Due to the media coverage of the single, allegedly crippling, event at the high school, Leif’s entire business had officially stopped harassing him with phone calls entirely. When he called them, they got nervous if he started to sound agitated and found a reason to hang up. He could not recall ever using an employee as a human sacrifice -- none of them were of an adequate blood type for anything he would need -- so he saw no reason as to why they should all start behaving as though he did just that on a regular basis. He was aware a few of them possessed sense enough to see what influence his father may have left, but that did not explain the absurd behaviour over the phone. And he could have sat and dwelled over whether or not senior members of his company had done something stupid in his absence, but that would have been absurd.
Then again, so would walking down to the high school and its giant dome of doom. Or whatever the kids were calling it these days.
‘The kids aren’t calling it anything, they are inside. With your mother.’ Perched on his forearm and no doubt destroying his suit jacket, Mia received a withering glance for the first remark. The addition about Linnea went completely ignored but for a mild flare in his temper that came with being inconvenienced. The woman was supposed to be helping him with his elementalism -- it was like she got herself shut in there deliberately.
Leaning on the hood of a stranger’s car -- he didn’t know them and didn’t want to, but they had yet to complain about his presence -- he blinked at the brightly coloured declaration and then checked his watch. Had he really only been out here a few minutes? What did people do out here? And by ‘people’ he meant the kind who categorically did not break down and start snivelling because someone had written apocalyptic-sounding words on a barrier nobody could see. ‘There’s a red-headed bird-girl over ther--’ Yes, yes; it’s Domina Moriarty. You really had to be blind not to notice her; in part because of who she was and the rest because of what she was wearing. Leif must have met her father all of twice, through his own father. They shook hands. They did the ‘polite’ thing. Although now he was wondering how or why he had never really met Domina. Stepping over, he offered a hand in the acknowledgement that neither of them actually needed an introduction. “I humbly ask to join you in the non-snivelling section.” His expression didn’t suggest humble. It suggested he might curse the next person to blow their nose or fall into hysterics, but if that happened it was on them for being pathetic.