain and point that they could give. She didn’t plan to convince people otherwise, she would be a force to reckon with later and that would mean she needed to fix this, she needed to fix herself. Her dumb moping personality at this point, her fear of the dark, her fear of being alone. It was all pathetic and Persephone admitted that she had not want to say that before. The jokes in Hargeon, the ones she had pulled on Phoebe made her now see that it were only things in their way, to fix things and in the end, Persephone had failed in that as well but that were apparently the risk of games that were played, a game called life. Phoebe yawned and stretched herself out on the queen size bed in the inn that she was staying. Perhaps she should work on this game a little earlier but at this point, she tried to get used to being alone. She didn’t need any of the people that left her behind take a place in her heart and break it again. She would only be weak if she did that and she and she had reasons enough to stay here. She needed to get through this grieve, where she definitely wasn’t working on. It was still shut off in a cell in her heart that she would open once she was ready. But she had to be used to being alone first, before she would depend on that pain, before she would allow herself to see her half-brother again.

It was probably better to work it out in that way, take things step by step so she would later be able to take everything all at once? She sure hoped so, go face everything head on. Thank god and she had to consider that many times, she wasn’t alone, she had Persephone wherever she would go and that made the issue of being alone a lot easier than she anticipated and she let it go rather quick. Besides being dumped and left alone by friends made her realize they weren’t her friends and that she had been all alone the whole time. It might sound sad but it only made her angry at herself for falling so easily for it. She stretched another time and kicked off the blankets. It was time to get out of bed, work a couple of things out and get a job for today. She could always see what she would get from that but the use for jewels was a nice one. She placed her left foot on the ground and sat upright and looked at the horrible looks of her hair in the reflection of the mirror. Step one found.

She moved herself off the bed and headed towards the make-up table to sit down in front of it on the stool. She sighed at the reflection, which was half herself, half the image of Persephone, a very interesting concept. It was more of like a second shadow in there staring down at Phoebe as the red head Goddess would do in these situations. Phoebe ignored her eyes and glares but listened to her talk about what they could do today. A few jobs wouldn’t be bad and to offer help was great and all but it would be better if they would make their way up for the higher ranks and get better people depending on them. It would give them more money and later it would give them better strings in the game of life. Phoebe listened and agreed, if they would have to play this game for the rest of her life, she better work on it as quick as possible now that she was on her own feet. So she would get ready to look as fantastic as possible, which wasn’t that hard, perhaps a bit painful with her hair now. But that was able to be fixed, with a bit of water, some hair products, a brush and no soft weeping. So she finished it as usual, put it in a ponytail and made sure that it was tightly fixed before she would work on washing her face, applying make-up and figure out what to wear.

If she would go for a job, heels wouldn’t be a smart thing so she left her favourite red pumps aside and picked up her high knee boots and some gray jeans. All she needed was a good shirt to not get cold while searching for a job in the cold weather. It shouldn’t be so difficult, so she picked up a dark blue shirt and made sure she had everything before she headed out of her room, her purse, key and jacket slung over her right arm. She closed the door, pocketed the key and headed downstairs for some breakfast or perhaps early lunch. She should definitely work on a schedule to get to bed on time. She yawned behind her hand as she arrived at the lowest floor and picked an empty table to stare at the menu. Yesterday she had not felt like eating here but it was too much effort to go to the store and buy something while she could sit here. So she ordered an omelette with some toast and would wait for it all to be ready. She had to think about her tactic for today, if she would head to the quest board, she would be sure that all good jobs would already be gone, you had to be on time after all. She sighed, this was also a reason why she needed a schedule for her day to make sure to get good jobs. At least she got her food.

She didn’t feel like hurrying at all now that she had already realized that all the good jobs were gone, yet sitting still would not be a good idea as Persephone was already pushing her, which annoyed Phoebe too. She needed to eat if she wanted to be able to perform any magic and so on. Any stamina was build on the energy of her body and she needed fuel aka food. She didn’t plan to say more about it but she just tried to eat as fast as she felt pleasant with and paid Batra for the food. She would take a coffee to go and headed out onto the streets of Crocus. She was on her way to the quest board when she heard someone whisper and as she was one of the only people on the streets, she couldn’t help but look aside, ”Penelope, come here.” She stared at Merlin who she had met a few days before at Armin his place. She was so concerned about his health and the like but now she even got her name wrong. Phoebe pointed with her right index finger against her chest, ”You mean me?”, ”Of course.” So Phoebe walked over to the woman. ”It’s Phoebe.” The woman stared at her as if Phoebe just said something offensive but she would be the kind woman that let it slip and Phoebe would surely be very annoyed if Persephone didn’t pinch in that this woman must be important.

