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Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

oh, we started
I'll try and get a post up tonight

@Rune_Alchemist

Ruuune

Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

Talulah Fourier

& Trifoliata

---

In a past life, Talulah might have thought hunting criminals would itself have been a criminal misuse of her skills. Even now, it still twinged a minor annoyance in her, but she was able to recognize that it was a civic duty as a witch, especially one well-suited for tracking such as herself. Looking among her companions, she didn’t think the same of the others, though—the black-haired girl could only think what a motley group of girls this operation had thrown together.

She could see one of the other witches throwing glances towards the one in clanking full armor, and the other one dressed in full white.
Two beacons in the night.

This experience was definitely different than what she was used to abroad. Being back in Lumiere was almost a novel experience after being in the sandy deserts for so long, but being an entire ocean and them some between her and the nasty wind-swept curses that had sent her back home in the first place was a welcome respite. If she hadn’t been convalescing, she wouldn’t even have participated in an operation like this, but Trifoliata had insisted on it as a way to ease her back into the groove. Exploring and researching artifacts in the field was her raison d’etre.

Had it just been herself, Talulah would have insisted on diving straight into Notte’s Labyrinth. The ruins in particular wasn’t the brand of ancient empire that she was most interested in, but it was still remnants of an ancient empire, after all.

Trifoliata also said that doing things like this was a good way to rebuild her shattered reputation at home, but that was neither here no there. Either way, she was here, and Talulah was hardly going to disagree that hunting down criminal scum and putting them down if needed was necessary.

Talulah made a dramatic gallic shrug when the azure-haired witch finally commented on the composition of their little party. “I suppose it can’t be helped.” Her words were conciliatory, but it was clear that she was finding the silliness at least somewhat amusing.

She and Trifoliata had scouting covered, and she said as much. “Trifle’s in the air ahead of us. She’ll let us know if she sees anything.”

Despite the distance involved, mistress and familiar could still talk to each other. The falcon’s smooth voice was audible to others, although slightly distorted by distance. “…I’m gonna smack you. But no, I don’t see anything yet. From my perspective it’s obvious the neighborhood knows we’re around.”

The black-robed witch sighed, making her twintails sway as she shook her head. At least with a Lantern around, even if they bumbled around, she could still lock on to something.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Galahad was not the only one who found the engagement dreadfully anticlimactic and frankly pathetic. For all of the paladins’ misplaced zealotry, they folded like wet paper the moment they had been subjected to a classic hammer and anvil attack. It almost made her wish that she hadn’t prepared the battlefield so thoroughly and saved some of her explosives, but that was a bad train of thought and Éliane nipped it in the bud.

The bolt of her rifle made a smooth clack as she ejected her last bullet casing, looking almost sour at being told by Zacharias to switch to detaining rather than killing. She was still thoroughly biased against him, but she knew enough when to stop.

Or knew enough that she would get hassled by Esben if she didn’t.

Slinging her weapon’s strap back across her shoulder, she hopped down from the roof, retrieving the remaining few explosives that she had laid once the battle had wound down. By then Miina and Rudolf had finally met up with them and she began to get a fuller picture of what had transpired this night. Her brow furrowed at the revelation of Loki’s involvement. She knew of the woman and her reputation in SEED, but the particulars of her profile weren’t something that she knew well. The betrayal was obvious enough, but she would have to ask Esben later.

Considering Rudolf’s words, she shook her head. “From what you described, it sounds like the only asset that could be considered Skaelan would be the traitor,” the pink-haired officer replied bitterly. “When we have the chance, I want to investigate their bodies.”

That too would have to wait. The intelligence that Valheim would be attacking in force in just a few hours took precedence. The mention of her trump card was being increasingly mentioned now, and she nodded. “I’ll go with you, Rudolf. We still have the original mount and the fire control director that goes with it. We’ll need that for the anti-aircraft role.”

She paused. “We’ll need to find a lot of ammunition for it too. Any suggestions for a gun shop we can raid for autocannon shells?”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

By now, Éliane’s direction was somewhat aimless, and the pink-haired woman was about to default to the fight that she could hear when some strange flickering lights in a window managed to catch her eye. It had been erratic for a moment, but it had quickly coalesced into two lights, pulsing in pattern that almost seemed like Skaelan telegraphic code…

“Well that’s interesting,” she muttered.

