Ch 4. Daily Routine
John was woken by steady drops of water falling onto his head from a leaf filled with dew that hung above him. He adjusted himself slowly, rolling halfway out of the hammock and wiping his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He didn’t particularly care for the alarm method of Avalon, but he hadn’t liked alarms on his phone back on Earth either so he supposed that anything that woke him up would receive the same ire.
He stood up and went to the bathroom, looking at his tired reflection in the mirror. His green eyes had dark circles under them and his red hair was getting scraggly. He sighed and splashed some water into his face before combing his hair back and swishing a potion of dental purity and spitting it out. He practiced a few smiles in the mirror. A reassuring one, a kind one, the empathetic one, and finally the suggestive one with a raised eyebrow and upturned lip. He laughed at his own expression on the last one, unable to take himself seriously wearing it. He’d try to stick to a more subdued version at the Thirsty Drake later that week. He hopped into the shower, activating the heating rune and the portal to the plane of water at the same time. His soap was almond scented, his favorite smell on two worlds, and he took his time cleaning himself, doing his best not to stay still too long so he wouldn’t start dwelling more on Katrina.
He turned off the water and dried, moving back to his bedroom when he was done. He had an armoire that contained twenty near identical copies of the same outfit. It was a green checkered suit, a crisp white dress shirt, brown belt, and brown shoes. Part of his recompense from the fey had been them duplicating the outfit he’d arrived in. All of them were slightly different, with the pattern of the jackets shifting between each suit, or his shirts having different colored buttons, but they were generally the same. He had a few other outfits made, and even a blue suit that Katrina had had made for him, but he always defaulted to the green. It had become his uniform, and he found he liked the convenience of having one. He thought at that moment of the jumpsuit that Eric wore every day and not favoring the comparison between Eric and himself, quickly dismissed that thought from his mind.
Once he was dressed he walked down the overgrown steps out from his apartment and began making his way down the street. All around the massive tree he lived in was a motley collection of buildings that were anachronistic, fantastical, and lacking any kind of sense. There were some large holes out of which a number of fuzzy footed short men and women lived, a tower that looked as if it could’ve been occupied by Dracula, a series of floating squares with doors on them that a number of wind djinn flitted back and forth from, a glass fronted storefront selling shoes that included clogs with the same frequency as tennis shoes, and a fortune telling tent that sat on the roof of a dwarven blacksmith’s shop. Avalon was a city at the center of a thousand worlds, and its buildings reflected that.
People, places, and ideas all bled into Avalon, but almost nothing ever left, and Earth was a particularly long way away from it. When he’d first arrived, he’d asked if there was some way he could get back home. It was explained to him that there are many ways, but they were dangerous and rare. Even though he’d spent a long time looking, he’d never found a single one for himself. He was grateful about that now. At least most of the time.
He walked a few blocks toward his office, exchanging friendly nods with a Minotaur and his three kids as they walked down the street, and holding onto a streetlight when a dragon passed by low overhead so that he wouldn’t be blown down the street by its wingbeats. He crossed the street after a carriage in the shape of a pumpkin and a house with the legs of a chicken stopped for him and opened the door to Hilda’s Bakery. The smell of fresh bread and sugar hit him full strength as he walked in, clearing some of the dark thoughts from his mind as he stepped in.
“Morning John,” said Mia, waving at him.
He gave her a nod and approached the counter. Mia was the titular Hilda’s daughter and was about seventeen. She wore a black funeral dress with the bottom of the skirt torn away to reveal big black boots, with a thin chainmail shirt over the top of the dress, jingling a bit as she moved. Her eyes were blue and she wore winged eyeliner sharp enough that it could be considered a weapon. She’d somehow gotten her hands on some goth magazines from Earth at the Infinite Library and the second she’d seen the images of what women wore in them she’d immediately changed her entire wardrobe to suit it. Some would say that her bubbly personality was in sharp contrast to what she wore, but John had known a few goths back on Earth and being very friendly while wearing a lot of black seemed to be surprisingly common.
“Good morning Mia, I’ll have the usual.”
She nodded with a smile and grabbed a small bag that she placed on the counter for him. “Already had it ready for you. You sure you don’t want to try something new? Mom made some chocolate cinnamon rolls that made a gnome propose to her on the spot yesterday.”
“I’m alright, Mia.”
She shrugged. “You’ll have to try something else eventually.”
“Eventually? Yes,” he replied with a friendly smile like the one he’d practiced in the mirror that morning, then he turned and walked out. His office was just across the road, and this time he had to dodge around the feet of a giant to make his way over to it. He unlocked the front door and walked inside, flipping around the closed sign to open. He made his way into his office and started his coffee, pouring some grounds into the press and activating the heating rune on his kettle. When it was hot he poured it into the press, and pushed the lever on it down, turning the murky liquid a rich dark brown. He poured it into a mint green cup and mixed in just a hint of cream and sugar before sitting down. He took a long sip, letting out an involuntary “ah,” as he enjoyed the warmth travelling down his throat and through the rest of his body. He’d had the same morning routine for years now, though over the last year he’d gotten used to Katrina handing him his mug when he first arrived. He let out a long sigh and put down his cup rubbing his face. She was probably halfway to the other side of the universe at that point.
He grabbed his schedule, which at this point amounted to a few scrawls on a piece of paper, hoping to distract himself. He only had one client that day, Gnost Treebeard. That was a dwarven name, but he couldn’t see any indication of what he was going to be seeing him for. He vaguely remembered the conversation he’d had, some type of fear or phobia. He shook his head, that lack of organization brought him to his next item after the session, interviews for a new secretary. He’d known the moment Katrina left that he would need a new one. He wasn’t the worst at staying organized, but he definitely wasn’t good at it either. When left to his own devices his desk would be covered with client notes written on twenty different scraps of paper, he’d completely forget which clients were scheduled which days, and he’d lose track of time between clients causing all of his patients for the rest of the day to be pushed back further and further.
He picked up his mug and took another long sip, opening the bag he’d just gotten from Hilda’s and pulling out two bagels. They were still warm from the oven, and the cream cheese he spread on them melted beautifully into the porous bread. He took a bite and savored it for a moment before washing it down with his coffee. There was the sound of a door slamming followed by a series of crashes in the waiting room that startled him, making him spill a bit of coffee on his shirt and choke a bit on his bagel. He cursed as he put down his mug swiftly moving to open a drawer and pull out a laundry potion he poured carefully onto his fresh stain watching it slowly fade and disappear.
“What the hell was that?” he muttered under his breath as he moved to his office door.