Teiho idly wondered if he was getting pranked at the moment. He sat in the living room of some house in west Orchidia, sunglasses hovering over his face concealing the rather spaced out look in his eyes. He waited patiently for his client to arrive while preoccupying himself with seeing how long the old woman across from his would attempt to maintain eye contact with the blank stare of his glasses. So far he had counted up to ten at least four times and he was pretty sure even that number of tries were incorrect.

So far his trip to Orchidia had been one long side tracked project after another. If he were being honest with himself, he actually didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do, so this served as a good filler in between searching for his missing things and looking for those who had done him wrong. Of course he knew where his old guild was but that wasn’t important information at the moment. Thankfully the festival served as a good reason to sit in Orchidia for now. The hustle and bustle of the various vendors and the draw of various food and drink were enough to convince Teiho that he would need more than enough jewels to enjoy all that the festival had to offer. And thus came his current situation.

The old woman opened her mouth for some reason, closing and opening the maw with audible clicks and scrapes of her weathered teeth that were likely dentures that had began to decay just like the woman they were stuffed in. The woman pointed and gestured at him, urging him to either come closer to her demented ass, or to go into another room which was likely the kitchen from the sounds and smells coming out of it. He couldn’t tell either way, the slow dull roll of his eyes from one thing to another taking up far more mental effort than considering whatever the hell this old woman wanted from him.

Finally the sound of slow, disoriented footsteps alerted him to the sound of his client arriving. Attempting to stand himself to at least look presentable, he gave up halfway through the action and resigned himself to looking like some sort of drunk degenerate. The man who came down the stairs was nothing like what Teiho imagined him to be. In fact, he looked suspiciously like what Teiho looked like at that moment, drunk off his ass and clearly not where he wanted to be. Giving the whole situation a slow blink, Teiho wondered what the purpose of him being there was, and once again considered if he were being pranked. The guy quickly explained what the details behind everything were, the fact was, he needed someone to watch his grandmother while he went out during the festival and got smashed. So basically he wanted Teiho to do his job while he went out and did what Teiho had actually wanted to do. Lovely. Turning his head to regard the old woman, he debated walking out of the house that moment but thought against it. Money was money at the end of the day, and he definitely needed some jewels right now.

542/1000

“You know sonny, you don’t have to pretend like you’re paying attention. We both know you’re not here right now”.

The voice woke him up from his unforseen slumber. A small string of drool still connected to his lips as he slid back up into an upright position. He could feel his buzz fading and felt it was time to reup on his medicine. Patting down his jacket for his flask, he’d fish it out before taking a rather long and drawn out swig. The old woman watched rather unimpressed, a lit cigarette and a line of drugs strewn out on the table in front of her. The young man pocketed the flask after his drink, eyes back into their dullish state as he looked over the assortment of ‘goodies’ and realized that maybe this job might have been a bit too much for him to handle after all. Whose grandmother is this and why did she have all of these drugs? Questions rolled in and out of his drink addled mind and yet nothing ever made sense. Giving up after a while, he shuffled his body about to get comfortable before reaching for the remote and turning the television on. If he was going to be stuck babysitting some old woman, he was going to have some entertainment damnit.

The woman shrugged at his ignorance to her assortment of illegal substances. Uncaring that she wouldn’t have to share her personal stash, she’d graciously continue consuming all of the drugs she could handle at that moment before coughing into her mouth prompting the young man to finally direct an eye her way. Ensuring that the old woman would die from a drug overdose was most likely on the list of things for him to do and so he proceeded to get up and help the woman out by patting her on the back softly to ease the air passageways. After getting her coughing fit down, he would sniff the air and smell the sweet scent of cookies. Having a feeling that these cookies would be laced with something that wasn’t cocaine, he’d walk into the kitchen and slide them out of the oven, sniffing them as he did so. Oh the heavenly scent of freshly baked cookies. The edible goodies definitely smelled as if they had been given to him by god, and from the sound of the old lady in the living room, he was allowed to have a few.

Grinning to himself, he’d go ahead and pick up one, biting into it with vigor before savoring the flavor of chocolate chips and sugar. The old woman definitely knew how to make some cookies. But as he consumed more and more, he could feel himself changing just a bit. His magic flaring up in his body and his head swimming on a cloud of feathers. Stumbling back into the living room, he collided with the soft plush of the couch, mouth wide open and eyes bugged out as he drifted in and out of consciousness, the cackling of the old woman to the cartoons on the television slowly drowning out into a cacophony of white noise.

He’d wake up hours later on the porch of the house, payment in hand and a note that read ‘come back again’ on it. Shaking his head at the message, he’d pocket it all and return back to his hotel room, eager to sleep off the rather sizeable hangover he now had.

[Exit]

1121/1000