May Peace Grace Us

The sun was quite high when Aila–a twenty-five-year-old sales lady, had left her workplace. Brown hair fell upon her shoulders after she let them loose from the restrictive bun that held them in place. Stretching her arms as she shook her head to chase away the sleepiness that came to her. Today was a half-day workday for her as well as her last day of work. She had requested it a few weeks ago in exchange for overtime before the day came. Thankfully, it was granted to her, considering that the boss–her long-time friend, didn't want to allow it for so long. It took a long time for her to convince the man. With all the relief, she was able to persuade him in the end. For all honesty, her friend has more than enough reasons to restrain her to stay. With her tendency to disappear, their circle of friends has long had a tactic of understanding in regards to the matter of looking after her. Aila's family are not a good bunch and they do their best to safely guard their friend the best they could. Aila knew how much they cared. She liked to stay, but leaving them was an unavoidable choice that Aila had to make. With the gentle wind caressing upon her face, Aila breathed a calming deep breath. The date today was a special day. It's her fourth year of being fully independent from all that stuff about home. Her resignation was influenced by her family circumstances, even if she duly loved her short time as a saleslady. she needed to say goodbye as soon as she entered into the job. A week ago, Aila noticed a few signs of the family finding her latest place. Her friend did know of her chaotic home life and helped her take this job to support herself, but she never told him that she had run away from home. Feeling quite upset with this situation at hand, she planned the day to be a little celebration on her part by buying some milk tea from her favorite store. "This time they still didn't know that I had quit my job in Raffy's store. They cannot make a fuss as I'm no longer there. Hopefully, Raffy will understand my reasons by that time. Sadly, this might be the last I can taste this savory goodness" Travelling to another city was not easy and she needed to move fast. She didn't want to live by those strict rules back home, so she could only run again and again. The adjusting was hard, but for the past four years she has gotten used to it. Sometimes it makes her sad, leaving the people she had made bonds with, but it is for the best of two worlds. She then took another job, with a different name, and she will now live with a completely new identity in a place she thinks is safely far away from the chaos her life is. With how fast paced and ever changing her lifestyle is, sometimes she has some issues that she cannot tell others. So she turned to making novels. Books have always been her companion. From a young age she loved to read and it was her escape from the dynamics of her ever-controlling parents. The day of her breaking away, the stories were her only friends and the ones that helped her keep relatively sane at the beginning of her rebellion. Now she makes novels under the pseudonym of Kathrine Claire with the pen name of L.A Lass. She made sure that her name was not associated with any pseudonym she used when working in various industries. She really cannot afford to be caught after she tasted this hard-earned freedom. Thankfully, she has some talent with words and her books have given her some money. The earnings from these stories were used to fund her whenever she needed to move and support her when she still didn't have a new job to support herself. For now, this is how she is supporting herself. It has been three days since she moved to the next city. She found a relatively affordable apartment and is now arranging her few personal items. She still cannot go and take a new job, so she might as well write a new story for her readers. Setting her laptop upon the coffee table near the window, she made herself some tea. Retrieving some store-bought cookies she had left the day before to pair with her tea. Over the years, she had made many stories even before she had run away from home. Honestly, she remembered her stories well enough, but she cringed upon the immature parts of her older stories. Especially her very first novel, a Romcom novel, it can't be denied that it was quite a g********l seeing that it was published as a physical book six years ago. It was very cliché and she tries not to do the same in her other books. Therefore, she tried different genres each time she wrote a new book. So far she still hasn't made an eastern cultivation novel that was on the rise a few years back. With that she decided to research its elements to write her own cultivation novel. After all, readers might like classical works, the market is always ever-changing. She has to keep up with the trends in order to meet up with the demands of the industry. She sought help from her readers in their private group chat. They knew the trend enough and recommended a few good ones. And her little ask for recommendation gives her readers some idea of her next project, making them excited about it being published on the web. She found her readers quite cute and often indulged them with some fanservice in the actual book and free giveaways from her own pocket. Of course, not all of them and each time was in the form of raffles, but it was enough to keep them happy. Sometimes she surprises them with things like incorporating their ideas into the book and thanking them in the afterwords of her works. Of course, in their usernames on the site she publishes her stories. She spent a whole afternoon reading some of the recommendations and made an outline of how it is usually done. By five, she calls it enough reading. She still needs to prepare her dinner after all. She took a look in her fridge and cupboards before deciding to head out to eat outside for today. Getting some groceries afterwards seemed to be a good idea. Her stock of food is empty, looking enough to remind her of how poor she is at the moment. It's not that she's really poor, but her miser self is just hurting to be spending more money than necessary. She had a budget for the week and she just spent it all on settling down in this new city. It was unexpected and quite an understandable reason to use some extra funds. Thinking about what's the use of money if she's starving, her stomach made an answer for her. She took her notebook for notes of her ideas, deciding that an interesting material for her book might be found on her little journey to the nearest diner to her apartment. She also made a call to her editor to discuss her new book. She already has a rough plot in mind and her editor is good at helping her organize it. The person in question was jovial when she made a call regarding her plans and scheduled a meeting a week from now on. She had a friendly relationship with her editor and she often told the woman of her current location in case a situation happened. She trusts her enough to know of her current circumstances and help her when needed. So far, Ms. Editor has yet to fail her. Aila was content and happy with this kind of life she had. But she never expected that she would forever be longing for these types of moments. Things that are often taken for granted are nothing but luxury for anyone in a troubled world vanity. She never made it to the scheduled meeting. Next she knew she was born anew in a familiar and strange and familiar world. And that world thoroughly changed her view of life and the world.