Approximately three hours later Sinistra was in the utility room when she heard the front door opening. She put the broom aside to approach her housemate. In the meantime, she had not just cleaned the bathroom but also her own room and the corridor. She had even cleaned the windows from outside. Now she was close to being annoyed because the shopping tour had taken so long.
"Thank you again for helping me!" she heard Eternia say and a male voice answered: "You're welcome, of course. Eternia, have fun in your new house, I will miss you in the guesthouse."
Sinistra stopped dead in her tracks, thunderstruck. Who was that?
"Ha ha, you're such a flatterer!" Eternia laughed and the front door opened and closed again.
There were noises outside. Sinistra went to the window and peeked outside.
"See you, Mister Wirtz!"
Sinistra just catched a glimpse of a departing van. Eternia was standing downstairs in the garden, ringed by more boxes and a pink shelf, and waved the driver goodbye.
Sinistra quickly went downstairs to help carry everything inside.
"Hello Eternia! Good to see you again, finally!" There was a hint of criticism in her voice. The corridor was full of paint buckets and bags of other material, and Eternia just hauled another moving box inside.
"Hey, Sinistra! Sorry, so much happened! Lend me a hand for a minute, yes? There's more of my stuff outside. Can you move the paint stuff to the livingroom while I carry my items over to my room?"
"Yes, sure..."
Shortly after everything was done and Eternia prepared the livingroom for the paint job. She skillfully folded a paper hat and put it on while talking about her day. "That's a truly crazy story! When I was at the hardware store, all of a sudden I ran into my landlord who was there to buy new carpet!"
"You mean our landlord?"
"No, I mean the guy in whose boarding house I stayed until now."
"Ah, I see."
"When he saw all the stuff I had to haul he offered me to help me out with his van. And since the boarding house is just halfway to here I was able to use my charm and get him to stop there to get my boxes too. Now I just have to go there one last time tomorrow to fetch the last of my stuff."
"Oh, now that's perfect!"
"No, it would have been perfect if he had waived me the rent for the rest of the week." Eternia grimaced unhappily. "And if a man my age would have helped me instead of this nice family man."
Sinistra rolled her eyes.
"Now hop to it! We have to start painting before it gets too late. First of all, we have to cover everything up with foil and then..." The blonde looked at Sinistra. "Say, don't you have any other clothes? I guarantee you that you'll have to throw these away later, they'll be full of stains thanks to your fluffy skirt."
Sinistra said: "I hate to interrupt you, but actually I have something to report, too."
"Oh, really? So what is it? Has a neighbour dropped by? Or is the loo clogged or something else broken that we have to report?"
"No, it's something completely different." Sinistra smiled. "Eternia, do you like red stone floor?"
"Err... yes, I guess so. Why?" Eternia was confused.
Now it was the elementalist's turn to put on a wicked grin. "Hm, so how about you paint the room alone and I'll take care of getting rid of the wooden floor in the kitchen?"
"Are you making fun of me?!" Eternia blurted out. "How do you plan to chance the flooring?! We neither have the material nor the money for that. And red stone floor? Do you have any idea what floortiles cost?!"
"Let me phrase it like this... I had a little talk with an element. If you trust me for a while I promise to take care of everything."
"Uhm... okay. I have no idea what you're scheming, but I can take on the ceiling alone. Just no tomfoolery, okay!"
"Don't worry, I didn't won my elementalist diploma in the lottery!"
Eternia had just painted the first batch when the rumbling started. The house slightly shivered and through the ceiling came the sound of bursting wood and loud creaking and rumbling.
"What the...?!" Eternia froze. "What's this loony doing there?! She's not breaking down the kitchen, is she?!"
"Sinistra!" she yelled through the open door. "What the heck are you doing there?!"
The rumbling stopped. "Don't worry, everything is going according to plan!" was the answer shortly after. "Just keep painting!"
After this the noise continued.
Eternia gulped and went back to work. Whatever Sinistra was doing there, it was too late to stop here anyway. If she actually tore down the floor then it was destroyed now. Grimly Eternia declared to herself that - in that case - she would let Sinistra bleed down to her last cent to renovate the kitchen.
It took Eternia about 60 minutes to paint the whole ceiling. However, the only reason she was that fast was because the creaking and rumbling didn't stop and she was dying to know what was going on there. She was even convinced that for quite some time now things went through the kitchen window down into the backyard with the trashcans. Although there wasn't a window downstairs at the same spot she clearly heard muffled noises whenever something hit the ground.
A few minutes ago the noise suddenly stopped.
"So, this looks sweet! Even if Sinistra ruined the kitchen now, this room is gorgeous now!" Eternia looked around smugly. Yep, she did a very good job and didn't even leave any paint spots. 'I'm brilliant as a diamond.' she thought with a grimace while she tromped upstairs to the kitchen.
Dolltopia 0008 <- # -> Dolltopia 0010