[Private] 'Tis the Season

Esther's phone whistled out a notification, which as of late had meant one thing: reap-related message incoming. With some amount of reluctance she reached into her jacket pocket, tearing her eyes from a particularly hideous window display (the creepy, wall-eyed cardboard Santa continued to stare her down... thankfully from behind the glass).

The entirety of the message she'd gotten were two short lines of text, both of which were void of any sort of faux holiday cheer. From Heng, who she remembered from the ugly incident in the gardens. Jolly.

"At meeting location". How did he get there before I did? I didn't leave late...

She pulled a glove off of her left hand in order to type out a quick message back, taking a moment to briefly glance at one of the living humans walking by (-- two jackets? It wasn't that cold outside; people were letting their small, snotty children run amok without layers and layers of clothing. It had barely even snowed here properly... unless you considered the pathetic underfoot slush "proper snow").

        [To: chrysDAMNthemum

        From: snip

        Subject: RE: Meeting Spot

        Body: I'll be there asap. Unrelated question: why is your THREADCUTTERS name
        chrysdamnthemum?]

Autocorrect didn't like his name, but after a brief struggle it finally resigned itself to the fact that "chrysdamnthemum" wasn't a typo'd version of "chrysanthemum". Esther jabbed the send button, waited for the phone to register the message, and then shoved it back into her jacket pocket (which was zipped up tight immediately after -- losing her phone because it fell out somewhere was pretty low on the list of things she wanted to do today).

Tugging her glove back on and casting one final, pitying look at the window display, she resumed her walk towards the meeting point, bustling past living people and their giant bags of presents-to-be. No punches (or elbows) were pulled for those that took up too much space on the sidewalk; it wasn't like they would remember her rudeness, anyways. She had places to be. Several blocks to traverse. And then an apprentice to find -- hopefully Heng and his tree would be easy to spot.

After some amount of time spent looking around (darn the Christmas shoppers and their inexplicable urges to form obstructive, herd-like groups), Esther's line of sight finally snapped to Heng and his tree. Her direction changed from purposeful roaming to a beeline, but she came to a halt a good several feet away from him, personal space kept at an acquaintance-y level.

She dusted off her jacket, brushing away both real and imaginary bits of snow. When she was satisfied that her clothes weren't covered in miscellaneous debris, she looked to Heng and carefully (painstakingly) made eye contact.

"It's good to see you, Qu Heng," she greeted, dipping her head down in a small, curt nod (that was sufficiently formal, right?). He'd stumbled a bit over her name, which made her grateful that she knew how to pronounce his. Perhaps Soon-ja would've been easier for him, but who ever called her that? Nobody. "Thanks for coming along... even if you had little choice in the matter."

Yawning. Great. Maybe he's as tired of these orders as I am. Or maybe HQ's guardians are deprived of rest. As long as he's not falling asleep.

"Tired?" she wondered, arms folding to mimic the pose he'd held by the tree. "Oh, well. It doesn't matter. They do give guardians time to sleep, right?" A wide grin spread over her face. "But anyways. I don't like to leave stories untold. You should tell me more about this teammate of yours before we go assist someone in getting clobbered by Fate."

It was said in a light tone, but if one listened closely they might've been able to hear a trace of bitter resignation pierce the almost jovial-sounding words.

"Okay, just Heng," said Esther, downplaying the grin a bit (the raised eyebrow hadn't gone unnoticed, but it was of little consequence one way or the other). "I'll take your word for it."

Keeping up with him, she listened to his teammate talk intently. Noor: scientist. Possibly engineer. Probably died within the last century or two. Records will be somewhere, maybe in the library, if I want to know more about her. Do I?

A child waved up at Heng, staring awestruck at the man's halberd. Esther's eyes flickered to them and she frowned momentarily. Was that child spiritually aware? Most small children -- most living people, for that matter -- didn't seem to notice the dead people or their weapons. But oh -- Heng had started talking again. She snapped out of the train of thought involving the little person (and what they may or may not have seen) and back into teammate side info, tucking a hand into her pocket and working her face back into an interested expression.

"Damn, hm?" Now it was her turn to raise eyebrows. "Ohhh my." The grin spread back over her face despite herself. "That's... that's interesting. And she told you this?" A scoff. "Amazing. Well, it's an interesting name."

Interesting enough, at any rate. A little tidbit of information to stow away for later... if a later ever came. But there was more to be divulged.

"She's an ex-teammate, I'm assuming? What happened there? Did she get switched? Ascend? Or did she --"

Esther stopped, reconsidering the phrasing of the question, and amended her rushed attempt at learning something with a tacked on, "You don't have to tell. My apologies for prying. I was... curious."

Oh. The teammate had fallen. And Heng didn't seem very happy about it. Perhaps it was for the best to hang up the topic.

