Bored

[Tabitha Wolfe]

It was a day like any other day in Crocus. Tabitha pulled her sheets back on the queen sized bed and sat up slowly. The dark purple sheets over her window allowed her to wonder just how late it was. She pulled the pocket watch from the desk next to her bed. It was all so mundane, all so simple, all so dull. She flicked her fingers slightly and nearly invisible string shot across the room to grasp the handle of a small violin. It jerked toward her and she caught it with ease.

The music was soothing as Tabitha played some cords, but she didn’t need soothing. She needed excitement. She needed some fun, and some adrenaline. It was just so painfully boring. Oh Tabitha, you silly girl, you work so hard to get what you have and then its just boring you. What are you, a child again? Tabitha sometimes scolded herself. Sometimes she let down the facade of her very controlled emotions. Sometimes she allowed herself weakness and vulnerability. All of those times, every single one was in her head. Vulnerability and weakness were all well and awful, but if you had to experience those horrible things for at least a few moments every so often, have the decency to do them in your head alone.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Actually Tabitha loved vulnerability, when it was someone else. She loved to exploit those weaknesses for her personal gain. What else were weaknesses for if not for someone to exploit them? This was exactly the mentality that kept Tabitha from allowing herself vulnerability. Someone out there would use it against her.

Well it didn’t, what was the word, matter? Yes, it didn’t matter what she thought of vulnerability, because she wasn’t vulnerable right now, she was just bored. Maybe she should go get drunk and stab someone who tried to take advantage of her. She was a bit psychotic, perhaps, but that didn’t sound like the best idea. No, no, it wasn’t that it was stupid, it was that she simply would rather do something else. She gently put the violin back in its place and boredly made her bed with the string magic in her fingertips. There, at least we can live our dull little life with some exhilarating cleanliness.

Tabitha cracked her neck to the left as she looked at the things in her stand up dresser. Hm, dresses, she could wear one of those today perhaps. Sure, that would be fine. She pulled out a light blue dress with simple straps that fit over her body with ease. Nothing especially showy though. And how will I ever draw in the attention in this outfit? Uh, with my glittering personality? But I’m just so dull, she thought, making fun of herself even though no one could hear her.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

With the dress on Tabitha found some footwear. Lace up brown hiking boots that reached her mid-calf. She had a habit of wearing either tall shoes or long pants because of what she hid on her person. She had a small leather knife holder that she slid into the backs of both of her boots. She then strapped the elastic around her stomach. In the back she fitted two more knives. She also had holders for her upper thighs if one of the other locations was inconvenient. Tabitha was a very practical woman when it came to making sure she was always armed. Her magic was well and good, but without her knives it just didn’t have the same kick.

Fully dressed Tabitha left her house after a fast meal. Cereal, and wasn’t that just boring. The milk was boring, the cereal itself was boring. The fact that she left the dishes in her sink was only because it was all too boring for her. She could have done the chore. She had nowhere to be all day, but if she spent one more second doing something tedious, she was going to break that bowl and throw it out the window just to see if she could hit someone. It wasn’t that she was being lazy, it was just her looking out for the common folk.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Upon arriving at the wonderfully hidden Shadow Heart guild hall, Tabitha went straight to the job board. Someone annoying said something about her dress. She may have tripped him with a string spell, but that could be neither confirmed nor denied. This was the case because he coincidentally fell right as she was leaving a room, and she wasn’t going to go back and incriminate herself. Well, incriminate if she had actually been the cause, which, again, she could not confirm nor deny.

The job board was nice and shiny. Or more so it wasn’t collecting any cobwebs. Tabitha stood in front of it for a moment considering layering her string magic on the board to look like cobwebs. She could then draw attention to this travesty and guild someone into taking on a job. A few seconds into this she remembered how bored she was and blamed that for the stupid idea. She wasn’t going to play little jokes on people and encourage them to try their hardest to better to guild. No. Hardly. She was going to find a job she wanted to do and she was going to earn some money. Then she would use said money to do no-one-really-cares with it, and the most glorious part was, she wouldn’t be so bored. That was really the only important thing about any of this.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Well doesn’t this look delightful. Mora something or other needs someone to hush up. Two thousand jewels sounds like a nice use of my talents. As if the money was the actual use of her talent. The money wasn’t even the objective, but Tabitha didn’t care. She thought almost as sarcastically as she spoke at times. It was how the snarky things she said originated. She thought them. Oh, yes, it was that complicated. Don’t you look impressed. Well you had better, at least that was what Tabitha might convey while having a conversation.

