Continuation from Stolen Pulse Part 2, set in the Prismaris Universe from FreijaFoxy
Part 3/3
The apartment door clicked again in Iris’ memory before it even fully registered in her body, soft, careful, almost polite. It was that detail that made her freeze first, still half-buried under her blanket, eyes open in the dark.
At four in the morning, nothing polite entered Oxide Alley.
Her mind immediately filled in the usual suspects in a rush of cold possibilities : a thief who had somehow learned her routine, someone from the richer districts who’d tracked her down or worse, someone from the wrong side of a debt she didn’t even remember taking. Oxide Alley had a way of making paranoia feel like common sense, and Iris had long since learned not to dismiss it.
Footsteps followed. Not rushed, not hesitant. Measured.
They moved through her small apartment with an unsettling familiarity, like whoever it was already knew what they were looking for. Iris stayed perfectly still, eyes fixed on the barely lit outline of her room, listening as the steps stopped in the doorway of her bedroom.
A silhouette filled it.
Then a voice came, low and female, threaded with tension that didn’t fully mask itself.
"Don’t move" it said. "I know you’re scared, but nobody has to get hurt. I do have a weapon, so don’t try anything."
That alone told Iris two things at once : this wasn’t a common burglar, and they were not here to improvise. This was planned.
Slowly, the figure stepped inside.
The dim light from the street outside caught just enough detail to outline a hooded jacket, dark pants, and a posture that stayed deliberately angled, never fully exposed, never fully relaxed. In one hand, something metallic pulsed faintly blue, a compact weapon that didn’t belong in any civilian hands Iris had ever seen. In the other, a tablet glowed softly, its screen reflecting faintly against the intruder’s gloves.
The figure circled the bed.
Iris felt her throat tighten as the stranger stopped directly in front of her.
For a long moment, there was only silence. Then the intruder tilted her head slightly, as if confirming something on the tablet before looking up fully at Iris’ face.
Those eyes lingered.
"Those are … interesting eyes" the woman said at last. Not admiration, not mockery. Just observation. Clinical, almost detached. "Very pretty."
The words should have been comforting. They weren’t.
"I’ve been searching for you for a while" she continued, lowering the tablet slightly but not putting it away. "You have something I very much need."
Iris’ stomach dropped.
The intruder didn’t wait for her to speak. Her gaze flicked once more to the screen, then back to Iris as if aligning confirmation with reality.
"You’ve got in your possession something very valuable that you acquired at the Charity Gala a few weeks ago."
That sentence landed like a physical impact.
Iris’ breathing stopped for half a second before returning too fast, too shallow. Her mind flashed back without permission : bright lights, chaos, alarms, the split-second decision to pickpocket something glowing and important-looking while everything else was falling apart. Something the Red Web had been chasing hard enough to tear the whole Gala into panic.
She had not thought beyond the moment.
Now she wished she had.
"I know it’s there" the woman added calmly, watching her reaction carefully. "No need to lie. You activated it, knowingly or not, and that’s how I tracked it here."
A pause.
Then, softer, but still firm:
"Get up."
Iris didn’t move.
The intruder exhaled through her nose, like she was trying very hard not to escalate this into something messier. "Come on. I won’t look. But I also can’t turn around."
That logic didn’t make Iris feel better, but it made resistance feel less survivable.
Slowly, she sat up.
The stranger didn’t step closer this time, only waited as Iris climbed out of bed, legs unsteady beneath her. Every movement felt too loud, too exposed. When Iris reached the wall, she hesitated just long enough for the intruder’s attention to sharpen slightly.
"Go on" the woman said.
Iris pressed her fingers into the loose brick.
It shifted.
She pulled it free and retrieved a small box from the hollow space behind it, her hidden cache, the quiet accumulation of stolen "opportunities" she had never fully known what to do with. She carried it back to the bed and set it down carefully, as if it might explode.
The intruder watched without comment as Iris opened it.
Inside were trinkets, devices, small pieces of stolen tech, some broken, some still active, all of them vaguely valuable in ways Iris had never been able to properly decode or sell. And, at the center of it all, the core.
Its blue glow was soft but alive, reflecting faintly in Iris’ eyes.
The intruder moved instantly.
She reached in, lifted it out with practiced precision, and for the first time something shifted in her posture, subtle, but real. The tightness in her shoulders eased, just slightly, like someone recovering something they had been holding their breath for.
"Good" she said quietly. "Thank you."