It took her another second to realize that was exactly what it was and it was spelling her name. It wasn’t very creative, but now she knew exactly where the spy she was looking for was. Pivoting on her feet as she landed on another route, she quickly diverted. It didn’t take long for her to be face to face with Esben and his resident fairies. “Lucky stroke there,” she commented, before standing a bit straighter at the mention of the incoming paladins. By the way he suggested setting up, it seemed they still had a little bit of time. Her eyes caught the forms of Zacharias and Cid coming out as they spoke, making her shoot a questioning glance at both them and Esben, but she quickly got to work, nodding at his offer to boost her up to the roof.

Éliane was completely out of the loop still, but she nonetheless had a firm target to take her frustrations out on in the form of zealous paladins. She would ask about the situation later.

On the roof, she quickly began preparing. The din in the distance of the chanting paladins was easy enough to tell which route they were about to take, and she immediately pre-sighted the stretch of road they would be coming down.

“If only I had the cannon with me,” she bemoaned, thinking of the carnage she could inflict with a rotary cannon straight down the length of the road the enemy was about to take. Unfortunately, carrying just the gun alone stretched her ability to travel across the roofs, let alone any of the ammunition she needed, so it had to be left behind temporarily at the safe house.

She made do with what she had though, finding just enough time to lay out some explosives on segments of the road. They weren’t exactly improvised explosives, but if she shot each grenade when the paladins were over them, they would work just as well.

Éliane glanced as one of the fairies greeted her on the roof. “Hey, Selene,” she greeted. “Give me some speed when I call for it. There’s enough targets, so why not try for the mad mad minute?”

With that, she took a prone position on the roof with her rifle pointed and sighted, waiting for the zealots to turn the corner. The moment the first knight came into her range and sight, she started blasting.

Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

Talu

Talulah Fourier

19 | Female

Appearance

Talulah is on the shorter and smaller end, with a lithe figure measuring only a finger over five feet tall without her witch’s hat. Her wavy dark black hair is done up in twintails, with a monocle on her smug mug.

Despite her personality, she dresses somewhat traditionally as a witch in all black, with long black robes, big black witch’s hat, matching shoes, and not much else. She makes up the variety with alterations to her neckline and collar—a white collared shirt and colorful tie might peek out of her robes one day, complete absence another; or then something high collared another day.

Personality

Arrogant and smug, with a flair for the dramatic, but with the sort of subdued self-awareness that has come from being humbled and tempered by actual experience. Quite a bit different from the grating conceit her peers might have remembered her from her academy days, Talulah is a witch that has a good measure of herself and where she stands, often surprising her old classmates with her newfound relative maturity since returning to Refne from her foreign expeditions.

Cooperative although slightly crabby at times, Talulah is a hard worker where she wasn’t before, pushing her boundaries for both self-improvement and research. Sometimes her laziness still shines through, especially when it comes to taking shortcuts. For her own amusement, she pushes boundaries socially too, though not always in the best way, sometimes straddling the line between infuriating and personable. It often ends in her finding a bird wing thwumping into her face for her efforts.

These days she vacillates between smug and flustered depending on the circumstance.

She has rarely strayed from her interest for new places and the old and unknown, going far and wide for these experiences. She has also always been a speed junkie. Fly fast, and she’ll never turn down a race.

Abilities

Talulah has a well-rounded education from a prestigious magic school, with the knowledge of a graduate of all three categories of magic. White magic by far is her weaker point, using enhancements to aid her other magic. Her evocation is not much better beyond the baseline, although she puts in the work to stay fresh in the field in support of her birds. The majority of Talulah’s beyond the book repertoire is in black magic, mainly in offensive magic with a secondary specialty in cursebreaking— not too surprising, given Talulah’s reputation as a curse magnet.

Her black magic is varied, but not particularly notable in strength—her main niche is speed, efficiency, and accuracy in all respects. She likes targeting and homing spells—both for herself and to augment companions. One of her main spells allows her to instantly swap with Trifoliata, and in general most of her spells lend well to scouting, following up with a rapid saturating response and an equally fast retreat.

