Envy's Office, The Hegemony Compound, Brazil, Monday

[whenshewasnice]

It had been an unbelievably good week and a half or so. Envy had barely left Todd's side at all. It'd been almost like when they'd been kids. Except with much more kissing. But it wasn't a reunion that would last, yet. Todd still had a semester left at Vegan Academy (yes, he was a vegan and yes, that was why he could fly to the moon and punch it). Envy teared up at the train station when she was seeing him off.

Then teared up some more when they vowed to Always Be True and Never To Waver.

(Yes. Really.)

But even with the teary part, a much happier Envy returned to Ribeirao Preto today than had left it before New Year's. She couldn't help feeling lighter. Better. Pretty natural for something she'd been waiting to happen for half her life.

Everything was clicking in to place.

Well. Everything but 100% of her focus as she sat down behind her desk. She could muster up maybe 87% of it. The rest, sorry to say, was Todd.

[ooc: NFB but open!]

Comments

[lockestheway]

"Oh, good, you're back," Peter said, sticking his head into her office a good half hour after she'd returned.

He'd been waffling for a while about filling her in on the current state of the Virlomi situation, but there'd been enough of that now. Might as well talk it through, while she was still here.

[whenshewasnice]

Envy had been... kind of zoned out, actually, but she snapped right back to attention as soon as he came in.

"I am," she said with a tiny nod. "Anything on fire I haven't discovered yet?"

[lockestheway]

Okay, the snapping out of it was weird.

"That depends," Peter said. "What have you discovered?"

He was genuinely curious if she'd picked out the troop movements, too.

[whenshewasnice]

Envy didn't tend to be much for zoning out, no. Not usually. But everything was less than usual right now.

"Not much," she said. "But I've only been back for half an hour."

And she hadn't had time to keep tabs on things from afar this time around.

[lockestheway]

"Then I should give you some time to catch up," Peter said. "It looks like a lot of things are moving again."

She'd need the context.

[whenshewasnice]

"Asia?"

Well, tended not to be insignificant.

[lockestheway]

"Virlomi," Peter said.

[whenshewasnice]

"Ah." Look at this complete lack of surprise. "So basically the same thing."

[lockestheway]

"Depends on who you're asking," Peter said lightly. "Han Tzu would object."

[whenshewasnice]

"I'm not overly concerned with his opinion," Envy replied, leaning back a bit. "What's Virlomi up to?"

She knew it had felt more important to her before. Just couldn't quite get there right now; it ended up being more like idle curiosity.

[lockestheway]

She sounded it, and though Peter knew Envy had a whole line of different flavors of idle that didn't necessarily mean idle, this one didn't sound like any of them.

Strange.

"Driving Alai stir crazy," he said lightly. "At least going by my reports."

It wasn't a lie, per sé.

[whenshewasnice]

Envy raised one eyebrow, just barely.

"And Alai's manifesting his stir crazy by...?"

[lockestheway]

"Going by our reports on the ground, they might be planning some kind of military invasion," Peter said. "Possibly of Armenia. Possibly of somewhere else."

[whenshewasnice]

"Of course."

The requisite eye roll was there. But no further comments.

[lockestheway]

"So that's our current bush fire," Peter said lightly. "How's Canada?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Beautiful."

Was he expecting sarcasm? Because there wasn't any. In fact, she smiled, even if it was just a little bit.

[lockestheway]

It wasn't even that so much that set off red flags in Peter's head; it was that she wasn't nudging him into giving her more information.

"So I guess we're back out of the raincloud phase," he said. "The cleaners will be relieved."

[whenshewasnice]

"Please, the cleaners weren't involved." Well, it wasn't as if the water actually got anything wet. It was just an effect. "But the better weather is here to stay, now."

[lockestheway]

"I'm glad to hear that," Peter said. He leaned his shoulder against the doorway (carefully, so his suit wouldn't wrinkle too much). "I look forward to watching you shine your light on the scheduling."

[whenshewasnice]

"I'll get to it soon."

While she still could. She realized now that she hadn't really planned things out very well when it came to Brazil and the Hegemony. And Peter.

[lockestheway]

"Get some coffee first," Peter said, after a moment. "You sound like you can use it."

[whenshewasnice]

"Funny, I haven't felt this awake in months," she said, and there was that small smile again. Couldn't help it.

[lockestheway]

Peter bit back a sarcastic are you on drugs?. Barely. "Okay," he said.

The are you on drugs was actually still kind of audible.

[whenshewasnice]

Especially for someone with her ability to perceive things from outside the quotation marks.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not on drugs, Peter." Debatable, considering her endorphins were working on overtime. "I'm happy."

[lockestheway]

"I didn't say anything," Peter said.

He pulled away from the door. "I'll let you get settled back in," he said, "I'll be in my office."

Where he could go feel uneasy without anyone reading his narrative.