Eva knocked on the door, leaning on the wall next to it with a haste glance towards the white strapped watch on her right wrist. She was still in Orchidia, completing a few more Rune Knights job before moving to Era. It suited her well to go about and do these things instead of sitting down and thinking about her magic. Because if she did that, it was obvious that Eva will never get anywhere. Even the visit from Victor was starting to play inside her mind on repeat. It didn’t get any better when she thought she would have to go back to that manor.

“Urrrghhh Who is it?” she heard a rough groan from inside followed by the click of the door opening. A tall man, groggy and baggy eyed stepped out with a look that said he was in pain just by trying to adjust to the light outside his apartment. “Oh, are you the mage I hired?” he asked with a straightforward drawl. Eva’s eyes itched to twitch at that. Why did people like these made it sound like mages were their servants? She willed a smile to bloom on her lips. “Yes, I’m here to take care of your mom today?” She stated and made it a question at the same time. The mission request clearly asked her to be there to take care of this man’s mother but now, looking at the half hung over guy rubbing his face like crazy, Eva wasn’t so sure. He just gave her an once over and invited her into the house.

She found the kind looking old woman sitting on the sofa of their living room and greeted her. At this point the woman only looked up at her, smiled and nodded before going back to the cup of tea she was having. She almost looked absent minded and confirmed that suspicion for the blonde haired model when she looked up and asked her for her name again. Mitya groaned behind her. “You see what the problem is? I need you to take care of her and I mean really take care of her,” he sounded genuinely worried as he went over the details with Eva, even handing over all those things he knew his mother would enjoy. After that, he just quickly threw some clothes on and ran out the door, leaving Eva alone with the old woman Rynah.

Eva sat next to her for a while, listening to her and sometimes going in and out of the kitchen to get her things. She made sure that the woman wasn’t doing anything dangerous but quickly got bored when Rynah kept knitting some cardigan which looked to be the size of her son. Eva busied herself with a magazine afterwards, flipping through the pages where some of it had her posing in various styles and postures. It was one of the magazines she worked for while they were in Orchidia. How nice that they used most of the pics.
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A few hours rolled by when the granny finally switched from knitting to crossword puzzles. “Dear, can you answer this for me?” came her slightly shaky voice in a few minutes while Eva was on her fifth magazine. She looked up immediately and moved over to peer down at what she was doing. “What’s chimney residue? Four words down,” she asked, pointing a finger at the crossword puzzles. “Soot,” she answered without missing a beat, watching as the joy spread over Rynah’s face before she scribbled it down on the puzzle.

For the next few hours, they passed their time with crossword puzzles. Eva was quite well with it by herself and only answered whenever the granny pointed at some place. Of course Eva was starting to get bored and while she wanted to enjoy her time with the kind old woman, she couldn’t. With every moment that passed with them doing nothing but relax and take it slow, Eva was starting to remember the door inside her head that didn’t open anymore. For the past one week, she had been trying to knock on it with all her might, to push it open with no luck. Everything was completely gone now with the wind blowing past her with no more stories of miles away.

“Do you want some cookies, dear?” the old woman asked as she finally got up from the sofa she was on from the minute Eva got there. As she looked on, Rynah stalked into the kitchen where Eva followed right after registering her words. “Are you baking cookies?” Eva asked, her mind inserting a picture of her own adventures with Finn and the Olly’s Bakery back in Magnolia. Strange that she never met him after that.

Rynah only nodded in affirmative before she gathered all the ingredients and started whipping and mixing them around to create the dough. As Eva watched on from the back with an impressed raise of her eyebrow, the woman was already starting to bake the cookies. Eva just sat in silence until the woman, finally tired, went back to the sofa and started dozing off with the cookie still inside the oven.

Chuckling to herself, she took a blanket that was lying around and placed it over the sleeping woman. After doing so, Eva spent her time in the kitchen with a glass of warm milk that she heated up herself. When the ding sound of the oven came, Eva took the cookies out herself, looking back when she heard the tumbling of something and watched Rynah walked in, half sleepy. “Oh dear, please have some of that,” she told her, urging her to eat some of it and Eva took a bite, feeling some energy flow inside her. For a moment, her magic felt like it came back but disappointed Eva again when she got no response.

As the evening came by, her son came back, looking impressed with the fact that his mother looked far more happier than she ever did with him and handed her the rewards.
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