Skills

She is a great, if somewhat reckless flyer. Although she doesn’t have a direct affinity for general research, Talulah is talented at appraising the function of magic artifacts and the value of general antiques on the fly, well enough that she had considered at point opening up a shop just for them before dismissing the idea.

Outside of strictly magical matters, Talulah is a falconer. It wasn’t something she grew up with, but something she had to quickly learn once she began working with Trifoliata and other birds but she’s taken an affinity towards both training non-sapient birds and hunting.

Equipment

Talulah’s monocle is a piece made from a recovered artifact, with its optics acting as a mage arm of sorts that helps her target, track, and augment her abilities to home in on targets for her spells with a very high accuracy.

Her wand, while standard equipment for a witch is high quality and robust, but it’s her broom that stands out, being race-built, with a customized handle and smooth varnished wood.

Brief Backstory

Talulah is from an old, well-established magical family in Refne. The name Fourier was prominent in the early years of the establishment of the Moon Circle Society, but over the centuries the house has declined in size and grandeur to just being one of the many notable families in the society, though just one with a storied background.

As such, the black-haired witch grew up surrounded by magic. She had the best magical toys, the newest brooms and wands, and a good education, attending one of the more prominent and prestigious magical schools in Lumiere. Talulah had a divisive reputation there; she had been a student with good grades and ideas, but with an ego to match and far too much arrogance for her own good.

She carried this attitude with her past graduation. She always had a bit of wanderlust, and she soon found herself attached to expeditions that took her far beyond the borders of Refne, to sandy lands across an entire ocean with ancient tombs and buried labyrinths of their own. Carrying herself with all the bombast of a new academy graduate, she quickly proceeded to alienate herself from all her colleagues, fell in well over her head in increasingly dire gauntlets of ruins, and sprung just about every curse trap that existed in that wind-swept land. She probably spent more time out of commission with cursebreakers going over her body than not. Her luck was that bad.

It took her a full year of this for her to fully eat her humble pie. A brush with death in a half-buried house, silenced by a very unluckily triggered cursed plate, and left high and dry after a particularly violent sandstorm finally made her shape up. Talulah had been led to safety by an unusually curious and attached falcon. It stuck around, but it too wouldn’t give the poor witch a break. It would fly with her when she scouted out ruins from the sky, and to her consternation, constantly kept beating her when she raced it.

She could never catch a break.

Eventually, she named her Trifoliata.

Despite being bullied by the bird, Talulah began working with her, making Trifoliata her familiar and actually learning some semblance of teamwork. She even got back into the good graces of some of her colleagues, although even with finally some support, Talulah still seemed to be a curse magnet whatever she tried.

It was a particularly bad curse that brought her back home to Refne to rest and recuperate.

Trifoliata

Trifoliata is a brown falcon. Her thoughts and human form made manifest by Talulah, she is a bird that thrives on schadenfreude. She’s a grinning, teasing creature, usually friendly but not always helpful. She keeps Talulah in check when the witch strays too far from the path. In her bird form, she roosts on her shoulder or head. Talulah’s also nicknamed her Trifle, but she usually gets a wing to the face each time she calls her that. Talulah does it anyway.

She mostly stays as a bird, and is primarily Talulah’s support in that form, helping her scout ahead, communicating with her in real time. She can coordinate other non-sapient birds into cooperating, carry objects as a courier or as a payload, and is nasty with her talons, but generally stays out of harm’s way unless Talulah can immediately swap in for her.

In her human form, she stands nearly a foot taller than Talulah and mostly exists to gorge on food. She can act as an assistant, but doesn’t very often.

Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

Talu

Talulah Fourier

19 | Female

Appearance

Talulah is on the shorter and smaller end, with a lithe figure measuring only a finger over five feet tall without her witch’s hat. Her wavy dark black hair is done up in twintails, with a monocle on her smug mug.

Despite her personality, she dresses somewhat traditionally as a witch in all black, with long black robes, big black witch’s hat, matching shoes, and not much else. She makes up the variety with alterations to her neckline and collar—a white collared shirt and colorful tie might peek out of her robes one day, complete absence another; or then something high collared another day.