She glanced into the box again, more casually now, and added, "I see you’ve collected some of my other gadgets too. Those don’t matter. You can keep them."
That made Iris blink.
Her gadgets.
But before Iris could process that, the question came, sudden, almost conversational.
"What are you doing with these, anyway ?"
The tone had changed just enough to disarm the situation into something almost surreal.
Iris hesitated. Then, because lying suddenly felt pointless in front of someone who had already tracked her through a stolen core and broken into her apartment without a sound, she answered honestly.
"I sell them" she admitted. "Or I try to. I use the money for … people here. Repairs, food, donations. Oxide Alley doesn’t get much help, so I try to, fix things where I can."
Her voice dropped slightly.
"I’m not really from here. So I thought … if I helped, maybe people would accept me more easily."
She hesitated, then added more quietly, "But I haven’t found anyone willing to buy that thing."
That finally got a reaction.
The intruder looked up more sharply at that. Not surprised exactly, but recalibrating something in her assessment.
"You can call me Vivian."
Iris felt the name land strangely familiar, like something half-remembered but never fully placed. Before she could question it, Vivian spoke again.
"You know the Red Web is looking for you."
The room went cold.
"And from what I’ve seen" Vivian continued, already turning slightly as if the conversation had moved past comfort entirely, "they’ll be here tomorrow."
A beat.
Then, blunt and final ;
"So you’re coming with me. Get dressed. Pack what you need. We’re leaving."
Iris stood there, staring at her, the weight of the situation finally collapsing into something too large to hold at once. Outside, Oxide Alley remained asleep, unaware that its quietest resident had just been moved from "thief with a secret" to "target in a countdown."
And Vivian, already half-turned toward the exit, didn’t wait for agreement.
She had already decided the night was over.
Quill woke to the sharp vibration of her phone cutting through the early morning silence of her apartment.
For a few seconds she didn’t move, lying still with that dull, half-awake awareness that something important had already started without her. Then she reached out, instinctively, already knowing what she was going to see.
An encrypted message. No sender ID. No traceable header. Just a clean, deliberate intrusion into her day.
She opened it.
The contents were short enough to feel almost insulting in their simplicity : an address in Oxide Alley, a time scheduled for later that evening, and a single line that made her eyes sharpen fully awake.
Red Web leader and operative leader will be present. No guards.
That was enough.
Quill was out of bed before the rest of the world had properly caught up with morning. She was dressed, armed, and halfway out the door within minutes, her mind already running ahead of her body, assembling scenarios faster than comfort allowed. This wasn’t a tip. It was a staging ground. A collapse waiting for structure.
By the time she reached SCPD headquarters, her pace had shifted from urgency to controlled momentum, but the energy didn’t fully leave her. It spilled out the moment she spotted Voss in the corridor.
He was standing near the coffee machine, black cup in hand, looking as though the world had not yet given him permission to care about it.
Quill, however, had clearly not received the same memo.
She crossed the distance in a straight line and nearly collided with him, stopping just short of impact only to immediately begin speaking before he could fully register her presence. Voss blinked once, took a slow sip of coffee, and gently stepped aside as if redirecting a moving object rather than engaging in conversation.
Without a word, he guided her toward his office.
Quill followed, still talking.
Inside, Voss set his cup down with deliberate patience, then leaned back slightly in his chair, hands folded, waiting. That small silence was his way of asking for structure.
Quill gave him none.
She produced her phone and turned it toward him, practically pressing it into his line of sight. The screen displayed the message again, unchanged but no less charged for it.
Voss read it once. Then again.
His expression didn’t shift much, but something in his attention sharpened, like a door quietly locking.
Before either of them could speak further, a knock came at the office door. Neither of them had expected it.
An anthro pigeon delivery man stood outside.
Or at least, something that had chosen the shape of one, thin coat, slightly hunched posture, the tired eyes of someone who had been up too long for reasons unrelated to sleep. In his hands was a package.
"Delivery" he said simply. "For Major Investigator Voss. From a friend. For tonight."
He left before either of them could respond.
Voss opened the package himself.
Inside were printed operational details, maps, coordinates, tools, and internal SCPD access suggestions that were precise enough to be uncomfortable. It was more than intelligence, almost choreography.
Quill’s voice finally steadied into explanation, though her pacing still betrayed the urgency underneath.
"It’s a trusted source" she said, carefully. "Someone I’ve worked with before. They don’t give things away unless they’re sure. And they’re sure about this."
