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 Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:51 pm
After yet another boring day of filing, answering every other phone call and three cups of coffee, it was yet again time to go home.
Mindful not to mess up her freshly painted nails, Ursula gingerly removed her purse from her drawer and began packing up her belongings which had, over time, slowly crept out of her bag and scattered themselves across her desk. Magazines, make up, lotion and various other girly paraphernalia made their way back into her black hole of a bag, and finally, she was ready to leave. Well, that is, until one minor slip of her hand sent her thumb grazing across the side of her chair, color streaking onto the fabric and creating a ghastly smudge on her once perfectly colored nail.
Cursing to herself, she moved to find a tissue to wipe away the chair streak, then replanted herself in her seat and brought out the nail polish once more. Like hell she was going to wait until she got home to fix this!
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 1:37 pm
"Miss Johnson!" Khaldun called into the office, then stepped inside. He'd learned for one thing not to come in unannounced any more, or he'd feel the wrath of her less expensive makeup supplies. For another thing, and for very similar reasons, he'd learned not to call her Nealite. Or Nea. Or Ursula. Just Miss Johnson. Nealite he could get away with during Negaverse work but this was not one of those times.
"Orders from the top: Mr. Killingworth needs his coffee again." This was a routine that Nealite would have been all too familiar with. If Khaldun was the one talking about coffee, that meant he had just been in Charonite's office. Strangely, Khaldun seemed to be in an awfully good mood for being Khaldun. Already in high spirits from his thankfully minimal-effort new assignment, he'd also popped a painkiller on the way over. "But it can wait a few minutes..."
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:15 pm
Her eyes flew up to meet the office intruder, well prepared to inform the student that the office was closed and he could screw off and come back tomorrow, when her eyes caught sight of familiar dreadlocks. Had they been any other color than what they were, she might have begun to panic, but instead she simply watched the smiling boy, and studied him closely, giving him a once over. Finally, after a quick inspection, she rolled her eyes and returned to painting her nails.
"I'm not falling for that again, Khaldun," she finally snapped, her temper slightly rising. She'd noticed that finger. It had taken multiple times for her to finally catch on to his ploys, but she was getting better with each attempt. "You're wearing a bandage, which means you did something stupid. I'm not as stupid as you are; I remember what happens when one visits Mr. Killingworth after you've had one of your wonderful conversations with him."
She didn't have time for this, not today of all days. She wanted to go home, she wanted to eat a nice dinner, she wanted peace and quiet.
Noticing he wasn't making any attempt to leave, she let out an exasperated sigh. "What is it?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 8:00 pm
"Take your time if you want to. Or don't go at all. I'm sure he wants to be kept waiting by his sexretary." It was a joke - it was still better to think of Nealite being with Obsidian than with.... Charonite. So he didn't. But it was an easy enough jab back. Nealite was perhaps the only woman in Destiny City who did not have to fear Khaldun's advances, for a variety of reasons. But that only meant she was instead a target for his insults. His eyes flickered briefly on his newly-splinted injury a little darkly, but moved quickly back to where the bright-haired secretary's voice was emanating from. The medicine was making him a little too confident. His mind kept wandering back to his mission. One cat in a box. That was it. He was finally going to be left alone for a while.
Sauntering through the office, Khaldun made his way to Nealite. He draped his upper body over the reception side of the secretary's desk, looking down at her. And kept staring, though he wasn't looking at her so much as partially through her. He seemed to be thinking (if that seemed possible to Nealite). Her interruption jolted him back into reality, but whatever he'd been piecing together in his brain was finished - he was too high on the painkillers now to think that what he was about to ask was a bad idea in the making.
"Miss Johnson, you know a lot about cats, right?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:12 pm
His comment evoked yet another eyeroll from the older woman as she watched him saunter over to her desk. She was used to jokes being made at her expense, when it came to Charonite, so his words went in one ear and out through the other for the young secretary. The idea of Charonite indeed waiting for his coffee did send a bit of chill through her... no, no, this was another trick, she was NOT going to fall for it this time. If Charonite wanted his coffee, he'd damn well tell her himself.
Looking up at him, she immediately noticed his eyes looked rather dazed, which cause one eyebrow to rise on Ursula's prim face.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" She asked, bringing one hand up so she could gently blow on her still-wet nails. "And cats?"
Her hands lowered themselves at the peculiar question. "I have one, yes, but Grendel's a rather... unique cat. You know that. Why do you ask?"
Now her curiosity was piqued. What in the world was this little dread-head getting at?
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:52 pm
"Nothing wrong with me. I'm better'n I've been in a while." There was a very slight slur to his voice but he seemed to overcome it. Was he supposed to lie down after taking these meds? Probably. It must not have helped that he was running on four hours' sleep to start with, today. He blinked at Nealite, focused, latched ahold of the train of thought that had been speeding away from him.