Personality

Arrogant and smug, with a flair for the dramatic, but with the sort of subdued self-awareness that has come from being humbled and tempered by actual experience. Quite a bit different from the grating conceit her peers might have remembered her from her academy days, Talulah is a witch that has a good measure of herself and where she stands, often surprising her old classmates with her newfound relative maturity since returning to Refne from her foreign expeditions.

Cooperative although slightly crabby at times, Talulah is a hard worker where she wasn’t before, pushing her boundaries for both self-improvement and research. Sometimes her laziness still shines through, especially when it comes to taking shortcuts. For her own amusement, she pushes boundaries socially too, though not always in the best way, sometimes straddling the line between infuriating and personable. It often ends in her finding a bird wing thwumping into her face for her efforts.

These days she vacillates between smug and flustered depending on the circumstance.

She has rarely strayed from her interest for new places and the old and unknown, going far and wide for these experiences. She has also always been a speed junkie. Fly fast, and she’ll never turn down a race.

Abilities

Talulah has a well-rounded education from a prestigious magic school, with the knowledge of a graduate of all three categories of magic. White magic by far is her weaker point, using enhancements to aid her other magic. Her evocation is not much better beyond the baseline, although she puts in the work to stay fresh in the field in support of her birds. The majority of Talulah’s beyond the book repertoire is in black magic, mainly in offensive magic with a secondary specialty in cursebreaking— not too surprising, given Talulah’s reputation as a curse magnet.

Her black magic is varied, but not particularly notable in strength—her main niche is speed, efficiency, and accuracy in all respects. She likes targeting and homing spells—both for herself and to augment companions. One of her main spells allows her to instantly swap with Trifoliata, and in general most of her spells lend well to scouting, following up with a rapid saturating response and an equally fast retreat.

Skills

She is a great, if somewhat reckless flyer. Although she doesn’t have a direct affinity for general research, Talulah is talented at appraising the function of magic artifacts and the value of general antiques on the fly, well enough that she had considered at point opening up a shop just for them before dismissing the idea.

Outside of strictly magical matters, Talulah is a falconer. It wasn’t something she grew up with, but something she had to quickly learn once she began working with Trifoliata and other birds but she’s taken an affinity towards both training non-sapient birds and hunting.

Equipment

Talulah’s monocle is a piece made from a recovered artifact, with its optics acting as a mage arm of sorts that helps her target, track, and augment her abilities to home in on targets for her spells with a very high accuracy.

Her wand, while standard equipment for a witch is high quality and robust, but it’s her broom that stands out, being race-built, with a customized handle and smooth varnished wood.

Brief Backstory

Talulah is from an old, well-established magical family in Refne. The name Fourier was prominent in the early years of the establishment of the Moon Circle Society, but over the centuries the house has declined in size and grandeur to just being one of the many notable families in the society, though just one with a storied background.

As such, the black-haired witch grew up surrounded by magic. She had the best magical toys, the newest brooms and wands, and a good education, attending one of the more prominent and prestigious magical schools in Lumiere. Talulah had a divisive reputation there; she had been a student with good grades and ideas, but with an ego to match and far too much arrogance for her own good.

She carried this attitude with her past graduation. She always had a bit of wanderlust, and she soon found herself attached to expeditions that took her far beyond the borders of Refne, to sandy lands across an entire ocean with ancient tombs and buried labyrinths of their own. Carrying herself with all the bombast of a new academy graduate, she quickly proceeded to alienate herself from all her colleagues, fell in well over her head in increasingly dire gauntlets of ruins, and sprung just about every curse trap that existed in that wind-swept land. She probably spent more time out of commission with cursebreakers going over her body than not. Her luck was that bad.

It took her a full year of this for her to fully eat her humble pie. A brush with death in a half-buried house, silenced by a very unluckily triggered cursed plate, and left high and dry after a particularly violent sandstorm finally made her shape up. Talulah had been led to safety by an unusually curious and attached falcon. It stuck around, but it too wouldn’t give the poor witch a break. It would fly with her when she scouted out ruins from the sky, and to her consternation, constantly kept beating her when she raced it.

She could never catch a break.

Eventually, she named her Trifoliata.

Despite being bullied by the bird, Talulah began working with her, making Trifoliata her familiar and actually learning some semblance of teamwork. She even got back into the good graces of some of her colleagues, although even with finally some support, Talulah still seemed to be a curse magnet whatever she tried.

