— 1 day until evaluation —
Morning.
There was nothing left to eat for breakfast, if you hadn’t known – you would after reading Oliver’s expression.
“...”
Levi was less pressed. He would just eat a big lunch, indirectly sponsored by the city.
River… didn’t seem to be completely present. Physically, she was. But her head was in the clouds. Levi and Oliver could tell something was wrong – of course, there were many things that were wrong.
Oliver sat up, summoning his morning energy. “You were asleep when we got back, we went to visit the professor Levi mentioned yesterday, by the way. Are you interested in meeting him too? After we buy a couple books, maybe?”
She clearly needed something to do. Purpose was the cornerstone of stability, being left without any was clearly digging into her mental health. That was Oliver’s interpretation, anyway.
River sank a bit in her seat, but she mustered a reply. “Yeah. I think I’ll spend the day out today again.”
—
Time came around for Levi to start heading to the Scholarium, which was now also Oliver’s work hours due to a short conversation with Emilia.
And so the three musketeers were off into the streets again, and after making plans to meet back up later for books, River broke from them sooner than she had yesterday, seeming keen to explore.
Oliver dropped Levi off next, and headed to the ministry.
He and Emilia managed to get pretty much everything done in record time. This workload clearly below below their skill level after the trials they had gone through.
No wonder Emilia had coped by herself before Oliver had arrived.
They went to volunteer for the rest of the day, and so Oliver had some room to think while performing his menial tasks.
He was living paycheck to paycheck in a city as far away from home as you could possibly get. Oliver had already had some independence from his family, but sheesh.
Oliver would have liked to claim he had it harder than most people, but that would be dishonest. Compared to historical living standards in his home world… Suffice it to say he was still living better than pretty much all of his ancestors, even under threat of execution.
He acknowledged he was traumatised, and felt he should be angry.
Acknowledgement was all he allowed himself though, at this moment. Progress had to be made – and he angry. But crashing out would be unproductive.
That’s how many people must have felt, or were feeling. There was something about that idea, that so many people are suppressed in that way, that was souring to realise. Part of being a new adult.
Nobody to fall back on, nobody to guide you along and tell you when you were falling behind.
Oliver was aware there was a single thing that needed to happen no matter what. It just had some complicated steps and conditions he hadn’t figured out yet. He needed to find a way home, and to do that he first needed his feet under him.
With a tentative check in that box, now it was time to start looking for answers. Answers are easier to see in high places, especially if someone in a high place was trying to cover them up.
So the best course was to climb. Climb upwards, climb fast.
Stopping was tantamount to death at the hands of those more capable of action.
It was too easy to procrastinate or to get lost in pedantry.
And so Oliver kept moving his feet, one step, two. Collect documents, take back. Faster. New instruction. Faster.. New requirement.
—
Emilia watched her strange but dedicated worker –
A phenomenon she was aware of, had experienced not too long ago in fact.
A result of emotion and mana and often a
Everybody noticed. The official in charge, another official helping out on the other side of the room from Emilia. The people in line.
It wasn’t exactly a harmful thing in most circumstances. In fact, everybody seemed impressed – but Emilia had been around Oliver enough to know that this wasn’t something normal.
There was sweat on his blank face, he began to do the work equivalent to that of two assistants. Emilia was now matching the pace of the Official in charge because of it.
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She maybe should have pulled Oliver aside… But this was her big break, in a sense. Or at least the first step down the path.
She had a feeling she would get promoted regardless. The shenanigans with the Secretary of Finance, her father’s negative relationship with the Ministers of the city – her goals aligned with those of the Finance Minister in a small way.
She knew they knew she was a political piece of some value. Her independence would be a blow to her father’s political capital.
Letting Oliver run a bit overdrive was… fine, it wasn’t going to be especially harmful to him – and it would improve her reputation.
She could just see it in their eyes, – her employee was using magically enhanced movement for something as trivial as this.
He would just be quite tired afterwards…
She would pay him a bit more.
—
River walked through the streets, short enough to go relatively unnoticed, though that wasn’t the goal today. There wasn’t really a goal today at all.
She just wanted to be distracted. She kept walking and walking, seeing the people of the city go about their days. A relatively small but dense city, with less homeless people than she might have imagined. Less smell, too.
Hygiene was decent, generally people seemed to be prospering.
She walked through a poorer district, saw children running through the streets, a small square with couples out and about on dates.
She went from area to area, people watching. Strange people in a strange world, doing normal things.
The slightly wealthier people lived around the markets, lines and lines of stores offering goods, competing with their neighbors for customers. Less familiar to River, but strangely a comforting sight.
Community, belonging, banter. All desirable. She kept going.
The wealthiest areas were quieter, nobody was forced to interact with each other – and when they did, they hid their mouths and said nothing interesting.
This was familiar to River, but not at all comforting. She had never been rich, but she knew narcissists when she saw them.
She decided she didn’t like the wealthy area.
She walked down another street, toward the administrative areas, but stopped when she heard the sounds of a distressed cat.
