I'm Not Afraid (Seika)

Bubbles were Seika's life. That was a fact, plain and simple. She had met Aphelia, who saved her life, through a bubble. The fish had been living in a reef when the ship's wreck had crashed into their home. Ever since then, the two individuals had magically been fused by some stroke of luck and a freak of nature. On her part, the mage didn't mind this at all; she was even grateful for the fact that she was alive and breathing as a result of their encounter. However, the spirit was a little less enthusiastic. While she had gained some new abilities related to light and prismatic effects as a result of everything, she had lost an important aspect of herself in summoning. Only recently had they been able to regain that part of their ancestry and reunite with the Risan magic. So, Aphelia was still a little bit salty that her bond mate had inadvertently locked her out of performing her own family's spells and rituals without her involvement. Seika's, that was. But they were slowly moving past it, and the feline wouldn't have dared to even let the girl know that she was upset about it or practically anything for that matter. Today, the two had decided to go to a spa. According to the weather predictions, which were becoming more and more accurate thanks to high powered magical technology, it was going to be a sunny day. Now, the girl loved the sun, and the light, but Aphelia preferred to lounge around indoors. Not to say that she liked the darkness; rather, she just hated being too hot. Even as partially a flame spirit, her essence also contained the coldness of the winter mountains, as a shape shifter who often took on the form of a snow leopard or tiger. Anyway, so today Seika had wanted to go out because it was sunny. Her idea of a perfect day with this weather would be running around, taking advantage of the strong sunlight during the afternoon to take artistic pictures, then utilizing the even light as the sun set or was hidden by clouds to take less stylistic photos. Naturally, that had been the girl's plan for the day. But she was reluctant to be separated from Aphelia, and what with how the feline refused to voice her feelings out loud in this instance, she had still managed to understand that her friend was equally hesitant to just stay at home and let her run about by herself. No matter how reticent the cat acted, she had her own concerns and emotions, held quietly inside. And to be completely honest, after enough practice, Seika had managed to become proficient enough at guessing the feline's emotions. Today's were no exception to her general ability to deduce how the spirit was feeling. For that reason, the girl had made the executive decision to go to the spa and stay inside, while also enjoying a bit of outdoors time on this fine day. Aphelia was not allowed to argue, not that the feline would have even put up a fight on being pampered for hours. However, her condition was that they had to go in their Sibylline forms. In this manner, she could claim it was a sort of training, and keep face despite not protesting too much about the day of luxury.

There was only one location for spas, and that was Hosenka Town! Well, technically speaking, there were many different nice establishments all over Fiore, not to mention Earthland, but this city had been the first one she'd thought of. And that meant it was the only option, of course, since Seika wasn't predisposed to changing her mind again once it was made up! Within a flash, she had teleported the two of them to the city. Slowly, over the course of the past several weeks, the mage's teleportation abilities had become better and better. At this stage, she could even travel without getting completely over come by motion sickness for a few minutes. There was still a split second of nausea, but Seika's stomach no longer felt like doing back flips up and out of her throat. That was a relief, because now the cat had far less qualms about teleporting instead of walking. Laziness was an enormous factor for her. "Seika, hurry up," Aphelia yawned, sitting at the top stair of the entrance to the spa. There were so many different spas in Hosenka, to be honest, which was perfect! It meant that maybe they would get to try out several different locations all in the single day. But the bond mates didn't want to get ahead of themselves. Er, at least, Seika didn't. She was the only one zoning out and thinking that far ahead into the future, anyway, though; Aphelia might have been considering things, but she surely wasn't obsessing over them in the present. Seika pulled herself out of her head and smiled brightly at her friend, who had transformed from a feline into her human form at some point. "Yeah! Let's go, Aphi!" She bounded forward, tripping over the stairs and colliding with another patron, who was just then exiting the spa. "Watch where you're going," the voice scolded her, a bit gently, but mostly condescendingly. It was as if they didn't believe that she could have paid attention even if she had wanted to. Ignoring their words, Seika saluted cheerfully before scampering after Aphelia, who had rolled her eyes and continued to step inside of the establishment. "Aphi! Where should we go first?" The mage's voice rang out loudly, and the staff who was sitting at the front desk gave them a bit of a glare. She pointed to a nearby sign, laminated, that was posted on a wall. It read in blocky letters that this was a quiet area and yelling was strictly prohibited. Naturally, Seika failed to pick up on this hint, or rather, what was basically an outright rebuke. Her bond mate had no respect for the rules and so of course did not redirect her friend's attention to the worker. Instead, she simply ignored what Seika was doing and let her fawn over the location's appearance, pulling out her camera and snapping pictures of everyone and everything. Aphelia walked over to the front desk and stood in front of it, glaring at the woman with a patented mixture of disinterest and impatience. While she had no idea how to pay for spa services, as long as she looked like she was waiting to be served, she would be served, right? Wouldn't she? That was how these things worked... nearby, Seika had accidentally taken a picture of a woman in a state of undress, who had been coming out of a room on one side to head over to the changing rooms across the area in the other wing. Unfortunately, the mage had bumped into her fellow spa goer and accidentally sent her slipping on the smooth floor and tumbling to the ground.

There was nothing to be ashamed of when it came to nudity! Seika thought bodies were like, cool and stuff. So she had snapped a lot of pictures of the woman, especially as she was getting up, because like, the angles were changing and the way the low lights and candles flickered against the model were super cool. But the stranger hadn't really seemed to see it the same way as Seika, and had started a ruckus, much to the chagrin of the employees, once again. As soon as Aphelia saw more of them flooding the area, trying to prevent her bond mate from taking pictures and encouraging her to put away her camera, the spirit stepped in. "Look, we're from the Rune Knights. I apologize for my companion, she doesn't know how to behave in public," the girl paused, before lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "She was raised from a young age to be a weapon. No sense of societal decency. Please just let us enjoy a nice day off together?" At the same time, the mage slid several thousand jewels to the receptionist, whose eyes flickered to the money briefly before resting back on the spirit. With any luck, they wouldn't get thrown out. It was easier to toss around a few nice words and some cash rather than have to fight or cause a ruckus. Despite her abrasive nature, the feline did not, in fact, enjoy having to use her magic for strenuous tasks like combat. Teleporting around was one thing; that prevented the need for walking and using her legs. Thankfully, it seemed like the attendant was more than happy to cooperate, since she stood up without much further word and went over to the employees who were currently still struggling to control Seika. The girl wasn't specifically acting out or anything, she was just... very determinedly refusing to put her camera away. Since her skin was, quite literally, boiling to the touch when her emotions were hyped up enough, they had quickly found out it was impossible to physically force her away from her electronic device. Plus, uh, she was surprisingly strong. Even though the girl was just a teenager, and she in fact had been weakened in part by the way colormancy had affected her body... Seika kind of packed a punch when it came to individuals who had no magic whatsoever. Inadvertently, of course, as she was not really in the habit of hurting people from a goal of doing harm, but still the situation stood that she could do some damage with her flailing around. That was the case here. Once the staff members had backed away, the mage's eyes widened dramatically and she looked visibly concerned. More than that; probably almost in shock, or awe? "Woah! What happened to you? What's wrong? Are you okay?" The mage asked, oblivious to the fact that she had in fact accidentally injured some of the attendants. "I'll help you, don't worry!" The girl, for now with very wet silver hair from tousling around on the tiled floor, quickly ran from person to person, infusing their skin and bodies with sparking magic that buzzed to life, spurring on their natural healing processes. It was a fast process, and almost within minute, they were all back to perfect health. Now with not a single injury in sight, Seika clapped her hands before bowing slightly to each. "Don't worry! I'll help you! C'mon Aphi, let's find out who did this!"

With that having been said, the mage grabbed her bond mate's hand. The spirit did not protest in any way, instead hiding her amusement as Seika teleported them deeper into the spa. It was a surprisingly complicated system; the girl didn't know why she was so surprised, though, given that Hosenka was so famous for its luxury establishments such as these. Of course they were super fancy! But either way, she would happily ooh and aah at everything around her! There were tons of things to take pictures of. The people were looking at her like she was a little bit crazy, but they were meanies anyway. Or... if they weren't then it was whatever! She couldn't care less, because this was her spa and she could do whatever she wanted to. Seika, it's not our spa, you do know that, right? The spirit drawled dryly through their bond link. Ignoring her friend, the mage's chin lifted up just a teeny bit as she tried to assert her dominance over the area full of other patrons. It didn't really work, but what it did succeed in doing was sending all of them looking away, muttering among themselves. Some with amusement, the majority just frustrated and or done with the situation. Seika didn't really mind, since she was more occupied with other things. Like... wondering what the temperature of the water was! Her eyes sparkling with excitement, and by that it was meant literally sparking and giving off miniature bursts of prismatic light, the mage rushed over to the nearest pool. There were lots of them inside of here. Different rooms were around, with lots of hot tubs for patrons to lounge about and use the facilities before or after their treatments. Speaking of treatments, the girl wasn't sure what she was supposed to be getting! Turning slightly towards Aphelia, with her toes and calves stuck in the water as she sat on the edge, Seika asked a question silently. The spirit groaned before answering shortly. "We have an unlimited spa package, so we can get whatever we want." Now that wasn't strictly true, but it was close enough. Whatever she wanted, Seika would probably end up getting as long as things continued to go along as they were. Meaning, as long as Aphelia had money to pay for it and there were no threatening mages around to put a stop to their antics. Just then, a bit of a noise coming from an adjacent room caught Seika's attention. "Aphi, what was that?? Let's go look!" Without waiting for a response, she took off like a rocket, nearly slipping as she slid through the door with extremely curious eyes occupying the majority of her face with almost cartoonish proportions. Once they got inside, a sight greeted them that was unexpected, but not completely out of the ordinary. There was a dog...! But, the dog.... it had spiders on it?? Seika wondered if she was hallucinating, and upon catching a wind of those thoughts in the girl's mind, the spirit immediately followed her through the door. Inside, she wasn't really sure how to react to whatever was happening. The scenario was just bizarre. First of all, dogs like that one shouldn't have been allowed in the spa. Wasn't this supposed to be a very special establishment? Surely if pets were allowed there would be a separate area in case of allergies.

And then... well, there were the spiders. Dozens and dozens of little spiders seemed to be pouring out of the corner near where the dog was. They were crawling up on the dog, almost looking like little black ants what with how many of them there were. Belatedly, Aphelia realized that it might not be a good idea to continue existing in this space. Grabbing Seika's hand, she was about to haul the mage and herself out of there and find a different spa, never minding the money they had already spent here, when she realized Seika's hand was not where she had expected it to be. In fact, the girl was gone. Poof. Just up and vanished. Groaning audibly, the older girl turned around a few times to make sure that her bond mate was nowhere in the vicinity before she turned around abruptly and left. There was no sense in staying in that room. Spiders that numerous and that small and that much... together, well, it just spelled out a bad situation overall. Besides, she could slightly sense her friend's magic power nearby. Honestly, Aphelia was surprised that she had managed to slip away so quickly, but when Seika was motivated to move with some degree of stealth, she could on occasion actually perform actions sneakily. Like that one time they had pranked another member and dyed all of their hair bright white- oh, but that wasn't relevant now. Trying her hardest to clear her head of all of these distracting thoughts, the spirit headed in the direction of the bond pull. While faint, it was still very clear to the spirit. Unlike Seika, she rarely was able to lose a sense of their connection. Perhaps it was because she had more of a magical base to her existence, but regardless of the reasoning, she quickly located her friend. When she opened the door of the room, the sight made heart drop into her stomach. "Seika..." There, sitting in a hot tub, was Seika, with a giant spider. By giant, she didn't mean like, the size of her palm or even a dinner plate. No, this one was bigger than a bed. Bigger than their bedroom back in Elysium. Oh, and she'd better not try to get that thing to come anywhere near home with them. It barely seemed to fit in this room here, and it was a rather enormous place, with a high ceiling and a chandelier above. Which the spider's head was nearly bumping into. Oh, and it had eight eyes... that was great. Now, Aphelia couldn't say that she was afraid of spiders. In general, they didn't bother her, possibly because she couldn't be bothered to bother anybody. It was just too much effort. But this gargantuan fellow.. or actually, it was probably a mother. The spirit could get a sense of Seika's thoughts, including that the little spiders were her babies. But how had the girl even located the mama spider, and most importantly, why was she standing that close to it?? Not to mention how had it even gotten in the spa in the first place. So many questions that had yet to be answered... For now, she settled on slowly walking over to stand next to Seika, where she said very calmly, "Our treatment is almost ready, we should go meet our attendant." Just as she was tugging the other girl out of the room, the spider shrieked. It was a terrifying sound, but somehow, it didn't sound threatening so much as just... plaintive? "She's hungry! Aphi, while we're out, let's find her some food, okay? I promised! She has so many babies and they ate a lot of the food she had" Seika explained using knowledge coming from literally nowhere understandable. How had she been told all of that in just the short amount of minutes they had been apart? But Aphelia wouldn't question it. Instead, she just nodded before leading her bond mate out of the room.

Outside the spa itself, after putting a decent amount of distance between themselves and the gargantuan creature, Aphelia asked the girl directly, "Seika, what does it eat?" As if saying the obvious, which perhaps it was, the mage answered, "Anything! But it likes humans the best. The babies were eating dogs in the town, and that's not good... so, Aphi, let's feed them humans instead!" She beamed at the idea, happy to have found a solution all on her own and to be able to explain it to her bond mate. The spirit rubbed her temples, hoping this was all just a dream. "How did the giant spider get here?" She still wasn't sure how all of this had happened. "I dunno, I think it's warm and stuff! Spiders like warm places!" Right... well, Aphelia was going to be turning the temperature in their room all the way down to freezing point as soon as all of this was over.

Exam: 3,157

Well, absolutely nobody could ever say that Seika didn't have her priorities in order. Whether or not they were good or correct priorities was a whole other consideration to take into account. Currently, though, the girl was extremely excited at this idea of helping out the little baby spiders. For years she had been scared of small spiders, and of their ability to run around and hide away in little places. Big arachnids were far more comforting and visible. However, recently, like in the past ten minutes, she had gained a respect for the poor little spiders. Even though it was mixed with a bit of a scolding tone, since she disliked how they were hunting down dogs, the mage understood that when one was starving, they had to just go with whatever they could get! Except for the things that would like, make it worse and give them diseases. But that was a different point. Anyway, she liked the little spiders more and more, especially because they grew up so fast and got to be the size of like, tigers and stuff. Aphelia wasn't so pleased by the presence of overgrown spiders who hunted mammals, but she would put up with it because she was confident they could take on any of them. Even if there were a lot, the easiest solution would be to simply fly up into the air while they were shielded from attack by webbing or venom shooting out or anything like that. So anyway, the spirit couldn't act too concerned because she didn't care enough about making sure the spiders didn't grow big and strong enough to overrun the town. After all, they would be leaving in a day or so. Maybe more if Seika decided to stick around even longer to help out the little buggers. Big buggers. But regardless, the entire time the spirit planned to spend lounging around in spas, somewhat nearby to where the mage might be hunting for prey for the babies or just keeping herself ready to teleport but going off a fair distance away. That was because well, the establishments were people were getting kidnapped or dying would probably go out of business, or shut down for the day, or something similar. "Let's get started right away then, Seika," the feline would say before ushering her out of the room and away from the gargantuan spider. Once they were well out of earshot, far down the hallways of the spa, the girl turned to her friend and put a hand on her shoulder. "Good luck," she stated before turning and immediately disappearing. Shrugging, the mage decided that just meant Aphelia thought she could take care of herself! Which was true! But it also said that the spirit felt confident that they could split up to complete this mission. All of these thoughts and the amount of trust her bond mate had just put in her spurred on the mage to start trying to collect meals right away. It would be amazing. She would show the spiders exactly how capable she was!

Meanwhile, Aphelia had teleported over to the entrance of another spa. She walked inside after shifting her clothes to something a lot more casual and ensuring that her appearance was just that of an ordinary girl with greyish hair and young features. Striding up to the counter, she smiled pleasantly at the woman behind the desk. "Hi, I'd like to book an appointment." The worker at the counter gave her a bright, sunny grin back and said, "Of course! Which clinic's services would you like to enjoy today?" She paused before going on, "We also have general spa facilities available, free if you enjoy any treatments and otherwise there is a three hudnred jewel base charge." The bubble flame spirit thought about it for only a split second before her lips curved up warmly at the other female. "I'd like all of the services, please." Only blinking momentarily in surprise, the woman chirped back, even more friendly than before, "Certainly, Miss! I must warm you that it may take several days to book you all of these appointments. We have a hotel upstairs, in case you are interested in procuring a room." Aphelia leaned back a little bit and regarded the employee with a thoughtful expression. "That would be perfect, thank you," she finally said, and then everything could begin. First, the spirit was ushered up to her room, where she got a chance to relax while on the phone with the woman from down the stairs. Unlike Seika, she didn't like chattering away with people in person and in fact preferred to talk from a distance, calmly, slowly, lazily... anyway, it was pleasant. Aphelia felt quite relaxed, and she in fact was feeling so good that she ended up flat out falling asleep. It wasn't while she was on the phone, gratefully, but she still hadn't really planned on taking a cat nap. Or more of a long nap. After all, she needed to get through all of the spa services as quickly as possible so that she could move on to the next one. Just as she was waking up before dinner time, her stomach grumbled, reminding her of indeed, how hungry she was. Yawning slightly, Aphelia would trudge out of her room, still in the shame of a human. Her silver hair was very bedraggled and frizzy, but she couldn't be bothered to care as she jammed a hat over her head. That was what spas were for anyways- if her "before" picture was even more dramatic, then the "after" would look that much more brilliant! Nodding in satisfaction, the cat couldn't help but let out a small satisfied noise at the sight of the dinner buffet. She grabbed a plate before scanning the tables. Hmm... there was meat, but it seemed to be pork or beef of some kind. Shrugging her shoulders, the girl decided there was no need to be quite so picky at this point in time. After all, all of this was provided free of hcarge. With this now being kept in her head, Aphelia helped herself to some pasta, feeling uncharaceristically vegetarian tonight. Perhaps it was just that she was reminded of how if Seika were here, she would have already pounced on the dish of pasta and eaten it all up, and probably gotten the two of them kicked out or something. Yeah, the spirit was glad her bond mate wasn't here. Hopefully she wasn't getting herself killed.