It was a particularly bad curse that brought her back home to Refne to rest and recuperate.

Trifoliata

Trifoliata is a brown falcon. Her thoughts and human form made manifest by Talulah, she is a bird that thrives on schadenfreude. She’s a grinning, teasing creature, usually friendly but not always helpful. She keeps Talulah in check when the witch strays too far from the path. In her bird form, she roosts on her shoulder or head. Talulah’s also nicknamed her Trifle, but she usually gets a wing to the face each time she calls her that. Talulah does it anyway.

She mostly stays as a bird, and is primarily Talulah’s support in that form, helping her scout ahead, communicating with her in real time. She can coordinate other non-sapient birds into cooperating, carry objects as a courier or as a payload, and is nasty with her talons, but generally stays out of harm’s way unless Talulah can immediately swap in for her.

In her human form, she stands nearly a foot taller than Talulah and mostly exists to gorge on food. She can act as an assistant, but doesn’t very often.

Sorry for the delay myself. My writing wasn't cooperating for a while. :<

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane had parted from Rudolf midway with a two-fingered salute. While she was hardly as efficient as Galahad, she bounded off in the direction of Esben’s planned target, utilizing the city’s more unique architecture, managing a semblance of how she traversed the rooftops of Solitude in urgent pursuit by means of wind materia.

Even midway through the city, she could tell that the situation was developing not necessarily to the favor of the Kirins, by the chaos and noise that was starting to erupt in the streets. Just from the explosions and sounds of gunfire from the direction that Rudolf had gone, she could tell that something hadn’t gone right… but also made her wish that she had swapped places with the man instead of heading to Esben. The fact that there was no chaos and fighting ahead of her didn’t mean much given the developing situation. While she was anticipating a good fight, she debated over what she was going to expect.

Midway through, it occurred that she didn’t have a good idea how exactly to even find Esben. It wasn’t guaranteed that he was still at the council offices, and with the situation in the city, he could have been in any number of places now.

Well, she knew that the spy was a resourceful fellow. If he needed help, surely there would be some kind of signal.

Failing that, she could always head directly to the very obvious gunfire.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane had found being in her disguise thoroughly unpleasant. Although she had not removed it in the hideout out of prudence, from the way that she fidgeted in place at her seat, it was clear that she was looking for any excuse to get out of her mottled brown cloak and to properly suit up in uniform with the full array of her weapons.

So when Izayoi strode into their safehouse with purpose, she immediately stood up, picking up on her demeanor. The moment she saw the Valheimian insignia hit the floor, the pink-haired Skaeller immediately scowled. “Of course it’s those bastards. They have their hands in everything!” Exclaiming in exasperation, her expression quickly turned almost feral.

“No more excuses now, then?” Not waiting for a response, she was already moving towards her weapons, gladly accepting her pack tossed at her by Galahad with an appreciative nod. Whether it was one or all of them, Éliane was going to take any excuse to deal with the grovemaster problem.

“The sounds of fighting will do,” she agreed as she threw off her cloak, stripping before slipping into more appropriate gear. “I won’t be hard to find.” Belting her weapons on, she mulled over the Edrenian’s words before nodding as well, checking her guns one last time for their condition. “In that case, Rudolf will need to split too to cover Miina and Esben. I’ll head to him.”

Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

What's the deadline for sheets on this? Might be interested.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

and

Darri Anquetil

---

Other than a last-second reminder from Esben to ”Be careful,” Éliane had been left to her own devices once the Kirins split and all went their separate ways. Hunting down the storefront of a former classmate, posing as a simple merchant in Brightlam. By Esben’s best guess, the shop would be placed within the main market, the central thoroughfare through which nearly all the trade of the city passed. If the Kirins were lucky, the shop would double as the agent’s home, though given that neither his nor Éliane’s assignment was specifically meant to put them in contact with the local agent...neither of them knew for sure.

Worse yet, even at night, the market was sure to be under closer watch than most other places in the city. While the guards were lax compared to many other places, the fact that the city was nearly entirely open meant that they had more to devote to patrolling the streets rather than watching at the walls and gates. Given that some business rarely slept—and crime never did—there was no doubt they would have a near-constant presence within the market.