So she followed Merlin towards her place and noticed indeed that she was in the office of Mercurius, which meant that this woman must have something to do with the King or well the new emperor. ”I need your help Penelope, there is a package that is very important and they are going to deliver it today. I heard some rumours about the company that is going to deliver it to me and they aren’t well they aren’t known for their delicacy, their soft handling and this item is fragile, I need it whole of course and there is a limited amount of such items. Would you please help me bring it save here?” This Penelope wanted to say no because of the fact that she was called Phoebe and it wasn’t so difficult to remember a good name, especially not when it was given in the last ten minutes. Persephone ushered Phoebe to forget it for now and the two agreed to take the job. Merlin showed her a map of Crocus and pointed at the gate where the caravan would arrive, she hoped that Phoebe would make it on time. Phoebe could only agree because the influence of Merlin on her game might be an interesting one and she said she would immediately go, glad she put on some boots instead of pumps and she hurried off through the streets of Crocus, hoping to reach the gate as soon as possible. She needed to catch her breath quickly, they were here!

They just arrived when she did and she quickly took a gulp of air to tell them what the point was of her arrival, it were clearly them as they were loud and obnoxious and she asked if they had a package for lady Merlin. When they confirmed, she told them that she arrived her to guide them through the streets of Crocus. She had not much to say about the whole thing but it would give her probably a nice amount of pocket money and she would have to risk that even if Merlin kept calling her Penelope. She guided them immediately, the sooner she was away from these loud people the better, she started of course with the main road and she heard one of the man catcall her as well as another one complain that they didn’t need a girl to guide them. She clenched her jaw and said nothing until they would go on, than she simply said loud enough for them to hear that she wouldn’t mind them to go on alone but they didn’t know the way and if they didn’t deliver the package with the quality of it, that they surely would be punished by the new Emperor his advisor. That at least did shut them up for a while.

The main road got a lot busier the further they got in the town and it annoyed her, when her eyes caught someone trying to climb up the caravan, she quickly pointed it out as well as guided the caravan into another street because this felt too dangerous, there would be too many people trying to grab items from the caravan and if they would focus on one, there could be another one as well or even more. So she stirred the merchants away from the main street into one that was parallel to the main road but a little smaller as well as a lot emptier. It would also take twice as long because of this road making some twists and turns before she would be able to reach Merlin. She looked over her shoulder at the merchants but they didn’t seem to notice that just yet but she was sure the complains would come soon again, she was already ready for that but firmly walked on. While soon enough she met construction workers that told her that the state of the roads up ahead were unable to carry the weight of the caravan, some spots had holes that they were fixing. She sighed as softly as she could and pointed out to the people of the caravan that they would have to take another detour and she pointed them to the right streets even further away from Lady Merlin her destination. The people started to be loud again, complaining about the twists and turns of the route that they were taking now. While Phoebe was walking a few feet in front of the caravan as a scout, she heard the noise.

It was the sound of a man, grumpy calling out for someone to stop in the name of the Rune Knights. Now Phoebe had nothing against the Rune Knights, she had something against the stopping of this caravan as it was already so difficult, so she readjusted the route, she definitely could have used a map by now. Another detour and she planned a third to make sure that they would be far enough away from the Rune Knights. She didn’t plan to check the legality of this caravan. She was sure that the merchants had not heard the Rune Knights but she wasn’t entirely sure as they suddenly stopped, it was easily heard as the sound of the crunching wheels stopped. She turned to look around at a couple of angry faces. They told her they would abandon the delivery continued like this and she placed her hands on her hips. Persephone agreed that the circumstances asked for it and that it was ridiculous for merchants to stop, so Phoebe told them that, not caring if she pleased them or not. One of the man jumped off the caravan and brought her a package that contained the one for Lady Merlin and she was almost sure that by their handling it was broken but as she checked, she saw that the glass orb was intact.

She watched them manoeuvre the caravan out of this street and get out of Crocus’ smaller streets. She turned around a bit flabbergasted that she was now going to deliver this to Lady Merlin. She surely but steady made her way through the streets of Crocus, without the caravan it suddenly seem to go a lot quicker. She kept her eyes on the orb for most of the time to make sure she didn’t accidentally drop it. Why didn’t she have a bag to carry it in or something, it was too big for her purse and the pocket of her leather jacket. But soon enough she arrived at Lady Merlin and handed her the orb before she would tell the lady what happened, as she was of course surprised Phoebe arrived alone. This time calling her Phoebe and thanking her from her work. She was definitely complaining about the professionalism of the caravan and merchants that she hired to bring her the item but Phoebe basically didn’t listen to that and let it be. The good thing was that now the caravan didn’t show Merlin paid Phoebe extra for her services of bringing the orb whole to her. The raven haired mage would definitely not complain about that and thanked the lady before making her way out of the building. Merlin called after her to come by tomorrow as she had another job that Phoebe could do if she wanted. Which made Persephone push her to accept because she could definitely make use of that and get better connections as well as money. This disaster had gone okay in the end, thank god.