Escort for a Siderodromophobic

I

"Yer goin' on a job with one o' the aces," Geralt reminded as Karasuki dressed and readied herself to leave. She had a small over the shoulder bag and had removed her bottle of water in order to place in it the third book. "Yes, yes, I know. So what?" Karasuki prompted as she twisted the book, trying to slide it in long ways since it was too thick a book to go in on its side. "So what if ye get caught?" "Then you better just stay in my head." "Well ye can't honestly jus' read the whole time.""Sure I can.""I'm a pirate king and I can tell ye, that's not professional. Ye wouldn't last a day on my ship.." Finally after several more minutes of arguing Karasuki tossed her third book back onto the table and slammed her hand on it angrily. She had a sharp temper when things didn't go her way. "All right," She conceded. "I won't take the third book. And I am ordering you to keep your mouth shut this job!" Geralt rolled and stretched inside of her mind. "Well, you ordering me only makes me want to. We shall see, lass."

Karasuki slipped her water bottle back into the bag and secured it with a belt-like clasp. Then the violet-haired woman sauntered over to the mirror one last time. A job with Gaia, an ace: it was an opportunity to prove herself to the woman and maybe she would finally grow. She could watch Gaia and perhaps learn how to be a better mage herself. It was going to be fine, just her and Gaia, escorting someone on a train. No big deal. She felt flattered even that one of the aces would ask her. In her reflection, she studied her expression first; she looked moody but she always did when Geralt was pestering her. She exhaled slowly and tried on a smile. It looked much better but she heard Geralt chuckling and it shifted back into an unsuppressed scowl. Next, she checked her attire out. Karasuki wore classy high waisted black shorts which stopped at her thighs. Thin black suspenders raced up the front, over her chest, over her shoulders, and then down her back like a tiny road. A crinkled and pressed white collared shirt was slipped neatly into the waistband of the shorts and a thin black ribbon tied the top of her shirt together in a cute bow. She thought she looked professional even if Geralt didn't. And what did she care what he thought of her clothing, anyway? He was a pirate from an old storybook!

Karasuki slung the leather bag over her shoulder and hastened out to the Ace of Spades. She saw Gaia boarding the carriage and was quick to clamber in behind her. "Sorry, I hope I'm not too late, Miss Sabin." Her eyes widened to the size of near golf balls as she stepped into the carriage and took her seat. She had unwittingly placed herself across from a tall dark-haired man she had only seen a couple times before within the guild. She knew who he was by his face, however: Kite Wilhelm, the guild leader. He greeted her and she stared into his eyes wordless. Geralt laughed boisterously within her head and she found she was at a lost for words. After a moment, she remembered her manners and bowed just her head, lifting her brown eyes to meet his once more. "Pleasure to meet you too, sir. I hadn't known you would join us." She swallowed hard glancing over at Gaia and then kept her mouth shut. Kite was right when he said a job was to be taken seriously, after all. She didn't make the connection that it looked like she was caught off guard and blamed Gaia, or that the way she stared and awkwardly responded could have made it seem like she was unhappy to see the leader of the guild. Inexperience was a detriment to the young woman and she ran a hand over the bag upon her lap. Books were usually where the stayed, where she belonged, and right now instead of the magic to summon characters out, she wished for the hundredth time that she could just be reverse summoned into a novel. Inside the carriage she thought to herself, I should have brought that third book.

WC: 732

Notes \\ ( 595 ) 981 / 750 Words \\ Tag

Unfortunately, down in Ace of Spades, the one Kite assumed was Casander, was just a passerbyer that was quickly chattering with Gaia. They had given their respects to Kite before they had to go off and do what they were doing before. Gaia smiles to Kite and nods her head to him in greeting. She followed him into the carriage and looked over at Karasuki as she came in behind her. "Oh! You're not late! We haven't even left yet. We're just waiting on one other possibly to join us..." She frowns as she actually wasn't seeing Casander anywhere. Ten minutes had passed, and Gaia glanced to her iLac. "Hopefully he'll show up at our destination..." She murmurs before the driver started to go. She glanced over at Karasuki, and blinked a moment. "Oh! Did I not say! Oh... Usually I don't do these things..." She put a finger on her chin, and huffs. "Apologies, I thought I told you that we'd be doing this job with at least Kite, and that I was inviting Casander along with us." She says nervously. She glances over to Kite, and her eyes grew a little wide for a moment when he told her she was in charge, then she grinned as well. "I hope to do well by your books as well then." She nods as they were on their way.

