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It was early enough in the morning that it still counted as night, as far as Emmy's internal clock was concerned, when her phone started vibrating. One eye cracked open and she fished around for where the thing might had ended up under her pillow while she slept. When she found it, she squinted at the message.

Then she sat bolt upright and read it three more times.

E. Eion. Faustite was texting her at the crack of dawn, from Waru's phone, in all caps.

It was a simple enough request if Emmy didn't read into it, and Faustite had always been the type to be clear and direct in his communications, but it sent an alarm ringing in the back of Emmy's mind all the same. It was going to be awkward if he saw some of the messages she'd sent Waru, more awkward still if he was less comfortable with their dalliance than Waru had implied he might be.

When she tried closing her eyes again, all she could see was the text, so she texted back a confirmation, then got up instead and played video games for a while before she spent far too much time getting ready for their simple coffee meeting.

It hadn't been clear if this was meant to be business, or casual, or the kind of meeting where she ended up slapped across the face, so she went for a business-casual look with makeup that wouldn't smudge. When she walked into the cafe at precisely nine, she was wearing a short-sleeved blouse, a pencil skirt, summery wedges, and eyeliner sharp enough to cut.

She stopped at the counter to put in an order for an iced vanilla latte before she walked over to where she saw Eion curled up in a booth. Her suspicions deepened when she saw that he was wearing what was clearly a boyfriend sweater.

She wasn't going to be the one to bring it up, though, at least not yet, so she slipped into a seat across the table from him with a polite, "Good morning, sir."

"And I'm Emmy," she replied, reaching out to accept her vanilla latte without moving her eyes.

Watching him burn his tongue on the tea got an eyebrow raise out of her. It almost got a laugh, but she was tensed up, hands folded around her glass, and given the situation it was hard to forget the power that he had over her, regardless of how much smaller he looked in an oversized sweater than he did in the uniform and fire.

It did make her wonder, briefly, how long he'd been half-youma, and she might have asked about it if there hadn't been baristas floating around. Instead, she just flashed a half smile. "That's part of why I go for the ice," she said.

That half smile stayed glued on the bottom of her face even as he asked his question, and her brows furrowed. She stirred her drink and sipped at it before saying, slowly, "I like video games, even if I'm not playing them for work. Reading. If I feel like more excitement, I'll go out to clubs, or events."

There was a slight pause. That was enough small talk, wasn't it?

"Look, if you're trying to subtly find out who I'm doing, it's Waru, yes. He said what you had going on was open, but if not, I can-"

What? Stop? That didn't particularly appeal to her, but neither did angering the person who was responsible for her path through the ranks of the Negaverse. She could work on quickly becoming a General herself, she supposed, and then go back to having her fun.

"-Hold off."

There was nothing much to do other than to wait for his response, and to edge her drink to the side so that if he did end up making a scene, slamming the table or something, at least she wouldn't end up with coffee all over her curated outfit. Instead she watched him hide behind his hands, and jumble his words, and when he finally managed to get out a complete sentence, he was saying that it was all fine.

Objectively, that was good. She hadn't ended up slapped, which wouldn't have been any fun, even if she was confident that her makeup could have handled it. She could pull her drink back towards her without having to worry if she'd end up wearing it.

It just meant that she had to wonder why exactly he had called her out here-

Her eyes flicked to his notepad and then it was Emmy's turn to have her cheeks go hot.

"Wait. You actually texted me in all caps, from your fiance's phone, at dawn, just so you could ask about my hobbies?"

She'd made it weird. Or, no. Eion had made it weird. She had no idea how else she'd been meant to interpret any of that.

"Oh," she said, sipping at her drink to try and cool her face. He'd made it weird, but she could try to salvage this. "So, what do you like to do?"

"Next time, you can show up on my doorstep," Emilia offered. It wasn't an offer that she'd had made half an hour ago, and if he'd woke her up by knocking at her door instead of by texting, she might have ended up just as panicked. In the future, though, if it led things being laid out more clearly and less up for interpretation, she was fine with it.

