welcome to the storm

Evan could be found sitting alone at a table, gaze focused on the wall in front of him. He had barely touched his food. It wasn’t an abnormal occurrence since he preferred eating things he prepared himself. An excuse to get out of the hospital and run a few errands was one he couldn’t ignore once his break came around. 

The original plan involved forcing himself to eat something then dropping supplies off at the Order so he could stop feeling guilty about the parcels sitting in his living room. He cared too much. That was something that hadn’t counted as a bad thing up until recently. Giving too much and feeling unappreciated had left him siding on taking a step back for the sake of not saying or doing something damaging. It was a necessary call but it didn’t change the fact that he disliked having made it.

Evan had been about to bring his food to his mouth when Lucinda appeared. He wasn’t fully going out of his way to avoid everyone. Her appearance merely left him realizing there likely would be no avoiding everyone. He nodded then took a bite, clearing his throat once he swallowed.

“Certainly,” He murmured, pausing to carefully think over his words. “Although I must warn you I’m on my break and taking a break from evening activities that don’t pertain to family.”

-

A murmured ‘certainly’ was the best Lucinda could expect from anyone in the Order at this point, especially when she had just interrupted their lunch. She took the acceptance without fuss and sat down. If things became horribly awkward, she could always just chug up her tea and cite work for her hurry.

“Seems like this is the place to be for taking breaks,” she commented. Not that there was an overflow of options for anyone in the magical district wanting to have lunch. Well, anyone who wanted to use the pretence of having lunch to escape work for a bit. By the look of his plate, neither of them seemed to be here for the food in particular.

Lucinda bit her lip, catching on the code. No Order business. And here she was anyways. A nicer person might have inquired about his family, but Lucinda knew firsthand what it was like having casual acquaintances or people that were practically strangers pry into private matters like family. No use pushing through a stilted conversation of feigned mutual interest.

When: 5th of July

For: anyone!

Lucinda’s eyes scanned the bookshelf in front of her, looking for signs of anything useful. Things had been calm lately. Well, as calm as things could be during a seemingly never-ending war. But she as acutely aware that any moment of lull would be interrupted sooner or later. The enemy wasn’t resting and neither was she.

The downside to being one of the younger members of the Order, was that the rest had years of dulling experience over her. Lucinda had thought to ask someone for help many times, but she always backed out. Maybe when she felt better at it, like less work for whomever said yes. There was only so many times she could pick up books on the topic in the store before it got suspicious, so here she was instead, raiding the bookshelves at the estate. Someone must have left something behind at some point.

Maybe she ought to have asked someone before taking the liberty of picking up books like it was a home-library, but why ask permission when you could argue instead? Lucinda picked up a book at random right before she heard footsteps, and avoided the urge to shove it back. Instead she simply glanced up. “I don’t suppose you know if there’s a shelving system here of any sort?”

date: 4th of july

who: @healerrosier

Lucinda hated this. Having to ask for help, admitting her weak spots. Normally she wasn’t above it -not all Slytherins were prideful, you know- but with the Order it always felt different. Even a year in, she still felt like she was fighting for her spot.

And she had tried on her own. Downtime at work was spent glancing through the books on potions that were strewn around the shop, looking for anything useful that she’d be able to make. And it could probably be useful; only problem with potions were that they were usually best help after an emergency had happened, not during.

She had avoided the healing ward back at headquarters with the excuse that those working there had enough to worry about. They had real problems. But opportunity showed itself when she decided to take her lunch-break outside of the shop. Stepping away from the counter at the Leaky Cauldron with a fresh cup of tea in her hands, Lucinda spotted a familiar healer across the room. Yes, she was probably still disturbing Evan, but at least she wasn’t crashing in on him trying to fix someone up.

“Mind if I join you?” She asked as she stepped up to him, skipping right past ‘hello’s and nodding towards the free chair at the table.

Better than them. It was the non-answer sort of answer that Ted didn’t quite fancy. That hadn’t been what he’d asked of Lucinda - he hadn’t wondered out loud how she was in comparison to people like Lily or Theodosia, laying still in their respective cots - he’d just wanted to know how she was. He’d live with a painful understanding of the world long enough to know that someone always had it worse than you… but that didn’t mean your feelings for your experience weren’t also something valid.

Ted didn’t say any of this to Lucinda, however. He just leaned back with one hand up towards his face, listening as she spoke. That - the rest of what she said - told him a lot more about her than she probably intended. Mmm, Ted made a soft noise of affirmation, nodding slightly. “You felt as though your role wasn’t a useful one,” he said gently. Not a question - a statement. A summary of what she’d been saying and her feelings behind it. No judgement of his own - nothing in his tone to suggest that he believed she hadn’t been useful.

She continued. They got the kids out - it was all crap. Her use of the words was an interesting one he tucked away for later. But, again, he said nothing right away. It was a long moment of silence - these instances where Ted stayed quiet typically bothered people. Andromeda, for her part, had shaken him more than once in their life together, asking desperately for him to say something! 

“Surviving a day’s work?” he finally responded, repeating her words, this time a question. What did that mean to her, he was asking.

Lucinda raised a brow. She wasn’t used to people listening to this capacity. Not just listening to what she said, but paying attention to what she actually meant. For now, she was too tired to figure out how she felt about that, so instead she mentally filed it away under things to remember. At the very moment, her sleep-deprived self found it quite useful.