She grabbed the request from the board and went to find this Mora lady. When she did Tabitha took a seat near the former member of Shadow Heart. Could you look more sinister? Really? You know when they put out wanted posters for generic criminals, they come looking for you on accident… right? Come on, the black eyes, the black hair, the look like you eat babies for breakfast. I can’t have been the only one to notice this.

“Hello,” Tabitha said with a friendly smile, her false warm disposition shining through easily. It hardly mattered what she thought of someone, in the end, because if she needed them, she was going to make it work in her favor.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

“What do you want?” she asked disdainfully. Apparently Tabitha’s glittering personality was rubbing her the wrong way. It happened. Tabitha sometimes cared, but for this lady, oh, she just didn’t bat an eyelash as to how much she liked Tabby.

Tabitha pulled the paper casually out from her dress pocket. The woman’s eyes glaringly moved from Tabitha’s apparently annoying face to the paper. “I’m your friendly neighborhood helper. Just point me in the direction you want me to go and all your worries cease to be. I think its like wrinkle cream or something,” she mused mockingly.

“Do you ever cease being annoying?” Mora asked with disdain.

“I don’t know, get back to me in a few years and I’ll clue you in,” Tabitha said, her smile only growing the more she could aggravate this woman. Actually it might not be smart to alienate someone she wanted money from, but that wasn’t on Tabitha’s mind. She was bored and she needed to entertain herself. The money was all well and good, but just not the point. This woman was in the path of one of Tabitha’s bored spells, and she was just going to have to buckle down and put up with it. Or else stop wasting time and point Tabitha in the right direction.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

The woman scowled but finally seemed to get the picture that it was about the job, not about finding Tabitha less annoying.”There’s a man, Mr. Rion. He’s gathered relevant information about Shadow Heart and he intends to leak it. He needs silenced, I don’t care the details,” she said. Tabitha’s mind went to the word silenced. That meant a variety of things. She could intimidate him, she could relocate him. She could just kill him. Well killing him sounded easiest, but was she really interested in easy? She was busy thinking of different ways to do this when Miss Unpleasant’s glare turned a bit deeper.

“Fair enough. I can handle that. Any information on where mister nuisance is holed up? Or does he not know that you want him to be less catty?” Tabitha asked, her tone still holding some of her shine, but subdued while he mind shifted into a more professional place. Even her mocking smirk was subdued.

“He is living in town. His proximity apparently helped his research. The sooner the better. And I do expect results,” Mora said, eyeing Tabitha as if they was something the young woman couldn’t possibly have heard before in her life. Tabitha smirked.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

“Oh, don’t worry Ma’am,” Tabitha said, her tone back in full force of arrogance, “I’ll get you exactly what you want. No extra charge.”

That was that. No need for fluff and fun. Mora was probably incapable of fluff or fun anyway. She was so painfully subpar in being pleasant that Tabitha was happy to leave. Fighting boredom was hard when she was talking to a machine, even if mocking Mora was slightly entertaining.

So Tabitha was on her feet and she left without a worry. Actually finding Mr. Rion sounded like it would be the most difficult thing in the job. Thinking of a creative way to hush the man was also up there, but Tabitha was going to take this one step at a time. Then she might have to think on her feet, and that didn’t sound so bad.

Tabitha was an outgoing and confident woman, so talking to strangers had never been a struggle for her. She figured a man who was collecting information on a guild that boasted some remorseless killers would be stressed out. Where did stressed men go? A bar. Now that didn’t mean he would be at a bar right now, but if she went in during a lull and provided a bit of social distraction she was sure she could scope something out.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Tabitha sauntered into the bar with a calm but pleased look on her place and sat at the bar. The bartender gave her a look. This wasn’t one of the ones who knew her. While Tabitha wasn’t a drunk, she did go to the bar sometimes, for socializing, for letting off steam, or for lulling other people into a false sense of safety. Not that Tabitha mentioning these tactics to other people, that would be a waste of them.

