1 A beginning that's been written a thousand times
Andrew wakes up from a knocking on his bedroom door, causing him to look around his room before turning his tired gaze at the door where he sees a silhouette beside it. The figure turns out to be his sister Miya who smiles at him as she gently knocks on his door one last time.
She tells him that she needs help with some crates outside, so the teen rouse himself up from the bed and stretches his arms up while groaning. Last night's patrol is still stuck to his back, weighing him down as he prepares to go downstairs.
Andrew yawns and stretches his arms out as he leaves his room and heads downstairs. He's now dressed in a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and some black slacks as his pants.
"I'm up, so where are the crates?" he asked.
"They're by the door, Drew. Just take them into the workshop as usual," Miya replied with a gentle but monotonous voice.
She's nowhere to be seen in the shop though. Andrew guesses she's in the next room over, busy since she sounded so distracted with something else.
Miya Gwyndel runs an alchemical shop that sells a variety of goods catered towards fellow alchemists like herself.
It ranges from an array of minerals to alchemical equipment not found commonly in Mires.
The shelves of the shop were filled with different items like minerals, pre-made jars of solutions, and concoctions. These back-to-back standing-shelves of the shop acted like room dividers that splits it into two parts from just how tall they were. The standing shelves though never reached the ceiling which gave Miya enough free space to put decorations like small wooden figures, certificates, and even tomes on top of it.
Andrew lets out his nth yawn while passing through the shop and opening the door, chiming the bell. He sees four crates sitting out the front of the shop, almost obscuring the large window that lets bystanders see inside.
As he lifts the two crates, with one sitting above the other, he glances over the other side of the street and he sees this figure in stark red.
He stared at this woman dressed in different shades of red under her tattered red cloak.
She wore a dark-red sweater, almost like dried blood, with a vertical split around the chest that shows a bit of her cleavage. Her waist is hugged by a brown-red corset. She has a long bright-red skirt with gold-thread inlays draping her legs, hiding her knee-high boots.
This woman stares back at Andrew while hiding how penetrating her amber eyes were with the hood of her cloak. Meanwhile, Andrew assumes that the woman is looking for something to buy in the shop but can't quite ask him if they're open so he heads back inside.
Drew carries the two crates into the workshop. In there he finds Miya with her back turned and her attention glued to her worktable, brewing something.
"It's pretty cold outside today, do you think it'll snow?" Andrew asked while setting down the two crates in the room. He doesn't address the red figure he saw.
"Yeah, in a few days or so, snow will fall. It won't be a blizzard though. Also, once you're done loading the crates in, can you wake up Azure?" Miya turned around and walked up to Drew, handing him a mug of warm chocolate.
"Thanks, and alright I will." Drew, now with a beaming grin on his face, took a sip, and immediately the cold he felt from just being outside a few minutes is melted away. He's now wide awake as well.
"Honestly I know it's going to snow because you and Azure have been sleeping heavily for the past few days like lizards," Miya comments as she lets out a giggle that she stifles with her hand.
Andrew meanwhile lets out a groan as he takes another sip from his mug.
"I can't help it. Do you know how comfortable a cold mattress and pillow is?" Miya shakes her head to Andrew's question.
"No, I prefer a warmer mattress and pillow because of my body's sensitivity to temperature. If I slept as you did, I'll catch a cold. Now c'mon, bring in the last two crates before some urchin takes them. You can finish your warm chocolate after."
Andrew sets down his mug on a table and heads outside again, but this time the woman in red wasn't there anymore. He wonders why she had such a look of intent in her eyes, but Andrew shrugs it off as he takes in the last two crates, bringing them into the workshop.
He checks the time using the workshop's wall clock.
"I'm going to go wake up Azure now and start my shift," he says to Miya who had just opened the crates and is in awe at the new equipment that she received from the delivery.
She's smiling a little too honestly while holding up one of the brand-new machines out of its crate, her glasses fogging up from her warm and excited panting.
Drew could only shake his head and move away slowly while he gradually raised his hands in fear.
