Livelihood - Panda

There’s something Panda always wanted to do: be useful. Not that it was demanded of her. No, not at all. However, she could just feel the disappointment Briar emanated, everytime Panda developed a new magic tier. All of them were so far from useful for Briar’s work. She was aware Briar didn’t mean to let her know about how disappointed they were. Yet Briar was so easy to read.

Panda sighed, looking at her prized fishes. All bought by Briar.  With their hard earned money. Money they didn’t want to spend.

She was found by Tala when she was almost a tabula rasa. She was starting to find herself and her word focus. Tala was great, and she didn’t seem to expect anything from Panda.

Still she introduced Panda to Briar, since Briar was looking for paralogos with a water-related focus. Briar was so excited, Panda just couldn’t say no when they proposed Panda lived in Briar’s house. House and laboratory. To help them study options to unpollute the water from Sermos.

Briar had high hopes for Panda. Yet Panda’s focus was a specific fish, one that wasn’t even found in the wild, only in expensive pet shops. She couldn’t help with polluted water. She couldn’t help find a clean body of water, where wild fishes could thrive. She could only find pet shops, who hold her beautiful word focus.

At first, Briar was excited to help Panda develop her magic. She had high hopes. She didn’t try to hide it, at first. When she got her locating gold panda mollies magic. Briar was ecstatic. She was sure they would be able to locate them in the wild. And with them, clean bodies of water.

However, it was easy to discover Pand only could locate pet shops. Exotic pet shops that sold those fishes. The first time, Briar was sure it was a fluke. The second time, Briar was disappointed, but still had hopes. Third time's the charm. But it wasn’t. And Briar started to hide her emotions around Panda. To not show how disappointed they were.

Panda wasn’t useful for Briar research. She kept trying to develop her magic more and more. Hoping she would find a magic that was useful for Briar. But she got to the highest magic she could, and nothing useful happened.

It was the worst feeling she experienced. She was moved by the hope she would be useful for Briar somehow. And yet, it didn’t happen.

With that in mind, Panda did what she usually did. She had stood up from her bed, careful to not wake up anyone around her. Especially Goldie, who was used to sleep with her. She slowly, making sure no sound was made, made her way to the tiny pool inside Briar’s home. And it was always Briar’s home, never her home. Maybe it never would be.

She entered the pool. She always felt so comfortable in the water. Like that was the place where she should be. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about Briar. About being a disappointment. About not being good enough to be there.

She always tried to meditate. To clear her mind and not think. But it never worked as intended. Soon enough her mind was full of the worst thoughts: she should leave. No one wanted her there. She was a weight to everyone around her.

She sighed again. And tried to rationalize. She was loved. Goldie loved her. Tala loved her. Both made sure she always knew that. Those people wanted her around. She was a weight to people, yeah, that she couldn’t rationalize away. But she did her best to be useful. And hopefully it was enough.

When the first steps around the house could be heard. Panda would, as always, leave the pool. She would dry herself, be sure to not make a mess with her dripping body. Then she would prepare herself to do her chores.

No one asked it of her. No one needed to. She wasn’t useful for Briar’s research, so she needed to be useful for something else. She would spend her day cleaning the house, making sure their library had the books in the correct order, and that they all were in good condition: no sign of termites. She sometimes would have nightmares about having termites on the house, all the books damaged by them.

She shuddered thinking about it. She was always meticulous to not let them make their home in the library. After everything was cleaned and dusted. Everything was spotless and clean. Panda would go to the aquarium room, where her little fishes were. All gold panda mollies. All beautiful and perfect.

Her favorite part of the day. She would just observe the fishes, doing their fish things. Goldie would always find her at that point. And they would both sit down together and watch the fishes. It was a good day. She felt useful. And she felt at peace.