"I can't believe I forgot! I'm so stupid!" I growl at myself as I run down the street. Emily went home after we left the doctor's office, so now it's just me. What am I going to do if she can't finish the dress in time and I mess up all of Eryk's plans?!

I still feel terrible after everything I discussed with Beth, and there's no more weird calmness to hold back all my terrible feelings anymore. Now they're so much worse than normal, I keep having to wipe angry tears from my face as I run. Why do I always do these things at the worst times? Why do I need to make my stupid life so much harder than it needs to be?!

By the time I reach Holly Tailoring, I'm panting and sweating, with tears still running down my face. I keep wiping them away with my sleeves, but they're starting to get soaked through. The other people in the street are trying not to look at me. I circle the building, looking for the back door Jannette mentioned yesterday, and find it soon enough.

Ugh, now I'm showing up to this shop dressed like a peasant, to cause problems for them. And I'm late! I just want to curl up on the ground. It feels like my head is on fire and I can hardly even think anymore. But I have to do this so I don't mess up anything else!

I knock on the door. Then I straighten out my patched, nasty peasant clothes, to make myself the tiniest bit presentable, while I listen to the quickly approaching footsteps, and wipe the tears from my face again.

The door opens, and I look up, jolting when I realize it's not Jannette. The blond woman looking back at me frowns, and I immediately start to turn around to flee. "I-I'm sorry, I, uuh, sorry!"

"Hold it!" The woman catches me by the back of my shirt before I can run away. "That hair, you're Aria?"

"Y-yes?!"

"Get in here," and she pulls me right inside. I squeak and flail my arms, totally off balance and starting to panic as she drags me across a room with fabric everywhere as she spins me around and...

Oh, it's Jannette. She's asleep at a table, with a thick blanket thrown over her.

"Come on sleepyhead," the blond woman shakes her by the shoulder, and she soon groans and rouses. Her sleepy, droopy eyes look even sleepier than yesterday.

"Oh my, what time is it...?" Jannette mumbles as she yawns and stretches, slowly standing up from her chair.

"A little after sixth bell."

"Sixth bell already? Where's Aria...?" she wonders while rubbing her eyes.

"Here," the blond has one hand on her hip while the other holds me out toward Jannette by the back of my shirt.

"Huh? Oh!" She starts to smile when she finishes rubbing at her face and looks down to see me standing in front of her. But that expression falls away a moment later, and she kneels down. "What's wrong? It looks like you've been crying."

No, I don't want her to get worried about me! I'm the one causing problems for her! I shake my head. "...'m fine." I rasp quietly through my sore throat. I want to apologize for being so late, but I can't get any more words out. So instead, I stare at the floor.

Jannette sighs. "You sure don't sound fine, but if you don't want to talk about it... Let's get to work, alright?"

"Nn," I nod.

She takes me by the hand and begins leading me away, looking back over my head and saying, "Thanks, Linda, I'll take care of her. You've got everything else under control?"

"Yeah yeah, I can deal with these orders, just make sure you get hers right."

"Ok." Jannette nods very seriously for some reason, and leads me through a door, back into the same room from yesterday, where she worked on my dress. "Alright Aria, time to work," she says softly, more gently than I would expect. Isn't she mad at me? She wanted me here in the morning, but it's already after noon because I took so long...

Without another word, Jannette gets me out of my peasant clothes and into the yellow dress. It's good that I'm still so clean from yesterday, since the house isn't as filthy as it used to be, or I would just get the dress dirty and make everything even worse...

Still, I immediately notice the differences. Some spots fit way better now, like the neck. It isn't falling off my shoulders now. It's still kind of wide compared to what I'm used to, but it isn't too bad now. The sleeves fit too, they don't go all the way down past my hands. I still can't really tell, but it feels like a lot of the dress looks different. Like there's more fabric or something, but I don't really know how to explain it.

Once I'm dressed, Jannette stands me up on another big box, and gets to work like yesterday. She... really isn't mad at me? But she fell asleep waiting I took so long!