Esther did just that, supplying him with a shrug. "Right. And... it's fine. One of my own teammates fell. Not really that long ago, either." I hope she's okay. "I'd be up in arms if people decided to ask me about her."

She cut herself off -- there was no time to reminisce about fallen teammates (and it was probably better that she didn't mention her "somewhat controversial" relationship with the Fallen). Right now they had to focus their concentration into watching for whoever was about to die.

Looking into the crowd and away from Heng, she scowled. A rough time of death was only vaguely helpful when it came to finding the to-be-deceased. It was an infuriatingly small amount of information when there were lots of people in the location they'd been sent to... and the longer they fumbled around trying to find the person, the more time everything had to throw itself out of order. Fateless, agonizing deaths, hunters (with guns) -- the list went on and on.

HQ can't be bothered to narrow down the location and time, huh? Can't even give us a physical description, or a picture? Fine. So be it. We'll find them eventually.

"I wish they'd give us more to go on," she said, just loud enough that Heng might've heard over the shoppers' chatter. She gave everyone a quick once-over, noting a sea of white threads, some tangled. The usual. And nobody had the courtesy to look like they were about to die... what a pain.

A group of giggling schoolgirls stood near the corner of the sidewalk and leaned into a singular outstretched phone, teeth bared for the camera. A mother stood outside of a shop, running a hand through her disheveled hair and trying to coax her shrieking toddler into behaving (Esther had little faith that her weak reprimands would have much effect). An old woman hobbled up the street with all the speed of a burdened turtle, aided by an aged wooden walking cane and a similarly elderly husband.

Esther nudged Heng in the arm, gesturing towards the couple and tilting her head. Maybe one of them?

The initial prediction didn't come to pass, though. The couple hobbled out of sight and out of mind, slowly but steadily, and continued to live.

A few half-hearted, half-assed guesses later, with her phone's clock informing her that a whole five minutes had crawled by without a single death, Esther could feel her patience beginning to wear thin. Her fingers clutched at her sleeve, tightening until her knuckles were white -- she had things she should be doing. Things she would rather be doing. She despised the waiting game, the moment of death in general... and the waiting game was only really a game by some very generous standards.

Another half-minute ticked by without event.

"Maybe it won't happen," she mumbled, almost as if she was hoping that was the case. She knew it was illogical; counted the seconds until the minute passed. "Maybe we're on the wrong block. Perhaps it's already happened and we've let someone suffer for the last few minutes." A feeling of dread (or was it disgust?) had settled in her stomach, low and heavy, like lead.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught something.

At a distance, a child glanced both ways before stepping into the street, boots leaving faint prints in the half-melted snow.

Esther didn't think that anything would happen. She wasn't above accepting coincidences, but everything seemed utterly safe. There was happy Christmas music playing in the background, for God's sake. This was a commercial district with a proper speed limit -- one that was enforced by cameras. The boy's parents would pull him out of possible danger and back onto the sidewalk, to safety (where were his parents?). If he was crossing now, as long as he was crossing now, he would be fine --

But no. A car swerved (rather illegally) into the otherwise idyllic Christmas-y setting, careening at too many miles an hour to have been safely passing through. Clear windows betrayed a driver who was in a frantic rush, eyes widening at the sight of the child in the middle of the road.

The little boy froze, a deer in the headlights facing its imminent and painful death, as the car let out a shrieking honk of alarm.

Bags still clutched and phones still held, the shoppers' conversations screeched to an abrupt halt as they all started to turn, some of them having processed what was happening, others reacting to the loud noise. Among them was a girl in a bright blue jacket, running after the child and into the path of the car, arms outstretched.

She was struck at full speed, and with the impact came a sound: the dull thud of metal against flesh and bone. The girl was flung forward, and then the front of the car hit her again as it rolled over and away -- it left as quickly as it had arrived, fleeing into the distance. Shoved out of the way, the boy had been spared from major injury; he wailed confusedly where he'd landed.

Esther wasted no time in taking off through the crowd, shoving her way past bystanders standing dumbstruck and towards the prone form in the street. There were others that had already run out to help. Someone had to snip the girl's thread before the small gaggle of Good Samaritans formed an impenetrable wall.

Esther had gotten to the girl post-haste, kneeling beside her. The thread had begun to unravel, coming unwound... and then it shifted from white to red.

Blue-jacket was still save for her hands. Her fingers twitched horribly, like some cartoonish parody of a corpse. Even underneath her thick layer of winter wear, you could tell that chests weren't supposed to cave that way. Blood certainly wasn't supposed to leak out of your nose like that. And your eyes weren't supposed to be open, but there they were, brown and unblinking.

The other humans ignored Esther, for the most part. Good. The ones in the street were crowded around the girl or fawning over the boy. Others exchanged hushed murmurs in the background. Someone was rallying for those with phones to call an ambulance.

