Welcome to Gaia! ::

Aruna spent a good portion of the morning in her nest of blankets and pillows. Winter was definitely not her favorite of seasons and last night’s party kept her awake most of the night. She had a few drinks, but not enough to give her a hangover. Please, working the Tuesday night shift got her drunk than that.

Light peaked through the curtains of her bedroom’s sealed window. She moaned softly as got out of her makeshift bed. Aruna slithered over to her clothes closet. “What should today’s uniform be,” she asked herself quietly as she searched through all of her outfits. “There’s that apron Hat gave. No. I already wore that last week.” The nagini pressed her index finger to her red lips. “I want something different than what I normally wear.” Suddenly she spotted it. An earthy toned ruffled maid costume hung to the far left. “That’s it!”

Grabbing the dress from the closet, she quickly got changed. The new boss, Vika, wouldn’t notice if their best waitress was just a few minutes late, would she? It didn’t matter. Aruna wouldn’t care much if she got scolded by the raven girl anyway.

She made her way down the stairs at her usual pace. The main dining room didn’t seem very busy. Three guests were sitting relatively close to each other and Blossom looked like she wasn’t overwhelmed. The maturing young woman was handling things nicely so Aruna decided to travel to the small stage Ganon preformed on.

“Morning, hon,” she said to him sweetly. “How has the crowd been?”

{Amelia}

At first, Soren only blinked slowly, uncomprehendingly at Rei.

Then his voice emerged with a tone of realization. It was not strong or prominent, but it existed nevertheless. "Ah, so you have encountered him then. Where was this? During the Autumn, I presume, in the midst of the deserts of Sentria, where no god could spy the events until the source had subsided." Soren remembered that much as well. He'd peered into the seeing pool and was only met by fathomless distortion when he'd attempted to monitor that dreadful event. The Sage moved not a finger, twitched not a muscle, speaking impassively and in complete stoicism. He was also quick to infer at something else. "You speak as though he is dead."

Soren reclined his head to regard the white sky. "You are bitter. Fly at me with all of your fury, Rei, if it will placate your anger. I will wait for you."

Thoughts and formulae and logic processed in his mind almost automatically, untainted by the interference of human emotion save for mild hints of past sensations. The rapid procession of pondering and inference was almost reflected clearly on his burgundy stare, a gaze that appeared glazed over with winter ice, seeing nothing yet everything at the expense of wholeness and unity. And indeed, he waited for Rei to punch him, or kick him, or even summon up a devil from the deepest, most infernal boiling voids of elder magick that there was to conceive.

Or maybe he was just waiting for an answer.

The Hawk King stared at Amelia. "When did I ever say that I was ashamed to work here?" he asked, slightly incredulous. "Since I started working the Duke's Head, it's moved from one star to four! That's something I'm proud of!" He shook his head. "But I'm retired. I left the guild. And I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to be dragged back into guild work somehow and wind up fighting again." He paused and reiterated, "I don't want people from the guild showing up where I work and bothering me. Which, from what I can see here, means that up until now I've been doing things right." He sighed.

"Look, thanks for agreeing not to go telling everybody, but this is not about shame or because I don't want to see you guys. It's because I decided that the guild was a bad place for me, and you can't just walk out of the crew without getting bothered." He shook his head. "That's all. It was hard enough making Ayra understand, I don't want to explain it to someone new every day. I've got orders to fill now, so... I'll see you later. Maybe I'll drop by the Hostess club for a drink after work. 'Cept you're Host Club, aren't you?" He laughed softly. "Whatever, I'll see you around, okay? Just... keep this hush." He waved and turned, pushing the kitchen door open, and disappeared inside again.

People having conversations really should be careful about their surroundings. Though they may be speaking privately, there were soldiers walking by, while Captain Nino's son and a strange fellow shared their words. It was not the soldiers intent to overhear, but certain things would be sure to catch their ear.

"Hey, did you here there...?" A soldier whispered to his companion, after they had taken a few steps away from the two.

"Yeah... That's the guy who was causing trouble in the desert, a few months ago? How is that possible? He's supposed to be dead.." The other replied.

"I don't know... but I don't like this." The first soldier commented, with a low, uneasy voice. "Inform Vice Captain Rath of this. I'll keep an eye on him."

The other soldier began departing as soon as the first had finished. "Right!" He affirmed, then continued down the street, towards the castle. This would be quite interesting news to hear. At least, for now, things were peaceful, and this strange man was not causing any trouble. Hopefully, it would stay that way.

The hospital in question was fairly close to the castle itself, located close to one of the back quarters. Perhaps the biggest reason for this was that in case of attack by outside forces, one could never have one's healers too far away from your best (and last) line of defense. In fact, it used to be on an upper level of the castle itself, but the hospital had earned enough money to move to a more accessible location months ago.

Amelia trudged in to a fairly large waiting room, with a reception desk at one end. Having been here a number of times, the receptionist knew her by hair now, and with a "Hello there Amelia, I'll go tell Doc Rhys you're here."

--------

A short while later, Rhys at last met her off in a meeting room near the entrance so they could talk in private. The only major change in Rhys as he appeared was a small facemask tied over his mouth by a tight string. Apparently, some of the staff observed Jin getting sick far less often than everyone else... diseases were contagious after all, and it wasn't uncommon for someone to fall sick (and yes, even die) from being in contact with sick patients.

Despite having an immune system that anyone could sneeze at and give him a cold, somehow Rhys had dodged the bullet thus far. Perhaps the man was just very lucky. But in any case, others started taking to wearing facemasks when dealing with sick patients--cases of the staff getting sick hadn't disappeared, but Rhys couldn't deny they'd gone down. Shortly thereafter, masks were a must (a move which made Jin feel much less out of place).

"Hello Amelia," he said as he removed the mask (and gloves--Jin had also worn gloves, and everyone knows those sayings about monkeys seeing and doing), giving her a smile. "How are you doing today? Having a good day off?"

((Since work is hitting me, probably won't be able to keep up with the guild event entirely, so I'm going to free up Farina and that cook. Tibarn, hope you don't mind this post.))

Farina's order of tea with sugar and strawberry cake came shortly after. She paid the cook/waiter and started to munch on the cake. It was delicious to say the least. After finishing up and being just as cheery if not more energetic, Farina left a message with the waiter cook to give to Tibarn...er, or rather the head chef. The message was that the cake was great and that it'd be great in a cake making contest. With that, Farina, trudged into the cold again to look around and for Murphy.