Sanna's voice echoed near the door, and I turned to see her standing there. Honestly? I was both surprised and ashamed to see her. And not because of her arrival (heh) but because of the direction she came from. I had expected her from the Guild's side, but she had come from the main street one. As for the shame? I had almost forgotten about our plans to go out tonight amidst all the stress I was dealing with.

"Hello, Sanna," I greeted her with a bow, trying to maintain a calm demeanor.

"Did I catch you at a bad time?" She asked, seeming to mistake my smoking break for something else.

"Oh no, I was just chatting with my friend Soni here," I replied, unexpectedly flustered and finding nothing else to say.

"Hey there, thanks for yesterday." Soni had already met Sanna yesterday, so she casually greeted her as the latter turned to look at her. To my surprise, Soni even offered a better explanation than mine. "Lindar and I went out to talk some business, but we already finished. So! I'll leave him to you now."

While I couldn't be sure what Soni was thinking, I felt grateful for her helping hand and how quickly she left us alone. With her out of the picture, I concentrated on Sanna, and as she blushed from my staring, I could only say something like, "You look absolutely fantastic!" No matter how cliche and cheesy it was.

In any case, I was definitively not lying. Exchanging her work two-piece dress for a far more elegant one-piece one, Sanna definitively looked fantastic. The garment was simple yet elegant, with its earthy hues and flowing fabric. It hugged her curves in a flattering way, accentuating her slightly plump figure. The few pieces of jewelry, a silver chain and also a silver bracelet, added a certain charm and grace to her that I hadn't seen before. And honestly, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of excitement at the prospect of spending the evening with her.

"I am sorry, I got caught up in some developments and had no time to prepare." [Honesty paves a path ahead] - was a creed I always believed to be true, and this time I also went with it. Well, half-honesty, as I just mentioned that I nearly forgot about her coming.

"Umm, so you need some time to prepare?" Sanna asked, her voice soft and hesitant. I had found her to be a somewhat shy woman who blushed easily, and now I could see a faint pink tinge creeping up her cheeks as she spoke. A pink that quickly turned crimson as before, with me looking straight at her again.

"Oh, no! Just give me a moment!" While with her dressing up could be seen as improper for me to go along with my everyday clothes, it was still the truth I literally had nothing else but what was prepared for me by the dwarves.

Well, I did have some shirt and pants. But it was of far less quality and in a worse state than the padded, extremely comfy, and resistant clothes given to me after my awakening in the [Sharagzian Kingdom Embassy]. For everything else? [Inventory]. Thus, as I asked her for a moment, I actually meant a different thing.

"...Do you want to come in?" My hand had already touched the door as I suddenly recalled my manners and turned around to ask her.

"...Can I?" Hesitant as before, Sanna asked back.

"Yes, please do. As I don't live alone - I should notify them of my outing." Smiling while I opened the door and moved aside, inviting her, I waited for her to approach before telling her, nearly to her ear, "Sorry, I actually had to have done this before you arrived." I should have, right?!

_______

I felt like a bad guy as I left Sanna in the reception room, with only Soni to keep her company, and went upstairs to tell the girls about my outing. And the feeling got worse as I actually spoke to the girls, even if they accepted it without any fuss.

It wasn't hard to understand the reason for such a feeling, as I had just promised myself to take better care of them and keep an eye on them while sharing some time, the three of us. And now? I was literally running off, leaving them to deal with everything, including Dart's accommodation.

While I didn't think anything dangerous could happen, with Dart around and Xiela's words about sending extra eyes to look after our house and the girls, it was still somewhat... dishonest?

But anyway, they sent me out with a smile, and while the thoughts were there, it wasn't like I could cancel an outing I myself invited Sanna to. Or honestly? Something that I was pretty much looking forward to!

_______

The walk from the house to the [Dancing Horse] I picked up as the spot for our outing was one silent one. Only by the moment we entered the inn's tavern, Sanna broke the silence, asking me about Kierra and Angelique, who had come downstairs to send me off. Or maybe to see with whom I was going out, which seems more believable.

"I am unsure how to describe our relationship, but maybe I should say I am their guardian?" It was a question I couldn't answer even when I asked myself, less when explaining something to others. Thus, I ended with an unclear answer, even a question.