It wasn't like she could trust Eion to keep any phones intact when he spent so much time around Waru, after all. If he got a new phone, that one would probably end up thrown at Waru's face, too. That man was just the type who was asking to have phones thrown at him, sometimes. She understood that part completely.

She was just glad to know it, so that she didn't start jumping to conclusions again.

She followed Eion from the cafe. That made things simpler, too. Her face was beginning to cool by the time they made it outside, although even as she turned to listen to him, she had to raise an eyebrow at his offer.

"Stock things for me and Waru where?" she asked. If it was in his own space, wouldn't that be a bit awkward for him? She wouldn't argue against it, though. This must have something to do with the project he was talking about, the one he needed their hobbies for.

"Stock me some books for when it's your turn with him," she added.

"There's houses down there?" she asked. She hadn't noticed. Since she'd upgraded and gained the ability to teleport on her own, she'd been spending a little more time in Negaspace than she had before, but it wasn't like she had much reason to go outside the castle. Eventually she should try to find herself a youma, she supposed, but that kept being put off behind other projects.

She didn't see herself spending much time in a dark, underground, house, no matter how many books were there. If he used the place for more team bonding, that might tempt her. That last game of two truths and a lie had given her something to think about for weeks.

She answered him anyway, because he was right. They didn't know each other well, and to work together at their best level, they should.

"I'll read almost anything," she said. "Maybe not instruction manuals or the really stupid romances, but I like the classics. I like travel memoirs. I like fantasy."

Since Emmy could already feel the ice in her to-go cup starting to melt from the early summer heat, she sipped at her drink a few more times before adding, "I like the idea of having a place for meetings that's more comfortable and private. That will be nice no matter what reading material is around."

"I like poetry," said Emmy, hesitating a moment before she followed Eion through the garden gate. She hardly wanted someone to come through and accuse them of trespassing, or loitering. She was not a loiterer. The plants were overgrown, though, and a glance over her shoulder did not reveal anyone following them, so she entered, closing the gate neatly behind her.

"Plays, too. It might not be what I reach for at a bookstore, but I had to read just about everything during college and I found I liked the variety."

She sat don neatly on the worn down steps of the gazebo, crossing her legs at the ankle. There was more she could have said on the topic of literature, but her eyebrow quirked at his plans for the abandoned house.

Her face wasn't nearly so judgemental this time, though. She was almost smiling as she said, "Fighting pit? Didn't we just rough up that Lieutenant because you thought that hurting youma for money was wrong?"

To Emmy, it was an amusing thought, and it might have even worked, but she doubted he was going to follow through on that idea.

"I'll support whatever you do with the place, though," she said. She was required to, with him being her General and all, but there was more to it than that. A moment passed before she admitted, eyes flicking down, "It's," she swallowed, "Nice, having a team again."

Perhaps she wasn’t laughing, but Eion’s comment got a smile in return, even if it was turned to more of an amused smirk with the tilt of her brows. “If you say so,” she said with a bow of her head, a overdramatic picture of loyalty.

He was the boss, at least for now. At she didn't mind seeing where he was going with this particular project.

His question made her drop the act, and she leaned back some, crossing her ankles in front of her and looking up. "Different,” she said. “Hand-picked, for one thing. She never had any random transfers. Specialized. We were all hires at her media company that she recruited into Infiltration.”

There had been no lumbering, smiling men who didn’t think before they spoke. There had been no fiery, ones, like the boy in front of her, who were so disconnected from humanity that they didn’t think twice about sending commands in all caps at the crack of dawn.

There had been Nembus.

“She wasn’t a bad General. She made sure we knew how to defend ourselves and to keep our quota even though we were mostly writing articles and gaining public trust. She hand-picked me for a mission to England, that was interesting.”

More serious than she’d thought it might be, but interesting.

“But, now that I’m getting out of that office environment, I think I like the variety.”