Voss didn’t interrupt. Quill continued, lowering her voice slightly.
"It’s a setup opportunity. Red Web leadership. If we move fast enough, we can contain it before it disperses. We bring a unit, coordinate with hero response teams, and we can actually pin them down for once instead of chasing fragments afterward."
Her eyes flicked up.
"It’s rare. We don’t get chances like this twice."
Voss finally set the papers down.
His gaze stayed on the map longer than necessary, as if trying to find the part that didn’t belong. When he spoke, his tone was even, but there was weight behind it.
"And your source ?"
Quill hesitated for half a second too long.
"Reliable" she said again, firmer this time. "And they want the Red Web gone as much as we do."
Voss studied her. Not accusing. Not approving.
Then, slowly, he reached for his coffee again.
"Prepare a unit" he said at last. "Quietly. No broadcast chatter until we confirm on-site."
Quill nodded immediately, already turning toward the door.
Behind them, the city outside continued moving as if none of this had already started tightening its grip around the evening.
Back in the Red Web hideout, Venatrix paced in sharp, controlled circles that cut through the dim light of her makeshift office. The phone in her hand felt heavier than it should have, not because of its weight, but because of what it represented.
Malak stood near the doorway, silent, waiting for direction.
Venatrix stopped abruptly.
"So our friend the doctor finally localized it" she said, voice low and sharp. "Oxide Alley. Number twenty-five on the main street."
Her mandibles clicked faintly as she exhaled.
"All this time" she continued, almost amused now, though it didn’t reach warmth, "and it was right under our nose." Her grip tightened around the phone. "That thief is going to regret ever touching it."
Malak shifted slightly, but didn’t speak. Venatrix turned toward him fully.
"You’re coming with me."
It wasn’t a question.
"Just you."
Malak’s ears flicked back slightly at that, but he nodded.
"There’s no need for more" Venatrix continued. "This is not a raid. It’s a correction."
Her tone softened just enough to become more dangerous.
"And I intend it to be … private."
She glanced down at her phone again, typing a short message, quick, efficient, almost dismissive. S.V. would understand. Séraphine always did.
Venatrix exhaled through her teeth.
"Tonight" she added. "When it’s certain they’ll be home."
Malak didn’t ask who 'they" referred to.
He already knew.
In the underground lab, Iris sat on the edge of a cot that still felt too clean to belong to anything real. The space around her was overwhelming in a different way than Oxide Alley, too many tools, too much precision, too many things she didn’t understand but instinctively recognized as expensive beyond reason.
Vivian stood nearby, reviewing something on her tablet.
Iris kept stealing glances at her.
Eventually, the silence became too heavy to hold.
"Are you really going to do all this ?" Iris asked quietly. Then, hesitating, she added, "I mean … I’m very grateful, but I don’t understand why you’d go this far. You already got the core."
Vivian looked up slowly, as if pulled out of thought rather than interrupted.
"Just consider it a trade" she said. "Don’t overthink it, Iris."
She tilted the tablet slightly, showing a completed transfer screen.
The amount made Iris’ breath catch.
It wasn’t just "a lot" It was absurd. The kind of number that didn’t belong in her world at all, something that didn’t just change her situation, but rewrote the boundaries of what she thought was possible.
"You sold me the core" Vivian added calmly. "That’s the official version. That’s all anyone needs to know."
Iris stared at the screen, then back at her.
"And me ?" she asked. "Why bring me here ? If the Red Web is after me now, aren’t you just … putting yourself in danger too ?"
For a moment, Vivian didn’t answer. She looked away slightly, as if the question had brushed against something older than the conversation itself.
"Once" she said quietly, "I worked with someone who believed in helping people who never get seen. People outside the hero stories. Outside the politics."
She paused, then stood.
Her hand reached for the core again, now secured.
"The Red Web were hired mercenaries" she continued. "They failed to retrieve what I needed."
Her gaze hardened slightly.
"Venatrix is not stupid. She understands she shouldn’t be testing me."
A beat.
"And yet she still does."
Vivian glanced briefly at her tablet again, at the report of an intrusion, a breach resolved, a problem quietly removed from existence.
"People like that" she said, almost softly, "tend to learn best through consequences."
She turned slightly toward Iris, voice steady again.
"And I intend to make sure she remembers what happens when she tries to cross me."
