Freida Anemone's Story

Sleep. Wonderful, blissful, sleep.

That was all that Acedia wanted to do. He was tired and the alcohol he had consumed the night previous was still in his system. Since he wasn't human, he didn't really suffer from hang overs and he really had to drink a whole lot before he even felt a buzz. It was awful money-wise but he didn't really care about his growing 'tab'. They wouldn't be here for too much longer really and so the loss of money wasn't really a deter for him. Considering the amount of cans and glasses strewn in the dorm one would think he had gone to Lust's concert but he hadn't. He said he would, but he never made it there. Acedia was the least reliable of the bunch and Acedia was sure that his 'brother' would understand.

Acedia yawned and stretched against his bed and turned to glance at the clock. He squinted a bit to get the digital numbers in focus. 8 o'clock. AM. He had class with the Big Bad Boss at 8:30 but why bother? He lived in hell. He worked for the Devil. What more could he learn from a class that was centered on something he was living? Besides, class was really boring and it was early. Lucifer really should have made the class later in the day. Maybe then Acedia would be remotely inclined to attend such a thing. As it was, curling up in his nice soft bed sounded much more appealing to Sloth.

The sin gave a yawn and rolled back onto his right side and pulled the covers over his head to go back to sleep. Yeah, this was the better option. If he went to class, he'd fall asleep in the hard chair anyway. At least this way Mr. Boss-man didn't have to come over to his desk and startle him awake every 10 minutes. Less annoying for everyone involved. See? Acedia could problem solve when he wanted to.

He didn't get to remain where he was however.

Lucy was one to always be punctual to her favorite class though that didn't stop her from making an annoyingly necessary stop beforehand. She didn't bother knocking on the door knowing the little Sloth would be too lazy to come an answer the door anyways. Lucy simply barged straight in calmly and composed as she always was as she entered the room. She was not one to pull covers and make a grueling amount of noise like some of the others tasked with retrieving Sloth. No, Lucy instead took the chair from the rarely used desk and pulled it at the edge of the bed.

She sat down with her legs crossed and watched the lazy Sin sleep hidden away in his shield of covers. She examined her nails and let out a very audible sigh. "I'm only going to warn you once to get out and come to class." Lucy waited for his response hoping he understood by now that one warning was fair enough before she would decide to use her powers on him.

Acedia groaned when he heard Lucy and curled up tighter under the covers for a moment. He would ignore her and most of the time, he did ignore her. Today however, he really didn't want to have to deal with a painful wake up call. If Lucy decided to use her powers on him, he was going to be in pain and the ache was sadly residual. He gave an exasperated sigh and pulled the covers away from his head and glared at her.

"Bastard. Always ruining my sleep," he mused. "Fine, fine. I am up." He slowly pulled himself out of the bed and zombied over to his mirror and ran his fingers through his hair to somewhat comb it back before he pulled on a pair of jeans sitting on the floor and a wrinkled black T-shirt. He gave another yawn and slung his tiny back-pack over his shoulder. "There. Ready," he answered. He did not wait for Lucy though. He just started to make his way to the classroom slowly. He was sure Lucy would get there before him if she wanted to be there on time. And surprisingly, he ended up in the classroom only a minute late. He plopped down on the first empty seat he found and stared at Lucifer with a bored expression on his face, head resting on his hand.
~~~

Freida sat in her seat, her manicured baby pink pinky nail tapping on her lush bottom lip. She didn't normally take morning patients since most students had classes at this time, but there were a couple who she always saw in the morning. One of them, a girl, was sitting in a chair across from the virtue pretending to be a Clinical Psychologist. The poor dear was dealing with a lot of stress at home and this stress was not being helped at all with the appearance of the sins. Even though she was not one of the seven chosen humans, she was being affected by their aura and the occasional attention she did get from them. She needed quite a bit of healing.

"I see," she said softly and let her graceful hand write out the new development in the girl's life. Not only did she have her parents in the hospital, she was now facing a potential break up with a boy she had known for two years. Besides her depression of course. That was probably one of the things causing some of this boy trouble. Damn Acedia's power so easily ebbed over the masses without him even truly interacting half the time. Truly, a sin that required absolutely no effort to persuade people. She was happy the sloth never actually applied himself.

"So the problem is centering around the fact that you do not want to go out much anymore?" Patience asked just to clarify.

The young girl nodded. "I just... I don't want to go out. I am tired all the time. And just going to the movies is boring. I end up falling asleep and he gets mad that he spent money on the tickets for me to fall asleep."

"What do you think would solve this problem the two of you are having? If you don't want to go to the movies, what would you like to do?"

"I don't know. There is no communication anymore. He says I am no fun."

"So it is more about communication and interacting?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. What do you think you can do to help improve that?" She asked, each word she uttered extending her Holly Voice to help dispel some of the fog that Acedia had left on the girl. A lot of it was the tiredness. She was losing more and more desire to do things so even if she came up with a solution, she would be unmotivated to do anything about it. She needed a bit of a boost. The girl heaped a big sigh, some of the creases in her face fading a bit as she calmed.

"Well... I guess we could hang out at home and talk. Or we could go out to a lunch or something. That is kind of a middle ground. I should probably answer some of his texts too. That way he doesn't think I am ignoring him," she said with a nod. "I could.. I could text him and make the arrangement to a restaurant this time. That will show him that I am still interested."

"All right. That sounds like a good idea. I want to see how you improve your communication with him next week and see if things have changed."

"Okay. Thank you Dr. Anemone."

"You are welcome. Your session is just about over. Is there anything else I can help you with today before you head off to your classes?"

"No. That was all for today."

"All right then. I will see you next week. Have a good day," Freida smiled and sat up in her chair, her blond hair up in a professional and elegant bun.

The student gave a nod before hurrying out of the room.

Freida sighed softly and looked down at her schedule. They needed to stay on their toes. They had to undo all the mess the sins had created before they could really start to sway the 7 powerful humans. They needed to work fast. Thus far, she had seen very little of the seven since they did not yet require mental help. She wasn't going to be able to influence them directly unless they came into the office. Ah well. She was getting Intel at least. It appeared that she mostly had to help those around the 7. Other humans seemed to be more susceptible to the charms of sin and virtue alike. The 7 would be harder to reach. And they were all currently in Lucifer's classroom. Most of the sins would be there and their combined efforts would be quite daunting. At least some of the virtues were there to keep the basic aura stable. She did so wish they didn't have a class with Lucifer but there was nothing they could do about that. At least Michael was also a teacher to help balance that situation out. She was going to have to talk to the others about Acedia's reach over the students in general and of course Lust's parading around. In her book, those were the two that could cause the most collateral damage emotionally. Well, they could all be rather damaging but generally speaking, she saw Lust and Sloth as the two that could reach many people at once.

"So much to do and so little time," she mused softly.