As an immortal witch, time doesn't matter to Kataria. Whether something takes 1 minute, 1 day, 1 year, or even a millenium, all is the same to her existence, unaffected by the sands of time.
Ok, a millenium may be pushing it a bit, but you get the idea.
Just last century, she spent the better half of a decade writing Magic Circle Mastery Vol MMMCXLIV: An advanced guide on Automated Circles for the optimization of complex magitools -- her (in her opinion) greatest book yet. Not that anyone's read it other than her. Two thousand years after beginning her solitary life, she spent several hundreds of years doing nothing but compressing her mana, concentrating it down into a pure, unbridled force so different from the original substance, she dubbed it "aetheric matter" -- an action necessary to emphasize the sheer difference in nature.
The point is, she's used to spending long periods of time on mundane tasks.
Unfortunately, being used to that doesn't make such things any less mundane.
"...So loooooooooong... so bored..."
Kataria spun in the air, lazily drifting around like a cloud. Her hat stuck to her head, refusing to fall off despite her near-horizontal orientation.
"Complaining won't make the line any shorter. Besides, we're nearly at the end."
"I know."
Glaring at the stone-faced girl next to her, she sighed loud enough to elicit several annoyed glances from the surrounding people. An aspect of life she had long forgotten about was currently testing her patience: waiting in line to be checked at the gate of a highly populated city. Not having to deal with such a thing for millenia rendered its existence, well, nonexistent in her mind.
It didn't help that today was a particularly busy day. Luckily enough time had passed that they were almost to the gate, but it made no difference for Kataria.
Annoying things are annoying, after all. Like Rose.
Kataria cleared her throat. "You said this place was... Sanguine City, no?"
"Indeed."
"Hmph," she snorted, "What an apt name."
Looking through the city walls, she was greeted by... blood-red. The buildings. The roads. The aforementioned walls. The flowers. All of it was a bloody red color.
'Not as red as my eyes, though,' Kataria thought to herself, taking pride in that fact for some reason.
"My employer, Lady Valerie Valentine," Rose started, grabbing the witch's attention. "Not many people are aware of this, but she is a vampire. A quite eccentric one, at that."
Oh. Now that's interesting.
For the first time since her last visit to Kataria's tower, Rose's stoic face broke. "She has a... love for blood. And not just drinking it. The color. The consistency. The smell, the way it dries -- everything about blood, she loves it."
Oh.
"Her... interests," Rose covered her face with her hands, blushing with an irritated expression, "They greatly influenced her when she was designing this city."
Kataria raised an eyebrow. "You talk of this vampire noble as if you're familiar with her."
"That I am, unfortunately." Rose sighed, "I think she chose me to find you because she knew it'd be troublesome no matter how the task went. She probably wanted to annoy me, but... she does pay well, I suppose. And the side jobs she gave me during this time helped a lot, too."
The immortal witch graciously ignored the fact she was indirectly called troublesome. Mostly because she had something else to worry about right now.
"Next!"
Sharp voices boomed as a startled Kataria flinched in place, head snapping towards the source. Two lightly armored men stood in front of the gatehouse, wielding long polearms. The witch steeled herself as she prepared for more social interaction with people she didn't know.
Then, she opened her mouth.
"Greetings-!"
"Hello, good sirs."
...And promptly closed it as her introduction was cut off by Rose, who strode ahead to the guards and raised her hand in a friendly wave, leaving behind her embarrassment from the previous conversation.
The guard on the left grinned. "Good to see you again. I take it you finally had some luck with that errand of yours?"
"Yes," she nodded, beckoning towards the witch floating approximately five meters away, still looking dejected over her botched introduction. "This is Kataria. She's been living disconnected from society for a while, but Lady Valentine wants her to pay taxes for living on her land. I brought her here so she can get a job, or at the very least earn some money."
Watching Rose signal towards her, Kataria floated over to the guards after a second of hesitation.
Following a brief pause, she opened her mouth again, hands on her hips.
"Greetings, mor-!"
"Oh, right," Rose interrupted, taking something out of her jacket, a card-like thing, and handing it to the guard on the right. "Here's my identification. Kataria doesn't have one yet, but I can vouch for her identity, so you can go ahead with the procedures to get her all sorted out."
"Sounds good," said the guard on the right. "You're free to enter, Rose. Miss Kataria, please enter the building off to the right."
"...Ah... yeah. Sure."
Two chairs. A table. A blonde, in-uniform girl sitting on a chair across the table from her. A room, with stone walls and narrow windows, containing two chairs on each end of a table. And a girl, in-uniform, in the chair, on the end of the table. And...
The gears in Kataria's brain whirred in overdrive, metaphorical steam billowing off the top of her head as she attempted, with little success, to process the situation in front of her. Ignore that such metaphorical steam would get stuck under her hat.
She was fine dealing with Rose, as much as she would hate to admit it. That girl exuded such an overwhelmingly casual atmosphere that Kataria was almost put at ease with her, if it weren't for the fact that she was so damn annoying.
