Welcome to Gaia! ::

The text arrived without fanfare.



It was followed almost immediately by another:



And then a third, and a fourth:




All of which of course was the sort of horribly ambiguous he'd been aiming for exactly.

Despite having his faith somewhat shaken by recent events--not least by the rumors drifting down about Finn's condition and how he'd gotten that way--Taym was willing to set aside his misgivings and trust to the good intentions of The Organization, as he'd come to start thinking of Deus, capitals inclusive. And after having been subjected to runic tech in the hands of outsiders, he was more motivated than ever to do something about the ominous folder that was still sitting on his desk, full of coordinates and a few pointedly-empty mission reports. When the go-ahead came down he met it with as much relief as trepidation.

His original plan had involved Bix, and had quickly expanded to include Kostya as soon as the Russian had dispatched a message. But he had more than one of these to do, and Maebe was too busy wallowing in misery and feeling sorry for herself. It pissed him off. The solution to misery (outside of chemical alternatives, he could not help but think to himself) was clearly to stay busy. And the solution to feeling useless was clearly to accomplish something major.

Also, Maebe was in Moon. Taym acutely remembered the white-hot burn of a bullet in his back and still had blind, stupid faith in the Divisions, even their lowest-ranking trainees.

This should be a simple job. Get in, get out. Let her watch his back, gloat a bit in the superiority of his position, give her something to take her mind off things.

He knocked at her door in fact eight minutes after the last text, and looked shockingly normal in fresh civilian clothes--thank god for ill-conceived shopping missions, even if he had spent three days scrubbing toilets as a result. He had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder and looked for all the world like any normal if somewhat-ill and worryingly-underfed college student. This was not to say that he'd managed a decent shave, but something was better than nothing. He was--and this was key--entirely forgettable. He didn't even smell like cigarettes.

This was because he was out of cigarettes. He was half-planning on making a pre-mission attempt to remedy that, time permitting.

Unfortunately Taym did not look amused. Quite the opposite. He didn't smack her, but his voice snapped. "Get dressed. In something that isn't a skirt," he added blandly. "Something warm, too, it's December."

"Oh, for ******** sake," he said under his breath, turning his back on her as soon as he realized what she was doing. This took an effort of will, but he did it.

"We are not getting donuts," he said, adding grimly: "More's the ******** pity. We're working. I need someone to watch my back and that's your division's ******** job. Welcome to field training."

"Civilian side, obviously," he answered, turning around and adding sardonically: "Nice shirt. Anyway, that's as much as you need, right now. I've got my orders, you've got yours, and yours are: watch my ******** back."

He was already setting off down the hallway with a slinking stride, apparently confident she would follow. Taym never looked more like a tomcat than when he was walking somewhere. It seemed like any minute he'd stop to arch his back against a doorframe and throw a baleful, territorial glare at someone. "I got the location from Mark and sent word ahead down to the lighthouse."

"I wasn't aware that watching my back required any specific kind of input," was the acerbic answer. A long silence while he extracted a toothpick from his pocket and stuck it into his mouth for, apparently, the purpose of chewing on it. Classy. He looked very much as though he was about to say something else, but maintained his silence until they were approaching the lighthouse. His skin crawled a little remembering what had happened the last time he'd been here. "Have you even done anything in the field yet? You need to get qualified for bandages," he added, "if you haven't already, which I'm assuming you haven't. Ladies first," he added, gesturing her up the path.

About a few minutes later, someone came wobbling into the portal with boxes and boxes of stuff, was pretty much the only bracket clause to explain everything in Mark's arms. The Death assistant plopped it on the closest empty table, ignoring the dirty looks from the pair of Hunters on portal duty. "Oh, there you are, I was like, trying to figure out if your cell phone gps was telling me it was go time or if you were having some ladies time," winky winky. "Well, I guess we wont need this box anymore."

He shuffled the order of boxes that he had brought with him, to pull out one that looked filled with more gear and actual Hunter equipment. "Okay, so you're doing the thing right. The thing boss talked about, the very secret must absolutely not mention why or he'll have your head thing." Mark really couldn't have been any less subtle about it. "So I got your coordinates all entered in, you can just go ahead and enter when you're ready and uh, oh yeah- this is for you! Just press it and it'll do it's job and make sure you're not anywhere near it when it activates. Like, not anywhere within fifty feet of it. When you're done, take this, and hit for a signal and we'll beam you up and stuff. Yeah! That's it, this is Mark, ninjaing out."

He handed Taym a large metallic cylinder, and then what looked like a walkie-talkie, and then tried to ninja out, which worked about as good as one would imagine. There was still a Death assistant in the background saying "ninja invisible gale force cutting technique go!" in the background while making invisible sword-slash-dagger noise effects.

What. Was even. HAPPENING. Maebe started huffing in agonizing frustration when Mark over-emphasized how SUPER SECRET everything had to be. Either things were really important, or he was just messing with them. She wanted to believe the latter, but Taym was taking everything he said seriously, and that was enough to trigger the frustration that made her shake. She waited for Mark to finish talking so that she could yell at him, but the moment his last word was out, he was backing up and - and -

Why did she even bother taking him seriously?

She turned the full force of her frustration on the quiet Taym, who had already packed up the equipment and was heading for the portal without her. He gave her a rough gesture, and she let out a frustrated barking noise, before running to catch up. Her feet slammed down on the ground the moment she'd run through the portal, but that was as far as her noise would go. They were out now, and something about the importance of that made her go quiet.

For now.

The gusts blew right through her sweater, chilling her to the bone within seconds. She curled up into herself, fluffing her hair as far over her neck and ears as it could get. She pulled her scarf up over her mouth and breathed into it, just to feel the hot breath blow back against the skin of her cold pinched cheeks.

She didn't reply when he told her their first goal. After all, the first thing she'd wanted to do when they got out, was get some donuts. Why would a pitstop bother her? At least this meant she got to keep a secret from ******** you, Mark.

She followed Taym in silence, always just a few steps back before having to run to catch up to his long legged strides.

It didn't take long for Maebe to realize where they were going. A convenience store. A convenience store. Donuts. Maebe's entire body warmed up at the thought, and she grinned a long, smug faced grinch grin.

The moment Taym entered, Maebe's little body slid away from him and disappeared. She sped down the aisles like a scurrying rat, picking up things that were both delicious, unhealthy, and most importantly - compact. Anything in thin or small bags were her friends. She went from aisle to aisle, scavenging away with a happy grin.

Oh, God, they had hot dogs.

Maebe hadn't eaten in so long, the smell of a cooking hot dog made her eyes mist with the threat of tears. She was staring at the lit up display when Taym touched her back, and she turned around, hands filled with junk food. He was holding out donuts. She gasped and made the best impression of what a woman who'd just been asked to marry her would do. (She couldn't know for sure, and probably looked more like a child on Christmas.)

"Taym." She whispered. "You love me."

The act lasted for a full two seconds, before she bit her tongue and grinned. His order had her stumbling to the counter, dropping the surprisingly light load down onto it. But then she bent in, her face turning into something that looked much more realistic on her expression - flirtation - and whispered into the ear of what must have been a fifty year old man.

"And I'll have one of your hot dogs."

Yeah. She was getting that one for free.