Late in the evening, Venatrix met Malak in a narrow alley that split Oxide’s backstreets like a scar. The city lights above barely reached them here, broken into weak reflections on damp brick and puddled asphalt. Malak stood still as she approached, the massive silhouette of the lion framed against the distant glow of a streetlamp that flickered like it was struggling to stay relevant.
He didn’t need to speak at first.
His gaze shifted instead, lifting toward the opposite side of the street where a single apartment window burned with steady light. Venatrix followed his line of sight, her mandibles clicking faintly as she took in the building.
"Perfect" she murmured.
Then, more firmly : "Time to get that core."
Malak’s eyebrow rose slightly, but he said nothing. He had learned that tone. It meant decisions had already been made elsewhere.
Venatrix exhaled through her teeth and tilted her head, as if listening to something only she could hear. "I know we don’t need the doctor anymore" she added. "I made sure she won’t be an issue. I don’t tolerate dangerous wildcards on my territory."
Her gaze sharpened.
"But the thief still needs a lesson."
She began walking, and Malak followed.
"And besides" she continued, voice tightening into something colder, "the core is worth more than leverage. We can use it to stabilize our people. Bail out those we can. Break out the others when the system stops watching so closely."
Her steps slowed just slightly.
"Tonight, we correct everything."
Inside the apartment above Oxide Alley, the atmosphere was anything but ordinary.
The space looked untouched at first glance, dim lights, a TV murmuring low news updates, the quiet suggestion of normal life. But that normalcy was a carefully constructed illusion, layered over with precision and discipline.
Voss stood near the wall, partially obscured in shadow. Quill was further back, eyes flicking between her phone and the room’s entry points, her focus split between the present and whatever invisible thread she was tracking through encrypted updates.
Around them, elite SCPD shock troops were positioned with deliberate silence. Some crouched behind furniture. Others stood partially concealed near doorframes and corridors. Above, a second team had already sealed the upper exits, turning the entire building into a contained pressure system waiting for a trigger.
Their equipment was heavier than standard issue, reinforced photon shields designed to absorb impacts far beyond normal firearm range, riot-grade stabilization gear, and compact containment tools meant for superhuman encounters. Nothing here was improvised. Everything was intentional.
Still, Voss didn’t look comfortable.
"You’ll excuse me for asking again" he said quietly, stepping closer to Quill without fully breaking cover, "but are you absolutely certain the Red Web leader is walking into this apartment ?"
Quill didn’t look up immediately. Her thumbs continued moving across her phone screen, feeding and receiving bursts of encrypted data.
"Yes" she said.
Voss studied her for a moment longer. "That sounded more like confidence than confirmation."
Quill finally glanced up. "It’s both."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"And your … informant ?" he asked. "The one I would very much like to meet, assuming they exist outside your imagination ?"
That earned him a faint, almost irritated exhale from Quill, but not a denial.
"You wouldn’t believe me if I explained it properly" she said. "Just trust me. I wouldn’t pull in a full strike team for a guess."
Voss didn’t respond immediately. He didn’t need to. The truth was already settling in, whether or not he liked the source, Quill didn’t move like someone bluffing when stakes were this high.
Finally, he turned slightly away.
"Let’s hope you’re right" he muttered.
Elsewhere, far from the building but connected to it in ways neither Voss nor Venatrix could fully see, Vivian stood in her underground lab with Iris close by.
The glow of multiple feeds painted shifting light across the walls. The tablet in Vivian’s hands displayed live movement outside the apartment building, approaching figures, heat signatures, coordinated positioning. Layers of surveillance cascaded across her interface like a living map.
Iris hovered near her shoulder, visibly tense.
"Are you seriously feeding information to the police ?" Iris asked again, voice rising slightly despite herself. "Isn’t that dangerous ? What if they come after you ? Or me ?"
Vivian pinched the bridge of her nose, not looking away from the screen.
"Iris" she said flatly, "breathe."
"That’s not ..."
"It is" Vivian interrupted, sharper now. Then, after a pause, she exhaled and softened her tone slightly. "There is no risk of them targeting you. And I am not operating blindly."
Iris leaned closer despite her anxiety, eyes fixed on the feeds. Her tail flicked restlessly behind her.
"How can you trust them ?" she asked.
Vivian finally looked at her then. For a brief moment, her expression wasn’t cold or analytical. It was something quieter. Older.
Then she turned back to the tablet.
"I just do" she said simply. "Now stay calm. Once they enter the apartment, we lose internal visuals anyway. No cameras inside."