In Magnolia, Gaia gets off of the carriage and pulls out the paper once more. "We have to get to the train station to meet the clients." She informed the two as she slowly walked to the station. The tarot mage looked around for a moment before Noya perked her head up in the direction of the other side of the station, where a man was crying and frantically trying to run away, but was being held back by a woman. "You're getting on the train, Oliver! I'm not saying this again!" The woman shouts at him. Gaia clears her throat, and looks back. "I think there's our clients." As the girl made her way over to the couple, she smiles softly. "Hello, I'm Gaia Sabin, a mage of Sabertooth, and this is Kite Wilhelm, and Karasuki Kitsuharu. They're also mages of Sabertooth with me. Would you happen-" "Yes! You finally showed up! I am the one who posted the job! I need you to get my husband on the train ASAP! He's deathly afraid for no reason. I need you to make sure he stays on the train no matter what." She says as she was holding his wrist in a death grip basically. "Just make sure he's not injured... he needs to look his best for the presentation."

Gaia holds up her hand as she nods her head. "We promise to not disrupt his physical looks, or too much." A whistle blows as people were being called to board the train, and Gaia clears her throat. "Kite, would you help bring him onto the train please? I feel you might have less trouble with getting him on." She looks to Karasuki, and raised an eyebrow to see if she had any objections, especially with how the man was desperately trying to get away from his wife right now. If Kite agreed and helped drag the man onto the train, Gaia would help where she could. If Kite didn't, she started dragging him herself. The whole way onto the train, the man was screaming and trying to kick others and trying to not be dragged onto the train, but it proved to be failing him.

Karasuki was grateful when she felt the steady rhythm of the carriage beneath her seat. If they were moving, that was a great sign to the job's beginning. She had remembered the many times she had boarded carriages, trains, and even ships for them to need to wait hours before transport began. It seemed the driver was impatient in this case, but whoever Casander was, well perhaps Karasuki would meet him another day. Karasuki had spaced out just for a moment, hearing Kite's words about ignoring formalities and holding out his hand to shake. She blinked as she realized that she had spent too much time in her head, thinking about stupid modes of travel while her guild master sat before her offering his hand. As his hand was pulled back, Karasuki shot out her own right hand, slipping her lithe fingers into his and giving him an awkwardly stretched handshake. "Not at all, sir. Er- Sorry. Kite. I guess I just didn't realize that the guild leaders went on jobs like these with people like," Karasuki stopped by the end of her sentence and gave her lower lip a short bite. She would have said 'people like me', but then, wasn't she a member of the guild same as anyone else in Sabertooth now?

Karasuki released Kite's hand, having held it too long, once more in her head berating herself for her unfinished and strange reply. She sat back in her seat, the purple waves of hair rolling over her shoulders. She glanced at Gaia and said, "Good organization truly is a skill. You wouldn't believe the people I've met in my shop back in Oak Town." Karasuki smiled an honest sort of smile, thinking fondly of that place. "I'm not put off by working with those without that particular skill set either," She remarked, pointedly looking up at Kite. When the conversation moved along, as the carriage rolled over the roads ahead, Kite had come to ask her about her magic. Karasuki ran her right thumbnail over her left index finger, running it sharply over her skin as her nervous or thoughtful mindset usually had her doing. "Ye going to tell him 'bout me right?" Geralt chimed in her head, "I am quite impressive. Maybe he wouldn't see ye as such an odd duck if ye jus' explained that deep down--" Karasuki cut him off, mentally rebuking him, a faraway look in her brown eyes. "Tell him that deep down, I share a soul with a pirate king? That deep down, there's a man in my head!? Shut up, Geralt." Karasuki looked up at Kite, her eyes refocusing as she politely answered him.

"I am a summoner, like Ryo and Miss Sabin. Except, I don't use cards. I use my books." Karasuki slid her bag over her shoulder and sat it on her lap. She unlatched the top and pulled it open, tilting it to show Kite that there were two books inside. "I don't need to read out of them directly, just quote a line from the book and a character comes to life. I don't have many summons with contracts yet because believe it or not, most characters aren't mentally strong enough to be read out of a book and discover that their whole world is kept between the pages of a story." She laughed at her own joke and closed her bag back up, situating it to her side so she could swing it back to her shoulders later. "Maybe I will get the chance to introduce you to some of my friends today, if it is needed. I don't suppose a train trip is very dangerous though." Geralt gave an eager smirk, "Or maybe he'll meet me and ye can deal with yer big secret bein' outed." Karasuki ignored the voice in her head and looked out the window. When they arrived at Magnolia, Gaia got off first. Karasuki spent an awkward second trying to allow Kite to get off next, but her politeness was overwhelmingly overpowered by his politeness and she ended up sliding out of the carriage next. As Kite got off the carriage himself, Karasuki moved to thank the driver, patting his horse.

