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"Two." said a tired voice behind her, as Giselle strode up to the Denny's. She couldn't remember the girl's name, but she recognized her face and stuck out her hand, saying "Giselle Petrova." by way of introduction.

Giselle had never been to Denny's either, but unlike Pierrette, it hardly sounded like paradise to her. She didn't eat regular meals when she could help it, and she certainly didn't eat messy food, like breakfast food tended to be. When she went to restaurants, they tended to have linen tablecloths.

If she did not come for the cuisine, she came because of Elke, who had pestered her into it at the last possible moment. It was not the most elegant place to have a meeting of great powers, it was certainly no palace of Versailles or United Nations. It was, in fact, a quintessential chain diner that was completely open to the public, where one could order a reasonable plate of waffles at low cost. However, it seemed to be the closest thing to a meeting they were going to get soon, and Giselle needed to discuss. She needed to know exactly who her team was, or at least to learn all their names. If she had to go to Denny's to do so, so be it. She would order water and fruit and try not to touch anything when she sat down, and then everything would be fine.

Or at least clean.

For Denny's, that was.

"Ma'am, we'll be requiring an ample table, perhaps 15 or 16 deep; not all of you RSVPed, so I am unfortunately not precise," The pretty curly haired girl entering through the double glass door looked resigned to this fact. Pierette had offered Denny's as their place of meeting as an aside to Miss Barrett, and Miss Barrett had deemed that it was as good a place as any to hold a meeting about themselves. And teamwork. Which meant that Aurelia had sent them all emails and text messages the night before; why Aurelia had their phone numbers and emails when very few of them had spoken to her in their time at Barren Pines was a quagmire.

The woman at the front looked harassed, scowled at the lot of them, and pulled out more brightly coloured menus, menus that bespoke good times and happiness. This was the Zodiac; the only ones having a good time were Gemini and that's because the two of them desired very little other than a constant stream of people in and out from between their legs. Most people, most Zodiacs, had far more important things on their minds.

"Miss Barrett will be but a moment." Aurelia said imperiously.

Miss Barrett was but a moment. Their brother, their captain and their king (well, not quite) came in shaking snow from her jacket, and she caught up with the group (Aurelia had waited patiently) as they were all lead to a gigantic Denny's booth. She sat down next to Aurelia just as Pierrette was trying to describe fishy, and gave her a look that froze her into stone.

"Let Miss Thorne take care of the communiques between us," she said, a little bit witheringly. "She can do so without drawing undue attention to herself. Giselle." A nod to the pretty blonde girl, a respectful one, between allies. Cordial allies. Much water had gone under the bridge with Giselle Petrova and Hero Barrett. "Miss Arma." Elke. "Miss Génoise." (She had a flawless French accent.) "I hope that this isn't just going to be a meeting of the women -- if I have to brand the men into coming along to any organisation whatsoever, I won't enjoy it and they won't either."

Hero steepled her fingers. "Nonetheless, Mr. Lawson won't be coming. You couldn't make Mr. Lawson do anything without a bear trap, and he certainly won't do... Denny's."

She sounded sour.

Serenade was barely smiling these days, and somewhat out of it, as though she was still mourning over the Barren Pines students (Elke would remember this). Still, she was sensible enough to know that if she went to the meeting alone, Hero would probably yell at her again, like that time she rushed out after Elke and Andeon. While this time wasn't the same as the last, Serenade did not want to take any chances. The smile she offered Mackenzie for taking her coat was small, and her eyes seemed rather dull. She had been perhaps crying a bit, and sometimes just taking out her grief by practicing the piano excessively. She however, insisted that this was to make up for the time they had lost in Barren Pines.

Serenade only bowed her head slightly but did not introduce herself and simply sat besides Mackenzie. She did not even chuckle at the image of Andeon hiding from a nurse.

"Hero." Giselle acknowledged, returning the nod with one of her own. "Miss Thorne."

"...Pierrette." The urge to address her as Fishy was stifled as frivolous, but the girl hardly seemed to be discreet.

She let the others sit down first before she did, presumably because the closer she could get to the edge of the booth, the easier it would be to escape to the bathroom and wash her hands obsessively. Only if it was called for, of course. Giselle had the feeling that it would be. Already her shoulder itched from where Elke had rested her chin, had that really even been necessary, Giselle rather thought it hadn't been.

As she sat down, Mackenzie and Serenade arrived, and Giselle gave the first a curt nod, the second a slightly warmer "Serenade." Mackenzie had more of Giselle's respect than she had garnered when Barren Pines was just a prestigious school, but she was still just barely above Andeon in the Petrova Political Landscape. Giselle's snap judgements were hard to overcome, and as she saw Mackenzie escorting Chronos, her hands twitched. Surely the Princess needed a more capable escort than a Gemini.

Not that Giselle had more experience than anyone else at the table. The last time she had needed to she had settled for swinging her scales until she hit something, which had worked, but was not exactly a strategy suitable for a magical warrior, let alone a magical warrior guarding a princess. But despite Mackenzie's escorting the princess, at least she came bearing what was, for Giselle, good news. Andeon might not be coming. Giselle had gained more respect for him through their conversation when he was a head, but now he had the rest of him attached and could attempt come ons with more of a threat behind his words. She was in no hurry to see him again.

In her head, Libra's memories associated fond feelings towards all these people, Gemini, Pisces (or Fishy, as it were), Aries, Capricorn, and Virgo. Giselle Petrova was not about to rely completely on historical precedent in this one particular case though. Giselle knew what kinds of people she did and did not trust.

She was going to need to see the elite Zodiac team herself before drawing her conclusions.

“I think not!”

Andeon had entered the restaurant the way Andeon entered any room, by barging the hell in as though there were something extremely interesting going on and he just had to be in the center of it. He was wearing the same khaki cargo shorts and bright pink 'Save The Boobs' t-shirt he had been wearing when he'd gone to visit Sue in the hospital, likely because this was the only pair of clothes he now owned. It was also possible that he just really liked the way it complemented his hair color. Either way, he looked exactly how a young man who had been through hell should not look; bright, jovial, and utterly happy.

He looked like Andeon Boskovic always looked, grinning like a ******** idiot.

The second half of the Gemini twins wasted no time in attempting to wrap one arm around Tara's waist, the other behind her knees, trying to scoop her small frame off of her feet and up into his arms. He began carrying the girl he remembered as Aquarius over to the crowded table, occasionally stopping to do a little spin. He paused only to tell the nearest waitress, “Could you just go ahead and put about a dozen pancakes and a full pack of bacon on the griddle for me, sweet thing? And I'm going to need every flavor of syrup you have.”

Then his attention was back on the table of familiar faces, his grin wide.

“Muffin Pants, oh my darling Muffin Pants!” He said in a sing-song voice, just loud enough to be embarrassing. His eyes searched out the girl to whom the nickname belonged, “I've brought you a present. I'm afraid I didn't have time to wrap her.”

"Mr. Boskovic." Hero's drawl was long and unimpressed. If Andeon had only known, he probably would have said: man, you are the ONLY PERSON to not get happier after getting laid, what the hell. Her expression was obvious: 'Muffin Pants' was not the term he should have been calling their Princess. "If you could sit down and stop carrying Miss Kavanaugh over the threshold."

Giselle was Hero's ally; therefore, she was not as complimentary of Tara as she might have been. Giselle and Tara hated each other with the same fire that Hero and Miriam loathed each other with -- though Miriam and Hero had to live in the same room all day, which meant that Hero shortsheeted her bed.

"We don't want to get kicked out as though we're drunken college students."