As Sanna was about to ask something more, we were noticed by one of the servers, and her approach and questions about where we would like to sit saved me from further answers, at least for a few moments. Moments enough to decide what to go with.

"You see, Kierra and Angelique were probably the first people I interacted with after an incident that sent me slightly out of track. They helped me a lot, and after learning about my destination, they asked me to tag along with a caravan I was inspecting. Now? As I said, I act as their guardian while they do what they want to, but could not in the small farmstead outside Churg where I met them." With most of my story unknown to anyone but a select few, and in a way to blend my known persona to a bit of my story, I went with such an explanation.

It was vague indeed, but it covered most topics. Regretfully, if Sanna asked further, I couldn't think of how to move forward. But thankfully, she didn't ask anything else, and as the server brought my order, [Merchant's Dew] and something to go along it, in this case, goat and sheep cheeses, I took the chance to ask Sanna about her, moving away from myself.

While she did blush as I asked her to tell me about herself, Sanna actually relaxed a lot as she started talking, and I found her to be a fairly good narrator. I would learn a lot about her, plus some intriguing details about the Guild and even about the local head, Zelindo.

-*-*-

As I had supposed, Sanna was about my age, just about to turn 28 (although with the local years being a bit longer, she was something like 29 and something if counting Earth's years). She had been born in Vruz, a city pretty close by, in a family of jewelers that specialized in preparing items and treasures for the [Enchantement and Rune Association], a type of Guild made up of mages and specialists headquartered in the city.

Her parents were pretty renowned, and their items, after the enchantments or rune engraving, were sought after by both wealthy people and nobles, making her childhood a pretty good one. They also loved her dearly, as they wanted her to succeed. And in Sanna's words, most of her life until reaching the adult threshold was a mix of tutors, gifts, enjoyable outings, and whatever else she wanted or could require further down the road.

At some point, after she reached her adulthood thought, she actually found herself at odds with her parents, who, after finding out she wasn't talented either in crafting or any of the enchanting procedures, tried to convince her to join the [Enchantement and Rune Association] as a representative.

"I understand that they wanted the best for me, and their connections in the Association were great, but I hated everything about the building they call their quarters." Such were the only words Sanna shared about her reasons. And while I could feel there was something else - something important enough to prevent her from working in there - but I didn't pry further, allowing her to go on with her story.

In any case, having found herself against the plans already made by her parents, Sanna left the house one day, as if on a small errand, and saw herself walking into the Vruz branch of the [Trade Guild].

"I had already run some errands for my parents, selling the items not fit for enchantment and buying materials, so I knew several people there." She explained as she shared that even one of her closest friends, a slightly older girl who worked there as a clerk, was her dear friend.

"And it was her, Athi, who said that a merchant affiliated to the Guild was looking for someone to work as his bookkeeper." Without me even prodding for her to continue, Sanna herself did, explaining that she would meet the man called Zidon on that same day, and after confirming she was well enough acquainted with both numbers and books, thanks to the tutoring and lessons her parents provided her with, she ended up landing the job.

Her parents were anything but overjoyed for her sudden decision to work for a pretty small-time merchant. But in the end, they didn't force anything, deciding, in their own words, that after a bit of rough work and a reality check, she would return home and assume the so-called cozy spot as a representative of the [Association].

And so it could have been if not for Zidon extending her the offer to accompany him into his numerous business venture to Bigradh, then the Central lands, and so far as Zeln. "I am unsure what he saw about me, as I had never been the best bookkeeper or merchant aide of the ones he could have found, but Maester Zidon hauled me to every venture he started. And while some failed, he was still a successful merchant, with an unsteady but continuous influx of coin."

At some point, Zidon even started sending Sanna to do some small ventures on her own as he moved to bigger deals. "Honestly, I was far from being good as him, but thanks to the contacts and what he taught me, I still managed to win a small capital for myself." Here, the logical question would be why she was working as a simple clerk in Megvuroz then, but I held it to myself, allowing her to continue talking.

And it wasn't much longer before Sanna herself answered, "A year ago, Maester Zidon got himself promoted to a silver member of the Guild and even invited me to join him as an assistant on the branch he was asked to manage. Regretfully, I found out that my mom passed away and chose to deny, intending to return home, at least for a while."

