Work smarter, not harder

Life continued harshly on, as Alyssa had to find out a few days after she had gotten that incident with her fiancée. Her cheek was almost healed now; the fading shade of yellow was the only proof that the incident ever happened. It would be a lot easier to walk around like that without people asking her too many, annoying questions. She had traveled to Port Silverstone a couple of days ago and it was annoying how many so called concerned men were asking about her health and what happened to her. And she had to lie to every single one of them, because she didn’t feel the need to tell them what truly happened. Just because her parents were getting too old and weak to venture out into Port Silverstone to gather their supplies didn’t mean that they wouldn’t hear it from some people later on if Alyssa talked about what happened. She didn’t want to take the risk, so she kept quiet. She often wondered what would happen to time if she were to move out to the Upper Ring to live with her fiancée. She thought they secretly hoped they would be able to travel with her so they could have a house in the Upper Ring, but Alyssa didn’t know if that was possible.

But life moved on, so she had to venture once again out in the Agrarian Ring to trade for supplies. With the amount of bread they had on them right now, they would be without food tomorrow morning. She bitterly wondered why that stupid Upper Ring family she was betrothed to hadn’t left them any money to buy food. She felt like this was all a stupid test. That their son could have his way with her and that it would all be a stupid nightmare. Maybe that would be the best outcome, even though she knew it would make her parents devastated. Was that what she wanted? She groaned. Not really.

Alyssa was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t pay any mind to her surrounds. A collision with another farmer wasn’t inevitable and Alyssa had to watch with remorse as the only bread she had left fell onto the ground, in a puddle of mud. Fuck. She had fucked up in her past a lot of times, but never like this. It was all the fault of that stupid fiancée, she thought.

”Sorry,” she told the man in front of her, although he worries were made clear as she picked the bread up quickly and tried to get rid off the mud. But it couldn’t be helped. This couldn’t be traded anymore, which meant that they were stuck for the evening with a mud cladded piece of bread to divide over the three of them until they could milk the cows tomorrow to have another try.