Withholding another yawn, the girl piled some beans and a bit of fruit salad onto the side of the large dinner plate before setting it down at the end of the serving buffet. She poured herself a drink of milk from a pitcher and then headed over to the nearest table. At it, there wasn't anyone else sitting; the place was entirely empty. However, as soon as she sat down, two strangers seemed to make a bee line for her place of refuge where she had chosen to peacefully eat her dinner. They sat down nearly next to her, not even bothering to sit across the table, and began chattering away loudly. Grumbling inside but unwilling to do something so stupid as to kill ornery little humans, Aphelia speared a penne noodle on her fork and chomped it off with her teeth. Suddenly, the woman next to her began to talk... to her. Her male partner leaned in, as if interested, but they both ended up leaning closer towards Aphelia, making the feline feel distinctly uncomfortable. "Hello, I couldn't help but notice your distinctive eye color... where are you from?" The female asked very bluntly. Aphelia felt an enormous sense of discomfort. Weren't people in Fiore meant to understand magic? There were so many magical people and species that having red eyes wasn't altogether too uncommon. Shrugging, she continued to eat her pasta and completely ignored the stranger. The man made a huff and sand something like, "So rude..." but the woman continued to talk, plowing on ahead. "I saw in your fortune just now, from reading your aura... you are in grave danger!" Aphelia paid no attention to her. So she was a scammer. That was nothing new, those kinds of people were all over the place. "Love danger! You have a strong connection with someone... some might even call it love... and soon, that love will be taken away from you! Your life will be in shambles!" Her voice conitnued to get louder and louder until she had raised it nearly enough to take off the roof if it was even a tad bit more boisterous. Aphelia had still been trying to eat her dinner and steadfastly ignore the strangers, but she finally got fed up with the nonsense. Preparing to change into a tiger, something suddenly stopped her. She didn't really want to rip these clothes... plus there was stuff in the pockets that she didn't want to scatter everywhere and have to either pick up in front of everyone or leave behind. Remembering the belongings inside her pockets, a lightbulb suddenly went off in her head. That was right! She had one of Seika's cameras! Surely the girl would love to take a picture of these... Aphelia glanced at the woman, who was still gesticulating madly, and the man, who was nodding emphatically. These.... this spectacle. Shrugging to herself, the girl began to rapdily shovel food into her mouth until the plate was clean. Then she got up and began to head over to where people were meant to put down their dishes and throw away their trash, like napkins and straws and such. Seeing her get up, the woman also hurried to her feet and was about to reach out to grab the spirit's arm before Aphelia turned around, now with empty hands, and hissed, "Be patient and sit over there and wait for me," sending the woman scurrying away. Finally, she returned to the table and this time sat on the opposite side of the two strangers, her narrowed eyes zooming in on their faces. "Very well. Tell me everything."

At this, the woman began spiraling into a long tale that was extremely confusing. Aphelia finally held out her hands in front of her, a peeved expression on her face. "Stop. Isn't there some way for you to explain better?" She glared at the woman as though her face held nothing but faults, and beside her, the man also seemed to be half going asleep, not even trying to keep up with his companion's conversation. One sided conversation, that was. The woman seemed to struggle with her words for a moment before she appeared to come up with an idea. Fiddling around with something in her pocket, she pulled out a deck of cards. Their backs were beautiful, in deep mahogany purple but with some kind of wood looking circles, or maybe it was gold? It was difficult to place, but Aphelia was admittedly quite intrigued. This time, when she spoke, there was some clarity in her voice. "I will do a card reading for you. You have a special spiritual connection with an unknown force that is guiding my hand." Now, Aphelia was surprisingly not really a big skeptic of things like divination. After all, Seika had quite a few abilities in that aspect. She had an uncanny tendency to be able to predict the future. So she watched with only a little bit of doubt, sizing up the woman's magical presence. While she didn't seem to be particularly powerful, there was at least a little bit of something magical around her. "Alright, I'm listening," the spirit finally said, and the stranger's face brightened. "Right. Let's begin." She shuffled the cards before flipping them all out in a complicated pattern in front of her. "There are different things here. Animal... yours is an elephant. The important message... is love related. And your three initial cards... It is safe for you to love, but there is some kind of attraction that could be dangerous. You must take time to breathe out." Aphelia squinted at her. "Your love compass cards are soulmate, children, and the need to lay solid foundations." Okay, well those were somewhat decipherable, meaning wise. "Your tarot cards are the ten of cups, which is quite the pleasant surprise if I might say so myself." Aphelia pressed her lips together, assuming the woman would elaborate, but she didn't seem to be ready to talk about their meanings quite yet. "And you have the eight of cups, alright this is awesome. And the ace of pentacles." Aphelia found herself nodding along even though she couldn't quite understand. She immediately shook her head and stopped that silly movement. "And your lovers' oracle... oh, the cards seem to want to give you two." She placed down two heart shaped cards on the table. "Let's start with your tarot. The ten of pentacles... this is a solid, good card. It evokes the kind of feeling like, a positive future. Feeling lucky, and very happy with what you have. Then you have the eight of cups, which is interesting in comparison with the ten of cups. The reason I say that is because the eight of cups is about leaving the past behind, focusing on releasing someone or a situation that was challenging or unfulfilling for you. So that could mean giving a relationship your all, but it could be about thinking about a new relationship that comes, being your real relationship and finally ending something... that's why I'm saying, you need to let go of whatever you're holding on to and start over... your love right now is false."

By now Aphelia felt drowsy and she was just about done listening to all of this. It was already enough. But the woman waved her hands frantically. "Don't fall asleep on me now! The cards are predicting a better future for you than what I saw earlier... I thought there was a monster on the horizon... some kind of enormous threat with many legs..." at that, Aphelia's eyes shot wide open and she stood up, slamming her hands on the table. "A beast with many legs?" Her voice was low, and the woman nodded wildly. "J-Just because it has many legs doesn't mean it strictly is a living creature with multiple appendages! It could be a multi branched crime syndicate... any sort of thing. This is simply the form your warning chose to take." The woman glanced over the cards in front of her right now. "However, your fortune seems to be brighter already. Please, sit down... let me continue." Aphelia met the stranger's eyes levelly before sighing and sinking back into her seat. "Thank you." The feline didn't bother to give her a nod of acknowledgment. "So you need to let go of the false friendships. Now, the ace of pentacles... this really is an interesting group of cards. This is about a solid relationship too, a start to something new, a beginning, the aces are always about that. But I would look at this as more of an investment into a relationship, so thinking long term. Or just focus on finding the person that could be a life long partner for you. Really truly invest in it. It doesn't even have to be necessarily romantic, it's just a nice start to a relationship. Ace of cups is always nice to see but the ace of wands for instance can talk about intense physical attraction, that's very passionate and intense, and ace of swords would be like an intellectual match or finding out new information about someone. But the ace of pentacles... I like to see this. Because it's going to be a new start that will have a long term effect, and that's the best way for me to put it. Long term." She paused to breathe and to make sure that the girl in front of her was still paying attention. And Aphelia was, even though it was the strained, half asleep sort of attention. "Let's check out what I shuffled out for your oracle phrases. Your acceptance is the key to inner peace. At times, we have to accept things the way they are. There is no point in trying to change things that are beyond our control. This goes along with your eight of cups. At some point, you have to retreat and follow your own truth, knowing what is important to you. No matter how crucial someone seems in the moment, you have to be true to your own goals and happiness and yourself. Accepting things how they are and being happy with the situation, even being excited, for what's to come... try that. Okay, your second card... give thanks for the blessings of love soon to come your way. Know that you deserve to be happy and that your heart truly desires what's right. So tell yourself what you need. And you also got it's safe for you to love, remember, so something happened that you really do need to move on from. With the eight of cups. So open your heart and be ready to give and receive the highest energy of all. There's a block in your connection somewhere. Now let me pull one more love compass oracle... for some reason." She began to shuffle the cards again. "Optimism and acceptance. I knew it. These cards are giving me chills today. Because I was just talking about acceptance with this card," she touched one, "And optimism with this one. So trust your path as it unfolds, and let go into the moment. Love the let go and take time to breathe out," she touched the blue card that read those exact words.

"You need to let go of the need to know for sure." Here, Aphelia winced, because it did sound exactly like a tendency of hers to make sure that everything was delivered to her information wise, and that she was privy to everything happening in her own and Seika's life. The spirit felt a little tinge of guilt before it morphed into annoyance. Who was this stranger anyway, to try to tell her that she didn't need to know for sure? Of course she did. It was the best way to keep herself and her bond mate safe. "That fear of what if you don't know of someone, what if this doesn't work... just trust the process. Enjoy your time, right now, and be assured of things that are coming and will happen. Be in the moment." She touched another card. "Look at this. Attraction's card... you can attract the best situations and true love by enjoying life in the moment. I just got chills. You are one of the most powerfully resonating people I have ever met. I promise you, whatever you are looking for, it will happen. You will get your ten of cups. But there is a bit of a path that needs to be followed, eight of cups, letting go. Doesn't even have to be releasing a person, it could be an idea, you know?" She cleared her throat before turning to a different section of the layout. "Soulmate. You have an extremely powerful spiritual connection with somoene that affects both of you greatly. This is pretty straightforward. It's saying everything that happened up to this point is leading you to this person. You're on your way already. Enjoy the moment, seriously, it will all unfold the way it's supposed to. It could be linked to another area of your life. The universe sent me to tell you to trust it, and to understand that it's safe for you to relax and love." She held up the children card. "This could mean that children are involved in your relationship. It doesn't have to mean you will have children or could have children involved that are yours... only that they are important to you or your soulmate in some way." The stranger scrutinized her, but began to say, "Now look, I know sometimes magic does funny things. I can't tell quite how old you are, but just so you know, don't worry about that idea of the fairytale and when you might be able to get married so you can have children as soon as possible." Aphelia gaped at her. Her?? Having children?? That was ridiculous. She snarled, and the woman seemed to back off. "Look, I'm just saying, don't worry too much about having children too soon." Yeah, this lady was off of her rocker. "It could also mean that your soulmate... or you... have some childhood optimism. And that they can be pretty child like. Judging by how you acted, you aren't the younger in this friendship or anything... okay moving on," she quickly hurried to go onto another card after seeing the girl's dark reaction. "Okay so you needt o strengthen and solidify the bond you already have. It's built on a strong foundation but you need to make sure you have honesty and communication. Even better than it is right now. You need to move on from something and take this moment with the love that you have. Do you see all of these messages about being in the moment and taking time to breathe out and enjoy life?" Aphelia nodded uncertainly. "So do it. Now I've got another thing..."

Aphelia felt kind of disgruntled at being prevented from leaving once again. "Look lady, I've got an appointment in the morning. I need my beauty sleep," she told her, and the woman looked frantic. "No, wait! The cards aren't done leaving their messages for you..." the spirit glanced at her dubiously before saying, "Well, I've got an idea. My partner," at this the stranger lit up excitedly, "Loves photography. Let me take a picture of the two of you, she'll think it's funny that you bothered me to do all of this card reading nonsense." Actually, Seika would probably take her fortune very seriously if she ever got wind of what it contained. After all, the mage was extremely into all of this business and she wasn't even very inaccurate. Which was a pretty decent review in Aphelia's opinion. She pulled out her camera and began to snap a few photos of the couple, who obediently sat there waiting for her to be done, looking slightly uncomfortable. The spirit then took a few more pictures of the cards themselves, making sure the words on them as well as their images was crystal clear before slipping the camera away. "Alright, I'm listening," was all she said before the woman launched into another tirade. "I didn't pull more cards yet, so if you want to take a picture of them after the fact... um..." she seemed to lose focus as Aphelia glared daggers into her face. "What I mean is you can look at them and take a photo for your friend! After I pull them... I'm doing it now..." she hustled to shuffle the deck again and then scattered a few out on the table between them. "Okay... so these are going to be letters. So we're looking at these... and also taking into account your elephant. Children go well along with elephants, if you don't know... they link up their tails and trunks... okay, okay, moving along!" She hurried her words and actions, understanding that for some reason, the girl in front of her didn't like the conversation topic of children. "So here we have a blank card. And then two As, and three Es, if that's significant. Your bond soulmate could have a lot of vowels in their name, or this could be unrelated and have more impact on something else, like your enemy. Now another tarot card... two of cups. The open heart here, shows that you need honest and communication and a clear genuine understanding of your relationship. You're just looking for the real deal, which, I don't blame you, honestly. Now here we've got a lot..." she paws through the cards and Aphelia wrinkled her nose. She couldn't even tell what was happening at this point, was the woman just making things up and grabbing random cards? "So this is just saying it's a complicated situation." Aphelia laughed outright, in a wheezing sort of sound. Yeah, life was complicated. That wasn't new or anything she didn't already know. "And here we've got a notice of truth... so maybe this could mean that someone is going to share a truth with you, possibly. And also like I said before you need to follow your own truth and your own path. This seems to be a big theme," the stranger said uncertainly, ignoring the strange sounds of amusement coming from the person whose future she was predicting. "Luck is on your side too, I'm sure even if it doesn't feel that way for you, you should be approaching a lucky time. Just take a nice deep breath and know that things always change and can always improve. A lot of these cards are about having your guard up and feeling defensive, but I think you need to open up. Even though you might feel like you can't connect right now, you need to make more of an effort," the patronizing tone of her voice made Aphelia glare, and she backed down. "A-anyway, I'm going to pull another card!" She did so, placing it on the table. "So... you're going to meet someone soon, through work... or maybe a mutual friend.

"Discernment. And delays and blocks." That didn't sound like a good thing, and the woman's forehead seemed to be a little bit wrinkled. "Trust your intuition. Listen to what it's saying about the situation. Your feelings are real, so you just need to follow your heart. Pay attention to red flags and realize what unhealthy relationships look like, and take your time to ask questions." Well, that always made sense. Aphelia was a pretty observant person, and she could make sense of complicated relationships usually. Even if she didn't always know what she wanted from life she knew how she should be treated and her values in life were quite straightforward. "Look at whatever situation you're in from different perspectives. It's a friendship link, I feel... you need to make sure that the conversations you're having with friends are being taken into account." The first card from this new set was a little bit troubling. "You need to enjoy the moment because there's a little bit of hesitation happening here, things will progress but right now there's a delay, you're fighting an uphill battle. But eventually, it will get easier. This is just a testing period, where deep wounds, like from the eight of cups, need to be healed. You have a lot of paths going on, and you need to make sure you stay away from the unhealthy relationships and slow down the progress." She touched a couple other cards. "A long journey might be in the cards for you, but even if it's long, challenging, or difficult, there's plenty of hope that you will find what you want. So don't give up, okay? Stay persistent!" Aphelia wanted to wince at how positively bright the woman was right now. She needed sunglasses. "Follow your heart and trust your inner guidance. I think what's happening for you right now is that you're used to making all of the decisions. You're used to getting what you want and chasing your dreams yourself. But I think it's cool that you need to slow down a little and live life in the moment." Well, Aphelia didn't care if the stranger thought her possible future was cool or not. All she wanted was to know what it actually was. As the feline studied the cards, she saw the word dream in the letters. "What's that?" When the woman saw what she was pointing to, she pulled them apart from the group. "Well, with the eight of cups, this tells you to follow your dreams despite what other people are saying or what might have happened. It tells you to leave it in the past and follow your new truth. I hope that makes sense," she said, and Aphelia nodded slowly. "There's a friendship connection and the three of pentacles here says team work is very important. The cards don't seem to want to answer your exact future, but I think your friend is really involved. Maybe it's meant to be unknown. But there's a bigger mystery attached to things here, or something... that's interesting..." she seemed to get lost in her thoughts for a moment, and Aphelia suddenly realized that they had been sitting here for a very long time. She nearly made a move to get up before the woman's voice came again. "You will attract good things and love by doing what makes you light up. Just go after what makes you happy... fall in love with a passion or a hobby. That could be the connection with the three of pentacles. You need to live life as if this next few months could be all, and know in your heart that the person, you might already know who they are, will come along with you and help you make sure things work out the way they're supposed to. While there could be a complicated situation that could take some time, just believe. The monster will not be able to touch you." Even though Aphelia returned the woman's smile with a fake one of her own, she was worried. Leaving Seika with a giant spider... and the duty to feed humans to its babies... had that really been such a good idea? Her friendship with the girl... stupid tarot reader, making her think through all of these things.

The girl stormed away from the table without another word. Geez, it really was so dark. No matter if the spirit had enhanced sense or not, it was still a little bit difficult to see well enough to find her way back to her room. But the halls were empty and she didn't have even an ounce of fear in her heart. Unlike Seika, Aphelia reveled in the dark and in small, hidden rooms and spaces. She hesitantly turned on her night vision, her eyes glowing ever so slightly as they confirmed how the corridors were completely empty. The flame bubble entity slipped into her room, locking it behind her before shifting into a feline shape more comfortable for sleeping. Her human form was just a little bit too... well, it was alright, but she couldn't stay in it like that for long. There was a certain vulnerability to the shape that made things difficult to relax in. And if she was going to follow that crazy lady's advice, she needed to just go with the flow more and take life as it was. Anyway, even if the woman hadn't said anything, Aphelia was planning to enjoy this spa trip! That was the reason she had booked so many treatments. Her thoughts were twisting and turning with something she couldn't' quite place. Was it worry? Over what.. her condition? The time she had wasted instead of getting valuable sleep? The cat was a lazy person by nature, and she hated having to wake up early. But she had scheduled some appointments before noon due to assuming she could go to bed at a decent hour. Now that her plans were spoiled in that regard, it was normal to feel irritated, right? But this feeling was more than that... anxiety? Not quite... maybe apprehensiveness, was the correct way of putting it. She was slightly worried. For something... for someone. Seika was out there, probably napping next to a giant baby spider that could chomp down on her quickly. Even if the girl was well versed in handling scary animals, because heck, they had gone to a zoo together and released chemically evolved serum injected creatures, and fought werewolves, and other things, the spirit couldn't help but be a little concerned for her friend. But that was normal anyway, right? They were bond mates. If Seika died, Aphelia would follow shortly. Therefore, all of these thoughts and feelings were just a result of her own self preservation instincts. The woman had said to follow her instincts... and so this was just like that. Although, why was she thinking about what that strange lady had told her? Feeling like screeching in frusturation, the feline tossed and turned, clawing at the bedding until it was ripped to shreds. Finally, she managed to tamper down her emotions enough to be lulled to sleep. But a little bit of trepidation still waited in the back of her mind, preventing her from sleeping restfully. The entire time, her face stayed scrunched up, as if trapped in a bad dream even though nightmares were nowhere near her head.