She turned about hearing the argument across the way and rose her eyebrows. A woman was struggling to hold a man still as he cried and bemoaned the necessity of getting on a train. She gave a little snort, thinking to herself that they were probably the clients. And moments later, Gaia had said the same thing she thought. Karasuki followed Gaia and Kite to the station and let them handle speaking to them. Gaia introduced them all, but the woman seemed desperate to not be the one holding onto her husband any longer. The poor lady looked annoyed and tired, while the man looked sweaty and frightened. This could be an interesting trip after all. Kite gave the man two choices and then slung him over his shoulder with a smirk, starting to carry him onto the train. Karasuki had to stifle a laugh by looking away. She hurried to grab the single suitcase the man had on the station floor, hoping the man's wife didn't catch her giggling. "I've got it, Kite, no problem!" Her fingers lifted the suitcase and found it to be heavier than she expected. It was not a serious issue, given the strong muscles she had developed carrying enormous stacks of books around the bookstore. The book-mage hurried to keep pace with Kite and boarded behind him as Gaia finished taking care of things with the wife at the station. Karasuki wondered if the three of them needed tickets, but didn't bother to ask about it out loud.

She slid the heavy suitcase beneath the seat in front of her, where Kite and the man freaking out were sitting. She overheard a soft threat emanating from Kite and felt herself the increase in heat. She sat back in her seat, behind the frantic man and diagonally back from Kite. It allowed her the window seat and it allowed her the chance to keep an eye on the man from behind if he tried anything. The man himself was sweating much more and Kara tilted her head slightly as she watched him. Perhaps he was better off asleep, or perhaps one of her summons could reduce his anxiety somehow. He hadn't offered his name, and Karasuki hadn't waited with Gaia outside so she hadn't overheard one. She looked to the suitcase beneath Kite's seat and saw it stamped with a travel tag: Grigore. Had she heard of that name somewhere before? Was he a political advisor? A businessman just starting out? The head of an elite school system? Maybe, she considered, looking at the man quietly, he was an author, creator of worlds. "I think his name could be Grigore, or maybe his surname," Karasuki said to Kite, unsure if it would be helpful to him.

WC: 732+1163= 1895

Karasuki took it all in quietly: the conversations, the statements, the white lies, and the reassurances. What Kite had said to her had almost felt like a rebuke, until she saw how he spoke to Gaia about being a boss. It sparked her curiosity for how he had become the guild leader, but she sensed somehow that this was not the time or place for that specific question. Kite genuinely wanted to be treated like a regular mage it would seem, and to lose her natural way of speaking to others was strange. For Karasuki, her summons were family, Geralt was not really a friend or family but certainly, no stranger and the way she spoke to them were short, casual, personal, comfortable. Kite, Gaia, Ryo, and the others she had met so far were just not close enough for her to pull down her walls, her politeness was a distancing language, one designed to keep them at bay. It was something she had perfected serving others in the book shop where she grew from child to woman. Still, Kite was her guild leader, and if he wanted to be treated without all the labels and titles, then she would have to find a way to make that work. Such a turn of expectations had her mind working through the issue, chewing on it for a while to see just how she could manage the duality of how she related to others. Time passed on the train and she noticed that after Gaia's comment, Kite had somehow reduced the heat back to normal on the trip.

Neil Grigore, on the other hand, continued to sweat, despite that Kite had reduced his aura to nothing. His nervousness was getting the best of him and it was a challenge to outdo his own fears with the pressing threats of the strange mages with him on the train. The idea of losing his wife was worrisome, but it still somehow equaled his fear of the train. As time passed and he squirreled around in his seat, occasionally trying to stand up and leave only to be put back in it by the mages on the train with him, Karasuki felt she had a moment to relax. When Kite asked if either she or Gaia had been to Era, she slowly shook her head, her eyes not just looking out the window, but looking through it. Grigore himself wet his lips twice before opening his hands in a confused and supplicative gesture. "Presentation," He managed to say in brief. "Could get a promotion or a.." As he spoke, scenes of grassland and rolling hills played across the trip, but Karasuki was wrapped up in her thoughts. She hesitated too long, and it might have seemed random when she finally answered Kite. "No, I haven't been to Era. Maybe you can show us around after we finish our job?"

After a time, the train jerked to a stop and nobody had to do anything more for the man. Neil Grigore burst from his seat the moment Kite and Gaia moved and raced off. He opened the door with a loud bang, and Karasuki chuckled when she heard one of the attendants on the train argue with Grigore to check for his bags and items. Karasuki got off the train making the decision to attempt to treat her fellow mages with a bit less distance. If Ryo had been right, and she had trusted the mischievous man's smile, these people were like a family. Gaia had been there with her so far, and as a guide, she had been nothing but helpful and kind. She was sure whoever Casander was, they might have been friends too. Presuming she could continue to keep Geralt a secret, there was a chance that Kite would be right when he said there were no "people like her". No more excluding myself, she thought sliding her hands under the seat and grabbing Grigore's briefcase. When the mages got off, she handed the briefcase to the trembling man on the side of the tracks. Here it was, her moment to be a genuine part of this guild. Her lips parted and the woman said softly, "I'm in the mood for some coffee, actually. What do you two think?"

WC: 1895+722= 2617