Nothing insurmountable, and the city’s open layout extended even within the market itself, which could be as much to her benefit as to her detriment; it was only a matter of devising the right plan of attack to reach her target.

It was a rare moment that the pink-haired Skaelan in question moved about in inconspicuous clothing and in a (relatively) unassuming way, but Éliane was still a woman with SEED training and experience no matter how badly she had meshed with the service. Dressed in a tunic and cloak, she felt out of place especially given she was literally infiltrating a city. The most ‘infiltrating’ she usually did came with the great din and ruckus of pitched battle, not activities like this.

Éliane had been a city dweller, though, and she ultimately knew just how to look busy and occupied as she moved through the market with a fast walking pace. However, the main issue remained, finding the correct storefront…

It wasn’t the most brilliant of ideas given the man was supposed to be under deep cover, but she began searching for culturally familiar stores in the guise of window shopping, looking for Skaeller or Solitude elements that might give away a shopowner’s roots.

Storefront by storefront started to pass by in a blur, most as empty as could be; this late at night, it was rare to find too many outside of the larger guild houses that would still have lights on and people present. Occasionally she would peek in a window, catching a glimpse at a shopkeeper checking their books, cleaning, stocking shelves in preparation for an early start the next day. A Mystrel, a Sollan, a Mystrel, another Mystrel—

Some guards passed a disinterested glance her way. At least the disguise appeared to be working for the moment. If the hood of the cloak being up despite the time and the fair weather struck them as suspicious at all, they didn’t show it...or they were, perhaps, disinclined to do anything for as long as she looked to be keeping out of trouble.

While the architecture and any goods she could see didn’t strike her as anything familiar, she did eventually come across a name she would recognize. Anquetil Housewares, blazened over the doorway, with an unfortunate “Closed” sign in the near window. There was one lit window on the second floor, however, suggesting that the proprietor may yet be awake.

Éliane arrogantly assumed that she would not get caught, and it was obvious the unfounded confidence did as much to make her blend in among the nighttime crowd in view of the guards. It didn’t stop the market search from being an exercise in frustration, though, and after the umpteenth irrelevant shop, she was about to give up and turn in for the night when a familiar word greeted her in the form of a home goods shop. Using your surname for the name of your shop when you were a spy was definitely a decision. Even she could recognize that.

There was always a chance that it was still just a random immigrant from Skael, but Éliane considered the chances of that low. There were few Skaellers that wanted to live abroad in barbarian lands like this, and the lowlives that were exiled weren’t the sort of folks that would open a Housewares store in good standing, and considering it was the right name... She was confident this was the SEED operation she was looking for.

Glancing behind her quickly, she stepped into the store door’s alcove and wrapped her knuckles on the surface, intent on getting the shopkeeper’s attention– or annoying him enough to respond. “Hello! Are you open?” she called out innocently, her accent obviously from Solitude.

There was no response. A couple passers-by gave her some odd looks for knocking and calling out at a shop that was clearly closed.

Undeterred, she kept knocking. “I can see you’re still in there!”

As she kept knocking—loudly—she started to draw more attention than before. The light on the second floor wavered slightly as though someone started moving in the room, and a pair of guards that were passing by stopped, one calling out to her in a bored voice. ”Miss, even if there’s still a light on, the shop’s clearly closed, quit causing a ruckus—”

Just then, the tall Faye proprietor of the shop pulled up his window and looked out. His eyes met Éliane’s, a small raise of the eyebrows the most sign of recognition he gave, before he looked over to the guards. ”Don’t worry about it, gentlemen, I know this one,” he said, waving them off, before looking back down at the woman incessantly knocking on his door. ”Marie, didn’t I tell you to be here by nine? Late is an understatement, woman!”

”Ought to find this one a watch, Darri!”

With a somewhat mocking laugh, the guards continued along their way, not once having gotten close enough to actually see under Éliane’s hood. Darri exaggeratedly rolled his eyes at them, before closing the window and disappearing back into the room. Moments later, he could be seen in the main room of his shop coming down the stairs, before quickly unlocking the door and letting the pink-haired woman in.

”Upstairs,” he bid. ”First door on the right. We’ll talk in my office.” Once they were in and the door was locked, a faint shimmer passed over it for a moment. Warded, just like Kayliss had done in the inn. He took a seat behind his desk, looking at Éliane over his steepled fingers.