5510 Words

The next day, Aphelia was woken up far too early by the blaring sound of her alarm. "Ugh..." groaning, the spirit rolled over to slam her hand against the clock on the bed side table that was making all of this racket. "No," she hissed when a voice came through the phone on the table, coming from a friendly receptionist or schedule keeper notifying her that this was her wake up call due to having an appointment in a half an hour. It was saying something about her being able to get her make up done if she so wished, which was ridiculous to the girl, because... what would be the point of getting her make up done only to go get it washed off again and her skin care done? Finally managing to persuade herself to get up and out of bed, she got dressed. Her clothing was easy enough to manage to materialize magically, once she had shifted her shape into her Sibylline human form. There was absolutely no way she was going to put on the dirty clothes from yesterday, but since they had so many summons, it was easy enough to get clothing from the spirit realm. Plus, Aphelia was a spirit herself, even if she rarely stepped foot in that world any more. The girl paused, a slight pang of wistfulness hitting her hard with the bleariness of the morning. Some day, maybe soon, she would have to go back to visit. Her family hadn't seen or heard from her in ages, and they were most likely a combination of worried sick and steaming mad. Before she left the room, she glanced at herself in the mirror and was pleased with the result. Not to be a narcissist or anything, but now that she thought of it... wouldn't Seika like a picture of her, and in the hotel room? After all, it would be a good memory some time, of the vacation they spent in Hosenka town. Whether or not that vacation also involved giant spiders and not just fun times in the spa. Keeping this in mind, she held out the camera and tried to take a few pictures with it facing the opposite way, the lens pointed at herself. When they didn't end up turning out very well, she proceeded to try some mirror selfies, and finally settled on balancing it on top of a dresser while putting it on a timer. A few silly faces, serious expressions, and deadpan looks later and Aphelia was hurrying out the door, not quite late for her appointment but definitely not on track to make the fifteen minutes ahead of time arrival she had been going for, happen. Just as she was making her way down the hal ways, her instincts tightened up slowly and she began to feel a sense of uncomfort. What? What on earth was going on? Suddenly, a voice broke into her consciousness. Aphi! Sooo guess who just called me? The spa people! They said that your appointment is moved an hour back, and they called me on the iLac. Okay bye! Closing off the bond abruptly, the girl's voice suddenly vanished from inside the spirit's head. Rubbing her temples, Aphelia sighed. It was painful for both of them to try to communicate non verbally from so far away, so what did Seika mean by trying to do that? Although... now that she thought about it, the registration at the receptionist's desk had required an iLac or Home number along with a credit card of course. Since the spirit wasn't in the habit of carrying around one of the electronic devices unless Seika had been too lazy to bring it or had forgotten it some place, leaving the spirit to pick it up, she just never used it as one of her own. Therefore, her only option had been to input Seika's number and hope that it never had to be used for anything. Usually the two were together, anyway. Today had just been a special exception. Still... why hadn't they been able to call her room number? Unless they had, and it had just been unlucky timing when she had recently left from there. Still restraining herself from sighing deeply, the spirit winced at the head ache that was forming all across the back of her skull. Seika... that girl was too rash. Anyway, Aphelia guessed that this was a good reminder she ought to get her own iLac, if only for the purposes of something like this. It would be a nice idea to get a new one and give it to her bond mate, then take the free and outdated one for herself. They had originally gotten it from the factory for a heavy discount. That discount being, for absolutely free as long as they swept the floors of the building for an hour. So maybe it hadn't been free... but at that point in time, their work hours had been less valuable than actual jewels. Oh, how the situation changed. Now wasting an hour of her time was like wasting thousands of worth in currency. Shrugging her shoulders to loosen them after what had just happened, Aphelia continued down the hall. If her appointment was put off for a whole hour, she had some complaints to make. But first... food. Eating a good, satisfying, and filling breakfast was paramount to having a day with the same qualities.

Now, she knew that there were places for breakfast within the hotel. They had two restaurants where full meals could be ordered along with a la carte dishes. That was also of course, in addition to the main bar and buffet section where continental type breakfast was served. However, Aphelia felt like heading out of there today. She decided to try to find some kind of small, cutesy cafe that Seika would appreciate her taking pictures of. After all, she was on vacation, but it would still be a nice idea to get her friend some kind of gift. Walking out of the spa, her shoes clattered against the asphalt of the road. There weren't very many people out and about today, probably because it was a week day and somewhat in the early morning. Everyone who was walking around probably just needed to run errands or they were off to work, not out shopping and such. However, there was actually a decent number of people getting breakfast on the way to where they needed to go. The spirit walked into the first cafe she saw that looked half decent, with pretty scalloped awnings and a nice light pink and white theme. Immediately, a girl wearing a cream colored turtle neck with two twin blond fishtails waved and greeted her. "Oh hi! Welcome to the Hosenka Coffee Cafe!" She put her hands on her hips and stood in front of Aphelia, seemingly not bothered at all by the girl's slightly distasteful, almost frosty response. "Enjoying the sunshine?" She didn't seem to put off at all. Like, at all. "This is such nice weather! Do you need any help deciding what you'd like? Actually, wait a second..." She scrutinized the girl a little bit more. "Is this your first time here?" At Aphelia's nod, her expression brightened even further. "Ah ha! I knew it! I could never forget a face... especially one as lovely as yours!" Aphelia dead panned even more, if that was even possible, at the girl's perky smile and wink. "My name is Angel, how bout it? What's yours, darling?" Begrudgingly, the magical spirit finally said, "... Aphelia." "Great! That's a lovely name! Well, thanks for coming into the cafe today. We aren't very busy, so why don't you just come sit and calm down a little bit? Hm? Always rushing, y'all are," she ushered the spirit over to a window seat before she even knew what was happening. "We like our customers to feel comfortable, and like they're coming home. You know, the warm kitchen space and all. So just feel like this is a safe space, we welcome everyone and love every single one of you. All kinds of people are more than free to frequent our establishment," she recited it like it was ingrained into her head. Meanwhile, all Aphelia could do was nod as the girl went into a tirade of how people tended to sit here all day, working on their laptops and feeling inspirational thanks to their coffee. Well, to be completely honest, Aphelia didn't even want coffee. She had just come in for the sake of maybe picking up a pastry or some other bakery treat for her morning breakfast snack. But this girl was going off about how amazing it was to spend a relaxing time reading here in the sunlight, and wouldn't she look at how nice the lighting was, thinking about that? "I'm sure it's great to spend time reading at your cafe," Aphelia finally said. Her stomach nearly grumbled, but she tampered it down, able to control herself physiology. "Yeah, I love it working here! So many people living their lives, powered by drinks, made by yours truly!" She beamed. "Anyway, sorry if I ramble! I really just can't help it, it's like a passion that can't be disturbed." As much as she was apologizing, she didn't seem too sorry. "So as you can see right next to me, on this menu here, we've got our normal fare... all different kinds of coffees, lattes, variety of different coffee bean types and tastes, the drinks, and we have snacks and yummy food! All to the side of me here," she waved her hands enthusiastically. "But, if I may make a suggestion!" Aphelia couldn't do anything but nod. "We have just started a couple of days ago with our special summer seasonal menu!" The girl grabbed a laminated menu from a box nearby and handed it to Aphelia before picking one up for herself as she began to glance over it, still describing. "It's super exciting that summer is finally here! It's my favorite season, and walking to work this morning was so lovely, beautiful blossoming flowers, the sun was shining, blue skies, and I just adore the sounds of the birds and chattering winds away. There's leaves on the ground a little bit, you know... all the colors are just so beautiful! Summer is something very special, indeed," she flashed a brilliant smile at Aphelia. "And of course, we get to have delicious seasonal drinks inspired by the weater! So here you go! Here's our seasonal menu," she waved it at Aphelia, who was already pouring over her own. "Hey... isn't this for Autumn?" The spirit couldn't help but ask out loud, wondering as she scanned the page even briefly. At the top was a sub heading that said Autumn Menu underneath another set of large letters spelling out the cafe's name.

"So, I can go through all of the drinks with you if you'd like! There's just five different ones on here!" Aphelia held out her hands in a please stop, would you, kind of motion. "I think this is the wrong menu," she said, but the girl paid no attention. "Since we don't have any customers except for you, please don't mind if I take up some of your time! I take this job very seriously and I want to make sure you know all the details of each order before deciding which you want to pursue!" Jeez, with the way she was talking, it really sounded like Aphelia was having to make some sort of life impacting decision and she was her counselor. Like it was a future career path and not just a drink at a coffee shop in the morning. Speaking of it being a drink, though... what Aphelia really wanted was something to eat. Food. Not a bunch of hot liquid... but she couldn't break the woman out of her reverie, it seemed, no matter how much she raised her voice. Sighing, the spirit could only hope that this wouldn't take more than the hour she had to get back to the spa for her appointment. "By no stretch of the imagination by far are these our best selling and most popular drinks every year, well, you know those big conglomerates like Barstucks, they started the trend, but these are our most famous combinations too. Of pumpkin cinnamon nutmeg! And it has whipped cream and pumpkin pie spices all over it." That definitely sounded like an autumn drink, and Aphelia tried to point it out, only for the girl to go on talking. "I have to resist drinking these all day when I'm at work, since they're for you, not me! Lucky you, ahahaha..." she stared at the spirit with a surprising amount of fierceness. "And then we have the cinnamon dolce latte, and that's got classic espresso with a dash of dolce and topped off with sweet cream and a little bit of caramel powder." When Aphelia didn't respond, she leaned in a little more and spoke even more vehemently. "Well! We also have the very popular white chocolate one... with our signature espresso meeting white chocolate sauce and steamed milk! Finished off with some smooth whipped cream in a white chocolate delight drizzle. Great, right? You must love the sound of that!" Then she finally paused, and the light in her eyes took on a bit of brightness. "My personal favorite is next... peppermint chocolate mocha. Peppermint chocolate sauce and steamed milk, espresso, and finished off with sweet whipped cream and this tasty delight." Her face looked a little less happy as she went on, "Then we have another drink here, see this picture? It's even better than it looks! This is our steamed milk combined with espresso and toffee nut, vanilla, and caramel syrups! There's also sea salt and chocolate crumbles on top of whipped cream and a nice toffee caramel sauce. It is the BOMB, I assure you!" Aphelia, at this point, just felt like snoozing. Would she have to pay for a table and drinks if she just took a nap in their coffee shop? Seriously, what was up with people and droning on and on at her for so long? First the lady with the magical fortune telling cards, and now this... did she have a magnet for attracting advertisers and people trying to waste her time?? Even Seika couldn't babble this much... well, she hoped she couldn't. It was easier for Aphelia to shut up her bond mate than try to interrupt these strangers. Not even bothering to do it furtively, the spirit pulled out her camera and took a picture of the stranger blatantly as she spoke. There was only a slight pause after the first click before the cafe employee shrugged and went on speaking. "Just thinking about all of these, it really gets my mouth watering! Anyway, so obviously you're welcome to order something from the regular menu, but I would recommend using this small menu, because it's not gonna last forever, and..." she leaned even closer, just as the spirit leaned away uncomfortably. "They're delicious." She stepped a few feet away, obviously aware of Aphelia's discomfort. "While you're pondering that, can I offer you anything to eat? We've got a lot of seasonal snacks and such at the moment! Things like apple crumble, cupcake, pumpkin spice muffins, um... pecan cinnamon coffee cake... pumpkin spice cinnamon buns... you know, lots and lots," she smiled understandingly. Then before Aphelia could even get a chance to say anything, the girl said, "No? Well, that's fine. Just try a sample on the house, please? I just want you to see how delicious our treats are!" Aphelia gaped at her. How dare she- and she was just about to finally reply to one of the stranger's many questions and advertisements but just then she got cut off?? At least she was going to get some free food... even if it would only be bite sized. Sample sizes were nowhere near what an actual product should be. Grumbling inside but unwilling to say anything because she was just too lazy to speak up and try to change the worker's mind, the feline watched as the blonde went over to the counter and picked up a plate with a plastic cover over it. She came back over and set the platter down in front of Aphelia before lifting up the top to reveal little pieces of some baked good, cut into squares and each speared with a tooth pick that had a little light pink, orange, or yellow flag attached.

"So here we have pumpkin spice chocolate chip brownies, and this tastes sooo so good, but it's also very nutritious!" Aphelia eyed her dubiously, but she plowed on, "Yes, it's very good for you too! Everything is natural, organic, and warm. So these brownies are actually very low calorie but high in protein. And vitamins! I forgot! Because they're made from real pumpkin, fresh pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, almond flour... all for the extra protein, all of those little bits in there, things to add more vitamins and protein," she seemed to get even brighter by the moment. "It's very, very good! Would you like to try? It's so worth it." Aphelia didn't even say anything before the girl forced it into her face. "Take whatever piece you want!" Then right when she was considering pointing to one just to get the worker out of her face, the girl popped one piece into her mouth before sliding out the tooth pick, and then smiled at her brightly. "Chew it! Isn't it so good?" Aphelia wanted to spit it out, so she did- right into the girl's face. But she just wiped it off and continued to smile. "Yesterday's sample was peppermint brownies... so, so good. If you come back next week, I think we're giving away... ooh, yeah, we're baking croissants! I'm very excited about that, they're going to be just the loveliest. Our bakers are very talented here, at the Hosenka Coffee Cafe. Very talented." She was like a broken record, Aphelia couldn't make any sense of it. Luckily, the girl left abruptly, going back behind the counter. She continued to stare at Aphelia from the distance, though, and the girl felt suspicious. But at least she had left her alone, right? Just as the spirit was about to look out the window, relieved to have some peace and quiet, the girl was suddenly back at her table again. "So how are you on that drink order? I gave you some time to decide, how about it?" Aphelia stared at her with an anime sweat drop face. Seriously?? She had given the spirit like... a grand total of point five seconds. "I gave you time to process... okay, good, you got your choice? That's great, I love that too! You're going to enjoy it so so much," Aphelia stared at her blankly. Had she even said anything? "The pumpkin spice latte is so good, and you're going to love it! It's famous for a reason, and you're going to love the cream as well, it's extra extra special with the drizzle sauce and all... so, are you looking to have the drink right here?" Aphelia gaped. Of course- she had been standing here for how long?? Well, sitting, excuse her. "Okay great! I'm assuming that's a yes. Well, here at the Hosenka Coffee Cafe, we like to make our customers feel extra loved and special, extra well taken care of indeed! And what we like to do to achieve that, well, one of the things at least, is to customize every single aspect of your order." Aphelia was worried. "So, because it's for here, you have your choice of mug! Isn't that just super cute? In front of you, still available, let me just show you these..." the girl dashed back over to the counter and returned with a tray of ceramic looking cups. "Now, none of the mugs are branded or anything of that kind of nature, I think our owner loves to collect mugs or something, so she decided to collect them for the cafe instead, a bit more practical, you know? So she has a bunch of them, from travels, and stuff, you know, just ones she sees and thinks are pretty. It's a weird obsession I guess, but practical cause it helps out the cafe!" She smiled so intensely that Aphelia couldn't help but nod. "So this is the first cup! A nice off white base color, with black little speckles and pink roses all over it. Inside there's an old fashioned, paper looking thing with these twin vines designs. It's really cute, right? Take a closer look!" The girl shoved it into Aphelia's face. All the spirit could do was nod painfully, of course she was unable to see anything with it this close to her eyes but what could she say?? "So, that's your option number one." On the bottom, the spirit could see a brand mark, so what had this girl been saying about no labels? But she didn't want to provoke her into talking any more, what she was hearing was already enough. "This one is good-" the spirit tried to say, but the girl waved her off. "Nonsense! You haven't seen them all yet! Your next option is this beautiful, spring time almost cup, or mug. It's this really nice circular shape, almost like a soup bowl, with a tiny little handle, really delicate and curvy, see?" She traced the curve of the cup and Aphelia nodded stiffly. "And it's got just a beautiful painting of flowers, all the way around. Green, orange, light pink, blue, and even the bright reddish coral... so lovely, right? And this here at the base, isn't this part of the painting nice? Hey, say something, don't you like this one?" Aphelia didn't respond, so the girl huffed out a breath. "Well, it's one of my favorites anyway. And it's by one of my idols! LiSa! She's just great. Anyway, so the last one, you can go for this one! It says sippin on sunshine, isn't that cute?" The cafe employee held out the mug to Aphelia. It was a little bit more square in shape, but very soft at the same time, mostly it just had a sturdy feel. "It's bright, beautiful sunshine yellow, and painted all the way around with these little flowers. Smaller than the others. They go together better than the other, right? But the second has more personality..." since the girl was saying that she didn't really like this one as much, or at least, it seemed that way, Aphelia wanted to choose it out of spite. "I like this one," she finally said, even as the attendant was putting it back on the rack. "Ehh, really? Alright... customers have weird preferences, right? Did you really look at all three of your mug options? I don't think this one could even stick out as a contender at all... but whatever you say, okay, for sure we can do this mug then." Aphelia felt at least a little bit of satisfaction as she watched the girl put the other two away. "Today you can sip on sunshine all day on this beautiful summer day! So nice and sunny and fresh, right?" She didn't seem to be too disappointed about the choice, though.

The spirit had thought that was the end of their conversation, at least for a little bit. After all, the worker needed to go make her drink now, right?? But she came back over after a very short time, still holding the mug in her hands. "Hey, I need you to choose your milk for me," the girl said, tugging at one of her fishtail braids. Aphelia winced at the idea of her hairs falling into anything she consumed. Ah... and her hands, she wasn't wearing any gloves. Really, why had she chosen this cafe again?? She should check how much time was consumed so far... the girl would have to wait until she was done and unoccupied to address her, that was only polite. Wait... it had been twenty minutes only? Aphelia had felt like she was trapped in here with this girl for over an hour. At least she wouldn't be late to her appointment, but would she be glad that she could still be tortured by this stranger? "Hi, sorry, but we have three different milks! So let me know which is best for you, right? Depending on your preference, we can use a different option, and hopefully it tastes best for your flavor likings. They all work really well, so that doesn't matter. And all of our milks are by Rilk, okay? So the first one, right here," she hefted it out, and Aphelia stared. Shouldn't she keep them over there and chilled or something? "It's creamy cashew! Cashew milk, it's very creamy like the title says, and very, very delicious! And it is a very good option if you'd like." That wasn't that bad of a description, so Aphelia felt a little better. The girl returned back to behind the counter and grabbed another carton, exchanging it for the cashew milk. "Now, this is the coconut milk. Um... the coconut flavor isn't very strong, but I would say, even if it is a bit there, the pumpkin sauce would conceal it though. I think it's really subtle. On a plain coffee, maybe you could taste a little bit of it, but..." she shrugged. "Anyway, last option!" She hurried back to grab it and show it to Aphelia. "Classic almond milk! Our most popular, but they all really are fabulous options." Since it was the most popular, that probably meant it was the safest right? Aphelia pointed at that. "You wanna go for the almond? Sure, of course, we can do that!" The way she said it... made it sound like the feline had requested that specifically! Well, she had agreed, but it wasn't like that... not like how the stranger made it seem. Crossing her arms, the spirit resolved to only reply indifferently from now on. And of course it wasn't long at all before she came back and began to harrass Aphelia again. "So sorry, but really, I need your help again. We want to customize everything and make sure it's exactly up to your wishes... so please tell me, what do you think about coffee beans? Hey, are you listening to me? I can give you three options again." Honestly, Aphelia didn't care so much about what she drank. In fact, it was the opposite of caring! She hadn't wanted a drink in the first place and was still pretty peeved that she had been forced to waste her time and soon, even her money, on such a thing. Furthermore, she to be left alone to enjoy the nice morning, but instead, she was forced to participate in this silly series of events of choosing different parts to her drink. And it wasn't even autumn, but they were insisting on using the autumn menu?? She had tried to order a food from the regular menu, but her snack was shut down... and then the worker offered her free samples but she was force fed! And they didn't even taste good. So beany and vegetarian... really, Aphelia wanted either sweets, or meat. This coffee better have plenty of milk and cream so she could maybe stomach it. Anyway, she was really done answering all of these questions. "No, I don't have any preference for the type of coffee," the girl tried to say, but then the other went into a tandem. "This is the one we're currently recommending and promoting, it's by the brand four brothers, and it's a really smooth, savory and seductive flavor. That's all of course organic, and fair trade, so you can feel confident about drinking this coffee, really! Does this sound like a good option?" Aphelia stared at her, and the girl went on, "Mm, it's a good medium, right? I'm glad you don't disagree! A single espresso would be great, I think you're really going to love this coffee. It's not just me, blabbing about, a lot of people really love it. A bunch of drinkers come away and they decide that they simply must have this coffee at home!" Well, the spirit guessed she could at least be glad that the girl hadn't said she was glad that she agreed... it was nice that the worker got it right for once that Aphelia wasn't here having all of these conversations willingly and jumping at the chance to choose the parts of her drink. Oh no, it was very much the opposite. "I'll read the official description for you! Deep, dark, delicious coffee, these are organic black beans roasted in the rocky mountains. We love what we do and that's why this coffee kicks butt. Wake up with us! Isn't that amazing? And here it says, the four brothers are towering set of peaks in the rocky mountains... and they pay homage to them with every sip that's taken. So I'm gonna grind up the espresso shot for you, and then we can get started on making your drink itself, okay?" With that, she smiled and left, thankfully.