I'm so wrapped up in my own worries as Jannette works, that it takes a really long time for me to calm down enough to just close my eyes and make myself breathe. It's only after that, when I've been standing here for like half a bell, that I finally realize how overwhelmed I was. I couldn't even think enough to remember to follow Reena's advice...

I keep taking deep breaths, and finally let the tension out of my muscles that has been there ever since that food wore off. I'm still extremely aware of all my usual bad thoughts hanging around, but for now, I just try not to think about them, meditate, and hold myself together.

"So," Jannette's quiet voice suddenly fills the previously silent room. "Looks like you've finally calmed down some, little one." She doesn't look up from her work as she speaks, eyes locked firmly on my dress. "Care to talk about it?"

No. "W-well..." My voice is still kind of hoarse and I have to cough and clear my throat. "I'm sorry," is the first thing that comes out. "I-I mean, I'm really sorry I got here so late. I didn't mean to make you wait so long."

"Oh, it's fine," she chuckles. Wait... really? "What's a little hold up making a dress? Pshh." She makes a little swatting motion and shakes her head, and it actually makes me feel a bit better. She really isn't mad about me being late... "Now, that can't have been why you were crying your eyes out, right?"

"No..." I stare off at a wall. I don't want to think about it anymore. "I talked to my doctor earlier today..."

That makes her look up. "It isn't anything serious, is it?"

"Anything serious?" What does that mean?

Finally pausing her work, Jannette asks, "You aren't really sick or something, are you?"

"What? No? Oh, that's what you mean..." Right, because humans can get really sick, can't they? "No, nothing like that," I quickly try to correct her. Though I was really sick that one time, but I still have no idea how that was possible... Shaking away those thoughts, I immediately find myself falling back to what happened earlier.

I didn't want to think about this.

But I owe it to Jannette, being so late. I explain, "My doctor helps me talk through a lot of trauma I have, and today was... well, it was really bad. That's why I was there longer than I meant to be." Talking about this is making me feel bad again, but I make myself say it.

"Trauma? At your age?"

"Mm."

"Oh my..." She goes quiet for a while as she works around me, before saying, "Well, at least you're doing better now, isn't that right?"

"Huh?"

"Having a nice doctor to talk to, going to parties, that has to be better than before, right?"

I finally smile a little, feeling the tiniest bit better. "Yeah, you're right." She hardly knows me, but she's so nice... Nothing like the other Jannette...

We return to a comfortable silence as Jannette works, and I stand, meditating and letting my mind and body rest after everything I went through earlier. I still don't know if dragging out all those terrible thoughts and feelings with Beth will help or just make things worse, but she's helped me work through a lot of other stuff already, so maybe...? I'm trying not to get my hopes up though, that only ever ends badly. For now, I just keep trying not to think about it...

Time passes slowly. Since I have so much time, I keep on with my mana practice I've been at, still trying to command my mana without manipulating it directly. The results are still... not great, but I'm starting to feel like some of it actually does what I want some of the time, so it doesn't feel like this is a complete waste of time. I just need a ton more practice...

Bit by bit, I keep having to ignore thoughts of earlier. But the longer I go, the less it's working.

My attention is suddenly grabbed by something completely unexpected.

"Psspsspsspss." The sound, coming from a very familiar voice, reaches Riko's sensitive ears. She cracks an eye open to see Emily, ducking by the garrison's open window and kind of waving up at the cat. What is she doing...?

Riko hops down to investigate, meeting Emily behind the building, away from the main street. She rolls onto her back so Emily can scratch her belly while forming a basic telepathic connection.

Emily is trying to find me, she starts. I'm supposed to eat lunch, but the caretakers don't know where I am, so Marrianne asked her. She doesn't know where the tailor shop is, but Riko can help, right?

"Oh, I completely forgot about lunch," I think back to her. "Here, let me just try to, uhh..." I switch to soul telepathy since I can't do this otherwise.

It's kind of weird to think about, but I try to think back on my memory of the layout of the central district and where I am, and the path I followed today. I try to shove all of those feelings, thoughts, and memories together, then push it all across the connection to Emily's soul.

She shudders, her body shaking and eyes blinking rapidly for a few moments. I didn't do something wrong, did I?

