Most days, her fingers are stained a multitude of colours.
There are the reds and purples from the different berries needed for most brews and tinctures. Then red and purple fade to pink, gathered beneath fingernails and the creases of knuckles. Dark blues from the ink used whenever a certain recipe needs to be tweaked one way or another. Green comes from grinding bits of leaves into thick pastes, often helpful in healing salves or on the other end of the spectrum, poisons.
Opportunities to work on poisons are few and far between, of course, although the careful attention to detail necessary to create them, as well as their versatility could draw in most anyone. Perhaps it draws her in more than most, the source of her magic always a balance between healing and death, between stagnation and regeneration, between hope and damnation. Her Gods do not demand much, just encourage her to seek a balance between those concepts.
It is a better deal than most have with their own Gods, if they have them. Alisa does not smell solely of the sulfur that marks destruction or the heavy pine that defines protection. The world is too complicated for everyone to confine themselves to one aspect of magic, to one particular way it can be used. Few believe in the way Alisa does, though. Even Lev ties himself to one method of creating, of augmenting his strength, his speed, his stamina. Soon, he will be able to extend that to others, but it is still just more of the same.
She is not more of the same.
Alisa doesn’t know much of anything about her, not her name or the particular Gods she ascribes to. There are a few things she does know, however.
One, the way she drags her fingers through her hair as she runs past the shop, always in a hurry, does something to Alisa. Something that cannot be explained through words alone, except that Alisa can never quite manage to drag her gaze away those long fingers moving through short, bleached strands.
Two, she is someone who grins, even when she’s running late. Anyone could be drawn into that grin when its edges sharpen into something not dissimilar from the mischievous expression a crow wears. Her colouring is nothing like a crow’s, however one glimpse at the combination of her gaze and her grin would ultimately make anyone forget that she is entirely human. If she is, in the end, entirely human.
Three, the world does not quite fit on her shoulders. The sentiment is an odd one, one that has never been voiced out loud, that has never left the confines of Alisa’s own thoughts, but is haunting in itself. Just a few glimpses of her each morning make it clear that she regularly breaks free of its confines, that she does not hesitate to throw words like impossible out of her vocabulary.
Four, her beliefs about magic must be similar to Alisa’s own. Like calls to like, after all, and that applies to magic more than most other things. They do not share the same Gods, otherwise their relation to one another would already be much different, but the magic that drifts after her in the street lingers long after she passes each morning. And there is nothing clear cut about it.
Those four things are important.
They will continue to be important, at least to Alisa, even if she wishes they were more numerous. Or if she wishes it were possible to follow the trail of magic throughout the city without getting lost from everything else around her.
Alisa startles, the porcelain ladle slipping between her fingers. Its slow descent to the floor is characterized by her frantic attempt to reach for it, her grip on it not quite enough to stop the inevitable conclusion.
Both her and the store manager stare at the broken shards, although only her heart could sink so far. It might as well have shattered on the floor as well. This is the fourth such accident just this month, each caused by a few moments of attention harmlessly spent on the street rather than her own actions. Or what anyone else was doing around her.
It is not difficult to guess what Lev will say when she recounts this story to him later. Do is likely the more accurate wording, his laughter already ringing through her ears, along with a question of when she got so clumsy. If only he weren’t so young and cute, then he would certainly understand the reasoning behind such a thing. Although for now, her bottom lip trembles as she watches the pieces of what had once been a ladle.
“Go,” the manager tells her, after a long moment.
“I really am so sorry! I promise that it will never happen again.”
“Haiba. Just go. You’re not - fired.” His pain is about as obvious as her Gods’ markings along her wrists. “Just… leave. There’s a delivery in the back for that fitness centre a few streets over.”
What would a fitness centre want with potionsware, is what Alisa would normally ask in a similar situation. Such a question would get a lackluster answer now, that much is far more obvious than it should be. Or it would result in her lacking a job entirely, which is why she pauses, then turns on her heel.
The backs of her eyes burn as she rummages through the back storage room. It is already quite limited in its content, most of their wares on display for everyone to see. Not that it makes finding this one box any easier than it should be, not when Alisa walks past it once, then twice and possibly a third time, before realizing where exactly it is. Lying right beside the door with the name “Tanaka” scribbled across the top.
Going through the back door is about the closest thing Alisa gets to a good idea. Most days, she would step through those places where it is not quite dark and not quite light, would hold her faith in her heart and come out on the other side without so much as a scratch. Perhaps a snack would be necessary afterwards, but it would be far easier than walking.
Only that is a solution for days when she is not carrying a box full of porcelain and tin, although there does not seem to be anything heavier than that.
Her eyes briefly close as she steps outside and air fills her lungs to their brim. Damp is the only way to describe the skin beneath her eyes, which means it is too much to hope that her mascara has not smeared. Something to fix before coming back, but there is little Alisa can do about it at the moment. Coming back as a more composed person is just about the only thing she intends to do, given that her chances of escaping her fate as jobless are already so low.
Each step towards the street allows Alisa to compose herself just a bit further. The box is difficult to keep a proper hold on, her grip on it readjusting every few moments, and she focuses on that instead of everything else.
This delivery should last an hour, at least. Anything less, and the manager will likely still be angry once Alisa gets back. Anything more, and he will be angry at her for something else. Setting that time frame is what allows her to stand a bit taller, to plaster a cheerful smile on her face. No one gets to see her upset over something as simple as a broken ladle, regardless of how many things she has accidentally broken this past month.
One second is all it takes.
What makes Alisa stop is her, with that barbed grin and those sharp eyes.
This is the first time she has seen her in full view, seen more than her side profile, more than a snapshot of her piercing smirk. Only she is not smirking now. Instead, she is standing there, blinking at Alisa as if Alisa was the one to just appear out of thin air.
Dirt and oil and the roar of an ocean, a lion nearly overpower the tinkling bells, the tracing of flowers. Heat comes both in the way of spice upon the breeze and from her own cheeks as she stands there, box in hand and a stumbling introduction ready to spill from her lips. There may as well be wind beneath her non-existent wings, driving her forward. Not quite a blessing of her Gods, but the way magic crackles around her is as close as it gets.
“Hey.” That one step forward drives all the air from Alisa’s lungs, as it allows her to see so much more than before. “You okay?”
Her brain short circuits. “Am I - my name is Haiba Alisa.”
There had not been a smirk before, but there is definitely one now. Just the shadow of one as this woman - the very woman that Alisa has been incapable of forgetting for several months now - takes step after careful step. Stalking in her own way with her unmoving gaze and purposeful shift of her hips from side to side.
Only once the box is being eased from her hands does Alisa realize that this woman is taking it from her. There are far more important things to be focused on, such as the rather large height difference between them.
Alisa does not often find herself looking down at quite this angle.
“Tanaka Saeko,” the woman offers.
There is something about the name Tanaka…
All that comes from her mouth is an undignified whimper, however.
Saeko grins up at her. “Didn’t want to be rude. Since you went and introduced yourself to me so nicely.”
Coming up with something more to say, anything to continue this conversation is a difficulty she does not expect. Nor is it an expectation for anything resembling a word to leave her mind, just like that.
Then Saeko starts down the street, still carrying the box. Only she does not seem to readjust her grip every few moments, no need to struggle with something so simple. As easy as that.
Alisa just manages to move her feet when Saeko glances back, “You coming or what?”
“I don’t have a pen on me,” Saeko confesses, “so we’re going to have to head over to mine first. Can’t have you give me a receipt without your number on it.”