When she found the source of the noise, her good mood faltered.
Through the slits of a fenced garden, she watched as the child mishandled the animal in its arms. The cat was clearly uncomfortable.
“...”
River was also uncomfortable watching it. She jumped the fence, which spooked the kid enough for the cat to wiggle free.
The kid just looked at the strange masked individual in their garden. River crouched down and held a finger to her mask.
The cat, with nowhere to go (possibly by design), was huddled in a corner. The kid wasn’t doing anything, so River slowly moved over to it, and managed to help it over the fence.
When the kid noticed where the cat was going…
“... aaaaAAAH MOTHER, MOOTHERRR!!”
River jumped the fence and started running. A bit less empty inside than before, for her actions.
Was that cat the kid’s property? .
Was it going to have a better life outside their grasp? .
Change had been affected, though. River had affected the change.
Or rather, had. River could dissociate with problematic actions, while still doing what she wanted or felt was necessary.
Still, if Paige became too notorious, it would also be a problem.
Best to stay inconspicuous.
—
Oliver was aware of his exertion, he wasn’t stuck in a concerning internal monologue for so long as to get all the work done, after a minute he had realised what he was doing.
The feeling was familiar. He knew he would likely be tired after this, but hey. He had managed before, and this was speeding things along.
He wasn’t superhumanly fast, but he was quite above par for a document retrieving assistant as it stood. He felt like when he stopped, though, the fun would be over.
This hadn’t been fun before, to be clear. Exhilarating? – sure.
He could feel his willpower burning. Maybe it wasn’t such a healthy thing to be doing. For sure, he hadn’t seen anyone else doing similar – there had to be some tradeoff.
Time passed as he thought like that, and he put an end to it. He felt the wash of exhaustion – but by then it was already time to finish.
Emilia gave him his much desired pay, and he shuffled his way out of the Ministry.
He had been going for a while. He was very tired.
—
Oliver arrived at the Scholarium, which is where he found Levi. River had agreed to meet them there around this time – but as he looked around, she hadn’t kept her word.
Probably late.
… About twenty minutes passed.
The time old conundrum. If they moved and she turned up, he would be worsening the problem.
As a stranger walked mere paces away, a blue poncho’d individual appeared in their wake, causing both Oliver and Levi to startle. It was like she had appeared from nowhere.
They stood there, the three of them, in silence for a few seconds.
… River didn’t really stick out among the crowd, so Oliver put it down to a fluke of misdirected attention.
“Paige… I’d ask what the hold up was… maybe we should get you a notepad.”
They stood around for a moment, Oliver struggling to do much contemplation after his exertion today.
Levi took charge. “Let’s go find some books.”
They were moving by the time Oliver’s tired brain caught up. “Mmm, down this way. I think I remember… aha.”
They stopped in front of a bookstore, not the same one where Levi had gotten his magic study book, but the most clean and polished wooden building the whole length of the street.
The customers walking in and out of it were not rabble, that was for sure.
A normal citizen of the city would have seen it as above their station to go into a store like that, but these three modern people didn’t give it a second thought, and at least they did look the part.
The store was long and narrow on the inside, like many other stores, but had a spiral staircase in the middle for floors further above. Oliver stopped one of the staff. “Hi, I was wondering where to find, uhh…”
Levi broke in. “History books, and maps.”
The staff member looked from Oliver in his business attire to Levi in his robes before smiling. “Studying, are you? I’ll see what I can find.”
—
Another member of staff came up to River, “Excuse me, we have a policy that masked individuals must present identification upon entering the store. Regardless of your reasons for wearing it.”
River was silent.
“... If not, you will need to remove yourself.”
Oliver had already lost track of River, focused on finding the books in his semi-dilapidated state. Levi wasn’t so tunnel visioned though, and walked back over to River. “It’s alright, she’s with me. She can’t talk.”
River nodded.
The staff member turned to Levi, “If she does not have any identification on her, you will need to provide yours by proxy. Just a security precaution.”
Levi did in fact have ID, and he presented it proudly and with a flourish. His student card had some simple magical inscriptions on the back, though they did little more than prove the authenticity of the card itself. The front listed his name and student number, along with a simple written description of his appearance.
The staff member took a close look at it, then Levi. She pulled out a notepad and noted down his student number.
“Sorry for the inconvenience.”
—
Oliver walked back over to Levi and River, who hadn’t followed him to find the books.
It was fine, though, he found something suitable. Pricey as it was.
He opined to the two as he forked out money at the front counter. “This seems pretty all-encompassing. Should do the trick to begin with.” He smiled.
—
That night, Oliver was too tired to do any reading himself and so fell asleep, but River and Levi sat up together, going over the history of the world according to this book.
Lots of it was boring, hard to follow, and completely foreign to the two of them.
Interesting, nonetheless. River had forgotten yesterday’s discomfort.
Certified bangers hitting every Sunday
Keep me accountable with phrasing / grammar if at all possible. This one needed some edits.
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