Welcome to Gaia! ::

Madison had been relaxing with a magazine she'd snagged on her last day off, humming contentedly as she flopped on her bed, Kouki making commentary on the fashion. The serpent-sword was definitely opinionated...

That color is all wrong for her, he objected as she turned the page to a full-color spread advertisement for dresses.

"Really? Hm..." Madison tilted her head and examined the page more closely.

Burgundy would be nicer.

"Maybe-" The knock on the door interrupted their conversation, and Madison looked up with a sigh before sliding off the bed and getting to her feet. She didn't really feel like an interruption, and she decided privately that if this was anything less than a dire emergency, she was going right back to her goof-off time.

Maybe.

Her eyebrows raised as she opened the door, only to see an unfamiliar face... carrying a rose. Well. "Yes?" she asked, unsure whether to feel flattered or vaguely creeped out.

"Yeah, that's me... is this a delivery, or something?" Hm. Maybe he was just a message-boy. She didn't recognize him, though... "Are you new?" she added, with a little more sympathy. He could easily have been put up to doing weird things, and not know any better.

"A secret admirer?" Madison looked startled, accepting the rose and staring at first it and then Melvin. "Who? Why? I didn't know we had, uh, a florist. Wait, it doesn't like... bite, or something, does it?"

Now she was holding the rose a little further away. Not quite at arm's length, but close.

"Yeah, well - this place, you can never be too sure." Thus reassured, Madison sniffed at the rose. It was rather nice, honestly - she'd gotten plenty of 'secret admirer' roses in high school, during events when the school student council had them available for fundraising, but that was something she'd thought had been left far behind along with the rest of her life. The gesture was sweetly nostalgic, somehow.

"Awww... are you sure you can't give me just a little hint?" she asked, grinning at Melvin. "What's your name, anyway? I mean, you know mine, and I don't know yours. Not exactly fair, is it?"

"Grounded?" Madison looked even more puzzled. If that was a pun, she didn't quite get it. "Ooookay, then. Um. Can I send a reply, or something? And how come you got saddled with delivery duty?" Though she pretty much knew that one. New to the Life Division. That said it all, honestly.

... no, no way it was from Dr. H, not when he had Candace all up in his grill. "Sorry about all the questions," she added, after a moment. "It's nice to meet you, Melvin - I started out in Life myself. You like it?"

"Yeah, I did. I'm in Death now - brought Caelius a suggestion and he decided to snag me into Death because of it, I don't know." She made a face. "It's not bad, though. Suits me better than Life did. I'm not much for, um. Healing and technology and science and things."

"Sneaking... why would anyone sneak in?" Madison looked confused. "It's not like it's locked. You can just, like. Walk in. No sneaking required. Unless they had orders, or something? I dunno, the higher-ups like to screw around and use us as game pieces sometimes." She made a face, then softened into a sympathetic look. "You'll see, if you haven't yet. Just be ready for it. It's not a bad idea to be skeptical - that's why I asked you so many questions."

She twirled the rose stem lightly between her fingers. "Never know when Dr. H might decide to send out tainted roses or something, though it's not really the time of year for that. Be careful around Valentine's, though."