Stray Soul

Caroline slowly started opening her eyes, detesting the rising sun and the rays that were entering her room and beaming at her.

She then slowly started getting up, but quickly remembered that it was Sunday, and she didn’t open up shop on Sundays, so instead of doing her normal morning routine, she instead stayed in her bed for a bit longer.

But after maybe 5, maybe 10 minutes, she got up for good, and started getting ready for the day ahead, and made her way to her wardrobe, while taking glances at the mirror in the corner of her room which she totally didn’t overpay for.

Opening her wardrobe, she took a one-piece dress which was blandly coloured, but she wasn’t planning on going outside today, or seeing other people, so she didn’t see any problems with wearing something simple.

After she finished wearing her black dress, with a small splash of colour in the way of a green belt, she went in front of her mirror, grabbing a big, and similarly black, and pointy hat, which also had a splash of colour in the shape of a strip of green cloth at the base of the hat, that was only around because kids constantly confused her for a witch when she wore it, and it was really funny seeing their reactions.

Not that she was a witch, of course. She couldn’t cast any curses or such after all!

...But she knew a lot about poisons and such, so she could also she where the kids were coming from, but not like she sold, or made any poisons in the last few years, after all, what were they useful for when you’ve given up on monster hunting?

Poisonous plants made nice décor, and making stronger and stronger poisons with varying effects was fun, but like she said, they were all in the past now, and she was more interested in making potions instead of poisons now.

Turning her attention to the mirror in front of her, Caroline once again looked at her clothes, and then turned around and left the room to prepare breakfast for herself.

And after she was done with her breakfast, she started taking care of various plants and flowers on the second floor of her home, starting from the ones that were in her room, using a bit of water and plant magic to take care of them, and then finishing with the ones near the staircase leading down to the first floor of her house, where her shop was.

Then, moving on to the first floor of her home, she glanced at her workstation, filled with various small and big cauldrons, and other equipment to help her in making potions, or medicine. But she didn’t grow anything back here, instead she stored most of the finished products here, and then took them out for the people that asked for them.

Looking around at her workstation to make sure everything was in place, she quickly pushed aside the curtain that was separating her workstation from the front of her shop, and started taking care of the various herbs and plants in there, which took a lot longer than taking care of everything in the second floor because most of these plants were not really suited for growing in captivity, and some of them were plants with magical properties, not that the others were not, but some of them were really needy and needed her to check on them every so often to make sure they didn’t start to wither.

Then, after she was done taking care of the plants in the shop proper, she moved on to watering the few flowers she left outside her shop, just to colour things up a bit.

And after that, she’d be done with everything for today and probably just make some stock for tomorrow, or just relax for the rest of the day.

Quickly opening the front door of her shop, Caroline moved in front of the pots of flowers that were just outside her shop and started watering them with a bit of magic, but there was no need for any fancy chanting or magic circles as these flowers were just that, flowers. No need to get things complicated when they don’t need to be now, is there?

“Oh, sweetie, I see you are working hard as always?” Caroline heard someone say from behind her, and while she really, really didn’t want to bother with her neighbours today... she also couldn’t just not answer them, that would be just impolite.

So, channelling the years of experience and confidence she’d gained from running her own business, and working at the front desk, Caroline slowly turned towards behind her with a beaming smile, and looked at the women who called out for her, who had her child next to her.

“Hello Rose, and working hard? Not really, this is what I do every day so I wouldn’t say that this is anything special! But forget about that, how are you, how is your day going?” I asked Rose, one of my neighbours who was just your everyday mother.

“I am fine, and my day is going great! I was just about to meet up with a few others from the neighbourhood and head to the church for the Sunday sermon, are you coming?” Rose asked me, and the moment she called me to come to the church, I knew she wouldn’t stop until I accepted her offer and came with her.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself an irreligious person, but instead of going to church like everybody else, I liked to just keep to myself and do my prayers at home... not that that was going to save me from this situation though.

And the nearby church only had a core dedicated to goddess Solara, so if I wanted to pray to my goddess I’d have to come to the shire at my home to do so, which I was a bit salty about because, while Solara was THE goddess of sun, they could’ve at least added a few small statues for the rest of the 6 great gods and goddesses, there was really no need for them to just have one big statue dedicated to her.

But knowing that I couldn’t escape from the situation on hand, I just decided to go with the flow and accept her offer.

“I’d love to, if you’ll have me that is. Are you going now, or will you be waiting for a few minutes?” I asked rose, with a bright smile, to which she quickly responded to.

“Oh no, I’ll be waiting for the others near the corner of the street, but we’ll wait for you too of course!” she said happily, for some reason her son going behind her, but why?