From there, it was as if Sanna's luck left her, as her initial plan was to continue as a member of the Guild, a position she earned thanks to Zidon's patronage, striking smaller deals while being near home. But, since her return to Vruz, nearly everything she embarked on failed miserably. Be it, bandits, prices suddenly dropping, or even some divine curse, even the smallest and safest deals ended without giving her any real profit.

"At some point, I had to borrow money to do what appeared a safe trade, a shipment of silver ore from the Central lands to Vruz, but it also failed. And with my dad's work declining since my mother's passing, when I failed, again, to provide anything, there was no one to help me out." She shrugged as if it was nothing important.

"Anyway, long story short, as it was a shipment I bought with borrowed money and I lost it to what the Guild assumed as incompetence, I was the one to bear the debt. So it was decided. And it was so bad that it could even have escalated to indebted servitude." I noticed how it weighed on her, that she expected to win money and return to business while being able to support her father but failed so that even the latter couldn't help her.

"Yet, one of the people to speak up in the council called about my debt had been Zelindo, and he considered that I wasn't wrong to spend only what I spent on security, with the roads at that moment considered perfectly safe. Maybe his words didn't sway the overall decision, but maybe because of that, he went so far as to help me repay just enough of the debt to merely lose my status as an affiliated merchant. And leave the Guild without owing anything else." Notes of gratitude appeared in her voice as she spoke about Zelindo, and it wasn't required for her to continue as for me to understand why she was working here now.

Still, she did speak about it, so...

-*-*-

By the moment Sanna told me about her wanting to repay Zelindo, even if the latter never asked for it, we had finished the first gallon-like jug of wine I had ordered. She appeared slightly tipsy but continued talking as if nothing, so I ordered another one.

In any case, with her story ending on a pretty good note and more wine arriving, I changed topics. After agreeing her intention to repay Zelindo in some way was a commendable one, I went and made up a small anecdote about him in the play. It was a tame version of my first task for him, just without saying that I was actually in his employ, retelling about the crystal cup that turned out to be made of alchemical crystal and his reaction to it.

"Oh, I know about that one! The Maester called the merchant to his office and kicked him out of the Guild. Then, as one of the clerks asked for the reason-" She stopped her story to explain that clerks were due to input the reason of a permission or membership retrieval "-the Maester even laughed for a good deal of time before saying that no idiot incapable of seeing gold when holding it in his hands should be a member."

"Oh, I wish to have been there!" I had supposed Zelindo to be a serious and strict man, maybe even prone to some fits of anger stemming from his usual manner of conduct, but to see him laughing aloud? That could have been an interesting sight.

"Mmm, but you know what was the funniest?" Sanna even moved closer to me, her body inclining over the table, "The man, Prak, while kicked out of the Guild, ended up with a task from the Maester!"

"You don't say!"

"Mmm, and guess what it was?" Probably because of the influence of wine, Sanna didn't even notice how her nose was just some finger from mine as she asked me in a playful tone.

"Well, if I had to guess... It could be either to go and jump from a cliff or to lead someone who knows his stuff to where he got the cup." Honestly, both were equally possible, with the second being more merchant-like but the first appearing more Zelindo-like.

"Not fun! Though you failed, it was both at the same time. To lead one of our experts to the small town where he bought it and, after that, to drown in a well or something." Sanna laughed as she backed up.

***

We would continue on a similar note for some time before I thought about making a move. The slightly tipsy and laughing Sanna was something like a different persona of the same Sanna I knew. She had even started flirting with me openly, starting from stuff like just why I was single and going further up to asking if I wasn't against escorting her home. There was a small detail stopping me from doing anything rash, though. I couldn't be sure that she was actually being herself and not just drunk, no matter how sober she was acting.

But as I record this, though, I find myself cursing for not having rushed everything, as just as I confirmed with Sanna that she actually wanted to take me, a nearly unknown guy along. After all, during my follow-up talks, just as I reached the important stuff, we were rudely interrupted. Okay, maybe not rudely, but once again, someone called out my name, breaking me out of what I was doing!

"Lindar! What a nice surprise! Never expected to meet you around here." A beautiful and melodic voice. Coming from an equally beautiful woman tore apart any thoughts and plans for the night, or at least it would do so, even if I was unaware at that point...