Aphelia couldn't help but be glad that she was gone, but she had left the bag of coffee on the table. It smelt good, even from up here, and through the bag. There was something about feline senses that couldn't allow her to catch a break, right? Even though she wasn't having a nice time right now, Aphelia had always liked to have time alone in coffee shops, and the scent was comforting to her. "Hey, do you want to watch me make your drink? Come on! You don't have to be shy. I know customers are always curious about what we baristas do, so I'll make you a favor and let you watch," a hand suddenly touched her shoulder, and the spirit jerked away, her face grave. "Ooh, okay, look, I'm sorry. But hey, don't be in such a bad mood! Come watch me make your coffee," the girl winked before standing next to the table, as if waiting for Aphelia to get up and follow. Even though she just sat there and waited for the worker to go away, the girl didn't seem to be in any kind of a mood to budge. After a few minutes straight had passed, Aphelia began to get sick of this nonsense. She was wasting so much time. "I'll get up, so go over there and prepare everything," Aphelia told her curtly. "Yeah okay, I will! I'm glad you agreed, hehe, I was about to give up!" The spirit sighed. She should have just stuck with it, but she couldn't afford to spend too much more time here, after all, the appointment should be coming up soon and she still hadn't gotten anything proper to eat. "Okay, we're gonna use this poppy filter and put it in here..." she stuck a little paper across some kind of mechanism. "Say, what's your name?" Aphelia asked lowly, trying to get the woman to stop babbling for one second maybe. "Huh? My name? Well, it's Annie, of course! Nice to meet you, how about it? What's your name, I better remember it so I can use it for later!" She winked at Aphelia, and the spirit suddenly felt attacked. "N-nevermind." Of course the worker meant it for the drink, to write it with a sharpie or whatever, but... she didn't want to talk to this strange person any more. She made even Seika seem calm and collected. "Hmm? Don't be like that, alright? Come watch me! This thing here, this is the head. I call it Frog, isn't that cute, hmm?" She rolled up the sleeves of her turtle neck. "I use this and pop that filter I was talking about from before, except it's metal. Just like this..." she demonstrated, slipping it over the top so that it fit in perfectly before twisting it a little so that it clicked in place. "Okay, here we go! Filter all locked into place! So now we're gonna fill this up with the ground coffee beans," she turned over to the machine and poured them in sloppily, much to Aphelia's annoyance. If she was demonstrating, shouldn't she be careful? But after they were done being ground and making that grating noise, she let them fall into the little metal chamber sort of thing and then took a spoon and pressed it down. Then she inserted it into what looked like a machine that pressed them even further. At this point, Aphelia had to admit that she was a little bit interested. Particularly because for the moment she was able to peacefully watch the cafe employee work without having to listen to her go on and on. But then she began talking again. "So I like to use the machine but you can also use this thing right here," she waved around an instrument with what looked like a flat, circular disk on one end, with mostly a stick of a body, "To push down on the coffee beans. And then you just got to clean off everything and make sure the edges are pristine," she wiped away the little coffee bean crumbles and Aphelia winced at the fact that she was still not wearing gloves. "Okay, there we go! Nice and perfectly filled with ground coffee. So now I'm gonna pop this into the espresso machine, into the brew head, and then we can turn on the machine and get to making your drink." She inserted it into the machine that was right behind her, and Aphelia breathed a sigh of relief at not being under the intense gaze of her eyes any more. At least for a moment, anyway; it seemed like she couldn't stand not being near Aphelia and talking her ears off. "While that's happening it's time to add the pumpkin spice mixture to the mug!" Not even mentioning that the spirit hadn't even wanted it in the first place... "Now, we make our pumpkin sauce fresh every single day! Sometimes, honestly, even twice a day, because like I said, it is very, very, very VERY much of a popular drink. And ours has to be the best possible! So to make our pumpkin spice, or FAMOUS pumpkin spice latte sauce, we start by warming fresh- not canned, of course- freshly cooked pumpkin puree. And that happens in a pan, then we bump in some maple syrup, real teensy bit, but real arcadian maple syrup is essential, okay?" Aphelia was almost leaning over the counter by now, ready to fall asleep. "Some vanilla extract, the pumpkin pie spices, sea salt... and we just cook that over low heat for a couple of minutes, but you gotta really continue to stir it, you know?? Otherwise it could burn... yeah, we don't want that," she looked somber. But immediately brightened up. "Then remove from the heat! And add a little more spicing, or whatever, have a taste, and then when it's ready to go it's show time! Pour it in here," she poured it in the mug, "But I wanna add a little more pumpkin pie spice on top! I feel like it always adds a little," she made some kind of chef's kiss movement and Aphelia felt her face greening. Really... this was the person making her drink?? What if she gave her a disease from kissing her fingers and then touching all over what she was going to be ingesting into her body? "So just add a little drop... yeah, good luck, you can see this, right? Doesn't it look great? Now just pop it under the machine here now," she put it underneath the espresso and then said, "We just push the latte button now and it's going to go work its magic and also froth the milk for us. Lacrima technology, I know right? Amazing! I could do latte art for you, but you don't want that, right?" The girl was surprisingly perceptive. Yes, Aphelia did not want the lady spending any more time on her drink than was absolutely necessary. She'd already wasted too much time here. Now that everything had been done, Aphelia put several bills of jewels onto the counter and was about to leave when the worker called out after her.

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"Hey, wait! You forgot your drink! And not to mention, didn't you say it was for here? Because of that, I made it in one of our cafe mugs... you definitely can't take that out on the street, or else I'll report you for theft!" Suddenly the aggressive tone of the cafe employee's voice shone through, and Aphelia shoved her hat down more on her head. What was up with this girl? Even Seika, when dealing with rude customers, didn't act this strangely... Aphelia ought to have known, since her bond mate worked at multiple places related to drinks and cafe sort of things. "Besides, I didn't even get to do the best part! On top we have to add the whipped cream!" Groaning, Aphelia ignored the words of the lady and was about to push open the door when she found that she couldn't. "What's this about?" The spirit felt a sudden rise of annoyance. Now the stupid door wouldn't budge? She had already been delayed for too long! Her spa treatment was waiting! "Ahh... ahahaha... really, you tried to leave? Can't you see that you're not allowed to go until I say you can?" The voice of the cafe employee suddenly rang out from behind her, and Aphelia's eyes narrowed. She knew this entire time? She wasn't just some dumb person who kept babbling away for no reason... "Hey, let me out," the spirit said finally, her voice deceptively neutral. But it held a promise of violence should the stranger not comply. "Ehheheh... no, I don't think I will! Don't worry, I'll let you go soon, but you didn't let me finish making you your drink. I spent all this time on it for that kind of rude treatment? Come back here," the command, as it was obviously a command, sent a small shiver down Aphelia's spine. Really she was being berated now and ordered about? Wasn't the customer always right? What had that crazy worker said before about the cafe always trying to do their best and provide their clients with the most comfortable atmosphere, yeah that had been a total and complete lie. Probably deliberately, too. "Seriously? I just wanted breakfast and to go to my spa treatment," Aphelia muttered, her tone of voice extremely vicious. Even though she wasn't exactly whining, this was her version of it. "Ah, don't complain! It's coconut whipped cream, look at this!" She held up the bottle, a metal sort where a person shook it and the airated cream came out once the top nozzle was pressed. "Coconut, coconut, coconut! Let's open it up, it's great, right?" She shook it and then peeled away the little bit of plastic that kept the lid from being able to loosen and be pulled off. "Shake shake shake!" Aphelia thought her eyes gleamed red as she sang the tune of shake all around the room, nearly coming close enough that the feline was about to claw off her face, but luckily for her, she stayed away. Aphelia didn't want to abruptly attack because she probably had other plans up her sleeve. But right now, the employee just seemed to be spurting out the whipped cream in a nice little circle and spiral ring that created a triangle of whipped cream on top of the mug. "There we go! And finally, to finish off completely, we need to put a healthy little sprinkling of this fine pumpkin spice powder!" Picking up a jar, the stranger dusted it over the ceramic cup, on which the sunny motto was suddenly looking darker and darker. "And there, your beautiful pumpkin spice latte from the Hosenka Coffee Cafe! It's ready? Are you excited? You have to be excited, right? Why don't you give it a try?" Aphelia stared at the cafe employee as she brought it over, flipping her two twin fishtails over her shoulders as she pulled down the sleeves of her sweater. "It's great," Aphelia said in a monotone, hiding the fact that she was distinctly uncomfortable the closer the other female approached. "Ah, really? I'm glad! But why won't you drink it? Oh well, doesn't matter! You paid, and I made it for you! I hope you enjoyed this experience! I want you to remember every moment you spent here in the Hosenka Coffee Cafe," the worker's smile looked more and more menacing. "The calm and coziness of this place... it's really unmistakeable, right? Well you enjoy your delicious warm drink, I won't bother you any more! Let me know if you want any more whipped cream." She set it down on the table next to the door, next to where Aphelia was standing as still as a stone statue, obviously read to leave. "Oh, before I wait! Come back soon, so you can try that peppermint mocha! And there's always food samples available for you to enjoy!" Suddenly, Aphelia was really glad that she hadn't eaten that sample, no matter how hungry she had been. What if it was drugged? Probably, this whole place was messed up. Shivering slightly, Aphelia tried to push open the door, and much to her surprise and subsequent relief, it worked! She shoved through and stumbled out onto the street. "See you soon!" Came the cheer from behind her, but when the spirit looked for the origin of the voice, she saw nothing except for the outside of a cafe. Not the same cafe as the one she had just entered... but a different place, with light blue awnings that were lacey but not scalloped. The sign on the top said, Lily's Cafe, in very bright white and cursive handwriting. It was so clearly not the same trap of an establishment that Aphelia gaped for a whole half a minute. What... what was this? Something suspicious was going on... she had to make sure Seika was okay.

The spirit pulled herself together and tried to sense where her friend was. It was quite rare for the girl to look for her friend, and not the other way around. Usually Seika was chasing Aphelia after the feline had run off to go take a nap while the rest of the job was proceeding. So this was really a special case. However, just as she had decided the correct direction to go towards, a voice broke into her thoughts. Aphii! Hey, Aphi! Aphi! Pay attention to me! Aaaahhh, Aphi's ignoring me again... the spirit was definitely NOT ignoring her, but instead, she was just surprised by Seika wanting to contact her again this soon. Didn't she remember how this type of non verbal communication gave both of them a headache... Since you were so nice to let me go off on my own, I decided to give you daily updates! How's that, right? Aren't I so smart? So yesterday I didn't hunt any humans for the baby spiders, but today I will for sure. Count on it! And then Seika hung up. Honestly, after hearing her voice, even just through their bond, Aphelia already felt reassured. How could anyone hurt her without getting beaten up by spiders and her own wild sparkly magic? So the girl decided to just go ahead and attend her spa appointment that she was probably running late for already. Aphelia checked her watch only to discover that there was still ten minutes, maybe a little bit less, until her appointment was set to begin. Since this cafe, even if it had disappeared in the end, which she had gone to for breakfast (still hungry by the way) was right near the spa, it wasn't a hassle at all to return. Aphelia walked quickly across the roads and used the side walk to run. Then she made her way back up the stairs of the spa and inside, where she navigated to the area where her treatment was supposed to begin. At the desk, there was a normal looking set up, with a wooden office looking space and a woman sitting behind the computer. But all around her, the surroundings had suddenly changed into something as if from a magical fairy tale forest. There were birds chirping- indoors, mind you!! And people were folding towels and such, sprinkling bird seeds, having a sun bathe on beaches... well, this must have been the luxury of magical spas! Hosenka Town really was amazing. Then the lady behind the counter greeted Aphelia with a nod of her head before going back to humming with her eyes closed. The spirit felt like sweatdropping. Really...? Was she going to help her or not? "Welcome. Welcome, no, you didn't startle me, I was patiently waiting for your presence." Um, well, she hadn't been that late... and anyway, this lady was giving her strange vibes. Hopefully she wouldn't be like the others the girl had encountered recently. Maybe there was actually something wrong with Aphelia, huh? Had someone put a curse on her without her realization that made people just want to go on and on and act insane and such, because that would have been an easy and reasonable explanation. The feline resolved to check it out once she returned to her hotel room. "It is so lovely to see you... may I take your hands?" Uh. Weird question. But Aphelia grudgingly held out her hands, and the woman grabbed them in a way that made it look like she was accepting a gracious gift. Yeah, definitely weird vibes. "Perfect. My name is Cara, and, I will be taking care of every part of your spa experience today." Well, she wasn't going to be inside for all day, but it was nice that this woman was so uh, enthusiastic. And determined? It really made Aphelia feel kind of afraid, she couldn't deny that... but, the girl then realized that there had been no end time for the appointment. Also, the receptionist from before hadn't told her how long her treatment would last. She assumed she could select the treatment now, so the spirit was determined to just tell the lady that she had other plans today. "I'm sensing stressful energy from you," Aphelia glared at her. "Now, if I may take my hands back... thank you," she put them together in a type of prayer thank you motion. "I want to check with you personally... normally a receptionist would be doing this, but I'm sitting at her desk today because I would one a one on one connection with you before the treatments begin. So let's get your details up on the computer." The spirit sat there, dumbfounded. So she hijacked the regular woman's desk and now she had to talk with this crazy lady?? "Don't worry, even though your appointment officially begins in five minutes, this part of the time is allocated to your experience, so you are not losing any time whatsoever by spending it with me." Honestly, how she was looking... it made the spirit feel both guilty and though she were given a great gift? Which was strange, because Aphelia really seriously wanted nothing to do with this. "These few clicks here should bring you up... how... oh, here you are! Would you be able to confirm your full name for me?" Aphelia stared. "Aphelia," she finally said, and the woman raised an eyebrow before smiling languidly. "Wonderful." That hadn't even been her full name but she just accepted it like that?? Seriously, these people... "Wonderful, yes, and just to double check your identity as this is a luxury, very exclusive spa? I require to check your date of birth and the email address you used to book with us," at this point, Aphelia couldn't handle any more. She was about to turn and leave when the woman called out from behind her, "Please, if you leave now there will be no refund if you are disappointed with your service," Aphelia was about to go anyway, the treatment had only been a few hundred jewel, she could make that and a hundred times over in just a few hours of mage work with Seika or even alone, "If you do choose to cancel this appointment there is a five hundred thousand jewel fee for wasting the booking..." what. Aphelia slowly turned back around and shot an icy glare at the woman, who waved her hands. "It was in the contact that you signed! The Terms and Conditions! Please, my hands are tied, I really can't do anything about it." Suddenly, she sounded much more alive than before and a lot less creepy.

Well, it was probably just part of her job. Aphelia groaned before returning to her place standing in front of the counter, hoping she would just drop the act altogether now. Instead, the woman seemed to return to her smooth and mysterious state. "So your email please?" Aphelia gave it, and the woman smiled. "Fantastic. Now you've picked the Gold Deluxe Package, what an excellent choice! Are you entirely aware of everything that entails?" When Aphelia made no movement to respond, the woman sighed. "Okay, well I can tell you today will be such an enlightening day, not only will you be receiving some wonderful facial treatments nut also some treatments for the rest of your body, including a nice deep massage to help you relax and unwind. We're also going to be connecting... we're going to be pulling away any negative energy and you're going to leave today feeling completely renewed and refreshed." She smiled so beautifully at Aphelia that the girl could only wince from the elegance. To be completely honest, this woman was too much. "Does that sound good?" She asked, and Aphelia made no movement to respond once again. "Wonderful. Now, I don't have down any allergies, for you, can I just check that that is correct?" Aphelia nodded slowly, and she said again, "Okay, lovely. Do you prefer fragrance or unfragranced products?" Aphelia quickly said, "No scent," and the woman gave her a nod that was surprisingly professional and curt. "Well, I can let you smell the products before we use them to make sure you're happy with the ones we've chosen." The feline nodded with no small amount of trepidation. She would probably pick the first that didn't have a completely overbearing scent, aside from that it didn't matter much to her. "Okay then!" At that, the spirit perked up, wondering if this torture was over. "Let me just pop in a couple more bits, yeah? Won't be anything but a moment... okay, so seal here, that's for me, and lovely. And is there anything else you'd like to add onto your treatment package today? Perhaps going up to the Titanium Package?" Aphelia gave her a questioning look, before realizing that was a mistake. "The Titanium Package involves a complete aura shift. Mhm, it really does. Basically, we like to think we take you into another dimension." At that, Aphelia really had nothing to say. But she didn't want to be leaving this dimension soon, not in any way, shape, or form. After all, she had to stay around in case Seika needed her, plus, messing around with other universes and planes of existence was asking for trouble. So she shook her head no. "You'll stick with the Gold Deluxe? No problem, maybe next time." She smiled and Aphelia couldn't even mimic it. "Well, what I want you to do next is follow me through to the changing space. Of course I'll leave you privately to change, but I'd like to provide you with a nice robe, along with some towels, and some water or anything else you would like or need on your journey here today. So please follow me, you'll notice that I am barefoot, don't worry, we're perfectly hygienic here, but it just helps to ground me and connect me with the surroundings."  What a strange thing to say, but Aphelia guessed that maybe some customers in the past had been worried about that. Wasn't wearing shoes indoors more unsanitary? At least, in her opinion. "Wonderful," the woman echoed, sounding like a broken record. "Please follow me," she said, and then she turned around and made her way out of the little desk receptionist section, pushing through a half door in a partition that blocked off part of the room. This place looked like a jungle, literally. It was as though they were in the woods and lost, like she'd found a magical safe haven after going on a trek. It was kind of cool, Aphelia had to admit, but she wasn't that interested in having to brave the fronds and bugs. As they walked, the girl saw many things that were probably questionable. First of all, it was like music was playing, but different music every direction she turned. Which was questionable because she was staying in the same place, so shouldn't the sounds that her ears picked up be the same? Or at least, all change at once, right...? But no, this forest was just plain weird. Aphelia felt distinctly uncomfortable being around here, but she didn't really have much choice. Even if she could earn the same amount of jewels as it would cost to cancel the appointment in like, a few days, it was still such a waste of money. Plus she had already paid for the treatment, and that hadn't been anywhere near as expensive. So why would she bother to both waste money and also lose the treatment that she had been so excited about? All of this fuss and bother was probably designed to scare off customers, to some point. Plus, with magical people, they did strange things a lot of the time. Aphelia had gotten used to it, being around Seika a little bit along with her guild mates, who were a rowdy and weird bunch, to say the least. The girl shivered thinking of all of those spirits who were literally a riot together and some of them, even when apart.