"Oh, ok. Wow," she mumbles, "that's kind of a lot, but I think I get it." She pauses, and I can feel her tracing through the memories she just received to find the spot. "Yes, I've got it. Thanks, I'll head your way soon."

"Oh wait," I stop her before she pulls away. "Go to the back door. There's a kind of scary blond lady. If you tell her it's a noble who said to do it, I think she might listen."

"Alright, thanks Aria."

"No, thank you. For everything."

She grins a little, hesitates for a moment, long enough for me to with draw the mana connection back into Riko, before she gives the cat one more ruffle, and gets on her way.

"Ah, that was nice," Riko purrs, then slinks off, thinking of finding something to eat.

Chisa spots Emily on her way over. It doesn't take her long, the way she can easily run through town. I open my eyes when I just barely hear her knocking on the door through the other room. That's followed by Linda's footsteps, then voices. They're audible, but I can't tell what they're saying from where I am.

Then the door closes again, and I'm wondering if it worked or not. Thankfully, I'm not left waiting long, because she comes over and opens up the door to the room we're in shortly after, looking completely baffled. "Excuse me but... Some peasant child just arrived." She holds up a wooden bowl and says, "She claimed to be sent by a noble to deliver food? It sounds absurd."

Jannette raises a brow, so I try to explain, awkwardly moving my hands a little, before I remind myself I'm supposed to be holding still. "I'm sorry, yeah. Karl Liffan is running the orphanage right now. He has, uhh, some reasons to make sure I eat well. I'm not really supposed to talk about it..."

"That is... concerning," is Linda's response. Then she shakes her head. "Alright, it's past time for lunch anyway. Let's eat, then it's right back to work."

Jannette agrees, and the two women carefully remove the yellow dress, all full of pins again, and leave me to pull on my own clothing while they set it carefully across a counter, then bring out some bread and some other hard food I'm not familiar with from the other room. It's a pretty neat meal that they can eat with their hands, not needing utensils or anything.

Meanwhile, I go through my own bowl of food. There's nothing special this time either. I recognize some of the foods too, so I'm thinking that Marrianne has a list of foods by now that aren't an issue and she probably only included them today because of, well, everything this morning...

The tears come immediately. I wipe them away just as fast. It's getting harder. Don't think about it, don't think about it...

I try to keep my focus on my food and not think about anything else until I'm done, but the worried looks I'm getting from the two women keep drawing my attention anyway. I finish quickly so I don't hold them up. Maybe a little too quickly, I think I forgot my manners a little there.

Soon enough, I'm back in the yellow dress, and Jannette is back at it, continuing her steady work. The thoughts and feelings keep bubbling up worse. I push them all down, trying to ignore them. Deal with them later...

Try as I might, I can't clear my head to meditate anymore. Everything is too jumbled up inside. I try to keep up my mana practice, keep myself distracted, don't think about my feelings. Don't think how I shouldn't have to do any of this. Don't think of how it's taking so much work because I'm a screw up. Don't think that I'm never going to get it. Just don't think about any of it!

"Hey, Aria?" Jannette's quiet voice suddenly breaks me from my slow downward spiral, and I realize that my whole face is wet with tears. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"

I shake my head jerkily. "No, I'm trying not to think about it."

She has this sad, pitying look, that just makes me feel even worse. "Sweetie, you can't just ignore your problems forever. If you keep them all bottled up, they're going to come back to bite you one day." She wipes some of the tears from my face, and says, "That's kind of what it looks like is happening right now, you know."

"Mmm..."

She sighs, returning to fiddling with the bottom section of the dress, but continues speaking. "I don't know your story, but I do know it's not normal for a seven year old child to stand perfectly still for half a day, crying the entire time. Even if it's not me, you need to talk to an adult. Something is very wrong and you need help."

"I know..." I finally admit. I know, but... who?

"Reena!" all the others practically shout at me. Right, duh. I've been so wrapped up in my own head, I couldn't even consider that. Of course Reena will help me when things get this bad...

"Thanks... I'll do that..." I reply, still barely able to get my voice out through my sore, choked up throat.

"Good, now we're almost done, just a little more to go."

"Mm..."