Sunny looked up at the silky sound of a bell and froze, nearly falling over in shock. He quickly continued walking attempting to conceal his discomfort.
When he saw the woman who had walked in. Sunny barely kept his composure. The smile on his face grew strained but he kept his footing and finished serving a table before retreating into the kitchen. There, he finally collapsed.
His memory was exceptional back as a mundane human, and now as a saint it was just about perfect. The only person who could rival the clarity and detail of his memories was Cassie, whose new powers revolved around them.
As such, the moment Morgan walked through the door he glanced across the room and froze. She had blond hair and blue eyes, and her appearance had changed after transcendence, but the eerily similar visage of her dreadful brother was imprinted deeply on his mind.
Morgan, the princess of Valor, one of the two sword sisters and a saint sitting on the top rung of power and influence, had entered his store. There was no room for doubt.
'Why is she here!?' Sunny was panicking, going through every possible reason in his head.
'Has she come to bring me to Valor? No, I haven't presented good enough expertise to warrant an initiation from the princess herself. Wait…' Sunny's eyes widened.
'Did she figure out my connection to the Lord of Shadows!?' He felt the sudden urge to shadow step halfway across the dream realm into the nearest death zone but held himself back.
'No, if Valor somehow found out that I'm the Lord of Shadows, they would've sent a lot more than Morgan in casual clothes.'
In Morgan's case, 'casual clothes' was a relative term. She was still wearing the tailored suit and molded leather gloves to mitigate the effects of her flaw.
'But why is her presence so weak?' In his panic, Sunny failed to realise that she had been relatively unassuming, even lacking her usual sharp presence.
'Now that I think about it, her appearance is unreliable in my memories.' He began to doubt himself. He couldn't think of any reason for Morgan herself to enter his cafe, and so he began to believe there was none.
The fact that no one else had reacted made him even more unsure, but soon he shook off his doubt.
The first moment he saw her, he recognised her, he only started to have his doubts afterwards. Sunny trusted himself and his ability to recognise people, he wouldn't make such a mistake.
'Some kind of charm?' Morgan was clearly wearing a charm that could change her hair and eye colour, but it seemed to come with additional effects.
'Why would she come in with a charm that hides her presence and protects her identity?' Her motives still eluded him.
'There's only one way to find out,' He sighed and took a step out of the kitchen, finally composed.
***
Morgan had originally only been using the passive effects of her charm, but upon entering the cafe she decided to take an extra layer of caution.
She guided herself to a table and sat down, fiddling with the pendant tied around her neck.
She found herself waiting in anticipation, and tried to distract herself from her unnaturally amplified emotions.
She turned to her charm, she had received it from the spell a while ago but rarely ever used it.
Shimmering runes appeared in front of her, detailing the existence of the unassuming pendant resting on her neck.
Memory: Unfamiliar Face
Memory Rank: Ascended
Memory Description: [There was a king that grew disheartened with his role, his people expected him to solve all their problems for them despite his efforts to inspire responsibility within them. He grew distant, appearing less in public, until one day the kingdom lost its king.
Panic spread quickly among the officials and even quicker among the civilians. They sent out search parties and investigations, but to no avail. Their king never returned. As the last competent official, the king's disappearance spelled the fall of the kingdom.
He watched, he listened, and he felt sadness and some guilty relief as he watched the kingdom fall. For he had never left, he was by their side all along.]
Morgan had a vague interest in the history of the dream realm; she enjoyed learning the stories of kingdoms past when they came, but never went out to seek them herself.
'Disgusting…' Whenever she read this particular extract, Morgan felt a mixture of loathing and jealousy towards the nameless king. How she wished she could abandon her responsibilities and live a normal life, and how she detested those that had forsaken their duties.
The appearance of the memory was unassuming, it was a small silhouette of a face cast in silver and was strung on a brass chain. It resembled an upside-down teardrop due to its lack of features.
The memory itself wasn't very interesting. It could change the appearance of the wearer passively, but could also mask their presence and make them forgettable as an active enchantment.
Granted, the active enchantment took a large amount of essence to sustain, but the charm was merely ascended, everything was relative in the world of awakened.
Morgan as a saint could maintain the effects of the charm at only a little bit above the rate in which in her essence regenerated, she could sustain it for days.
The charm was practical, and she was rather fond of it, but it had little to no use in battle and in politics. She felt a dull sadness over the fact that her entire life was built on battle, politics and war, and she could rarely ever use her charm.
Morgan pulled her attention away from the memory, the runes retreated as she looked up.
'Oh, I see'' Morgan found herself staring at a beautiful porcelain doll with raven black hair and alabaster skin. A small smile crept onto her face.
'The eye candy cafe… I think I might come here more often.'