[b]Canada![/b]

"This is the bit where she says [i]No, I work alone, like a mighty timber howling wolf,[/i] and pouts about how she's not in the spotlight for once in her life." #MAT slurps loudly out of her work thermos in the most aggravating way which she is doing on [i]purpose[/i]. There's bad blood here, and really, somebody (anybody) should have known better than to put the two of you in the same room for the foreseeable future. [i]The Canada Safety Area[/i] has been blocked out in tape. It's tiny. And whenever you move out of the CSA #MAT starts yelling at you about delicate cabling work and how she's hard at [i]work[/i] here, [i]Canada[/i].

And she is smart! She's really smart! She's decrypting the Fleet Key you managed to filch off Shamash and that might get you backdoor access into Caphtor herself, but also, god, she is [i]insufferable[/i]. And because you started a fight that you couldn't see through, now you have to stay down here until Marianne gives you the go-ahead to leave. For who knows how long. Without a mirror. Without access to your sanctum. With #MAT.

Mark a Condition from the past, oh, 48 hours of being cooped up in here and try to ignore the, god, she's doing the tapping thing again, she's [i]very definitely[/i] doing that on purpose, it's ever so slightly off beat from what she's humming, somebody make her [i]stop[/i].

***

[b][i]Lamassie![/i][/b]

There are two Lynxes. Two... familiar... Lynxes. Because the Seneschal has made security a priority in the house, and wouldn't you know it? Wouldn't you just know it? Among the reserves called up from the barracks in the Temple of Marduk were these two: Am’met and Visha’an. The two Lynxes who walked you home after you stole the tablets from the Temple of Ishtar. The two Lynxes who made you squeak and squirm and wiggle the whole way back. And you have to walk past them, ignore them, and oh how the two of them are [i]staring[/i]. You can almost [i]hear[/i] their veiled grins.

But ignore them! Because Lady gives you a smile and cups your chin in one delicate, dark-veined golden hand. "Oh, you dear, silly girl," she says, rubbing her other hand all over the top of your head, "where are your darling ears?" Oh no! You forgot your precious triangles! How could you forget, sillyhead?

"I'll get them," Am'met says, so, so helpfully, so quickly, so eagerly. And you almost manage to forget, with Lady's nails lightly parting your taut-pulled hair, the fact that she will, that she must, return. Until she does, and assists Lady in getting those adorable triangles sticking up, framing your high ponytail just so. "She looks just like a kitten," Am'met says, tail flicking like she can see a mouse scurrying across the floor. "Isn't that so, my lady?"

"Yes," Lady says, looping your leash around her wrist. "She is the most beautiful kitten in the whole wide world."

And not even the sound of Visha'an strangling the wild laughter struggling to escape his lips, only audible to your keen ears, can ruin that!