Before she knew it, they had arrived at some kind of area? At least, Aphelia guessed that it was their arrival that had stopped the woman from walking any more. After all, the spirit had been forced to just follow along obediently for now, or else the woman would take it as her leaving and charge her that obscene amount of money."The robe is Aegyptian cotton, so it should be wonderfully comfortable for you," she began nodding and nodding. "So now you are in a temperature controlled space, I can adjust it for you, would you like the atmosphere to be higher and warmer or lower? Just as it is works too. Excellent choice," she went on a rant, only pausing a few times to let Aphelia get out a nod and a semblance of agreement. "Now during your experience today you may notice some external sound, such as the birds and the forest creatures, other nature that surrounds us here. As you know, we are in the forest, retreat area here, so we are surrounded on all sides. But if anything, well, I hope that helps you connect to and your mind to the earth around us, please just announce it, and we will send to you even more, to accomplish whatever you need." That made absolutely no sense, but the woman went on anyway, "We are going to begin the first treatment shortly. I'm going to be giving you a facial, so I got a selection of different products so you can test out how they smell before we begin. However, what I'd like to begin with is a rose quartz roller, okay? Now I'm going to be putting some product into the skin, and then using this quartz roller to gently work that in. Is that amiable to you?" Aphelia could hardly protest. "Very well. So please sit down here," she pointed to a bed that definitely hadn't been there a second ago. "I will start by cleansing your face... we like to try to be eco friendly here, so we use these beautiful reusable facial pads, they... don't worry, they are one hundred percent hygienic and cleaned at a high temperature to make sure that they are perfectly fresh for every new client." That big disclaimer hadn't made the spirit feel any more reassured than if the speech hadn't existed at all. "They're wonderfully soft, so I'm going to apply some cleanser now, it's just a very gentle, mild solution, that we mix with our mineral water." Aphelia nodded. Seemed okay. "But we actually get it from a lot of the springs right around here, in the area." She began to sprinkle the water around between her fingers, and Aphelia eyed the sight dubiously. "Let's not just think about that, but instead the Earth's natural resources, after all Earthland is such a beuatiful country, I'd just like to cleanse all over it, wouldn't that be nice, don't you think?" Aphelia wanted to slowly back away, but she felt like she was suddenly glued down to her seat. Glancing down, the spirit panicked as she tried to escape, but the lady advanced on her with that weird cotton pad in her hand. "Stay still please, this won't hurt at all. Please stop struggling and allow the nature to take hold in your mind," she sat down on a stool next to Aphelia that definitely hadn't been there a moment ago. Then, she held up her hand and began to swipe the cleanser over the spirit's face. It felt basically like washing with warm soapy water and a rag, so Aphelia managed to relax. As she did so, she felt the restraining feeling around her limbs begin to subside, and the woman murmured gently that she was doing great. "You look great already," the stranger said, and Aphelia couldn't help but feel a little bit offended. How was wiping her face with cleanser making her look better than before? Even if she would later, it would only serve to scrape off some skin right now or clean over the top layer of her skin. It wasn't even exfoliating. And she had looked good before! What on earth was this crazy lady going on about? The girl could only hope that she wasn't being indoctrinated into some weird experiment where people took them out into the woods before murdering them in cold blood after performing weird rituals and rites. Glancing at the spa attendant, Aphelia didn't feel herself being reassured at all. "This is not good enough," the lady muttered, and the spirit gritted her teeth. "Look, I think I changed my mind. I would like to cancel this appointment right now," she told the woman bluntly. "I'm willing to pay the five hundred thousand jewel, so please, just let me go now," she said, trying to be patient. Really, she couldn't stay here any longer. The woman sitting on the stool next to her stared at her with a dark, unreadable gaze. "Are you sure?" She finally asked. "Now that we've begun the treatments, and used our expensive materials, the service charge even if the services are canceled is increased to one point five million jewel. Please understand that these services are expensive and our time cannot be wasted. We can only offer you a refund if you had agreed to these policies, and you said while booking that you understood the Terms and Conditions." At this, Aphelia's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. Seriously?? One million and five hundred thousand jewel... that was just insane. Aphelia could handle whatever this was, as long as it didn't kill her. But she maybe should just get out of here now and take the hit... they could afford it, that was for sure, but she knew that Seika had been wanting to save up for that new shiny piece of equipment. Even now, the feline couldn't quite remember the name, but she wouldn't be able to stand the genuinely hurt and surprised look on her bond mate's face. "Fine, we can continue," the spirit finally allowed, even though her eyes were about as squinty and suspicious as they could get.

"This treatment aims to rejuvenate from within," the stranger suddenly starting speaking up, and Aphelia immediately hit her with a look of disdain. Sure, from within, then why was she patting her face with this weird mineral water stuff? Plus, Aphelia just wanted to leave, but she was strapped down or glued or something. Probably, the lounge chair thing was magical and she was trapped and about to be killed in a terrible ritual. The spirit did not have high hopes whatsoever and in fact was feeling very pessimistic right now. However, she did feel reassured that she could leave at any time, as long as the price did not get too high. Even though it would definitely take a lot out of her, she could pay such a cost as one point five million jewels... Seika's disappointment would not even happen, so long as Aphelia worked hard to make up the difference. Just as she was considering even more genuinely whether to just do that and get out of here as soon as possible, the woman lifted up her chin with one finger. "We'll just get that skin glowing even more, and just cleanse it of any impurities so you can be perfect." Creepy. "So let's get that treatment on your skin. It is an enzyme based oil, so let me get that for you now." She stood up from where she was sitting on the stool and seemed to vanish mysteriously even though she had really just walked a few paces away. This entire place was so unsettling, and Aphelia felt especially vulnerable just lying here and unable to leave freely. "This is being specially created in house just for us, and we do have some scientists working with us here," the woman was suddenly back, and already droning on. "We want to get the balance of bringing natural elements into our products but also using ways that will factor into genuine responses. In this concoction here you have the essence of the gold forest folk, don't worry everything is properly secreted, and we actually scrape it off of the tree bark after it comes out, so it's very very fine, so let's take a good amount on our hands now..." Some how, the woman had appeared back and was already going on and on. Aphelia could only think that they had scientists? So it really must be some kind of mad lab rat experiment where she was caught here, and they used all of these tactics to manipulate people into not being able to leave until it was too late. "Excuse me," Aphelia began, but the woman put a finger to her lips and shushed her without another moment of care. The spirit, aggravated, tried to protest, before realizing that suddenly, no sound was coming out of her lips. She glared at the stranger, sure that she had done something with magic to make her unable to speak up for herself. You won't get away with this, she vowed in her mind, even though the spa worker's smug face screamed that she already had. Aphelia was forced to just lie there while the person applied this strange substance all over her face. Something was definitely wrong with Hosenka Town. Not only were there disappearing creepy cafes with workers who wouldn't let them leave and refused to listen to anything for orders, not wanting her to eat breakfast... but they also had the wrong menus! Aphelia could remember that stupid autumn menu when it was clearly summer and the cafe employee had even said so herself. Now, there was this even crazier lady. The girl couldn't understand how this was even possible. Was there something about her, as a spirit and entity of magic, that attracted all these unsavory people? Aphelia decided she would have to try harder to ensure these areas were safe before almost letting her guard down. Better yet, she ought to really just take Seika and leave this city as soon as possible. Nowhere seemed to be safe. "Like that... perfect, your skin is looking so beautiful," Aphelia tried to cringe away from the pads of the other's finger tips on her forehead and cheeks, but really, she couldn't move that much. "Let me help you now, the next step is that to ensure we stay calm and not tense throughout the process... to ensure the maximum treatment can be delivered... now let me get my quartz roller..." Aphelia knew in that moment that she definitely did not want any contact with that tool. "Just need to move a few items around on my specialty table here..." Aphelia craned her neck to try to get a glance of what else was on the table there. Unfortunately, it was a little bit behind the woman and off to the side at an angle where Aphelia would need more freedom of movement in her upper body to twist and turn enough to view what was there. She cursed once again her loss of will when it came to being able to move or speak. "Rose quartz has many wonderful properties, very special substance it is, but I find not only is it cooling to the skin, but it also helps with any lines," she touched Aphelia's skin again, and the girl glared. Was she insinuating that the feline had wrinkles?? "Also, it's plumping and helps invigorate blood flow to the skin, which is very important. So when using this we dont' drag down, we lift up, and always away from the heart, okay?" Why the heart? "Let's start with your fore head, okay, here I go~" Aphelia essentially held her breath as the woman ran it across her skin. It was definitely an uncomfortable sensation, but perhaps not outwardly painful like a sharp, distinct sort of feeling. Instead, it was mostly just draining. It felt like all of Aphelia's energy was being grabbed out of her, like suddenly, the coldness of the roller took away the heat and vehement energy in her. "Just hold your head up... there we go, that's it dear."

Before she knew what was happening, she was fast asleep. The next thing she realized was that she was waking up, her eye lids so, so heavy, and her vision blurry. What...? She tried to speak, but all that came out was nothing at all. She was still muted by whatever spell that woman had put on her. "Oh there you are, still alive and kicking I see! Sorry about before, I think I might have used too much of an amount, we don't want to over stimulate your skin. I will make sure to keep a better balance now," she said, looking at Aphelia all friendly like. "My dearest apologies, I want to deliver the right results without over processing the skin. That is very important, okay? So now, let's try again." Then with pretty much no care in her face, she just went and did it again, bringing the roller down on Aphelia's face. It was again cool to the touch, but the amount of energy it sucked out of her with the coldness felt a bit less intense. "Okay so you're good for about twenty, maybe twenty one or two on either side. Each person has a different limit, alright? So now that we know yours, our treatment plans can be adjusted accordingly." She gave the girl a smile as she sat back a little bit and explained further. "Also, your limits can change. Especially once you're on a treatment for a while, the amount can impact your body meaning you'll be able to take even less before it no longer is effective and could become harmful." Aphelia wanted to thrash about but she couldn't move. Instead, she settled for glaring at the woman. Really, she was just saying she could be harmed, that easily, and acting like it didn't even matter or anything? What was her life, just a little experiment? Probably, to these people... anyway, the spirit needed to think of a way to get out of here, and fast. Or else, before she could even think again, she would be basically dead or changed for life or some other horrible scenario. This woman... what was her name? Cara. Aphelia would remember that, and next time, she returned to Hosenka Town, the lady had better hope they don't cross paths. Of course, that was assuming she wasn't murdered as soon as the spirit managed to get free. Trying to project the most grave vibes possible towards the woman simply using her eyes alone, Aphelia glared with all of her might. Studiously, the woman ignored her and went about her work, seemingly, doing stuff with the table slightly behind her and messing around with some serums and spa equipment. "Twelve... thirteen... fourteen... fifteen..." She looked to be counting something, and Aphelia's feelings of suspicion deepened even more. "Oh, wonderful! It's really helping to just work that frog enzyme into the skin, okay, let me just come round here and take a look at you from this side here. She continued to talk, and talk. Counting up numbers... that Aphelia didn't know what they meant, but they made her anxious. "perfect, I'm going to focus just very gently, and do your neck next." The lady proceeded to run the roller down her skin, and Aphelia shivered at the sensation. "Excellent. If you instantly just feel it, filling your face, tighter and pumping as the blood flow really gets going. Good... now what I'm going to do is I'm going to apply a purifying treatment, so this is something that we do buy in." Aphelia didn't care. "Now, we don't do this likely, we do like to try to produce our own spa products, but when we find something that just really works, we also like to support other businesses, so this is from the rituals collection." Aha! She knew there was something occult happening here. "And this is the hydrating black soap, with refreshing eucalyptus and olive oil. And it's in this beautiful golden packaging, which is why we love to use it for the Gold Deluxe Package. And it contains no parabins or mineral oil, so we really like it because it's just nice and pure." Yeah. Pure. Aphelia wanted to bet that there was tons of dark magic or something absolutely impure associated with it. "So what we are going to do is we're going to apply this directly to the skin, and I'm going to take quite a generous amount, okay..." she did that, spurting it out over her fingers and then rubbing them together until there was a thick layer on the finger tips of both hands. "Like this, and what I'm going to do is a little bit kind of like, gel like," she held it up to show the girl. "We're just going to try to smooth that just especially around the cheek areas, like a nice layer, and here we go..." Aphelia tried to stay as still as possible as she thought about the situation. Now the stranger's fingers were rubbing in circles and even coming down to cover her eyes, and Aphelia wanted to close the instinctively, but she kept them open, determined to see what was happening. As a spirit associated with bubbles, at least partially, she had the ability, even now, to control the flow of water over her eyes. So it was possible to continue to wet the surface of her eye balls and not need to blink to keep them from drying out. "Now we will just let that set and do it again in a little bit, I need to take some time to find the next step of the treatment. Plus, I find if we leave it for a couple of minutes, it really starts to just work well, so let me go cleanse my hands and prepare the next step while we wait." Aphelia understood that it was phrased as though she were talking to the girl and explaining everything like a nice spa attendant, but in reality, the woman was just talking to herself. All of this could have been truth or fact, but it wasn't as though Aphelia could change anything about the situation right now, even if what she said wasn't appealing and in fact made her feel uncomfortable.

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Aphelia had no choice but to stay here for now. But she was thinking, her mind whirring with possibilities of how to escape. They had been in situations similar to this before, but usually, they were a little bit more prepared to be taken hostage. The spa attendant still wasn't back yet, probably off finding more tools to use to experiment on her with. Aphelia shuddered. Whatever was on her face had a bit of a refreshing scent, well more than a bit actually- it was very cool, almost as though the smell of renewal was overpowering everything else. Even the soil and dirt and nature scents had been drowned out, and Aphelia felt a little worried that it was wrecking some kind of havoc on her senses. "During this time, I like to encourage the client to breathe and center yourself, so I want you to take a nice deep breath in," a voice came from her side, and Aphelia turned in that direction with a start. The spa lady was staring at her expectantly, and Aphelia didn't move, but she seemed to go on anyway, regardless of whether the girl was actually doing what she had ordered or not. "Hold it hard for a few seconds... one, two three... now exhale, and release." Unconsciously, the spirit breathed out when she said that, and then kicked herself mentally. No, that was an absolute no. She couldn't allow herself to be brainwashed by this stranger into agreeing to do whatever she wanted. Aphelia needed to remember herself and continue to struggle against whatever hypnosis effects these products were using to addle her brain. "Let's do that again, just breathe in with me," Aphelia glared at her, refusing to very obviously. The woman didn't seem to be bothered and instead went about with her demonstration. "Pausing after you intake a breath, then holding it, and releasing in one smooth motion, we are just breathing in everything that Mother Earth of this beautiful nation has to offer... Fiore is such a nice country... don't you feel it? How grateful you are? If you were in another country, if you were in Desierto... do you feel how beautiful it is here?" Aphelia's eyes shot open so quickly that she barely even realized she had closed them. What was this? Propaganda against other nations? Either way, she was extremely suspicious. "Just breathe for me again, relax," the spa attendant said after realizing that Aphelia was struggling to stay completely alert. Honestly, it was so difficult to manage herself. She was desperately trying to remain conscious, but something about the atmosphere? Or maybe it was the woman's voice, combined with whatever drugs were inside of those "spa" products. "Oh, isn't it nice? Pause, stop thinking, just let your surroundings take hold..." Aphelia snarled silently. "Just calm down, move your shoulders back for me, this is your Gold Luxe experience, we are just cleansing and healing you, this is much more than just a facial treatment this is a healing process..." The feline definitely wanted nothing to do with their phony false renewal routine. But she didn't have much of a choice but to stay and sit here and listen for now. "This is a journey, of exploration, to the whole world of Earthland, to the universe and its calm... do you feel it? Good. Are you feeling more relaxed now?" Although she wanted to scream at her and say no, deny it, she could tell that there was a certain drowsiness in her bones and body. Furthermore, she was forcibly muted by that spell anyway, and nothing could be done to break that for now. "So what I'd like to do now is then, remove the cleansing site treatment, so let's get our cleanser pad which we know, nice and clean and got a fresh bottle of water here..." Aphelia didn't understand why she was saying anything at all. It wasn't' as though she was trying to persuade the girl to stay any more or agree, instead it was all just kidnapping and holding hostage at this point essentially. But maybe there was some kind of magic or hypnotism in her words. The spirit wouldn't have been surprised if that was the case. Therefore, she did her best to shut out her words, since they couldn't be trusted. This "cleanser" could have been anything, it did no good to keep track of what was being put on her face because the descriptions could have been wildly inaccurate. "Let's simply cleanse again, just, you just want to basically cleanse all of the badness of, okay? All fo these things that are coming out off of your skin, okay? So just going to cleanse... cleanse.... cleanse..." her hands moved in succession with her voice, swiping across every time that she said cleanse. The droning continued on, as though she were praying or trying to summon a demon. "Cleanse... cleanse... cleanse... and you can see, just coming off now... cleansing... we're cleansing... let's just turn that over to the other side," she moved away from Aphelia's face briefly to dip it into a bowl of water, or at least what looked like water, that had been poured out from a plastic bottle and probably was supposedly another one of those spa cleansing water treatments. Then she began to wring it out and let the droplets fall into a different basin. "Good, good good good... okay, now we may continue... cleanse... cleanse... cleanse..." Aphelia couldn't help but be extremely unnerved by this treatment, but she couldn't do anything about it.

