A cold air made its way through the walls of the home, blowing over the man in bed on this chilly morning. The disturbance in the air brought his mind out of its sleeping state, allowing reality to slowly return to his mind and body. Esredes allowed his eyes to stay shut only another minute before he rose to his feet. Ah, getting back in bed was tempting today, but he was much stronger than the urge, and the world didnât wait for him.
He made his way down the stairs after getting dressed, letting himself wake up naturally as he took a pitcher of orange juice and a dried piece of meat as the sources of morning energy, only putting as much thought towards the meal as it took to pour a glass. Otherwise it was all manual, instinctive, and came without thought. In the moment, he preferred directing his mental energy inward, letting it settle there before it had to come back out.
That being once the brief meal was finished. All right, he thought as he stretched his limbs out a moment. Time to get ready to go. He moved from his spot to across the rest of the room, and thatâs when it hit him as he looked over his desk.
Itâs a good thing he wasnât expecting anyone today, because he needed to clean up all of these papers and sort them. How had he even allowed himself to get this messy?
Maybe he could admit he was overworking himself just a bit. Just a bit. Better to work than to be idle.
Well, he had a little time before he had to leave the house. He could at least start to sort through this mess.
A hand reached down, and picked up what was closest. Ah, a stack of letters he hadnât finished writing. He filed through them. The first one was to Celandione and Reveilleux, wishing them well and giving promises of visiting soon, and the second very much around the same train of thought, but addressed to Rae. Esredes smiled a little thinking about seeing all three of those kids soon. Oh, it was nothing like when they were all in the same location... but traversing the world was easier with the blessing of wings.
Below those letters was a third, distinctly not in his handwriting. Oh, how had this one been mixed in? It was a letter from someone he had opened the other day, telling him he may have a lead on Lycelleâs location.
That one needed to be put away out of the open.
He made quick work of sorting the three letters, then returned to the desk. Three papers down, a lot more to go. What else was here?
More work documents were scattered amongst the surface. He picked one up, his first draft for a petition to the government to build a statue of Ysayle and Shiva in the city. Oh boy, that one was a big work in process. Twelve knows how many drafts that would be going through from multiple people before it was in any condition to be presented. A small step now, a battle to be won later. He put it away in his âwork in progressâ drawer, and looked to the one beneath it. This one he definitely needed to finish later, it couldnât wait. It was a guideline for a request he had to make of the medic he had made acquaintance with. When was he due to see him again? Next Darksday, right?
After setting it front and center, he moved to the table to check his handwritten schedule. Yes, he had the date right. His eyes scanned over the contents of the paper, hitting on something that had slipped his mind. âDinner with the Luneris Familyâ, marked for next Firesday. Was it already time for one of those? It felt like the last one just happened yesterday.
Ugh, maybe he had let himself become more scatterbrained than usual.
Focus. He needed focus right now. What else was cluttering his desk.
He had cleared off most of the papers, but other objects lie on it from the night before. He picked up a cookbook he had gone out and bought the other day. For Alastor, right, he did not by any means forget this. It was something heâd pass off as a present to celebrate his newfound cooking passion, so Alastor would have no idea it was really just a desperate measure to get him to learn how to actually cook. He had already underlined certain instructions for making cookies, so Alastor couldnât possibly miss the correct measurements of flour, or the time they needed to be put over the fire. Whatever he was doing, he had to have been doing something wrong with his present methodology.
But he had put other little gifts on his desk besides that as he put it away for later. He picked up a small wooden carving of a white tiger he had set in the corner. A gift for a friend of his he owed a lot to. You know what, that definitely had to be put away. Knowing the man and his strange ways, heâd show up at his house, without any notice, inside, without being let in, and refuse to explain how he got into a locked house, then discover the gift lying out. He made sure it went in a space nobody would think to look.
And finally, there was a little trinket of a four leaf clover, with the words âYou are my good fortuneâ engraved into the back. A little something for Clover when he next stopped by the bookstore. He smiled once more, and put it on top of the cookbook. Heâd need to retrieve it again soon enough.
Whew, he thought as he examined the brown surface. That was better. All that remained on the desk now was the documents he actually needed to leave the house, ones that Heilyn and him would be going over today. He picked them up now, and went to put on his gazelleskin coat to prepare to leave.
His eyes fell over his sword, hanging by its sheath on a hook. Should he take it with him today? He had to walk out into the streets after all, even if he couldnât recall doing anything recently that might warrant unwanted attention.
Eh, forget it, he told himself. Today heâd skip it. Probably not tomorrow, for he did enjoy the comfort it brought, but today he would. And so he opened the door, stepping out into the cold world beyond his humble home.
The air was chilly, as usual. It seemed to have snowed overnight, as the streets of Ishgard were coated in a fresh new layer of the substance. Esredes shut and locked the door behind him, and took a few steps out into the street to look around.
Only then did he realize it hadnât stopped snowing. No, the snowflakes still floated down slowly and lightly. In the morning light, they almost looked like diamond dust.
The morning wasnât beautiful. But by all means, the world seemed okay in it. Functional. It wasnât falling apart and reflecting the red accent colors of the land, and if nothing else, that was something to help him set off on his walk.
So off to work the harrier went, taking in the calm of the morning. In the presence of world around him, reality didnât feel so bad today.
@wonderstruckmage @clover-hawthorne @stride-the-aether @bowdownoverdweller @primus-medicus @dimensional-illusion @lady-emal
This last oneâs a shout out to all of you. Thank you all for your contributions to my character and helping him to survive in light of everything heâs gone through in his life. He loves all of your characters in his own special ways, and I love all of you in my own special way for existing and roleplaying with me.
And to those of you I couldnât work out an ic mention for like @catte-bard and @tinyconjurer, know the same still applies to you, heâs just a piece of shit!
And to whoever read through my prompts, seriously THANK YOU, because GOD DID HALF OF THEM SUCK. But I managed to do it for however much of it all I crapped out, and itâs nice to be able to say that.