...Oh, I forgot my hat on. He is probably just scared of me which is, just cute.

Saying my goodbyes to Rose, I quickly finished watering the flowers in the front of my shop, left my hat on the desk so I wouldn’t scare the rest of the children, letting my hair flow freely, and went outside, locking the door to my shop.

While I trusted the town guards to take care of any wannabe thieves before they even attempted to steal something, it was always a good idea to be careful.

Then, I quickly made my way to the corner of the street and saw the small group of women and children and... Caitlyn...

“Ugh...” I muttered under my breath, remembering the many, many times when Caitlyn tried to get me to marry her son, and even though I didn’t want to marry him she constantly continued to pester me, but I couldn’t exactly get angry at her because she was pretty old and a grandmotherly person who was good, most of the time.

But there really couldn’t be anything between me and his son because he was nearing his mid-forties and I was just 21, and he’s already apologized to me for his mom’s behaviour before, and I am also pretty sure he likes men...

“Caroline, you’re here!” Rose said after she saw me approaching their little group, and the other women greeted me too.

But for some reason her son seemed to be even more scared of me... does he think I am hiding my true nature or something?

He is being cute but... there really is a limit to everything, maybe I should ask Rose if he seriously thinks that I am a witch or something? Nah, no reason to make her tell her son anything. He’ll learn eventually, even if that eventually is when he becomes an adult.

“Hello Caroline.” Caitlyn said from behind me, and started talking about her son’s youth and how cute he’s always has been.

I could practically see how uncomfortable other women were, but no one helped save me from my plight, leaving me for my fate, which I will remember, I promise.

Anyways, our group then started making its way towards the church and after 10-20 minutes or so we could finally see the church, and I started feeling the holy mana emanating from the church itself.

While holy mana didn’t really bother anyone, I couldn’t exactly say the same for myself. The feeling of this weird... warmth and welcomeness just felt... weird. I can even remember telling the angel that was about to baptize me in my childhood that his presence felt weird.

Which is an embarrassing memory of mine because that angel just happened to be my dad’s grand-grand-grandfather, which had just finished his transformation to angelhood, and my father never let me forget that.

Wish he’d at least told me that I was going to get baptized by an old relative, then I’d be at least more careful of the words I chose.

Though I wonder what happened to him... my father never really bringed him up other than the times he was reminding me of what I said to him. Maybe he is just in heaven doing bureaucracy or something? Must be pretty boring to be an angel... but he also chose to be one, so I don’t think he’s complaining.

Soon enough, our group entered the church, and sat down on available seats, and after I sat down, I looked at the statue of the goddess whose face was mostly featureless, like the depictions of all the other gods and goddesses, even that angel relative of mine didn’t have any features on his face, he just seemed like a 2d cut out and if his chin didn’t move while he was talking, no one could’ve been sure if he was talking or not.

Then, as I was just looking at the statue of the goddess without much thought, I saw a twingling of a light coming from behind her stone blindfold, the divine core dedicated to goddess Solara I presume, I mean, what else could it be?

I could practically feel the holy mana spewing out of the thing, though I didn’t know why it was behind a stone blindfold because most statues of gods and goddesses have their divine core out in the open, where it could be seen by others.

Must be a quirk of the goddess I suppose... maybe I should ask the priest? Nah, not worth the effort.

Then, I heard the priest starting the sermon and focused on him, I mean if I came here, why not at least focus on what the sermon was saying?

Returning home after the sermon, I just started continuing where I left, doing some chores like sweeping the floor, checking up on those magical plants I talked about earlier, and then brewing a few basic potions, and remedies for tomorrow.

As the night started to set, I checked on all the plants and herbs on the first floor and then started making my way up... but then I heard a knocking on the door.

*knock knock knock*

For some reason someone decided to just ignore the big closed sign in front of the door, and even if they couldn’t read, I had another sign with a symbol that meant that the shop was closed on the door.

“We are closed!” I yelled out to the door.

But then, instead of the knocking stopping, it sped up, so I just ignored it and started making my way up the stairs, but then I heard a somewhat familiar voice...

“Hmm... could it be? No, he never said that he’d be coming to visit, so probably not...” I said to myself, comparing the mumbled yell I just heard to an annoying person I’ve known for a long time.

Deciding to once again ignore the door, because if it’s the person I am thinking of, they should’ve known that I wouldn’t open the door for no reason.

After having dinner in quiet, and reading a bit, I changed into my nightgown, and went to bed.

Then, in the morning, I once again woke up, once again silently detesting the rays of the sun that were entering my room and beaming to my face.

Then, knowing that today was Monday, I quickly got up... just to see a familiar face sitting in the corner of my room.

“Heinrich, what the fuck are you doing in my room?”