At the apartment door, Venatrix paused.
The hallway behind her was quiet in the way only residential buildings could be, distant conversations behind thin walls, the scrape of chairs, faint television audio bleeding through drywall. Ordinary life continuing completely unaware of what was about to be disrupted.
She tilted her head slightly.
Listening.
Then she reached for the doorknob. Locked. A small exhale passed through her mandibles.
Of course it was.
She considered it for only a second. Kick it in and announce herself, or enter cleanly, quietly, precisely. The second option lingered longer in her mind, not because she needed subtlety, but because she wanted control of the moment. Surprise, fear, realization.
Slowly, she crouched.
Malak shifted behind her, scanning the hallway.
Venatrix produced her tools and began working the lock with practiced precision, each movement controlled and deliberate. The mechanism yielded quickly.
Too quickly, in hindsight.
The door clicked open.
Light spilled into the corridor.
Inside, Voss raised a hand.
Every operative in the room tightened at once.
The door opened wider. Venatrix stepped in first. Malak followed.
For half a second, everything was still.
Then the apartment exploded into motion.
The front line of SCPD shock troops surged forward in coordinated formation. Photon shields snapped into place as Venatrix reacted instantly, her spider limbs striking out with brutal speed. One shield cracked under the impact and was flung sideways, slamming into a wall hard enough to shake the frame.
A second later, Malak roared.
It wasn’t just sound, it was force, a pressure wave of presence that made nearby furniture tremble. He lunged forward, shoulder-first, colliding with an officer and sending him skidding backward into a table that collapsed under the impact.
Voss moved immediately.
He didn’t rush. He stepped into the gap the way someone steps into a conversation they already understand. Malak turned toward him mid-chaos, claws and strength meeting control and timing. The two collided in close quarters, Voss absorbing the initial force, pivoting, redirecting, turning raw power into imbalance rather than resistance.
Behind them, Quill stayed back.
Her weapon was raised, but her focus wasn’t on panic or noise. It was on angles. Movement paths. Exit denial. She tracked Venatrix as the Red Web leader cut through the room with terrifying efficiency, her limbs tearing through furniture and forcing officers into defensive formations.
Venatrix was not fighting blindly.
She was adapting.
A riot shield shattered under her strike. A second officer went down under a sweeping motion that sent debris across the floor. The air filled with controlled chaos, shouted commands, impact cracks, boots sliding on polished wood, the sharp rhythm of tactical containment unfolding in real time.
Malak managed to break free from Voss for a moment, but not far enough.
Two officers hit him simultaneously from the flank, photon shields absorbing his counterforce while restraint tools locked in. He roared again, twisting, trying to shake them off, but the formation held.
Voss stepped in and brought him down fully with a controlled takedown, leveraging weight and timing rather than brute strength, forcing the lion’s movement into the floor where additional restraints immediately engaged.
Across the room, Venatrix attempted to reposition, but the space had already tightened around her. Every angle she turned, another shield formation closed it. Every strike met resistance designed specifically to outlast her speed.
Quill finally moved forward slightly, maintaining distance but closing the gap enough to keep line-of-sight control.
"Now !" one officer shouted.
The containment net deployed.
Venatrix hissed sharply as it wrapped around her limbs, energy dampening fields activating in a ripple that dulled her movement just enough to break her rhythm. She fought for another second, then another, but the coordinated system finally did what it was designed to do.
Hold.
Then stop.
Silence returned in uneven fragments as resistance faded.
Voss exhaled slowly, straightening as Malak was fully restrained beside him. Across the room, Venatrix was secured under layered containment, her movements reduced to small, frustrated shifts.
Quill lowered her weapon slightly.
For a moment, nobody spoke, then Voss looked toward her.
Not fully smiling. Not fully anything.
But something in his expression had changed, something like acknowledgment, sharpened by exhaustion and clarity.
"We’ll need to talk about your informant" he said quietly.
Quill didn’t answer immediately. Voss turned toward the restrained Red Web leaders as they were lifted and escorted out.
Then, finally, he added :
"But for now … we’ve got what we came for."
He paused at the doorway.
"Come on" he said. "Let’s move. I’m not letting anyone get them out of custody now that we finally have them in our hands."
