WEEK 3

[bathymetric]

Well, the tail end of Week 2 could have gone better. That's the first thing to note.

The second thing is... hang on, should it be Week 3 yet? You've all gone to sleep (or... not, in the case of anyone who doesn't), but when you wake up (and you do all wake up), the calendar and clock on your device informs you that it's Sunday. In-character, all characters explicitly have absolutely no memory of Saturday.

Your sense of time isn't the only thing that's changed - a new branch of the facility has opened and become active overnight, giving you new resources and places to investigate, should you so choose. There's also a new channel on the television, though whether it's an improvement over the last one is questionable.

Otherwise, though, things have mostly settled into normalcy again, or at close to normal as you can find in this place. How long that peace will last, though... that's becoming increasingly uncertain, moving forward.



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Week 3! Turn in last week's AC over here, and regains remain over this way! And for the sake of consistency, Angel's office hours remain over yonder! ]

Comments

yard sard

[bolderfell]

[The whole 'giving possibly valuable items away for free' deal everyone seems so enamored of kind of offends Therion's larcenous sensibilities, but he also can't stop himself from looking. It's the letter to Noa that catches his eye. Scrolls seem to be out of fashion in this day and age, after all.

Does it look like it's been opened?]

[mouflon]

[ The seal is broken! It's also been kind of... set apart from the other valuables (or """valuables"""), actually. ]

[bolderfell]

[Oh boy. Therion curiously tries to line up the seal. Hm.]

...Looks like the seal of House Ravus. You read this?

[He has no idea what's inside.]

[mouflon]

A couple of sentences. I realized it wasn't any of my business after that. [ ... ] Something you recognize?

[bolderfell]

Cordelia Ravus is my... current employer, let's say.

[Whatever she actually is to him, it's certainly not stopping him from unrolling the parchment to snoop. Blah, blah, blah, boring boring noble chatter--

What's this now.]

Huh. Looks like she's writing her friend a story. What about, I w...

[...

. . .

DOT. DOT. DOT.]

[mouflon]

Right.

[ They're both outlaws, even if of different stripes. Rin knows better than to question the particulars of a current employer. She sits there, idly watching him as she eats her ice cream, and...

... ]

Hey, what is it?

[ She leans backward in her seat, peering around his body to get a fresh look at that parchment. ]

[bolderfell]

["...hush," whispered the lady flaxen-haired, reaching with lily-fair fingers through bars of iron for his dark hand. Whence she came by this radiant courage, she knew not. Perhaps she'd found them the first time she tumbled deep into his eyes - those sad, emeraldine cabochons which stole as deftly as his nimble hands, when it came to her heart. She now drew that nimble hand towards her. "The key to your chains rests in my..."

Rin probably doesn't get to look at too much of that, because Therion closes the scroll quickly enough to crumple it.]

Nothing!

[There's not enough scarf in the world (or at least in the facility) to hide how hotly Therion's blushing. He tries anyway, pulling it almost all the way up to his eyes and turning away, for good measure. Even his ears are red.]

It's. It's nothing. The... fanciful imaginations of a girl with too much time on her hands.

[He'll never be able to look Rin in the eye again.]

[mouflon]

[ She catches a snatch of something, but before she can fully process what it is, the text is snatched away from her line of sight. More incriminating is his response to it — not just the haste with which he crumples the scroll, but the insistence of that first nothing, or the way he looks like he's trying to draw his head into his scarf like a turtle into its shell. Her eyebrows arch as she lifts her gaze back toward... well, the back of his head now, and she asks with all the delicacy that everyone has surely come to expect from her by now— ]

What, is it porn or something?

[bolderfell]

I don't know what that is.

[But he also won't turn to look at her.]

[mouflon]

[ It's a little more embarrassing to say when she has to actually explain what it is. There's a pause where Rin shifts in her seat, her own cheeks tinging just a bit pink. ]

You know, when you show people...

[ If Therion makes the mistake of looking at her now, he'll discover that she's making the universal hand symbol of "insert Tab A (a finger) into Slot B (a circle you've made with your opposite hand)". ]

Having sex.

[bolderfell]

[If there's a mistake to be made, Therion's gotta make it. Like the fool he is, he glances at her. He figures it out.]

No.

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA]

I--she probably doesn't even know what sex is. Sheltered little princess... She's just. Making things up. She hardly even knows me.

[mouflon]

[ When he lets that last bit slips, Rin blinks. And then it clicks.

pfffff— ]

Ooh? But she doesn't need to know anything about you to write that kind of stuff, right? Unless... Therion, is she writing about you?

1/2

[bolderfell]

[Shit.]

[bolderfell]

...No.

[Trying to explain the slip away will just make it worse, at this point.]

[mouflon]

Mm-hm.

[ Smart move, honestly. It doesn't change the fact that Rin is obviously trying not to laugh. ]

Can I see it, then? I mean, it's not like it's something you want to keep, right?

[bolderfell]

[The letter disappears instantly into his cloak. Answer enough, Rin?]

[mouflon]

[ Well, if he's going to be like that, she will laugh.

It doesn't sound totally mean. ]

Touchy. But fine, I get it. I won't tell anyone about this, either, okay?

[bolderfell]

...Thanks, I suppose.

[Precocious teenage girls are going to be the death of him.]

Maybe I shouldn't have agreed so readily to the terms of her bargain...

[mouflon]

[ For her part, Rin looks to be in a better mood than when they started. ]

With how surprised you're acting, I can only imagine what kind of terms you're talking about.

[bolderfell]

It's not like that.

[Therion has probably never looked so much his age. He is so frazzled.]

And it never would be, either. Not after the way she and that butler of hers got the better of me.

[mouflon]

Hm? I just assumed you gave her the exclusive story rights to your adventures. I don't know where your mind just went.

[ She shrugs, the gesture a bit exaggerated. ]

[bolderfell]

...I didn't do that, either. I only report what I have to. That's all.

[mouflon]

So let me guess, then. [ Rin's still smiling, but she sounds more sober as she continues. ] Her butler managed to catch you in the act, and she offered to let bygones be bygones if you ran some "errands" for her? Something like that?

[bolderfell]

...Basically. Except the two of them baited their thief-catching trap as well as set it. They'd planned it all from the start.

[He looks at her.]

How did you guess?

[mouflon]

It's a pretty classic story, isn't it? And you don't say "current employer" like that unless there's some sort of under the table deal going on. Put that together with her getting the better of you, and conclusion practically draws itself.

Still, she must have really wanted your services if she was willing to go that far to get them.