"You've got beautiful skin, and it looks lovely like this. Just perfection," the lady continued to try to primp and press on Aphelia's face all over, much to the feline's hatred. "Let me just rinse them out... there we go... beautiful, beautiful..." she turned to the side, so that Aphelia could only see her side profile. "So grateful for these little eco friendly facial pads, they're just so perfect, just the way it should be, just a nice, clean, fresh pad to use." She began dusting off the girl's face with what looked like a dry circle of the fluffy, soft circles, and the spirit cringed. No matter what, she was determined to endure. "Okay, right, I'd like to get a clean, fresh pad for you. Another one. We allow the client to pat themselves down a little bit, and some nice and lovely and clean soapy water, so let's get that fresh one and here you go, what I'm going to do is just wipe over, just make sure that your skin is nice and cleansed and fresh..." she stared at Aphelia for a moment as if gauging whether she would immediately bolt or not before the girl felt her arms loosen at her sides. She slowly brought them up and accepted the white cotton that the woman was presenting her, dripping in water. Dabbing it along her face with no small amount of trepidation, she had to put up with the stranger cooing good jobs at her the entire time. Finally, it seemed to be just about over, and Aphelia took the opportunity though, to secretly imbue her body with more magic, along with the area around her. That way, if she did make an escape attempt, it would have a better chance of working with the added ability to channel magic. Just then, Aphelia looked up only to see the woman smiling at her with no small amount of satisfaction. "Wonderful. Your skin is utterly divine." Well, that was great for her, but the spirit really wasn't interested in all of this. "You're glowing. And I can already tell that you're starting to glow from the inside out, yes. Thank you. Now, we're going to just finish today's facial portion of the treatment with a nice, oil infusion. First I must assess your skin type and I believe we can finish this skin questionnaire." Uh. No. Aphelia, first of all, didn't want to give out any of her personal information whatsoever. She wouldn't be able to talk, anyway, or else the spa attendant would have to comply with letting her go free and accepting the payment in jewels. Unless she just planned to outright break the law, in which case, well, Aphelia could break out too and break the law herself. She wasn't some goody goody. "Please consider these questions carefully, otherwise I will have to assume your skin type based on my own observations." The way she looked over Aphelia gave the spirit chills. It was as though she was being coldly assessed. But regardless, she had no intention to cooperate. "Very well then. I think you have quite a dry skin tone," Aphelia felt offended but still said nothing. "Therefore, I will prepare an infusion of herbal remedies and products for you. This is a mixture of a home blend of most natural oils, combined with some natural scents. We wanted quite an authentic, almost woody feel, to connect us with our surroundings," she smiled. "So you may be getting elements of pine, other nature, mint, it's just a very refreshing set of things." Aphelia was unimpressed, but whatever. "Okay, so let's open this now. Right..." she began to screw off the top of the jar which she had put everything in and shaken. "So we'll need a little bit of these," she pulled out a bottle of water. Then she leaned forwards, with her hands coated, and began patting Aphelia's face. Her cheeks felt... squished. "We want your skin to feel very nice and plump, and make sure to fill all the cracks and work it down the neck." Fine, but what was with this run through? The girl was so very, very tired of all of this. She decided to suddenly stop the vicious cycle. Flaring out her magic nearly as strongly as possible, a bright light flashed and filled the room even as smoke erupted all around her. The trees were suddenly caught on fire, and as they blazed, Aphelia felt her confidence return. She broke through the magic keeping her in place and without another word, she vanished in a pop. Unfortunately, the first place she had thought of to leave to was their room back in Elysium. That was... very far away from Hosenka Town, and so as soon as she arrived, she immediately felt the energy drain from her. Normally, it wouldn't have been that bad. After all, she teleported all the time for jobs, and just because that method of traveling was the easiest. However, after spending so much energy to free herself and forcibly break through the bonds that were keeping her in place, it was much more difficult for her to have the spare magic to spend going these long distances. Aphelia couldn't bear to leave Seika alone in that city so far away, but she couldn't afford to mess up any fast travel usages. The situation would be even worse if she ended up with absolutely no power and stuck in the wrong place, unable to make it all the way. Slamming the wall with her hand, Aphelia cursed out loud in an uncharacteristic show of frustration. "D*mn it!" There wasn't anything she could do at the moment, but... soon...

Seika, meanwhile, was having the time of her life. She had been originally intending to feed spiders; that was the whole point of them splitting up, so that the mage could go off on her own and take care of her newfound babies. But instead, the girl had decided to have her own spa day. And this was a proper one, none of that weird cult like sh*t that Aphelia seemed to be experiencing over and over. Little did her bond mate know that she was perfectly safe and in fact enjoying herself immensely. Currently, Seika was getting her makeup done. Well, she was about to. The girl had been lured into a nearby store after deciding that she needed to eat something for breakfast, as well as wanting to take more pictures of the beautiful spa town. However, a nearby advertisement of brightly colored hues on a model had caught her eye. Since she had the money and it was in fact listed as having a thirty percent discount, Seika decided to go give it a try! She had never experimented with makeup before, but thought it was pretty cool and artsy. To be completely honest, even though she looked a little bit like a nerdy girl, Seika wasn't that interested in things like art and reading and crafts. Sure, she was enthralled by cute things that attracted attention and had nice colors or fancy appearances, but... that was different than actually having an interest in fashion and designing or things of a similar, artisan nature. Instead, Seika was perfectly happy to admire them from an outsider's perspective and just buy them or run around and take whatever she decided looked cool. Mostly, though, she was more entranced by living animals or people than any mundane, un moving and lifeless materials. But plants were cool! Actually, a lot of things were cool to her. But that didn't necessarily make her want to learn more. So anyway, at the moment, there was a nice man sitting in front of her while she was also sitting in a chair, except the kind where when you press a lever on the bottom it pops up further and makes you feel taller! He kept talking to her, and asking her random questions, but it was so difficult to pay attention. But he was so, so nice. And he had a cute smile! Seika kept trying to take pictures of him, only for the stranger to laugh and wave away her camera. He still showed up in them, though, meaning he wasn't a vampire. He kept saying that it was lovely to meet her and asking her name, which was so silly! After all, her name was Taneda Akies, but everyone knew it was Seika. Anyway... what was he saying too? Something about asking her why she was getting her makeup done. Hm, what did that mean, for any particular reason? "I'm going to get dinner and a friend," the girl said cheerfully, thinking about finding food for her new giant spider friendo and her babies. "What are you going to be wearing? Do you have a picture?" He asked politely, but with a friendly sort of curiosity. "Huh? A picture? Sure, let's take a picture!" She stood up suddenly and went over next to the man, snapping a photograph without any warning. Then the mage went back to sit down, and he stared at her, momentarily bemused. "Alright. Well, that's not what I meant. Are there any colors you like?" He asked her, "Or any style of makeup?" Seika shook her head, a bright smile still on her face. She really didn't know what to say. She hadn't ever experimented with makeup, even though it looked cool, just because Aphelia was kind of iffy about putting stuff on her skin. But the girl opened up her phone and tried to find a picture of some things she had found pretty before. There was this one where a girl painted flowers on her face. "I think I have a lip color that's the exact same color as your sweater," he went on, "So if you wanted, we could do matching with that and neutral everywhere else." Seika didn't know what any of that meant, so she just smiled and nodded along! He seemed to be really helpful and willing to talk her through the process, and she had money to pay him so everything would work out well! He went to work putting on gloves and then proceeded to put on a mask. Cuz, they would be working in close quarters and it wasn't good to do that! "Do you know what kind of skin you have? Is it on the oily side, dry... you know what, it looks very clear and healthy," he finally just nixxed those questions after getting a blank stare from Seika. When she heard him decide that he didn't need an answer after all, she clapped her hands and tried to think of a way to explain herself. "Sorry Mister! I don't really know anything about all of this, my friend is a lot better with it. But she's busy getting her own spa treatments, so I wanted to deal with this!" Maybe deal wasn't the right word. But, she knew that her skin got dirty a lot! "How much sleep do you get?" The man asked curiously, and Seika could only blink in response. "Hum, I get a lot!" She finally said, and he sweat dropped a little bit. "Well, I was just asking because you don't have any dark circles. Good job! We don't have to use any color corrector for concealer, then. Just a little bit here. Hey, do you like your freckles or not?" The mage had absolutely no idea what he was saying, so she just beamed cheerfully at him. "I don't know!" Was her jovial reply. Sighing a little bit but definitely amused and happy for this girl to be so relaxed about all of it, he nodded. "Alright, well then I guess we'll see how you look without them."

After finishing the concealer, he went for a foundation. Because she was just playing around with makeup, he didn't think it was any harm in putting on foundation just for her to get the sense of what a whole full face of makeup routine could be like. Otherwise, in a practical sense, she didn't really have a "need" for foundation. Probably because she was just a little kid, she didn't really have that much in the way of spots or anything. Refocusing on his task at hand, the young man began searching for a nice brush before reaching for a few different shades of foundation. "We're going to find you the perfect color match, okay?" He smiled at her. Honestly, after putting on foundation, maybe her skin would look exactly the same. "What's your skin care routine? It's doing wonders for you, just thought I would let you know and maybe get some pointers," he laughed, but in all seriousness, if there was like, some kind of magic trick his client was using, he would love to get in on that secret. Ah... to reply to him, Seika didn't really know how she should do it? Her skin care routine was um, a lot. She only did it for fun though and lots of days she actually completely forgot about it! But mostly, she started it because of Aphelia. The feline, when she spent enough time in her human form, had a long and intense morning and evening daily ritual for her skin and health. After watching her do it so many times, the mage had wanted to partake along side her bond mate, therefore she had pestered the spirit non stop until she agreed to show her a little bit more about products and help her test them out. "My friend likes skin care so I do a lot! We have a lot of steps, I can't remember them all," she grinned but shrugged at the same time. He was stuck sweat dropping once again, before going on top begin mixing the foundations he had chosen together, keeping an eye on Seika's skin color for reference. "I see... it's surprising that it's not just good genetics. I'm glad you're working hard to produce a good result," the man smiled. It was always nice when someone invested a lot of time and effort into taking care of themselves and saw a nice image come out of it. Both image as in outward appearance and self-image, self confidence, that kind of thing. This little girl didn't seem to be lacking in gusto but she was missing a few uh, screws in the head, possibly. But mostly she just seemed to be a little bit of either a day dreamer or zoned out to some other realm inside her mind and probably missed a lot of details because of that. "Your skin is great, so I don't want to put something heavy on it anyways. How about this lightweight, filter foundation?" He held up a few bottles, having paused his mixing to better consider what might be a good match. Then he went back to mixing after realizing that Seika wasn't equipped or desirous about sharing her opinion regarding this matter. The great thing about mixing foundations on a palette was that less of it got lost, and plus one didn't have to worry about possible germs from the hands. "This foundation is a little on the drier side, it is matte, right, so it's nice to warm it up a little bit." At the same time, cleanliness was one of his biggest priorities. While working for a giant makeup conglomerate such as Aphora, one had to be very careful and represent well or else they could not only lose their job but be blacklisted from other workplaces, due to the amount of contacts within the industry that the brand had. "Going to add a little more concealer on top, but mostly for a gentle contour." This girl uh, she wasn't necessarily contoured already? Even though she did have perfect skin, it was obvious that she had more of the round, fresh, dewy look going on rather than glowing. And as a little kid there was no point in trying to go overboard too much, but he thought she would probably find it fun to mess around with different face shapes and making her cheeks look sharper, that kind of thing. He dotted it along her face and up her nose using the doe tip brush of the concealer, the kind that came naturally with this type of product. "Let's set this up so it stays all day every day, and you look flawless," he recited, although he hid a little bit of a smile thinking about this girl running around and immediately messing up the makeup. "Every day!" Seika echoed, and he winced. Yeah, that hadn't been uh, exactly what she meant. It was more of a metaphor... anyway, he took out a brush and opened up the powder compact before dusting the tool inside. Picking up enough of the packed product so that it became more of a loose powder, the translucent material was perfect for setting her face. So he did just that. The next order of business was probably a little bit of bronzer. She was quite pale, even if she did have a vibrant energy before with a bit of a red flush that, combined with the freckles, made it seem like she spent a lot of time outside. But now all of that was covered up, so it was time to add it back. He dusted the orangey brown powder all along the side of her face, returning the slight tan to her skin before pressing on a creamy, peachy cloud paint. These were great for lips and possibly even eyes, but it was best on the cheeks in his opinion. The color was a nice coral, and not that much at all was necessary to get the desired effect. Tapping was the best way to apply this sort of thing, because it was a cream on top of a powder. If he were to drag it across the face to blend, there was a risk of upsetting the perfect layers already underneath. Then, he moved on to even more highlighter, in a color called sunny glow. Even though it did add a little bit of glimmer and he only applied it to a few areas, it also worked super well as a moisturizer. Not that she needed to think about that, anyway. Her eyebrows were pretty fine, so he did that with relative ease, just filling in a few areas and not bothering to pluck any hairs. That could be saved for her to deal with herself, if she hadn't already. "Let's set up all of this again with a blusher," he said, because just a light coat would help prevent these liquid layers from sliding around or slipping off of her face. "This one is just fantastic, I really can't get enough of it," he mentioned, patting the blush compact adoringly. Then he decided to add even more highlighter, but this type from a makeup compact and a combination of the two sides mixed together so that each half's color contributed to the total effect. It was a nice appearance, and as they'd been doing her makeup for a decent amount of time now, he decided to check in."Are you doing alright? Do you need to use the bathroom or anything?" As far as he could remember, little kids always needed to go pee or such. "No, I'm good," she told him, beaming brightly. Well, if that was the case, he wouldn't question any further. They did have a lot to go through, that much was clear. Even though the face makeup was done, a thousand more little details had to be accounted for with the eyes. Usually, lips were a lot more simple, but depending on the culture and popularity of looks some girls wanted ombre or multi layered looks, which could be more tricky to do. So he didn't protest too much when she said this all was fine. Wasting time wouldn't be nice, if he just tried to convince her to take a small break.

22011 Words

The artist didn't have any more appointments today, because the store was due to close down rather soon for the day. It would be nice to put down a little bit of concealer as a base, to make sure any eye shadow looked more pigmented and also lasted longer. Along this line of thought, he also made sure to put some eyelash primer on her, resisting a smile when she began to scrunch up her nose and complain that it tickled. "My eyes are all gunky," Seika said, blinking fiercely. "Ah, don't do that," he cautioned her when he realized that she had begun to knock off the primer. "If they seem gunky, it's just the layer of makeup. It'll be less noticeable soon." The whole purpose of that was to coat the eyelashes and extend them with the coats to essentially make them look longer. But it would be nice to make sure she could see as well. Her eye lashes were quite curly, so he hadn't seen any need to curl them at all, but perhaps the weight of the product could disrupt that nice balance... sighing, he picked up a nearby magical wand and pointed it at her. "Eyelash Lift," he said, and immediately the girl felt her eyelashes rise up and further away from obscuring her vision. "Woah! Are you a mage, Mister?" She asked him, her eyes growing huge with excitement. He shook his head, laughing, as he grabbed the camera again to take a picture of her. Due to her request to take in progress pictures all throughout, the man had been subtly taking a photo after each step and was going to show them to her at the end. Just like with the other times, Seika didn't notice at all and just kept staring at his face, waiting for a response. "I'm not a mage, that's a wand anyone can use," he explained. The way their store worked was they had a few wands on hand to help employees deal with customers who couldn't be helped the old fashioned way. Since Fiore was a nation full of magic, there was no harm in using it. Those who were anti magic and like, pro advanced technology or something along those lines were usually the minority. It was accepted that magic was just a part of every day life, from the lacrima lights in the streets to the magically monitored stop signs. When it came to being a makeup artist, magic was helpful for several things, such as clearing away residue of product without needing to use harsh remover or experiment with waters. Also, it could add temporary, glowy effects, and allow a person to see what their features might look like a different way. There were some ways to use magic to permanently change one's appearance, but it was best to go to proper cosmetology services for that, because they were trained in such usage of magic. Regular makeup artists who were not able to wield magic on their own without assistance could not legally fiddle around with anyone's looks except for their own. It would be like doing plastic surgery. Suddenly, Seika got a great idea. "I want to work here!" She said, eyes sparkling. It would be so cool to be able to work at a makeup store! Or cosmetics store, whatever it was called! Internally squeeing, she abruptly got up and stood at her fullest height, beaming when she wasn't too much shorter than the man. While he was sitting. "I'm a mage, and I do color stuff! So I'm really good with colors. And even if I know nothing about makeup, you can teach me! I'll pay you!" The Aphora employee sweat dropped. Was this how getting a job worked? Paying someone... to teach you... and to let you work there? He guessed it happened with things like corporate jobs, what with all those bribes, but this was nothing like that. "I'll have to ask my boss, but you're free to apply," he offered. There was no age limit on who could work here at the store, especially because there was no alcohol being served. Usually for things like that, a person had to be old enough to handle it. Of course, little did he know Seika worked in a bar as a bartender and was definitely not old enough for most places. Boomslang was a very special case indeed. "Hmm, okay!" She sat back down and smiled at him. "Let's finish this, then!" She was going to be sure and pay even closer attention than she had been before. Which wasn't saying much, as the girl had mostly been spacing out earlier and missing whatever he was doing, so now? She would put a fraction of the proper effort into watching and understanding what was happening. If push came to shove, magic would fix everything, right? The girl felt confident in her abilities when it came to spells and those sorts of things. After all, Aphelia told her she could be kind of dumb but also kind of strong! And that was a high compliment and great amount of praise coming from the feline. Speaking of the spirit, the girl wondered what her bond mate was up to right now. Personally, she hadn't heard from her in a while, not after randomly surging thoughts through the bond and being greeted by pretty much radio silence. Neither of them liked to use that type of nonverbal communication very frequently, well, Aphelia tended to do so more often but Seika... when she did try to send specific messages, they ended up giving a major headache. So it was a difficult situation, but in the times she had used it today, the mage had felt like it was necessary! And since when was she one to balk at a difficult situation anyway??

"Excuse me, Miss, are you okay?" The young man interrupted her thoughts, bringing her back to the present. Blinking at him confusedly, Seika chirped, "Yep, I'm great! Why do you ask that?" Taking a look at her slightly glassy stare, he scratched the back of his neck before muttering, "You know what, never mind..." in reality, she hadn't seemed to be listening to anything he was saying and the man wanted to make sure his customer was paying attention. Mostly because she had expressed an interest in being hired to work there. But oh well, that might have been a joke, anyway. Clearing his throat, he began to speak again. From there on, the appointment became much more ordinary, and the pair fell into an easy rhythm of him just talking at her as he went about applying makeup and narrating the experience. "Right, so since this is going to be such an important day, and your first time getting makeup done, I'm going to once again set all of these cream products with a light coat of setting powder." He had already said that he was going to do that, but it never hurt to talk about it again. For something like this, where the face makeup was relatively light despite all of the layers and a full face, baking under the eyes was not necessary. The Aphora worker thought that she might have found it interesting, especially because she (rightly so, and very accurate of a guess) looked like the type to enjoy cooking and baking and purely just eating sweats of any time. However, it was better not to get caught up in details like that and end up wasting too much product. After all, this make over was technically free since she would be spending over five thousand jewels of products. "Alright, I think we're halfway through. Let me just pop on this balm," he took out a brush and dabbed it against the moisturizer before popping it onto her lips. "This is just because we will be applying product soon." Then, he went back to her brows and began working on them again. There had already been enough to be honest, but just to make sure everything would stay for a while and continue to look great, he wanted to use some dip brow gel. Afterwards, it was the perfect time for another photo op. Once the eyes and lips were done, everything would have a striking effect and her features would be much more defined. Until then, it was a bit like a flat mask, especially what with the foundation being so matte. Even the highlight and contour adding dimension still couldn't completely negate the effects of such mattifying makeup. "Eye brows are sisters, not twins," the man said, trying not to overdo the amount of time he was spending on them. "I already applied concealer to your eyelids, as a base, but we're going to go ahead and use this potion as well," while it wasn't technically a potion in the magical sense, that was just what the company advertised it as. There were products inside that did have magical effects, even if the liquid and substance itself was not enchanted by magic. "Finally, the best part! For eye shadow itself, I'm going to use this palette. It's the best kind that I would recommend for newer people like you, to makeup I mean. Because it's very compact, and the colors are wearable for every day. I find that some eye shadow palettes have so many colors and they can be a little overwhelming, especially for a newbie, so if you're looking to get any eye shadow palette I would recommend this one or something similar." That had been a lot of information, but surprisingly, it had seemed like she was actually paying attention for most of it?? "So, uh..." he had lost track of his words after being distracted by the amount of rapt attention. "So, I'm going to start with this golden color here," he pointed to one circular pan in the palette, and the girl in front of him nodded enthusiastically. "Browny... taupe, kind next, and it's a glitter as well. I'll pop this in your crease, and then go in with this matte brown, and put that kind of around the edge of your um, eye line, and also underneath your eyes." Picking up the brush and swirling it in the powder, he went ahead and did just that, taking time to buff it out and blend accordingly. "I might add a bit of this sparkly purple in the crease as well, if you're okay with that!" He flashed her a smile, which the mage returned. "Great! I think it'll look wonderful with the lip color we have planned." Now, personally, Seika's favorite colors... were kind of silvery and maybe yellow? But everyone seemed to like her in peach! Maybe it had to do with the fact that her sweater was pink? And her hair, of course. But that wasn't something she could change. Anyway, dark purple was basically the main color of Elysium, and the mage really loved her guild. Therefore, purple was a great color! Light purple was also terrific. Ah, there were just so many colors to choose from and it was so much fun to think about! Seika couldn't handle making sense of them all in her head, but it was fine, because she was a color mage. She could just put them out in the world if that was better and she was allowed to! "That looks beautiful," he murmured, taking a step back to assess his work. "Maybe a little bit more purple, focused more on the outer corner..." he nodded to himself. "I like that. That looks awesome. And let's take a little bit more of that glittery brown..." Seika stared at his face as he stared at hers, both of them transfixed by different things. Him, the makeup look. Her, the size of his eyebrows. They weren't really a uni brow? But even so, those were cool! No, they were kind of like a gradient. That was really weird, but also really cool! The girl wondered... did hers look like that now? Gradient browed?