“What do you need little girl? Its early,” the man told Tabitha. He seemed middle aged but attractive enough. He didn’t seem like he was new to the job itself, so whatever the reason she hadn’t seen him, it was probably her own fault. He was wiping down the counter and made a point to wipe under her elbows so she had to lean away from him initially.

Tabitha wasted no time in leaning back when the area was clean, “Come on. I just need to find a man who gipped my mother,” she lied. Her tone softened a bit, keeping it just between the two of them. Almost no one else was even there, but it seemed to add some weight to what she was saying.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

He arched an eyebrow at her, “Meaning?”

Tabitha sighed, “I really can’t get into the details. I’m not going to go around sharing family secrets.” His suspicion came back, or maybe it was his disinterest, “I just need to find him.”

“Even if I want to help, I really can’t,” he said. She made a sad face at him, pulling from all the memories of being a helpless street urchin, but refusing to dig deep enough to get to her actual childhood. No job was worth that. Nothing was worth that. He relented slightly, “What was his name even?” At least that was one piece of information Tabitha actually knew.

“Rion. He was probably acting sketchy too,” she said with a frown, “After what he did.” It seemed that he completely made up story was at least intriguing the man. She wasn’t a master liar, but manipulation came with some levels of acting. Being slightly psychotic came in handy all the time it seemed. It also seemed that this description was ringing all the right bells.

“Rion… yes, I remember him. He didn’t talk, kept to himself, and scribbling things down. And looking around. Only one drink. Curly silver hair, beady blue eyes, sound like him?”

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Actually Tabitha had no idea what this man actually looked like. She perhaps figured that as soon as he saw someone from her guild he would cower or run off. Either way, the rest sounded like what she was looking for entirely. She gave a convincing scowl, “Yes, that’s him. Do you know where he went?”

“His house I suspect… it seemed to be south of here, but I don’t know any more than that,” he shrugged. She supposed the bartender had no reason to know his personal address, so she had been lucky with what little she did get.

Tabitha sighed, “Well, I really appreciate your help. My mother does too,” she said, so far detached from the word that it meant nothing coming from her lips. Her mother… was no one she thought about, and the fake reference to some imaginary mother was just one more necessary lie.

Tabitha made her exit from the bar and wandered carelessly down the street. Down the street, down the street, south, south some more. Okay, this isn’t as interesting as… her eyes fell on a woman in a maid’s outfit. It seemed unlikely that this was relevant, but the woman seemed stressed and if stress was the theme, Tabitha would take a shot at talking to her.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

“Hey, you,” Tabitha said, making no attempt to even sound like she knew the name of the woman walking along. This only flustered the woman more, “What are you up to?”

“Wh-what? I’m going to work. I’m late,” she insisted as she kept walking.

“What kind of work? You clean houses?” Tabitha asked, easily walking backward in front of the woman, who sighed and stopped, just because this all seemed to stress her out more.

“Y-yes, but you see, its my first day and I am late.”

“Oooh,” Tabitha said. She figured if she said something about Rion the she might hear something maybe this was for Rion’s neighbor. Or really anything. She was having fun, what did she care how fast it went? “Just as long as it isn’t for Mr. Rion… you know what keeps happening to his maids,” she said, shaking her head solemnly. The woman blinked, before widening her eyes. Ding, ding, jackpot.

“Y-yes, actually. I mean. Its for him. What do you mean…. What happens?” Tabitha knew this didn’t work on most people. Most people weren’t this guillable. Most people didn’t just believe everything they heard. Maybe this was why Tabitha believed very little that she heard, if she thought it mattered in the slightest.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

“Oh, sweetie,” Tabitha said, trying to actually tone back the false familiarity. It tipped some people off, “You don’t want to work for him. All I know is the girls who work for him disappear. Maybe he’s just so rude they up and leave town without a word…” she said quietly. The girl nodded, apparently Rion hadn’t been especially polite to her, “but one of them was my friend, and she wouldn’t have just… left. You know what I mean?”