"Yeah. Cats." He gestured vaguely with his uninjured hand, his eyes now wandering the ceiling and, surprisingly, not Nealite's anatomy. "I have to find a cat, for the boss. One of those 'unique' cats. Thought maybe you knew what made them so 'unique'. Very important for finding them, that 'unique' stuff."
"I don't like cats," he added emphatically at the end, after a few seconds' pause.
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:11 pm
Her head tilted as she continued to stare at him curiously. Was this little son of a b***h drunk in the middle of the afternoon?
"He wants a unique one, hm?"
Ursula had already known that. Well, hell, everyone in the Negaverse knew at this point that Charonite was after Astraea, so this was far from big news to her. But for him to send out Khaldun on the mission...?
Leaning back in her chair, she mused to herself. She could do all sorts of things, at this point. She could assist him. She could lead him astray. She could tell him to screw off and go home, just as she'd initially intended to do... or she could hang around and see if anything else interesting happened.
"And why exactly, should I help you, Little Dreads?" she finally asked, inspecting her nails to ensure that at long last, they'd finished drying. "I mean, why would I help you out if there's nothing in it for me?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:37 pm
"Didn' say it had to be... 'unique'. Just has to look like one. You an' me, we're not gonna find a cat like that. We'd have t'be...... captains or generals or whatever." Khaldun began to react to the subject he brought up like vinegar poured on baking soda, and switched gears. Too much of that in one day. His gestures were rather animated now, if extremely puzzling.
"But if th' boss says BRING ME A GODDAMN CAT!-" and as he spoke the words he was bellowing quite loudly -"You bring him a goddamn cat. Unique... or not. Get it? Huh?"
"Don't call me thaaat," he whined. Khaldun hated the thought of being compared to Charonite about anything. He was now more or less clinging to the reception desk rather than casually propping himself up on it. But he was seriously begging her. It was this or he could end up with... Caine. Nealite was the lesser of two evils, for once. "Do I have t'spell it out? Imagine a day... th' boss doesn't lose his ******** temper. I know it's hard t'do, s'like a ******** fairytale, but bear with me. Imagine he's impressed by what we've done. Want th'glory? You can take it all, I don't want it. You prob'ly know... prob'ly know better'n I do whatever a 'good job' is 'round here anyway, he mentioned you. I can't... mess this up."
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Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:41 am
He was slurring by this point, and it was becoming increasingly harder for her to understand what he was trying to get across. Funny, but difficult.
Despite the fact she found him terribly obnoxious for the most part, Khaldun was still one of the more tolerable Lieutenants that Ursula had to work alongside. Whether or not it was because she'd known him longer than she had the others, or the fact he was, well, the least of her worries as far as competition went, he didn't bother her nearly as much as say, Linarite did.
She watched as he practically sprawled himself across her desk, and she reached over and tugged at one of his many dangling dreadlocks, just for her own personal amusement. What he said did have some merit, even if he was just asskissing. If they were able to succeed in capturing the pesky Guardian, or any other one they might find, she'd surely stand out among her peers in Charonite's eyes. Hm.
"Alright, Little Dreads," she said at last, intentionally reusing the nickname to irritate him, "I'll help you."
Giving his hair one last pull, she rose from her chair and picked up her purse once more. "But first, let's get you... well, sober. From whatever the hell you've been ingesting. Like hell I'm going to be seen walking around with you acting like that."
With that, she wiggled her finger in his direction, motioning for him to follow her out, no doubt to the faculty lounge to retrieve any remaining coffee left in the pot.
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Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:23 pm
"All I want - all I want is just -" To avoid things, and make himself appear useless so that he was under the radar and never expected of except just before the s**t hit the fan. He could fight. He could get starseeds. But he didn't unless he had a... personal investment in the matter. Because when it came down to it, what good were they to him? What good was any of this to him? He couldn't say. The thought trailed off anyway as she gave his dreads a tug. "What is it with you n' hair?"
But she was going to help him. He'd survive this one, like he had all the other times, with minimal physical trauma, and minimal effort. For Lieutenant Hematite, it was the only way to do things.
"F'only I was so lucky t'be drunk. This or.... my finger hurting like hell the rest of th'day and night." He fished in his pants pocket and pulled out a bubbly piece of flat plastic in which pills rattled around in their compartments. One was missing. "I dunno if you've ever had any of your bones re'ranged but lemme tell you you're not missin'anything. Huge pain in th' wherever-your-bone-is."
And with that insightful remark, Khaldun followed her out, though he would part ways with her long before she got close to Killingworth's office.
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