Life was so strange sometimes. And so very very busy. Especially now. Borealis was bustling, even at this late hour. So many lost souls wandering the streets and so many of them looking for her help. There were always too many to help. Alchemy felt overwhelmed. The warmth and sense of satisfaction that applying her trade to the benefit of others she was used to feeling had been replaced with a sense of numbness and depression.
...so many needy and only one me...they will devour me if I don't slow down...but...
She darted into a shop and checked the availability on a set of BBIs for a young adventuress. It was an unfortunate fact of life that the availavility of this particular item had gone quite dry. Another poor soul she'd have to disappoint. It just didn't seem fair. But then life WASN'T fair. The lanky redheaded trader frowned, wondering if she even knew what fair was anymore. Well, there was always Newland City. She'd check there.
Her comm was blinking madly, unable to keep up with the onslaught of incoming messages. She glanced at the latest name. She blinked. The atrox was dancing around her like an untrained puppy. Why the devil didn't he just say something verbally to her? He was right there for Stream's sake...! She felt a twinge of annoyance.
Her response was tendered in kind, tapped rapidly out on the comm. "Busy."
Honestly, she didn't think most of her customers even viewed her as a human being anymore. Was she just some faceless, lifeless robot made just to serve each one of them as though they were, each and every one, the only humans who needed a trader's skills? It was a dark and unhappy thought that suited a dark and perhaps even self-pitying mood. But even so, it did very much seem that way at times.
SaintBootay dashed out of the shop and headed for Newland City, doggedly determined to find the fledgeling adventurer's pistols. She had been so polite and so... well... decent. It deserved a positive result, not this empty, fruitless search. She LIKED rewarding the decent ones. They were the ones who never came in first, never managed to reap the harvest that they sowed and tended in kindness and goodheartedness....
And she stopped. Bright bluegreen eyes narrowed and the last traces of smile slipped from her pleasant face to shatter in the start of a decidedly hostile frown. She eyed the skinny little blonde that stood blocking her path into the whompas. All that pink and plastic, like an antique child's doll from the twentieth century. Topped with a face Alchemy had honestly been glad to miss seeing.
"Oh lovely. There goes the neighborhood." Alchemy muttered.
The tiny pink horror stood staring with empty eyes into the bright blue glow of the whompas to NLC, lacking thought, life or soul. An accurate portrayal of the person as she was even when she wasn't staring slackjawed at the whompas. Empty. Soulless. Thoughtless. Utterly self absorbed. Alchemy shuddered and stepped around her, careful not to touch any part (not even the shadow) of the spoiled brat who had once been a legend for doing nothing better than staring at a whompas for days on end.
As she stepped into the brightness, she supressed an irrational desire to make an aversion handsign. There was indeed once again an evil shadow looming over the doorstep to her home city.
