[h3][b][color=a36209]Riss[/color] and Sirius[/b][/h3]

Five seconds pass after Sirius knocked on Riss’ door. No one answers.

Sirius knocks on the door some more and hears the sound of ceramics breaking on the floor. [i]Did something just break? I should check to see if everything’s okay.[/i] He yells, “I’m coming in!” and grasps the doorknob. To his surprise, it opens to reveal a raven that appears just as surprised. It immediately flies about the room, knocking over a potted plant. Sirius manages to catch the pot with a platform of light before it joins the one that he apparently heard fall over earlier. After flying in circles around the room a couple of times cawing like a maniac, the raven eventually settles on the body of a dead cat lying on its back, whose unblinking eyes gives Sirius a playful look.

The sweet imagery of a cat and a bird getting along is immediately ruined when the raven starts pecking at a small opening in the cat’s stomach, pulling out a tiny chunk of offal.

Sirius finds Riss underneath the dead cat, lying stomach-down on his bed with a pillow over his head, held down on either side.

“Riss?” Sirius calls out tentatively. 

Riss pushes the pillow aside and lifts himself up by his elbows, looking behind him so as not to disturb the bird and cat on his back. The raven caws moodily at Sirius anyway. “What?”

“How are you doing?” Sirius asks gently. 

Riss shrugs nonchalantly despite his puffy red eyes. “Cat just died for no good reason, so that’s a bummer.”

“Want to talk about it at all?” Sirius prompts while also returning the pot to its rightful place. He boxes up the broken remains of the pot and funnels it into… another pot. Riss doesn’t appear to own a trash can.

Riss considers Sirius’s question for a moment, then shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not gonna waste your time.” He pulls the duplicate body of his deceased cat off his back so he can turn around and sit up, letting the raven eat from the cat’s corpse in his lap.

Sirius’s expression remains neutral, “It’s not a waste of my time to help someone out.” 

“Save it,” Riss says immediately. “Is that the only reason you came to see me?” Riss should have been a Psyche Mage.

“My main reason, yes,” Sirius replies, “My other reason was that I wanted to ask if you were interested in hunting manabeasts for artifacts.” It would be good for Riss to get his mind off his dead cat. 

“Yes.” Riss says immediately before realizing how he sounded. “On one condition.”

Sirius turns his head quizzically.

“Can you use your light magic to replant this?” Riss gestures to the dirt scattered about his floor and the poor flower trying to cling onto as much of it as it can.

“It won’t be very precise, but I could,” Sirius answers. Light shines around the mess and scoops up allllllllll the dirt. 

Riss sets his dead cat (complete with live bird) down on his bed, then grabs another pot lying around and places the flower in the center of the pot as Sirius pours the dirt in.

“Alright, let’s meet up with everyone now,” Sirius says cheerfully, before Riss even sets the newly potted plant down.

Riss is immediately suspicious of what Sirius is doing here. He didn’t mention other people before, but Riss ultimately discards the thoughts as irrelevant. He takes steps towards the door to give the illusion he’s following Sirius before closing the door partially so Sirius can’t see what he’s about to do next.

Going back to his bed, he picks up the dead cat and holds its face to his, cuddling it. “I’ll miss you.”

Riss sets the dead cat in the flower pot, leaving his bird to have at it. He quickly grabs some gardening tools to fight manabeasts with, tossing them in a backpack and leaving his room to catch up with Sirius, who walked a short ways away already.

When they enter the cafeteria, Sirius waves a hand at the group and exclaims, “Hey guys, Riss is joining us!”

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