"Now if you can look up, I'm just going to add a little bit more here," he had her glance up towards the lights on the ceiling, and the mage tried to resist the urge to squint when confronted by the brightness in her vision. "Ooh, is that what I think it is?" He suddenly left her side and walked over to a nearby counter, picking up what looked like a sample before returning over to their chair and mirror and vanity set. Absentmindedly, he picked up a brush and dusted away something on her cheeks. "Looks good. Anyway, look what I just spotted! This is the Coconut Nectar perfume, it's my favorite," he glanced at it, "And clearly everyone else's in the store, because it's almost empty, but why don't we pop some of this on, uh, around the edges of your face and such? Close your eyes and your mouth just in case." Seika did so, resisting the urge to blink in surprise when a thin mist of the perfume. It was a really pretty scent, and now Seika was super hungry. "Smell okay? I think it's delicious. It's a vanilla-yy, coconut-yy, mm.. anyway, okay, now we're going to finish off your eyes with a mascara." He held up a light blue tube. "It's a water proof variety, in case you have an emotional day! Even if you aren't crying, you might be sweating. So, water proof is really essential." He uncapped the bottle with a clean smooth sound and then gestured to his face. "I'm gonna get you to look down, kind of at my nose or lips," then he held out the wand in front of her face. First eyeing it suspiciously, the girl then tried to direct her attention to those parts of his face and stayed as still as possible as he began to layer the product onto her lashes. "Okay, and then lastly, we'll finish off your look with a lip color!" He held up a bottle, and beamed in pride. "So! Is this not the exact same color as your sweater? It is, right?" Seika squinted at it before nodding cheerfully. Yep, it looked pretty close! Or exactly the same! There wasn't really any difference to her, they were all super pretty. "I knew it! Yeah, and it'll look so nice with the purple and the gold... this is great, I'll give you the store's social media and you can tag us in any photos you take later, alright? But I'll take some of you now, don't worry!" Smiling, he picked up the camera Seika had given him once more and snapped a few before returning to the task at hand. "Alright, so I'm gonna first fill in your lips, or kind of, draw a line, you know? Around your lip line... with this... lip liner," he concentrated, his words slightly becoming quieter as his brain was devoted to other things. "It will stop them from smudging and also make applying a solid coat of lipstick easier." Some times it could be used to make them appear larger as well, but none of that would be happening at this make over appointment today. "Now we can apply the lip stick itself! It's in a gloss type container, you know, with a doe foot applique, but it's just a matte." It was a nice color, truly. One of his favorites to give customers, just because it was so light and kind of reminiscent of spring or summer. And they were in that season right now, the latter of the two. "Okay! All done, is there anything you want me to change?" The mage shook her head, a bright smile on her face. "Nope, it's great! Can I talk now?" She asked, wondering if it was safe to do so without messing up the process. Whenever she saw a dentist, which was rarely but admittedly occasionally did happen thanks to the nagging of Aphelia, they would always ask a bunch of questions but then not let her answer because she had to keep her mouth open and stuff and not move around her tongue. The young Aphora employee laughed. "Yes, you can talk now. It's not a big deal at all, you could've talked at any point during this make over, anyway, I'm glad that you liked it! So in order for this to be free, you can get a gift card, but I would suggest taking home the lippies that we used so you can reapply throughout the day, or evening, you know, whatever. You can take a look at everything I used and decide about it by yourself. I'll be around if you have any questions!" Seika beamed. "Alright, thank you! I loved it!" He smiled in return. "Aww, I'm so happy you enjoy the result. Well, I have to go to the bathroom, but thank you so much for choosing Aphora and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!" Then, the stranger disappeared away. The mage sat there for a few more minutes just thinking things over. Well, she really wanted to work here, but it seemed like it would be more difficult to get that job than she'd thought. Work was really hard, huh? When it came to taking jobs as a mage, it was just kind of handed to her. Well, Seika guessed that was part of the benefit of being in a guild. If she were guildless, wouldn't she have to find jobs on her own? Although, there was probably a board somewhere just like the one in the Elysium guild hall, where notices and requests could be posted freely. The type of stuff available probably differed greatly, though. What was that guild that the commander was from again...? Oh, it had been something really cool! Days Ire, right? Something like that. Anyway, the girl was pretty sure they must have had way different work cut out for them. After all, hadn't she been in Era for something important, dressed up in her uniform like that? Maybe they just wore their uniforms everywhere. Seika had never really gotten a chance to specify. Shrugging her shoulders, she slipped out of the chair and headed over to the cash register. "Hi, I'd like to apply to work here," she said, smiling brightly. It felt so weird to have makeup on! It was cool, though. Like, it felt like she had a little bit of a curtain in front of her eyes and like her lips were even drier than normal, but at the same time, when she'd seen herself... wow, it'd just been awesome!

The woman behind the counter regarded her a bit dubiously, before finally saying, "I can arrange an interview right now if you would like. We are hiring, as many of our staff have mysteriously gone missing." The worker frowned at the thought before shaking it off and clearing her throat. "If you would please wait a minute." She began to dial something on her phone before calling over another worker to take her place temporarily while she headed off to talk to their manager or whatever. Meanwhile, Seika decided it would probably be a good idea to pick out the products she wanted. After all, she did have to buy stuff to get the make over and whatever. Well, hadn't he said just using a jewel gift card would work? Shrugging, the girl pulled one out of the little stand that was there at the cash register. Hopefully Aphelia would appreciate this! The feline was very into taking care of herself and doing skin care, after all. And having been cajoled by the spirit into doing the same, Seika admittedly did a lot of work in the mornings and evenings to keep her skin healthy and nice. Not everyday! Because that was just too much, and she couldn't always remember, and plus also it was nice to just roll out of bed and trample everyone on her way to the guild hall before teleporting away. But uh... anyway, she had the card for Aphelia. And that was great. The mage handed it to the replacement cashier, who rang her up without an issue. Usually Seika liked to just use her special weird bank card thing, which she had gotten from some random bank in Magnolia Town. It was supposed to be famous or something, which probably meant that it wouldn't close down any time soon which was important because the mage didn't want to lose her money! She also had cash, but it was really hard to count fast. For things like jewels, it was better to pay big numbers without using actual money. The mage did still carry some around though, just for random stuff. Like parking meters! So she wouldn't get arrested, because that would be bad. Slipping both her own card and the new gift card into her inter dimensional giant amazing pocket, the girl stuffed her hands into her sweater sleeves and stood there, humming softly. The noise got progressively louder and louder until finally, the employee got sick of glaring at her and hoping she would get the hint. "Why don't you head on back, one of the higher ups is in right now and she can help you out with this interview," the worker suggested. Nodding enthusiastically, Seika skipped gleefully off towards the back room. As the employee watched the girl push through the doors roughly, she got a growing sense of dread in her stomach. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to let her back there were it was easy to cause a potential mess among all of the products and such... but nothing really could be done now. She got told that yes, the meeting room was free. Which was great! Seika followed the first cashier person all the way over to the little conference room, where she sat down in front of a blonde woman wearing red lipstick and a black suit kind of thing. There was like, a white blouse underneath it, but... uh, what was it called. A jacket but the fancy kind. Ooh, a blazer! Yes! She was wearing a blazer. "Hello, I'm ---.... head office... ..... you must be...?" Half of the words she was saying basically cut out in the girl's head, and she smiled meekly at the woman. "Um, Seika! I'm Seika!" "...Right. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Seika. First of all, of course I wanted to say, a massive congratulations on making it to the second interview." The girl stared at her blankly. But this was just her first...? "Based on my notes here, my workers already interviewed you in a group, and they usually select roughly eight or ten, and then two or three for myself, or my coworker. The HR reps come down and meet with you guys to see if you are the right person for the job. So according to my notes, you met with Aly, and she says here you were very kind, down to earth, and you show a lot of promise..." the mage just continued to nod along, completely confused on what was happening. Um, maybe her files got mixed up with someone else's? But oh well, she didn't really care! It was cool either way! "So I'm super excited to be meeting with you. So, I'm just going to take this clip board here, and I'll take down notes as we go, assuming that's okay. Yes, alright. So I've got a list of questions that I'm going to go through with you. Don't feel nervous or under any kind of pressure. Really I want you to be yourself. This is more of a way to get to know you, there's not, necessarily, a right answer." She smiled reassuringly at the girl, who beamed back. "Because when you do start working at Aphora, we give you extensive training on cosmetics, and the knowledge of buying different products, and using them and all of that, today what I'm going to focus on and what I'm really looking for, is your customer service skills." She smiled. "Obviously, a little bit of makeup skills is a bonus, but, that's not really the main thing that we require as a base starting point." Clearing her throat, she went on, "For start, how exactly do I spell your name?" The girl gulped before saying, "Seika." Waiting expectantly, the woman finally had to look up and as soon as she did, the cogs clicked in the mage's mind. "Oh! Right, um, S E I A K. Ops, I mean, S E I K A. Yeah!" The woman nodded before jotting it down on the clip board. "Your last name too," she said, and the girl was met with a dilemma. Um... "It's spelled R I S A," the mage finally said, praying that her bond mate didn't mind if she just stole her name for a little while. Hers went along with Akies, and so they wouldn't match or anything and it would be weird to put it with Seika. "And just confirm with me your phone number?" The girl shrugged, before listing off Aphelia's. "Okay great, let me update that." Okay then! "Why don't we start with you telling me a little bit about yourself?" The mage's eyes brightened. "Well, I love cats! My best friend is named Aphelia, and I'm a mage," she finished off proudly. The interviewer blinked slowly before moving her head up and down in something reminiscent of a nod. "Right. So, how old are you?" It sounded like it could have been one of the interview questions from the start, but something in the woman's voice made it seem like she was incredibly confused. Which was fine! Honestly, Seika was also kind of lost at the moment. On both what to say and what to do.

"I don't know!" The girl replied, and the interviewer stared at her. "Oh, okay... cool. So you're in your..." the woman struggled for words. When it came to mages, it was honestly just so difficult to tell how old they were. Magic could do wonders, such as aging up a person and also making them look eternally youthful. She had just assumed the latter was the case here, but what with how the girl was acting, that scenario was looking less and less likely. Yet, if she said she didn't know, wasn't it plausible she was some type of incredibly strong immortal who had no sense of time? Oh god, that would be a pain for shifts. "So you're in your what year of studying?" The girl shrugged hopelessly. "Alright, um, what did you go for in school?" "Ooh, I love marketing!" Seika announced proudly, and the woman nodded. Okay, that was good. "And what do you like to do for fun?" She asked with a slightly more positive smile. This girl's answers were slowly becoming more and more legit. "I love to walk on top of the ice bergs, and I am a huge fan of big spiders!" Seika said with an enormous amount of happiness. "Ooh, and I like baking! Yes yes yess, and eating! And I like sleeping, but mostly because Aphi likes it too. And I like working! Taking jobs is really fun," the girl listed off things. The woman in front of her laughed slightly, but it sounded a bit strained. "No way, okay... very interesting." Spiders. Okay. "So, what can you tell me about Aphora? About our store, the history, anything that comes to mind really?" This was just to see what the girl knew about them as a company and such. "You guys sell makeup!" The woman laughed. ""So we sell makeup, cosmetics, anything beauty related really, so hair, perfume, skin care," she took a short breath, "We also sell men's beauty products as well... so Aphora is actually a chain, from Minstrel, that was founded sixty two years ago." She nodded. "I always find it interesting to learn the history of a store, because most of them, we don't really know, we just take it for granted." Seika didn't understand what was happening, but she smiled along happily. "It's cool! I dunno where anyone could've bought makeup before Aphora," She cheered. "I'm glad you like it," the woman laughed, a bit more genuinely. "And me neither, I don't know where anyone could have shopped before we came into business," she winked at the interviewee sitting in front of her. "Moving on... so why do you want to work at Aphora?" Well, this one was easy. The mage put a finger on her chin and began saying everything she could think of. "It's just so pretty! I love everything about here. There's so many colors, and there's a little bit of magic! I think it's amazing to be able to put stuff on someone's face and then they look different! Without magic, I mean. But then also you could do it with magic. I wanna try combining makeup and magic more, and see what happens. Wouldn't that be neat?" She smiled at the woman across from her, who seemed to be nodding and slowly writing things down. "Mhm... yeah?" "Yeah! Plus, make up is just so cool, I really like it, plus I love taking pictures of people and just talking to people and you know, meeting new cool individuals!" The woman laughed. "Liking people and liking cosmetics is a good mix," she said. "I'm glad to hear you would be proud to work at a company who has so many different initiatives with magic. We also have work going on with the environment, if you aren't aware of that. We were recognized last year for having display cases with thirty percent lighter frames, to reduce emissions by two hundred and twenty metric tons. So just all of these little things that make us stand out from the crowd, I like that you said magic." Seika couldn't figure out what magic had to do with the environment, but she nodded happily. "Yeah... how many products Aphora carries is really important to us, along with the quality of our merchandise," the woman went on, "We carry three hundred plus different brands alone, along with our own Aphora cosmetics line. Um, okay. So, a little bit now about you." She turned to her clip board. "I'd love to know what you'd say your biggest weakness is and your greatest... skill." Blinking at that, the girl took a second to think, but only an actual second really before she jumped straight into an answer. "Well, I sometimes get really tired and motion sick, so Aphi makes me lie down. I'm good at magic, though! At least, most of the time! But sometimes, I can go too fast and so I mess up," those were her weaknesses narrated by her bond mate, at least, they were all things she'd heard before. As to the accuracy of the statements, well, Seika couldn't really attest to that. In her opinion, it was fine to want to do multiple jobs in a day! But the feline insisted that that kind of behavior wasn't healthy. However, if they were smaller jobs, it was easier to get the spirit to agree. Especially if food was promised in any way, like if they were supposed to go to a banquet and protect or assassinate some people. Either way, there would be food for them to gobble down.

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"Okay," the woman finally said. "I do understand that. I myself am a very big perfectionist, and it can cut into my work time, extending it," she said. "As for what you've said, I find that people are usually afraid to say that. But I think your answer is very valid, and I respect it." Moving on, she tried to bring the other part of it back up again. "What about your best skill, more relevant to the job, perhaps?" Seika thought about it very briefly before saying brightly, "I'm hard working!" That was a simple answer, and she'd heard it was better not to ramble on too much in these kinds of things. From where she had heard that, well, the world would never know. "Absolutely, definitely something we look for in our employees. Okay, so, now I'm going to ask you a couple of situational questions. Just to get a feel for how you might react in different instances. Obviously, if we do choose to hire you, we'll train you on all of this, but it's just kind of nice to know your initial reaction to certain things. Okay?" Seika nodded, beaming. "So, how would you deal with an upset customer?" Uh. Well, didn't that depend on the reason they were upset? "I would try to make them happier!" The mage announced loudly, and the manager seemed to deflate a bit. "Yeah. For sure, um, what else though?" Seika put a finger on her chin and tilted her head as she was thinking. "Well, wouldn't it depend on the situation?" At that, the manager nodded, brightening up slightly. This was something she was equipped to handle and discuss better. "Yes, well, it definitely does depend on the exact kind of situation, but just as a general overarching idea, what's a good thing to do?" Seika said, "Shouldn't I try to help them? Just ask what's wrong?" Cuz wasn't that usually a good thing... "Yeah, exactly! Just find out the issue and then assist them with switching out the product, whatever they need. Mostly just approaching them with a friendly, eager manner, one that's ready to help rather than dismiss their complaint." Clearing her throat, she went on, "What would you do if a customer dropped and broke an expensive bottle of perfume right after purchasing it." The mage stared at her blankly. Um. Dropped it? Judging by her look of confusion, the woman went on, "So they just bought a brand new bottle of let's say, Allel Number Five, and it's brand new, in the bag, walking out of the store, and they're about to put some on because they can't wait until they get home, so they're in the mall, and then smash, it breaks on the ground and goes everywhere. They're terribly upset. How would you react, what would you do?" The girl made a noise of comprehension. "Ohh... well, wouldn't I give them a hug?" At that, the woman shook her head immediately. "You should avoid touching customers whenever possible, and always ask permission first," she cautioned. "Oh, well in that cause, um, shouldn't I buy her a new perfume? Cause she's sad because she lost the other one, right? So yeah," Seika tested out. The manager made a noise of agreement. "Be careful not to assume all of our customers will be female." Of course, that hadn't been her intention at all, but just a slip of the tongue cause she was picturing herself in the person's shoes and what she would want someone to do to make it better. "But a good answer," the manager said. "Just letting them come back in the store, saying oh my god, I'm so sorry this happened, let me get you another one free of charge. Make them feel special, and happy. We don't want anyone walking away from the store feeling upset. And obviously clean it up too and all of that," Seika nodded. "So how would you handle a situation if a customer asks you to help while you're assisting someone else? For example, you're in the middle of helping a lady pick her foundation shade, and someone comes up asking, excuse me, I have a quick question, could I get your help? What would you say to one or both of them?" At this, Seika began rambling about how she would tell one first this and then the other that and etc etc and the woman looked faintly intrigued but mostly, annoyed. Her pen made a scritch scratch against the paper, writing down everything the girl said. "So first I would tell the one who's with me already that can you just wait a split second please, but since I don't want her to wait too long I would tell the other, I'm sorry but I'm with another customer right now, could you please wait a minute and I can assist you or feel free to find another worker, there's others in the store, and then I would go back to the first one and apologize for the wait and interruption and help her finish out picking her perfect foundation!" Beaming, she waited for the manager to say whether she had gotten it right or not. "Mm, exactly. That's perfect. Just say sorry, I'm in the middle of something, my colleague can help you, we're all very ready to help, but if it's something quick like where are the lipsticks, you can just say, oh that's down the corner, and point it out for them. And let them know if they need more help, to ask another worker, since you're in the middle of something. Anything along those lines. Alright..." she checked her notes.