”You know, when Mom said that the two of you had linked up and might need to talk to me, I hadn’t quite believed her. I don’t think even she expected that you’d end up with wanted posters and a hefty bounty...but what’s most amazing is that you’re the one that’s come to me.”

“Oh, um, bleh…” At the reprimand, she put her two hands to her forehead and tilted her head, making an airheaded expression as the guards moved on with their lives. With her way in secured, Éliane quickly followed in after Darri, finding a seat in front of the disguised spy. “If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation and our dreadnoughts would have been sailing up the river instead,” she replied, almost petulantly.

The pink-haired woman glanced back at the man speculatively, somewhat surprised he hadn’t commented on her unorthodox (but clearly effective) way of getting his attention. “Anyway, I’ve been told by a certain someone to ask if there’s any good rabbit in this godsforsaken city… but everyone that knows me also knows my opinion on rabbit.”

That was, of course, that she thought rabbit tasted completely like overpriced chicken.

Her opinions on foreign policy and non-standard meats went ignored as Darri closed his eyes. ”So he sent you,” he muttered, ”And he’s either planning on killing someone or hasn’t completely thrown out the possibility.” He opened his eyes again, his stare fixed on Éliane once more.

”We’re not out in the market, and it’s not the middle of the day. My wards are quite secure—speak freely. What specifically is it the two of you are after from me? I’m not an assassin, and I can’t jeopardize my position by acting like you might.” He almost seemed impatient, despite the bored tone he was using.

Maybe he really had been about to tuck in for the night.

“Oh, that’s simple,” Éliane responded with a casual tone, leaning back in her seat. “We’re probably going to need to replace one or all of the grovemasters.”

”Is that all? Maybe the two of you are more reserved than I thought.”

“That’s the first time someone from SEED thought I was reserved. Am I communicating correctly?”

”You’re as adept at sarcasm as ever. Is that all, or was there anything else he sent you to ask about?”

She gave a flat stare back in response. “Well, yes. We’re going to need a list of candidates…” She held up one finger, paused for a moment, and then held up another. “And some fall-back locations in case this whole thing goes up in smoke.”

Darri nodded, pulling out a paper and a pen from inside his desk and starting to write. ”I’d almost expect that knowing you’re involved, Mouse,” he replied as he wrote. ”Good to know he’s still coherent, at least. When Mom said the two of you were together I had feared the worst.”

Pen scratched at paper as he rapidly scrawled a practiced shorthand. He paused, thinking for a moment, before writing another line. ”Has he had a fit yet from the stress of it?”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s doing remarkably well.”

”Really? No psychotic breakdown? No physical health problems? Ah, but, looking at that cloak—” He nodded at her attire. ”—maybe you’ve finally learned to take someone else’s counsel for once. Or is it just because of that samurai you’re travelling with?”

He finished writing, holding the scrap of paper across the desk to the pink-haired woman that was the target of whatever this acerbic wit of his was. ”There. Names of their top apprentices, a couple other prominent people in the city, and a few places that you all should manage to hide. He should be able to parse it if you’ve forgotten the ciphers and all.”

Éliane gave him a look at those words, deciding not to answer the secret agent man’s questions. “Thanks for the…” The pink-haired officer glanced down at the paper after accepting it, wrinkling her nose. “Rabbit stew recipe.”

”Of course,” he replied neutrally. ”I take it you’ll be on your way, then? If you take anything downstairs, I’ll make sure they dock it from your pay.”

“...”

“What are you selling downstairs?”

”Don’t look around, it’ll be suspicious if anybody looks in the windows.” He waved her on, evidently done with their conversation. ”The wards will deactivate without any issue when you open the door. Try not to get yourself caught once you’re back outside.”

She stood up, lightly dusting off her cloak after folding the paper into a pocket as she made to leave. “Thanks! I’ll see what I can add to my portable baking ensemble downstairs and like you said, you can add it to my tab,” Éliane responded, already beyond the threshold of the door and out of sight.

Darri watched her leave without another word. Once he heard her tramp downstairs, he rolled his eyes. ”Honestly can’t believe she let them stay together,” he muttered to himself, locking his desk. He was ready for bed.