A week later, Oxide Alley had settled into a strange new rhythm. The kind of quiet that didn’t quite feel natural, like a city holding its breath after a storm. Iris was behind the counter of her small flower shop, carefully trimming stems and arranging bouquets for the afternoon display, the soft scent of fresh petals mixing with the faint dust of the street outside. The bell above the door chimed, sharp and bright, cutting through the calm.
"Hello, how can I help you-"
Her voice lifted automatically, cheerful out of habit, until it faltered mid-sentence.
The woman standing in the doorway was impossible to mistake. Even without the lab coat or the underground lighting, even softened by daylight and framed by the delicate chaos of flowers, Dr. Vivian Chambers still carried that same controlled stillness.
"… Hello, Iris" Vivian said.
There was a pause. Just long enough for Iris to register the faintest hesitation in her tone, so subtle it almost felt imagined. "Please do not panic. I just wish to ask for your … knowledge."
Iris blinked, caught off guard not only by the request, but by the delivery of it. Vivian didn’t sound like someone giving orders, or even bargaining. She sounded, awkwardly, like someone trying to ask for help without quite remembering how.
Still wary, Iris nodded and gestured toward the small consultation table near the shop’s window. "Uh … okay. Sure. Flowers or … ?"
"Flowers" Vivian confirmed.
What followed was unexpectedly ordinary.
For half an hour, they talked about color combinations, seasonal arrangements, symbolism Iris had learned through years of instinct and trial, and how certain flowers "felt" wrong when paired together even if technically they matched. Vivian listened with unnerving focus, occasionally asking precise questions that made Iris realize she wasn’t just picking randomly, she was trying to understand meaning. Intent. Emotion translated into petals and arrangement.
At some point, Iris stopped thinking of it as strange and simply slipped into the rhythm of it, hands moving as she spoke, pulling stems and arranging shapes on instinct.
When the bouquet was finally finished, it was elegant in a way Iris didn’t fully understand how she had achieved : deep black dahlias forming a dense, almost protective core, surrounded by white lillies that softened the edges without dulling them. Something about it felt like a contrast that coexisted.
Iris reached for a small card and held it up with a bright, almost reflexive smile.
"What should I write on the card ?"
Vivian looked at it for a long moment. Too long, maybe. Her gaze drifted slightly away, not quite unfocused, but somewhere else entirely.
"… I think nothing is better" she said at last.
Iris tilted her head. "Oh come on ! I’m sure whoever this is for would love to have a little word from you !"
A faint exhale escaped Vivian’s nose, something between irritation and resignation.
"Urgh … fine. Something short then."
The concession sounded like it cost more effort than the entire conversation.
Iris smiled anyway, already dipping the pen into ink as Vivian spoke again, slowly this time, choosing words like she wasn’t used to choosing them at all. Iris wrote carefully in neat calligraphy, her hand steadying as the phrase took shape, then slid the card into place among the flowers.
"And to which address should I send this ?"
Without replying, Vivian pulled a folded slip of paper from her coat and placed it on the counter.
Iris glanced at it, and her expression shifted immediately.
"But this isn’t a personal address, this is ... I mean, I'm not sure our delivery person will be allowed in ..."
Her voice stopped.
Not because she didn’t recognize what it was, but because Vivian’s gaze had sharpened just slightly. Not threatening. Just final.
Iris swallowed the rest of her sentence and nodded instead.
"Right … okay."
She wrote the address down and accepted the payment.
Wrapped the bouquet carefully in paper and ribbon, as if the weight of what it meant could be softened by presentation alone.
When Vivian turned to leave, Iris followed her to the door automatically, as she did with all customers. The bell chimed again as the doctor stepped out into the street, and for a moment she paused, just long enough for Iris to lift a hand in farewell.
Vivian returned it.
Not a wave exactly, more like an acknowledgment that something had happened here, and that it was now done.
And then she was gone.
Iris stood there for a moment longer, watching the street outside settle back into its usual uneven calm. She exhaled slowly, fingers resting on the edge of the counter, eyes drifting back to the bouquet now waiting for delivery.
Sure, they weren’t friends. That much was obvious.
And yet … Iris found herself feeling slightly safer knowing Vivian was somewhere in the world. As if the city had, for all its strangeness, gained at least one predictable actor.
Only time would tell whether that trust had been well placed … or not.
Cast :
Venatrix and Dr. Vivian Chambers from EannDelacroix
Kellan Voss and Mara Quill from Kateb_VonShoat
Iris from kind_koala
Foxy from FreijaFoxy
And a reference to ??? from Eiri17