"Last question. Could you describe the best or worst customer service you ever gave or experienced?" Well, that was kind of a tough question. Um, was she meant to give both? "Well, there was this one time that I really wanted someone to talk to but there wasn't anyone there! I got super duper lost in the store," Seika said, thinking hard about some times when she had gone shopping with Aphelia and the bond mate had practically abandoned her in a giant mall. "Oh, that's the worst. Actually needing help but there's no one around," the woman nodded, and Seika felt a flare of victory in her stomach. She liked her answer! "And when you find someone, they're rude... yeah, um, what about something more personal to you, the best or worst customer service you ever gave?" Seika paused. "I know from looking at your resume here, you've worked in retail before, right? This is kind of stuff my colleague would have asked you already, yeah? You worked at... where is it..." She began to look through Seika's files, and the girl gulped. Um, well, that resume wasn't hers, right? The mage hurried to interject in hopes of distracting her. "Well, I think the best time was when this really mean person came up to me and said their clothes got smaller after they tried to put them in the washer and then dry them but the tag didn't say they were allowed to do that and I said sorry anyway but I decided to give them their money back cause it was ruined and they can't wear it anymore," she blurted out, thinking of a time when she had accidentally shrunken one of her guild mates' favorite articles of clothing and they had been steamed. After paying them for it though, they seemed mollified enough by the reimbursement. "Okay, okay. Well done. So a rude customer came in complaining... because of a shirt that shrunk in the wash. It's not really company policy normally to hand out free things in that situation, but you apologized and gave them a refund, okay, and basically kind of sounds like you defused the situation a bit, because normally if they sound very rude it's good to get them calmed down." She nodded to herself. "Alright. Well that's basically all the questions that I have for you. So, now I kind of want to open up the floor and see if you have any questions for me." She pointed to herself as she said that, laughing a little bit. "Mhm," she said in reply to Seika's look of astonishment. "Um... what's the best part about working here at Aphora?" the girl tried, and the manager looked slightly surprised at being asked right off the bat. But not really surprised. "Mm, that's a good question. What do I like best about working at Aphora, well I just absolutely love, of course the environment, and what we sell. Beauty and make up are something I've always loved, so it's really fun. What I love the most is the kind of employees we have. We really work hard to find people who are down to earth, and kind, and friendly, so we can really have a lovely group of, of family, almost. Some of my best friends, I've met at Aphora, so that's probably my favorite." She smiled and looked a little bit nostalgic before writing something down on the clip board, to which Seika shrugged internally. Then she went on. "How about like, your favorite traits of the best employees?" "Attributes... hm, I guess the best would be hard working, friendly, and open to change, you know? More flexible. We've had employees in the past who were very hard working, great work ethic, and friendly, but little issues would crop up and they didn't know how to act, because you know, things were new sometimes, and different, so flexibility is good. People who can do things without being told exactly. A little bit of initiative goes a really long way. Anything else?" "Um, how long do I have to stay here and like, be taught stuff?" "Right, training. Okay," she laughed. "So you know, you see all the employees, in their shirt or apron. We're pretty flexible what you wear underneath, if you want to do leggings, tights, what kind of shoes, but always the same tunic. We typically like you to be wearing make up, but we're totally open to a fresh face, as long as it's something presentable. You know, clean and neat is what we're looking for. In terms of being taught, you'll be kind of going through a good two to four weeks of training, depending how frequently you can come in. You'll be trained with all of the different products, and technically going through all of that, in more of a sit down type of scenario. And after a while we'll get you to be hands on, you'll be shadowing some of our different employees, seeing how they interact with different customers. You have two days where we train you with the cash register, because that can be tricky. So there's a lot of training, we understand that it's a lot to learn, and we don't want to just throw you right in, we understand it's hard, so we want you to be taught to work on your own first. Does that answer your question?" Seika nodded hurriedly. "Right, well it was a pleasure to work with you. We should have an answer for you by the end of the week, and I'll call you either way, regardless of whether you go the job or not. Thank you so much for coming in." She shook the girl's hand. In a daze, Seika got up and left the room before also walking out of the store. At the end, everything had felt like it was happening so fast, probably because she'd run through so many of these before and it was just down to a routine speech that she had to give to everyone. Still, it felt like she was just along for the ride there. Either way, really cool! But a whole week, huh? Shrugging, the girl hoped that Aphelia would be fine on her own for a bit. This vacation might have to go longer than expected.

Meanwhile, back at the guild hall of Elysium, the spirit herself felt like she was finally recovered enough to teleport back to Hosenka Town. She wanted to use one of the guild teleporters, since they were sure to be easier on the body than exerting the magic herself. Setting the device for the correct location, she closed her eyes and briefly prayed to a god that she didn't believe in before stepping through the gap. In just a split second, she was whooshed away to Fiore and arrived in a main square of Hosenka, among a bunch of people so that she didn't stand out at all. Magic was very common place in this nation, anyway, and for that reason individuals didn't question these kinds of observations. Finally, straightening up, Aphelia tried to sense her bond mate. It was faint, but very clear; Seika was still here. Sighing out in relief, the girl decided to go ahead and take some time in a spa to treat herself. And this time, she would check very carefully the Terms and Conditions and definitely leave if she suspected anything out of the ordinary. Walking up to the nearest one, she stepped inside before heading back out to make sure it didn't disappear and also that she was able to exit. Ignoring the fleeting strange look on the receptionist's face, Aphelia cleared her throat and greeted her in a low tone. Nodding back a reply, the woman said, "Hi. Just one moment please," before going back to her work. It seemed like she was busy working on something. "Sorry about that. Hi! My name is Lena, welcome to the Confidante. Is this your first time here?" The girl realized this was a hotel, but shrugged. She would need somewhere to stay anyway. "Yes, my first time-" she got cut off right after answering. "So I assume, you're looking to check in? Well check in isn't usually until four, but I can take a look at your room, and if it's not already ready, we can put you on a waiting list, that kind of just gives you priority over other rooms for the maids, and then if your room is ready before four we can send you a message. Okay? Alright, great, let me just check up on that for you." Well. This was an unexpected surprise. She hadn't even booked any appointment? Holding up her hands, Aphelia said, "There appears to be a mistake, I'm not checking in. I would like to get a room," she corrected. It would be much easier if she'd had a previous booking, but they couldn't have everything in life. "Oh, my apologies! Well, I can take you through the process right now, miss. Could I just get your first and last name, please?" Aphelia gave her first name along with their clan's, and she nodded, before asking for a spelling of both. After that was taken care of, all that was left was to choose the actual room. The attendant explained the different types that were available as well as their costs. In the end, she chose a two night stay, in a fairly nice room. Smiling now that that was taken care of, the hotel employee finally said, "Okay, great. There you are. Alright, so, whilst this is loading we'll find out if there's a room suited to you that is already ready. And then get you your room number. So is this your first time in Hosenka Town too?" Aphelia nodded, because it was essentially. "Really? Well, I'm sure you'll love it! Everybody does, myself included. I'm not actually from here, but I moved over a few years ago to work at this hotel, because it's such beautiful weather. Yeah," she paused, "Where are you guys from?" Aphelia's mind stuttered for a moment. "We're from Minstrel," she finally said, a bit puzzled at the plural but using it nonetheless. "Oh, okay! And did you fly, or what?" Ah, that was easier to answer. "Teleported," the girl replied shortly, not really one for small talk. "Ohh, okay, that's not too bad at all! Much better than spending hours on a flight," she gave out a little laugh. "Okay, there we go," she said, turning back to the computer. "So your room is 1032, and we can see that it's not ready yet, which is unfortunate, but like I said, we can put you on the priority list and get everything else ready right now, while we're waiting, you know? Okay, so do you have a phone number we can use to text you when your room is ready?" Aphelia rested one of her elbows on the counter and regarded the woman with a small amount of boredom. She slowly recited the numbers of a random phone, because she didn't have one. Using Seika's was an option, but the spirit wasn't interested in having either of them experience mental communication any time soon. Then, she figured she could just magically hijack the number that she said, and receive the incoming text messages. There was plenty of magical software that existed for that kind of purpose. Or she could just come back any time after four. "Okay, then we'll do that... okay great, so you're on the list now, so like I said, we'll text you, hopefully soon, with when your room is ready, and you can come and grab the key. In the mean time, you are more than welcome to start using all of the facilities, which I'll go over with you in a moment," that was a relief. "But we can also go over all of the different hours of the restaurants, the spa, book anything and make any reservations if you'd like," yes, she was definitely interested in that. "And if you have anything else that you need really, we can do that together. Okay?" The way she was staring at Aphelia made the spirit feel a little bit self conscious, but t least it was nothing creepy. More like scrutinizing. "Like I said, feel free to use any of the amenities. We've got a huge restaurant there behind you, and then if you go out those back doors, there is um, a beautiful sitting area, lounge area, and then we've got, two heated pools."

She did take a moment to say though, "The sun pretty much heats them right now, but they're a beautiful temperature regardless, not cold at all. The perfect uh, refreshing temperature. One of them is adults only, which is the one on the right hand side, but you're free to use either, and as well, the lounge chairs around the pool, are complimentary, and there's always extra ones. If you can't find a spot, call us and if the workers that are there, in the neon orange shirts, they'll help you get it and put it wherever you want. There's umbrellas if you want to be under the shade, and also some cabanas, all complimentary, sit wherever you feel like it." She laughed and smiled. "The towels are complimentary as well, feel free to use however many you want, don;t limit yourself, and you'll see when you walk out, there's a cart, clean towels, dirty towels, just pick them up and tell them your room number. Even if you haven't checked in, your room number is still 1032. And yeah, you can just lounge about, go swimming..." she cleared her throat, and Aphelia tried to pay attention. "Get some drinks, we have a bar, where we do sell sun screen. Lots of drinks, and also some snacks, like salad, cookies, granola bars... just a bunch of basic cock tails and of course, bear, a couple of house wines, you name it though and I'm sure we can get something for you. And directly behind that there's a fence gate that leads you on to our private beach." That sounded interesting. "And again there's free lawn chairs, umbrellas, you can bring the towels out there if you like. In the future, after you fully check in, we give you a room key. You can use that to re enter the property from the beach, because it is locked, so you do need to tap your card to open it. Just so we don't get randoms inside," she laughed, but it sounded a bit strained. "So, yeah... for now, if you do think you maybe want to check out the beach, I can give you a card." Aphelia nodded, "That would be excellent, thank you," she said, and the woman nodded. "Alright, yeah. So this will be for the beach, only for today, and after today use your room key." She typed a bit on the computer before picking up a card from a box and swiping it through the appropriate slider. Then, she picked it up, looked to be checking something, and slid it over the counter to Aphelia. "So you can just tap that, good to go. So this will be just for today, remember." She laughed when Aphelia took a moment to examine it. "Yep, they're so cute! Covered in pink vines. So that's just about all you need to know, but there are a lot of workers here, so if you do need help for whatever reason and can't seem to find it, come back to the front desk, but if you do have questions, there are plenty of staff, the people in orange shirts there, and they can bring you the drinks too, so if you need help you can wave them over and you will get pool side service." Aphelia could get behind that. It sounded really nice. Honestly, the whole vibe of this place was like all inclusive beach resort type, which was fitting, though. Since even though Hosenka Town wasn't quite as close to the shore line and edge of Fiore as something like Cedar, there were still plenty of parts that had a nice beach view of the ocean as well as spots to actually go swimming and enjoy the water. "A few more things that you might be interested in, we do have three restaurants, the first which is available for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all day, the exact hours, breakfast is seven to eleven every day and on Sundays we do brunch from eleven to three. I would definitely advise you to go and get brunch because it's so good. We have the best pancakes. Lunch is eleven to three every day, and the bar is open from three to six. Happy hour is from four to six meaning half off all the drinks, so definitely take advantage of that if you're interested. Dinner is from six to ten Monday to Thursday, Friday and Saturday we're open until eleven. So if you'd like we can book a reservation at any time for you, usually you don't need a reservation but if you know you're gonna need a table I would book in advance just to be safe because, in general and especially on the weekends, we can get quite busy." Aphelia felt like she ought to be taking notes, what with how much this woman was saying and the amount of information she was receiving. However, the feline did have a fairly good memory. It was all probably just part of the receptionist song and dance that they all had to do and recite every single time another customer arrived. "Then we have the back yard, which goes directly outside, this beautiful terrace looking at the hanging lights, coming from the ceiling, very beautiful. On that side we have beach side stables, and you can have it in the pool, or just the garden. Part of my job description is to tell you a bit about that, so we have salads, a nice variety of those, and also we have snacks and sandwiches, like guacamole, veggie dogs, sandwiches, oh I already said that... um, cookies, like chocolate chip, snicker doodle, sugar, delicious really... then we've also got the cafe bar where you can order coffee, sandwiches, pastries, all of that jazz, and you can see it just over there. And that is open from six in the morning to eleven at night, so pretty much all the working hours of the day, but if you require room service that's open twenty four seven. I can help you order that, if you have any special occasions or if you just like to treat yourself. There is a menu upstairs and you can order it the time of, but I think it's kind of nice to have a knock on the door and wake up to fresh breakfast, so do you mind if I go over the menu a little with you? If you're interested?" Aphelia nodded readily. She loved eating in bed, even if the crumbs afterwards were a bit of a pain to deal with. Here, she could get her bedding changed daily so it wasn't an issue.

"Great! So for breakfast we have a bunch of different healthy smoothies, we do an energizing one which is my personal favorite. It's got a coffee cold brew, almond milk, banana, cocoa, coconut oil, pink salt, it's delicious. Coffee, chocolate, mocha, but healthy. We have a reward, which has banana, spinning, cocoa, mint, and almond milk, very minty but very healthy." None of those sounded particularly appealing to Aphelia, but luckily it also didn't sound like the woman was going to stop talking any time soon. "We have the cleansing option, which has apples, cucumbers, celery, kale, spinach, ginger, lemon, turmeric, and coconut water. And then we have the classic hydrating one with watermelon, cucumber, raspberry, key like, and coconut water, very nice to drink by the pool by the way." Those all sounded fine, but like. Aphelia wasn't really much of a smoothie person, so she said, "I'm alright, I'll pass on the smoothies. How about food?" That was really what the spirit was interested in. Nodding, the woman replied, "We have toast for breakfast, naturally. From baked country wheat, and we can do avocado toast with pink salt, olive oil... we can do fig, with fruit and seeds, um... just butter? There's also different omelettes, waffles, pancakes, fresh fruit, there's sweet potato pancakes with marshmallow and tons of maple syrup. Waffles, like I said, are very popular. We also have a breakfast buffet available from before and it just generally can be brought to you with a beautiful selection as well. Cereal or fruit is available too, with brown sugar. Grape fruit, other fresh fruits, granola with yogurt, apples, raisins, peanut brittle, a bunch of different breads and pastries. Bagels, muffins, croissants, chocolatines, with a bunch of efferent sides. Any of this sound good to you?" Aphelia was too busy thinking to respond. "We've got different coffees, cafe au lait, a tons. Assorted juices, we can do orange, cranberry, pineapple, grapefruit, apple, and more. There's lots of different tea, all by the marine tea leaf company. There's citrus types, chamomile, green tea, cinnamon, and many more. We also have morning cock tails because you are on vacation after all! Mimosas, beer, things with orange juice, sangria, apple cider, midnight moonshine, white wines, spiced cider, orange and red wine floats... vodka and iced lemonade... a beautiful selection of sparkling wines, rosees, draft beers in bottles... the menus for these I can show you, for specific ones, if you're interested." Now, the feline wasn't a heavy drinker by any means. But she could get behind room service for the food and such. "I'd like to order room service for tomorrow morning," she said, and the woman replied cheerfully, "Yeah sure! What grabbed your fancy?" The spirit swiftly said, "Pancakes," and the woman pulled out a smaller menu. "We have pancake stacks, fresh fruit, maple syrup, the sweet potato pancake stack with marshmallows, candy, and maple syrup, some waffles, and even more fruit, and you can get sides of yogurt and such." "I'll just take a stack of pancakes with fresh fruit. Is there any particular kinds?" The woman nodded, "There's typically just the daily selection, something like bananas, strawberries, blueberries, but if there's a request or something you don't want, I can also handle that." Aphelia shook her head, and the woman said, "Alright, so pancakes? Just one order, or two?" Aphelia laughed. "Two." Then the stranger said, "Any preferences on the fruit?" There were none, so that wasn't a big issue at all. "Right, anything else? Mm, okay, what would you like?" Aphelia began listing off what she wanted in addition to the pancakes. "Pain au chocolat, first of all. And then I'll take a croissant as well, and a cheese bagel, preferably Asiago but if you don't have that plain will do. Cream cheese on the side please." The receptionist laughed. "Very well. And about the smoothies? Do you want any coffee either? Or tea?" The spirit shook her head, and the woman looked ready to pull out another menu before she seemed to catch herself.

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"Very well," she muttered, "But the energize is great. If you ever have any friends along I would recommend asking if they are interested in one at all." Moving along, she cleared her throat, assuming that Aphelia wasn't interested in anything like coffee. It was true that she was not as much of a fan of drinks as Seika, who was not only a bartender but also a barista. That girl could go through pots and pots of hot chocolate without stopping. "Last question is, when do you want this?" Aphelia thought about it for a minute, before saying, "Maybe eight thirty. That sounds good," she wasn't really asking for the woman's opinion, and the employee seemed to understand, because she said nothing further on that choice. However, she went on to ask about whether she would require anything else. "Very well, and do you need a wake up call before hand? Something around eight possibly?" The spirit's gaze sharpened. Probably, many people wanted to get themselves together so that they didn't answer the door looking completely disheveled. Luckily, the girl had access to magic and she also just flat out didn't really care whatsoever what other people thought of her in these types of situations, unless it was a once in a while type of deal where she felt like being vain. "No, I don't," the spirit replied shortly. "Okay, if you don't need to make sure that you're up and ready, that's fine! If you don't answer the door, just remember, your food will be placed on the floor in a tray and covered to ensure it remains as hot as possible. There are cameras and if anyone tries to steal it, they will be fined, but we can't guarantee that it will arrive safely," she warned, and Aphelia waved off her worries. "Okay, so now that that's handled for your breakfast, we still have a few more things to go over. I'm so sorry to keep you, if you have somewhere you'd like to be or you want to enjoy the beach a little bit, feel free to go and you can call down here later to schedule these types of things," she told the feline. Aphelia shrugged, almost dislodging her hat before she pulled the brim further down and shoved it onto her head. "I don't have anywhere I need to be," she said finally. The woman nodded, before she went back to typing vigorously. The girl guessed that she was doing some kind of thing with ordering her meal, so Aphelia would wait patiently until she was done.