He grabs his mug and walks upstairs to wake up Azure. He knocks and opens the door like how Miya did with him, and immediately the fragrant smell of the room hits him.
The scent of the girls' room is completely different from his room. To Andrew, his room smelled nothing, but the girls' room has an aromatic sweet-scent of honeydew to it.
"Azure, it's morning, wake up or Locasta's going to scold you again," Andrew says to his little-sister who then replied with a soft whimper as she also roused up like Andrew, although with much more hesitation.
She tiredly gets out of bed showing that she's wearing a raven black robe with translucent sleeves that blends well with her straight black hair. Azure walks up to Andrew, rubbing the sand off her eyes with one hand, and then snatching Andrew's mug of warm chocolate with the other.
"Hey! That's mine! Get your own!" Andrew angrily roared but Azure ignores it as she drinks the mug empty in front of him.
"It was chocolate? I wanted coffee," she said handing the empty mug back to him.
"Then why did you finish all of it?!" Andrew grumbled, grinding his teeth as he turns the mug upside down. Not even a drop fell.
Azure ignores him again as she instead went inside the bathroom that's on the other side of the hallway. She slams the bathroom door close, but then it eerily opens up again.
Andrew sees Azure glaring at him with judging eyes through the crack of the door.
"You didn't use the shampoo bottle as-"
"DON'T EVEN GO THERE. I DIDN'T." at this point Andrew's face is fuming with anger, and embarrassment to the point he was tempted to chuck his mug at Azure.
Azure slinks out of view while she closes the bathroom door once more. Meanwhile, Andrew stomps his way back down the shop to head out, but not before going to the kitchen and putting the empty mug in the sink and giving it the time to clean and hang it on a cup rack.
"I guess I have a few minutes," he muttered to himself after looking at the time again.
He then uses the kitchen to make food to fill two wooden lunch boxes, one for himself and the other for Azure.
After feeling satisfied with his work, he closes both wooden boxes and looked at the leftover shallots, chicken, and two eggs and thought that he should make something for Miya.
Andrew knows that he's going to be late if he makes anything for Miya, but the thought of doing that and putting a smile on her face made Andrew's chest feel light and fuzzy, so he oiled a wok and started cooking.
He cracks two eggs into a bowl and stirs them up before scrambling them a bit on the well-oiled wok, throwing rice onto it along with the leftover ingredients, and adding a couple of seasonings like garlic powder, pepper, salt, and soy sauce to give the fried rice more flavor. After stirring it up to where every ingredient is evenly distributed, he transfers it all into a pretty large bowl.
"I'll be heading out now Miya. I made you food if you get hungry and tell Azure I also made her a lunchbox," Andrew says while stuffing his lunchbox into his satchel that he then slings onto his shoulder as he heads towards the door.
Miya suddenly comes out of her workshop, calling out to Andrew who was already outside the door.
"You almost forgot this. I finished studying it and nothing came up. Are you sure you tried talking to any of the blacksmiths here? Maybe Hatch will know," Miya said while handing Andrew a sheathed executioner's sword.
He takes it and clips the scabbard to his belt. He now looks like he's ready for an adventure when in reality he's just ready for another mundane shift.
"Yeah. They said the same thing, but thanks for trying Miya. I'm serious though, I need to go. I'm way beyond late. Cecilia's going to kill me." Drew smiles, warming up the air around him with a tender glow.
"Take care, Drew. Oh, and thank you for making me lunch!" A gentle smile comes over Miya as well while Andrew turns and runs, heading straight to the plaza.
Miya watches over Drew and sees him run past people, saying good-morning, apologizing for bumping into them, and smiling as he waves at them.
Andrew looks like nothing could get him down once he's up, and that made his foster-sister proud from seeing how much he had grown over the years.
It's been 6 years since Miya had taken Andrew and Azure in her care, and she's impressed at how much he's grown both physically and mentally in those years that seemed short for her. In a blink of an eye the kid that she was asked to take care of, the same one that cradled her baby sister in his hands while looking lost and confused on that fateful winter, was now a reliable headstrong teen who, no matter what, can see the brighter side of life.
