Welcome to Gaia! ::

Most of what Jadarite knew about Aquamarine, she'd learned in the last few weeks. He was connected to Jet, the rising star of a General-King. He organized Thanksgiving meals and holiday gift exchanges. They'd never actually spoken, but that was likely the point of this. The Negaverse needed to be better connected.

So, Jadarite bought a gift, even though she wasn't much for holiday spirit.

"Aquamarine," she said, when he arrived. He would hear a few footsteps from inside of her office, and then the door swung open. "Come on in."

Her smile was practiced.

Her office was functional, but not overly decorated. It wasn't like she spent much time here anyway. Most of her meetings took place in team spaces. Much of the paperwork for her Infiltration projects, now that she'd gone back to focusing on videos, she could just do from her house. There were times when it was useful to have her own space, though, so here it was. There was a single fake plant on one corner of the desk, and a minimalist style clock and calendar on the back wall.

There was a present on the desk as well, wrapped in dark blue paper with a real fabric ribbon around it tied into a bow.

Jadarite didn't mind the silence. She didn't mind conversation, either, most of the time, but so often it turned into people talking and talking without saying anything, and that part she disliked dealing with. It seemed that would not be a problem with Aquamarine, however.

She took the gift from him with a gracious smile and peeled back the tissue paper, a smile that softened slightly as she saw the brand of coffee. Her eyebrow only raised a millimeter when she reached the gift card and saw the value on it. Since Aquamarine was the one who had organized this gift exchange, she supposed there was no comment to be made about how so few people in the Negaverse could actually follow instructions. He was in charge. He could do what he wanted.

That thought was there anyway.

"This is perfect," she told him. "This place," she tapped the gift card with a long, red fingernail, "Has a few collections that I was looking at, and the cofee will get me through plenty of work."

She gave him one last appreciative nod and then reached for her own package.

She had kept to the budget, or at least close to it, and had given him a small pack of decent oil paint and a pack of brushes.

"Here," she said, handing it over.

Formality was easy and comfortable in these types of situations. Jadarite was fine with that. She could have handled it if they'd sent her some upstart Lieutenant with no sense of propriety, but she would have had to be holding back far more eye rolls and harsh words.

"I wouldn't have been able to guess that you didn't know much about this," she side, eyeing the makeup that she'd gotten her once again. It was good quality. She'd take a closer look at the exact colors later, but it wasn't something she was going to nitpicking in front of her secret Santa.

"It's lovely."

However, she didn't feel the need to gush over it, either. She was taking her cues from Aquamarine, who didn't seem chatty.

She walked back to her seat, and sat back down cross-legged, setting her gifts from the other General in the spot where her presents had been at first. "Thank you," she said again, this time in a tone that sounded more like a dismissal.