Who: Cian & Lea What: Information delivery. Where: Lea’s TG office. When: This morning. Rating: PG. Status: Complete.
The breeze swept in through the open window, setting the pages of the ledger books aflutter. Perched on the window sill, Azalea exhaled a curling wisp of smoke. The hints of blackberry and licorice sang in the back of her tongue. One of her own rolls, of course. Experimental. Reaching over, she tapped the cigar once, twice on the glass ashtray.
A beep rang out. Blue eyes turned to the screen, the crowning element of the circuit to which she’d connected her communicator. A filter from her secretary. She leaned over, fingers dancing lightly over the keys.
Send him up.
Cian hadn’t heard anything from the guildmaster in weeks, which he suspected had more to do with the fact that he’d been carefully avoiding the Countess than with the information he hand-delivered to Lea every week. But as someone who gambled for a living, he could admit it when he’d lost a hand spectacularly and been put in his place -- and so the information kept coming, flowing in through his various channels, compiled and tossed in a folder, and handed off to the Council, an indefinite payment for, he was pretty certain, an imagined slight.
Sometimes, powerful people were fucking idiots. But that didn’t make them any less powerful.
That thought, combined with everything else going on (going wrong) in his life lately, had him accepting the secretary’s invitation and taking the familiar hall to Lea’s office with a scowl on his face, which he only partially managed to turn to neutrality when faced with the councilor herself. “Afternoon,” he said shortly, holding out the thick folder. More than usual this week -- along with the standard schedules and reports, a few extra tidbits sent over by Ash from Ruby House, which was on the long list of things he preferred to not think about.
“Afternoon,” the machinist returned on a much lighter note, ever the picture of accommodating professionalism. Taking the file and sifting briefly through its contents, she let loose a low whistle. “Libra’s looking busy.”
She raised her eyes to Cian. “And you’re looking testy.” The cigar was stubbed out as Lea moved from window to desk. “By your own generous accounts, Wilde’s recovering from Leo pretty damn quickly. There anything I should worry about?”
“Some of it’s not verified,” he said with a shrug. There were always rumors, and not all of them turned out true, but enough had some relation to real events that he left them in. Better to know what people were saying than not, by his way of thinking. “Those are marked, as usual.”
He met her eyes with a flat gaze of his own, and after a moment addressed his “testiness,” as she had called it. “They tell me I’ve got a temper. Guess it’s true.” And work, surprisingly, had little to nothing to do with it this time. “Business is fine. Going to see a revenue spike next month or two. People throw money around when it’s too cold to do anything else. If I were you, I’d find something else to worry about. Sure there’s something in that file.” The neverending EKP sewer patrols, for one.
An issue the machinist was quick to address: “The sewers, obviously,” she waved a hand, omitted any mention of the alternative routes the Dragons had recently given her. “Fortunately, you’ve seen what Lionward’s working on. Should be less of a problem to circumvent, in due time. But that’s a dead horse. The Ring all good, too?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. It nearly blew up on us.” He hadn’t seen it since, though he had to assume some progress had been made. He’d even volunteered himself for the second field test, if only because he wanted the thing for himself once she could produce a working model.
“Haven’t heard otherwise.” He had to admit that he’d gone from going over Ring files with a metaphorical fine-toothed comb to reviewing only the highlights. The knockout matches pissed him off -- and brought in revenue -- and Ash ran a clean operation, when she wasn’t being a fucking moron. “Been a little busy to pay it a personal visit lately.”
“Busy, hm?”
From anyone else, that sort of question would have earned an immediate and not-so-polite request to fuck off. Because she was who she was and he couldn’t tell her off in so many words, he kept his expression impassive and confirmed: “Busy.”
Lea seemed to watch his reaction with blasé disinterest. He provided little, but that in itself spoke volumes. She filed a little mental note. After all, keeping abreast of the personal lives of the Guild members was a matter of some concern. In their line of work, ‘personal’ and ‘business’ mixed all too easily. Alarmingly often did an object of personal interest turn out to be one’s partner (or nemesis).
“Everything looks great,” was said cheerfully, although Lea’s tone would have been equally cheerful were she sentencing him to the guillotine. “As always, I’ll take up any verifications with Ofelia. When you two aren’t tying each other up in closets.”
That statement had his expression relaxing into something almost like a smile. “I’ll make sure she leaves some time in her schedule for you.” Apparently, his little game now had spectators.
“Anything else?” Because if not, he was more than happy to get out of here on a good note before she decided to prod at his business -- which was none of hers -- further.
“No, this is good work.” The smile she flashed him in turn betrayed none of her thoughts. “Thanks. Hope you have a nice day, honey.”
And with that, her fingers drifted back to the keys.
“Anytime.” Not least because if the papers stopped coming, he’d have the sort of trouble he didn’t want or need. “See you next week.” Or maybe he’d just see her secretary -- and save himself an awkward conversation. There weren’t a whole lot of people in Emillion to whom he had to be polite regardless of his mood.
“Same to you.” As she returned to her work, he turned to see himself out.