Don't Mind if I Do

Hargeon was a pretty town, full of bustling shops and throngs of people. The ocean view was something else entirely, the surface of the water glistening in the light like glitter stretching as far as the eye could see. The scent of all sorts of different foods wafted around her from various restaurants and vendor carts. Mercury took it all in with a bit of excitement that was masked behind her easy smile. She enjoyed shopping, so this area was of quite a bit of interest to her. Already she had a couple bags of clothes that she’d purchased, which were currently being held by the personal sized drone flying beside her. A few people glanced at the drone in curiosity, but in a world full of odd magicks it really didn’t draw too much attention.

What drew her attention, however, was a veritable crowd of people all gathered together in one area near some of the docks. Mercury was in the process of a transaction to purchase some baked goods to take back to her apartment when she noticed the people scrambling for places in line around a few tables. “What’s going on over there?” she asked the baker as he handed her back her change and started boxing the goodies for her.

“They’re trying to get passports.”

“Passports..?”

He nodded. “Yeah, now that the borders are opened up.” The man must have caught the blank expression on Mercury’s face. “Not from around here, I take it?”

Mercury gave him a soft smirk. “You could certainly say that.”

“Yeah, the king has finally opened trade and commerce with our neighboring country, which means that the people can apply for passports that will allow them to visit places outside of Fiore. The people here are representatives of the Magic Council that are doing the paperwork to issue them.”

“Interesting,” the woman said, collecting her bag from him. “Thank you very much for the information. And for the food.” With a final smile, she bid him farewell and wandered over to the lines. A passport would certainly come in handy, though she wasn’t entirely sure how easily she could get one without being a citizen of the country. Mercury had no paper trail about herself, no form of identification whatsoever that she could use to apply for something like this, but she figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Luckily, there were so many people that it seemed the workers were a bit overwhelmed. They were hardly even checking the documents submitted to them. Mercury scouted the workers until she found the one that looked the most frazzled, selecting her line. With a bit of well placed wit and charisma, and an awful lot of distracted supplied by the poor woman’s anxiety, Mercury was able to fill out the documents and receive the little booklet without even having to show anything because the worker was too frazzled to notice. With a smirk, Mercury leafed through the thing as she walked away, thinking about what sort of new doors had just opened for her...