The setting she now found herself in was formal. Procedural. There were stakes, as little as they theoretically would mean to her. By all means, she could work her magic, and the situation would be as good as gone. But such a thing was...
...Not appropriate given the responsibilities that belong to the greatest of all witches. Maybe.
"Good afternoon. My name is Theresa, and I'll be assisting you in registering for an ID."
Going with the flow, she introduced herself in a humble way, feeling it would ease an otherwise painful process.
Just kidding.
"Greetings, girl," she paused, the continued happily due to the lack of an interruption, "I am Kataria, the Endspeaking Witch!"
Theresa blinked, mouth open just a tad, surely in astonishment of her esteemed self.
"...Ooookay. It's, ehm, nice to meet you... Miss Kataria." She coughed, face twitching. "I'll be asking you a quick three questions here, just about some information that's required for you to receive your ID. Usually there'd be more, but Miss Rose vouched for you, soooo... we can skip all of that!"
"Hmph, of course, of course. As long as these questions are not unreasonable, ask away."
"...pfft...ha..."
Kataria thought she heard something mildly offensive for a moment, but was too busy mentally preparing herself for the upcoming questions to bother addressing it.
"A-alright," Theresa fished out a paper and pencil from her pocket, "To start, if you could give me your full name and date of birth, that would be great."
Easy questions. "My full name is Kataria Zerda, born on... born... eh, e-u-I, uh, um..."
"..."
"...I don't remember! And I don't see how such a question is relevant for this ID card you talk about!"
Amazingly, she self destructed less than a minute into the conversation.
"Uh, ahem, no need to worry," Theresa waved her hand dismissingly. "While a name is necessary, the exact date of birth can be left unknown. There are often cases where people don't keep track of that for some reason or another."
Good news for the witch, who had a relieved smile creep onto her face.
"For the second question," the girl stated, watching as the witch's smile disappeared, "I'll need your height, weight, and though it may be obvious, I'll have you repeat your occupation for me as well. If you don't happen to remember those measurements, we can take them here on the spot."
"How presumptious, to imply I might not remember such details..." Kataria muttered to herself before flinching and righting herself in the air after bumping into the table. "149 centimeters, not counting the ears, and 38 kilograms. And, as should be obvious, I am a witch -- the one and only Endspeaking Witch." She brought her hands to her hips and smiled, somewhat smugly.
"...Not counting the ears?" Theresa blinked, gleaming eyes drifting towards the oversized witch hat.
Seeing her sight going upwards, the little witch tugged down on her hat in a seemingly protective manner. "You don't get to see my ears. And I'm not taking off my hat. Especially not for one with interests such as you."
"O-oh, no, that's perfectly fine. My apologies," she muttered, laughing it off, yet still shooting occasional longing glances towards the hat. "The third, and last thing... I'll need to know your species. If you want, this can also be kept unknown. Although uncommon, there have been cases in the past where it's led to trouble."
"Oh, I've long transcended the point where species has any bearing on this life of mine."
"Alrigh-"
"But, if you must know..." Kataria drawled, "...then I am a Vulpes, a Foxkin."
As the floating girl spoke, Theresa noticed the witch's robes twitch- no, something under the robes. A tail... ah! She shook her head, flinging away such unnecessary thoughts as she finished writing the information on the paper.
Kataria watched, feeling a sense of victory as the girl in front of her stood up, putting the paper and pencil back into her pocket. Such questions were childsplay for a witch of her calibre.
"Well, that'll do it for today," the girl started, pulling a small disc out of another pocket and handing it to her. "Feel free to enter the city. Just be sure to pay us a visit if this transmitter starts vibrating. It'll take us a couple days to process this information, so this thing will let you know when your ID card's all ready."
The witch grabbed the disc, promptly stuffing it into a bag hidden within the depths of her robe.
Theresa swore the bag was too small to fit such an object, but was preoccupied with imagining a pair of fox ears and a tail on the witch in front of her.
Before she knew it, the witch had floated through the open window into the city, eyes gleaming with recognition (and annoyance) as she spotted what seemed to be her companion.
...
Theresa's face melted into a smile.
"...So cute..."
I was so close to delete this out of my list. Glad I didn't. Hope the next ten months don't stretch too long.
I kinda wish, her social awkwardness is going to lead her not having the money at te end of the month and then making a big deal out of not having to pay. Especially if she realizes that she would every month have to deal with this nuisance. Mostly, because I think she's somewhat right with having older rights in the territory and that I favor her position. You can't just build a town around the tower and call the living god inside to pay you. Mhm!
On another note, I'm still asking myself if 5 days to make more money with a mundane job than the adventuress made in the whole month by repeatedly walking back to the tower to get her eventual due from the noble is in any way realistic.
I thoight this would be put in the great forgotten hub section of this site but damn i missed this story.
Finally I've been waiting for so long 😭😭😭😭