Aery had barely taken a glimpse at her folder before she slammed it closed again. Her charm was already glowing fairly brightly, as she was sitting just about right in front of her Soulmate; there was no way out of this. She got a grip on her emotions (the damned things were deliberately TRYING to shame her, it seemed) and flipped it open again long enough to register who her Soulmate was. Alastair Eirwen, a physician. He was kind of nice-looking. No, Aery, it's not about attraction, you don't WANT to be attracted to him. Attraction is an emotion and is therefore bad; the only thing you want in your life is the no-nonsense logic of the scientific method. No messy human emotions, certainly no messy human relationships, just the cold acutely tangible matter of science. Stop. Analyze. Consider. Act. Review. Stop Analyze Consider Act Review. Over and over in her head, her mantra, until she could put everything under her mask and turn in her seat to smile politely, if blandly, at Alastair.
"Hello. Are you Alastair? I believe you and I have been matched." She held up her brightly glowing charm, an enameled representation of a strand of DNA, as evidence.

Annalyn was terribly nervous. She'd just messed with the system and apparently not been caught. She had handed all of her charms over to be delivered and had seen all of the non-matched ones leave the town hall, which meant that James was probably going to be looking for her. And no one had stopped her. The charm felt very heavy in her pocket. But she forced herself to act confident, like she wasn't breaking the rules. If you act normal they'll think your normal. She thought it to herself over and over again as she walked through town, not even noticing as her charm started glowing as she made her way towards the crowd still leaving the Town Hall.