Offtopic: Continued from [Igoras] Dear Reaper . . .

It was morning, as far as they were concerned. Etsu had stayed over with Eld again. Truth be told, they weren't talking that much anymore, but she had actually been making an effort to try and say more around him--and found herself bashful again. As such, they didn't do anything spectacular that evening, they just slept.

Sometimes, though, that was for the best. It made people comfortable sometimes, to know that a relationship wasn't built entirely on the foundation of sex.

And it was a nice sleep, too. The best sleep Etsu Hikane had alongside of Eld for the last few weeks. He probably didn't even understand it, but that was fine. He didn't need to. He probably wouldn't even if she talked about it. She'd just . . . have to get over it. Or maybe try and forcefully settle into a social position with him.

But either way, the sleep was great . . . until it was rudely disturbed.

"M-Mister Tsukimono!!" a young voice called out from the other side--a girl, about the same age as Etsu, probably, "Please be there please be there please be there~!"

"Ugh...." Eld had never been a big fan of mornings. He was the type that preferred to stay up late and sleep in; it wasn't laziness or anything, he simply preferred that kind of cycle. It helped that Etsu was pretty much the same way, though their superiors might contest that point.

He would have gone right back to sleep, normally--especially as Etsu still seemed to be sleeping, and he didn't want to wake her. But someone was calling for him, and that required him to wake up. But it sounded like neither of his direct superiors, and the only other person who could want something from him in the Dirige would just enter without knocking.

And no one he knew called him "Mister Tsukimono" anyway.

Suppressing a groan, he separated from Etsu as gently as he could so as not to wake her and headed for the door. Having just woke up, he was shirtless and only dressed in a pair of sweatpants, his hair was messy and his eyes were bleary.

"Yes?" Whatever reputation he might have had, at the moment he just looked like...well, a teenager who just woke up.

Etsu was a hard sleeper, too. She didn't wake up when Eld did, fortunately, and remained silent, laying on her side. Prior, she had her back pressed up against Eld's chest, and they slept like that for the evening, but he moved, and she turned a little, as if her back had suddenly got chilly.

At the door was a young Reaper, one who could barely take care of herself, let alone wayward souls. Areva Misotalles, an amateur Reaper who had enlisted into the service of Death just two weeks ago. She came from a country that most people hadn't ever heard of, and looked the part of a Cizokian, except with much darker skin. At Eld's door, she looked all kinds of a mess; her cheeks were wet with tears, and it seemed like it hurt just to stand up.

"I-- I am terribly sorry!!" Areva exclaimed as she shut her eyes tightly and held something up to Eld's face with both of her hands--something she wanted him to take from her. It was an envelope, specifically addressed to Eldridge Tsukimono. The note inside was crudely written; the penmanship was perfect, and there weren't any curses or the like-- just no single complete sentences.

It was a specific list of demands.

Igoras.

Geldero Village.

Empty shack at far south on beach.

Come alone. Come unarmed.

You have thirty six hours.

Areva looked up to Eld expectantly. She hadn't read the note--God forbid it! Just what if it had something to do with her reading it? Areva just didn't take the chance.

"He-- he-- he s-said-- he said he'd . . . he'd do something really terrible-- t-to my family . . ."

The girl sniffled. She hadn't stopped crying, per say. She just wasn't crying as bad anymore. Areva took this extremely seriously. If it were a ransom, she would have paid it in full, rather than talking to Death about it, and even taking the smallest risk.

". . . i-if . . . you did not . . . follow it . . ."

Eld had, in his brief time awake, come up with a few possibilities on why a stranger would come to his door. His superiors were busy and sending a messenger. Scott was playing a joke on him. Heck, every once in a while he was asked out by a girl, though he could only assume it was part of a bet or a dare.

None of these scenarios generally involved young girls crying at his doorstep, however. "A-Areva?" he asked after a moment, scrambling to remember her name. She was a new Reaper under Scott, one who'd just joined a few weeks ago. Before he could ask any real questions, though, she handed him a letter addressed to him.

He read it. He re-read it. He read it a third time because it was so short and he couldn't immediately form a response to it, other than a sense of dread.

Upon hearing her explanation as to why she was the one delivering it, his heart sank further. It wasn't even people he knew well being dragged into these messes anymore; it seemed like anyone would do.

"I'm the one who should apologize," he said softly, looking at her sympathetically. He knew all too well how she must have felt...what it was like to have what you treasured most, what you sacrificed so much for threatened yet again...

Good. It seems like Kageko's sleeping. The note said to come alone and unarmed--neither Etsu nor Kageko could know, and even though the latter couldn't move, if she managed to communicate with Etsu it might still result in them coming after him.

"Give me just a minute, okay?" He retreated to his room, getting dressed in a hurry--throwing on one of his kimonos rather than the usual Algerothian clothes he wore. The note told him to go to Igoras, which was, if he recalled, where Areva was from. If it's culture was similar to Cizok's like he'd heard, he'd blend in better.

"Alright," he said as he emerged. "Let's go see Scott quick. How long ago did you receive the note?" He wanted to know how much time he had to prepare; it was bad enough he had to walk straight into what was surely a trap, he didn't want to have to wait there for an entire day and a half and exhaust himself staying alert and worrying.

