[Private] City of Circumstance

In the demanding world of academia one had precious little free time; when there wasn't class students were expected to do homework or research to further expand their intellectual horizons. And with all the years of experience she had doing just that, Alice should've been prepared for such a studious existence; instead she had taken to finding any excuse to avoid it. Always the outsider back home, she feared that loneliness in the already unfamiliar city; so her time was spent in the company of classmates, hoping that they might accept her.

Perhaps they sensed her desperation, or else they just saw an easy target; before she knew it, Alice had become their courier, running to and fro at their behest. If she wasn't doing chores then jokes were being had at her expense. But she stifled her feelings, wore a smile on her face; if that was the price to save her from isolation, so be it. It was at the request of her so called "friends" that she'd gone to the market. How she despised that place with its bustling streets bursting at the seams, the noise of merchants peddling their wares over the endless stream of conversations, not to mention the exorbitant prices. At least they'd had the decency to pay for their own groceries, she sighed, teke jingling her coin purse reassuringly. She hadn't the slightest inkling how anyone could afford to live in Nariah; if her housing hadn't been provided by the school, then her being there would've been out of the question entirely. As it stood with food and books she was spread alarmingly thin; her father had sent all he could afford, and she didn't have the heart to tell him that it would barely get her through the month. She would have to find a job of her own if she wanted to stay, or else she might starve to death before midterms.

Purchasing everything on the list she'd been given, she was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a stranger's body suddenly rammed into her; the shock knocked her off balance, sending everything tumbling to the ground. She scrambled to save the food before it was trampled underhoof, as the culprit simply disappeared back into the crowd.