A lot of good that'll do you, thought Esther. Blue-jacket was very, very dead, and the Christmas music that was still warbling out of the shops sounded rather dissonant.

The boy sniveled in the background, wringing his scraped hands. The pathetic noises he was making drew Esther's attention back to him -- she stared over at him, one hand reaching for the scissors she's stowed in her jacket, the other grasping onto the girl's thread.

... She hadn't expected him to stare back. And certainly not with hope. Something clicked in her brain, taking her back to only a little while earlier.

A child had gazed up at Heng's weapon with awe painted over their face. A spiritually aware child.

Oh.

His face fell as he took note of the scissors and the way they'd been positioned to sever the thread. His gaze flickered to the scissors, then to the red thread, then back to Esther. She couldn't tell if his new expression was unsureness or realization. It occurred to her that she didn't really want to know.

Esther turned back to blue-jacket, avoiding meeting the boy's eyes again. Instead, she focused on the dead girl in front of her. Her unmoving expression. The blood on her face.

Silly blue-jacket, running into traffic after some clueless kid. Your brother? A friend? A stranger?

It doesn't matter what your bond was. Being selfless was being stupid, and being stupid got you killed. And Fate is to blame for all of this, but how much of it is your fault?

.... I can only hope you never become an Apprentice. That's all I can do for you.

The hand holding her threadcutters lowered, and the hand holding the thread let go of it.

"Heng, she said, still looking at the girl. "you can add to your thread quota."

She stood up, brushing debris off her jacket, and stepped away.

Sen refocused his attention on his own reap order. Chatting could wait till later right now he had a job to do and it was one he took some pride in.He walked around the crash site, surveying the damage with a curious eye and attention to detail. Young guy, nothing special he could glean form his corpse or would be corpse. He'd been on something or maybe drunk. Maybe even it was something else entirely but it was hard to say and at this point it mattered little since his life was ending regardless.

Hopping up onto the car's hood like some juvenile delinquent he peered into the windshield and smiled. One passenger, no others were present. Despite him sewing for a living he wasn't to hot with grabbing these threads and after a couple attempts his fingers grabbed a hold and his spear cut it asunder. Maybe his soul go wherever it was supposed to. With that over and done with he began the awesome job of rooting through his things. Too darn bad he barely had two pennies to rub together. After being nosy he jumped down and was about to meander off to finish shopping and or flirt with any women who locked eyes with him, But then he remembered Heng was still here and this guy had a gross habit of being around when he was making some good moves on a babe. Maybe he'd find him first then hook up with a chick for a bit. Perfect.

Strolling over to the crowd which was dispersing he found his targets had left the area. His eyes scanned the mass of people here and there, gawking onlookers mostly before spotting them. He moved efficiently until he was a short distance away but close enough to hear the butt end of the conversation. And it was just enough to make his own comment on the situation.

"Unless of course you're reaping a modern day Jack the Ripper. Then by all means let the guy suffer for a bit. It's only fair right~?" He voice was light and teasing and he came walking out from behind the wall he was conveniently lurking behind. Blue eyes twinkled with mischief as if reaping people had little of an effect on him. He glanced to Heng and then shifted the bulk of his attention to Esther. "Well aren't you cute. What are doing hanging out with this fossil here eh? Surely they could've sent you along with someone who wasn't gonna disintegrate in the next strong gust of wind." Flirting with the Esther while insulting Heng. Two for One Sale on Freemont Street~

Esther sounded.... annoyed? Well, no one liked getting told off in a stern voice, Heng supposed. And she was just a child. Nonetheless, it seemed that she understood the severity of her hesitation, and vowed to not commit the same act in the future. Though his hands were brushed off, Heng nodded, content.

"The most important thing that we can do is to respect the ones that we reap," he said, looking back at the distance they traveled up the street. The sirens were quiet but the lights flashed all the same, blindingly blue and red. Was the spiritually aware child still looking their way? Heng couldn't see him. "But I believe that you understand that, so I shan't say anything else," he added after turning his attention back to Miss Esther.

"You did well in how quickly you responded, however," he said, not sure if he should continue and praise her. Was he... overstepping something? Being too pushy? He was about to say something else, but (thankfully) an all too familiar voice cut him off.

Heng pursed his lips, looking over and. Sen. Of course it had to be him. It couldn't have been anyone else. Really. Anyone else.
He made no comment on Sen's thoughts. Once he may have thought the same. Punish those who created strife, punish those who hurt others. But after 2000 years of death, and death, and death... it all looked the same to him. It all ended the same to him.

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"No," came Heng's very fast reply. Very fast reply. His reflexively fast reply. He frowned at Sen's... gross comments, feeling the need to move between Esther and Sen.