It was so much fun to just plant ideas. Some people liked to garden, Tabitha enjoyed planting paranoia and fear in people’s minds, when she was bored. In essence, Tabitha should never be allowed to become bored. In fact, she should have servants. Not for cleaning, she could do that stuff. She just needed one at her beck and call for whenever things got too mundane. Then she wouldn’t go around hurting people or scaring them witless. This maid’s mind was working. It was running, running, running, and she clasped her hands over her mouth when she settled on the worst possible scenario.

“Sweetie, what’s your name?” Tabitha asked very gently.

“Gretchen,” she said weakly. Looking around as if it was a secret.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

“Gretchen, you really should just go home. Don’t risk anything, it isn’t worth it,” she said. Gretchen, silly little girl, nodded, and before she could run off, Tabitha asked for his address. Just to keep an eye on the place. Actually she didn’t even have to give a reason, Gretchen was so anxious. Well that was easy, Tabitha thought, almost whistling as she headed back to her house for a quick change.

The maid outfit was coming in quite handy as Tabitha looked like the perfect little servant. She rushed back to Mr. Rion’s house and knocked on the door. A grumpy looking man with curly silver hair answered. Well, looks like the right creep, Tabitha thought as his beady eyes scanned her.

“Who are you?” he asked immediately, scowling. She worried for a moment he would know she wasn’t really the maid, but she didn’t let it cross her features even for a moment.

“I’m Gretchen. I’m here to clean your house,” she informed him with a small smile. He scoffed.

“You’re late, get in here and clean. I have things to do and,” he looked outside, clearly extremely suspicious, “I don’t want you here for too long.” Of course not, because you’re a creep.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Tabitha actually made herself useful for a short time. She had on some white gloves, keep from touching anything with her hands, and it made her look more professional, for some reason. He didn’t question it. He went back into his office and worked, Tabitha swept. She could glance into the office sometimes while she was working, but he was always hunched over one spot. The only time he looked up it was to stare pointedly at her like she was about to rob him. Creep.

Eventually Tabitha came in to the office to take out his trash, but she got only a few steps into the room before he told her to stop. “What?” she asked, sounding a bit rude for a maid, “I am here to take the wastebasket out.”

“No, there’s no need. I’ll keep it here. Get out of the room, I’m busy,” he informed her hastily. Clearly that book was what she wanted her hands on.

Well playing pretend was usually quite fun, but Tabitha wasn’t liking Mr. Creep so it was becoming so tedious, so fast. “Is that a journal about anything special?” Oh it had been such an innocent question, so innocent, but he saw right through it. He stood up quickly, his hand on his chair, eyeing her. She couldn’t help but smile. That smile that people sometimes called psychotic. Just so… happy, about all the wrong things.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Rion immediately stood up and stepped back. Two ink men appeared near him and ran at Tabitha. “Oh come on,” she muttered. She dodged to one side and pulled her knives out of her holsters with magic strings. Her Knife Fingers sent her weapons at the ink minions. Rion grabbed his book and looked for a quick escape.

Tabitha was busy protecting herself from the attacks and when she got tripped Rion made a run for it. Her spells were busy with the ink men, but she pulled a knife from her leg holster and chucked it at him from her back. She hadn’t intended to kill him unless absolutely necessary, but in the moment her knife lodged in the back of his neck.

She swore, but the magic ink men faded off. She swore some more as she stood up and walked over to him. Tabitha took the book and stuffed it into her corset. She then grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his head to cover the blood from dripping out. Tabitha cleaned her knife and put all her weapons back in their proper holsters. “Just lovely…” she remarked.

The rest of the day was spent casually removing his body from his house. He was secretive enough that he lived near the edge of town. She managed to bury the body far away, and burned the book. This wasn’t a normal afternoon for Tabitha, and by evening she was only just making it home after collecting her reward, but then again, she hadn’t wanted a “normal” afternoon.

Words: 3517/500

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