Areva didn't really respond to Eld's apology. She simply continued to stare up at him, eyes still watery, still threatening to expel tears at any given moment. Indeed--she'd sacrificed her freedom and future for her family, only to have it threatened once again. It was horrible. Areva unknowingly knew what it was like to be in Eld's shoes.

"O-- okay . . ." she sniffled and whispered as Eld went back into his room.

She waited patiently outside of his room, or, well, about as patiently as she could. The whole issue was a horror. Areva couldn't stop herself from wanting to cry. All she could do was pace and wait. The fate of her family rested entirely upon the shoulders of someone she barely knew. Legendary Reaper or not . . .

Once Eld was out of his room, Areva had a burst of energy. She wanted to run to Scott like Eld wanted, but he wasn't rushing nearly as much, and it probably would've brought a lot of attention to them anyways! But . . . but . . .

"I-- it . . . I--" Areva trailed off.

She didn't want to say it.

"A-alm-- almost a day . . ." she replied with a sulk, "H-he broke my earpiece a-and I-- I couldn't get ahold of anyone!"

Which didn't leave a lot of time . . .

Fortunately, though, Scott was in his office. The door was slightly ajar, and he was inside, jotting down notes, likely about a recent mission, or perhaps a recent failed mission. He wasn't on a good streak lately, and his approval rating was shooting down. For some reason, though, all his Reapers seemed to be getting the difficult missions lately, even the rookies.

So, we've got around twelve hours then. There's no time to waste.

Fortunately, Scott was in his office, so he didn't need to spend time tracking him down. And given how busy he seemed lately, that could have been difficult and--more importantly--time consuming.

"Sorry for intruding, but we've got an emergency," Eld called, not even knocking before he entered. "Someone's threatened Areva's family; we need to send someone over to protect them, preferably someone who can hide their presence. Whoever it is knows about Reapers...Areva, you should describe whoever threatened you...though, they probably aren't working alone."

It was a reasonable enough conclusion to come to--whoever threatened her also threatened that Eld had to follow the note perfectly...which meant most likely there were at least two groups--whoever was going to trap him, and whoever was posing a threat to Areva's family.

But that end of it he could only leave to Scott--he couldn't afford to explain the whole situation. He wasn't sure how long it would take him to find the shack, and given how things went with his missions lately he might send someone to follow him without telling him. And if that happened, whoever was threatening him wouldn't know he really tried to come alone.

So he left in a hurry, ushering Areva inside and turning around and heading for the door. He didn't like to just dump her on him, and he would have preferred to reassure her a bit more that he wasn't going to do anything to cause risk to her family, but it couldn't be helped.

Hoping Scott wouldn't have the foresight to call someone and have them intercept him, he headed for the transporters, and from there to outside Geldero Village, in Igoras...

Eld practically bursting in gave Scott one hell of a fright. He jumped forward in his seat, his pencil scratching up the page hard and snapping its sharpened tip off, as well as digging into the papers--which he was going to have to redo, now.

Initially, Scott grit his teeth together hard, and was about ready to--for once--let Eld have it, but Eld was talking first, and talking fast. Scott was just waiting, at first, for Eld to stop talking, to give him an opportunity to whip his clipboard at him and lay into him. He didn't care how great of a Reaper Eld was, Scott was already stressed with all the messes he had to deal with at the moment-- when suddenly, a new one was added.

But this one was much more important. Scott didn't even get the chance to reply, but he gathered as much that something more serious than paperwork was going down. To an extent, Death--and therefore the Dirige--owed Areva something, and that was the protection of her little sister. She was supposed to survive and live her life, while Areva remained enlisted with the Reapers.

Areva nodded meekly as Eld ushered her in, and while still trying to hold back her stress and the urge to cry again. As Eld started away, he'd be able to faintly hear her voice, dictating the entirety of the events to Scott Thompson.

Once at the transporters, Eld was greeted by a pleasantly rushed voice:

"Eld? Whatever the fuck's going on, be careful. If this guy wants you alone, he probably wants you without any means of communication either. I'll have someone else on standby in the village, just follow his spirit if serious shit goes down and you need to bail out."

It was the last words Eld would hear from Scott, who was just as rushed as Eld was. Now, he needed to get two Reapers-- one to protect Areva's family, and the other to remain on standby in the village, far from Eld in particular, but close enough that Eld could get to him if he absolutely needed. In all of Scott's experiences, horrible things happened when contact was lost. In an instant, the transporter was activated, and the sickening lurch of Qi dragging the body down would traverse Eld's frame . . .

"Ah, Scott--!" For a moment Eld thought the jig was up; if Scott had figured out what the contents of the note was, then he didn't have a chance of dissuading him now, not when he went straight for the transporters.

But fortunately, it wasn't going to be like that; there would be someone in the village, but not at the beach. He supposed he should be trusting Scott more...while he had a tendency to occasionally leave out important details when sending Reapers on missions (like that one city was far colder than it should have been, or that another one had a barrier that prevented Qi usage inside it), he'd also been trustworthy on a personal level.

"I'll be careful. And thanks."

And with that, he was off, to yet another new country, and yet another new problem.