“Yeah, something like that,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but she answered none the less - it felt like the sort of statement you didn’t let slip away. Lucinda gave a little shrug. “I don’t know - I feel like I should be more versatile, more prepared. I don’t want someone to end up here after the next mission because I couldn’t keep up.”

She gestured to the room around them. While it was astoundingly candor for her, she still held back the part where she thought she wouldn’t make it this far if that was the scenario. If she showed up with someone half dead (or Merlin forbid, worse), that would probably be it for her Order career. The final nail, so to say.

Lucinda took the moment of silence to sip her tea. Strangely, Ted’s calm quietness was exactly the energy she needed right now. It felt right for the moment. A sort of early-morning peacefulness. Even the question of work wasn’t enough to ruin the odd sort of contemplative mood she felt.

“Not a hard one, luckily. Got a half-shift at the shop - we sell potion supplies, over at Diagon Alley.” she said, with another little shrug. “It’s just a job, but it’s nice. Owner’s pretty laidback and all that. Biggest threat is old witches trying to haggle ingredients.”

character development - patronus

The first time Lucinda managed to coax the mass of blue mist into a blob resembling an animal, she had no idea what to expect. Some people she felt clearly was a something, but her mind drew a blank at what could represent her. She never really felt herself as something. 


However she did secretly hope for her patronus to be something cool. Really, who didn’t? There was no way she could live it down if her shape ended up being a slug or something equally dull. Lucinda wasn’t asking for something wicked like a unicorn or thestral - she’d be happy with a bird of any sort, maybe something with claws.


It took several tries before it became corporeal enough to tell a proper shape. And it took her another day at the library to figure out what exactly it was. Turns out that the round little body, beady eyes and soft snout formed a prairie dog. The more she read about them, the more Lucinda liked them. Stubborn little things, at peace in their tribes, not to be messed with. And way better than a slug.


Her happy memory tends to be bits and pieces, but her strongest is the one vacation her family took abroad. They’d been to the beach before, but the sandy dunes in southern France beat the freezing ones back home with a wide margin. The ocean was the kind you’d paddle around in leisurely, and not swim quickly to keep the feeling of cold a-bay. They’d had ice-cream with almost every meal, and Mica, despite being so much older, had nothing against letting his inner child out and playing with her. It was the kind of summer frozen in time. Mica always said he’d take them all back when he was working proper and Lucinda was done at school. 

Ted didn’t know his young infirmary companion all that well and either Lucinda wasn’t a very talkative person, much like himself, or she was extremely tired. Judging from the way she looked, he would’ve had to say the latter, but he also generally didn’t know much about how she looked. Every time he saw her at Order meetings she always seemed to be a bit disheveled - as though grief was still eating her at the insides, causing her to care less about everything on the outside. He knew she’d lost her brother - he knew she could be a hothead - he knew that he would probably end up getting herself killed if she didn’t start thinking. But that was really all he knew about her.

Overall, the shift had been a rather easy one, though not uneventful. He’d learned much tonight about people he cared about and was still grappling with the knowledge of a secret one of his best friends was keeping from another. He would have to make those decisions later but, unlike much of the younger people within this organization, Ted liked to weigh the options of his choices first. He would have to talk to Alice - what he would say was another matter. Words were important and his would have to be.

“Quite alright,” he said with a softness to his voice, though he did not smile to Lucinda. He didn’t need any tea. In one hour, he would head home to his angry wife and pour himself a mug full of steaming, dark coffee to be able to make it through the rest of the day. Ted nodded his head slightly, just once, in acknowledgement of her question. Not exactly how he would’ve put it, but still a question all the same. 

“Yes.” A simple answer, nothing around the edges to fluff it up or make it easier. They were breathing. They were alive. “And you?” How are you holding up? he was asking. 

How was she? There was always an odd feeling after missions were done, when everything had calmed down properly. Normally she went home and curled up in her flats one window-sill, watching the street below as she sorted through all her impressions for the day. Let the fact that she was still alive settle. It was always when thoughts of Mica was hardest to push away - did he ever feel the same afterwards?

Although those questions gnawed at her, now more than ever, she pushed them away. Instead she did what she always did; found a distraction. With all patients and healers seemingly sleeping soundly, she turned inwards instead, and Ted’s question was the perfect launch. How was she? Exhausted from the day. Guilty from seemingly avoiding any of the hard work. Annoyed at not handling everything better. All the things she could never voice.

“Better than them,” she said simply, adding a small shrug. Lucinda sat down in the nearest chair, allowing herself one moment to lean back and close her eyes. “I don’t think I even have a scratch. When everyone else was fighting, I was off chatting with the muggles.”

Lucinda stands quite comfortable at 5´5″, and has ever since she was around fourteen years old. 

Growing up, she was always a pretty lanky child - all skinny legs and awkward height. When she hit her teens, she didn’t as much have a growth spurt as much as she kind of just evened out. One morning she simply woke up and realised that she’d grown into her body. No more lankiness or body-parts of mismatched length. 

Where: Infirmary, The Prewett Estate

@ted-tonks

Lucinda stifled a yawn.

She’d lost track of how many she’d bit back in the last hour. Or how many coffees she’d downed, or how many hours since she’d had more than a catnap in an empty room. She’d also stopped caring for what time it was - although judging from the way the sky was starting to turn grey outside the window, dawn wasn’t too far off now.

Which meant that her shift was almost over. Not that she minded it. There was a sort of quiet tranquility to these hours of the night that brought an odd sort of calm - especially now that all the medical emergencies seemed to have settled properly. Not that Lucinda would have been much use in an emergency besides handing over whatever was needed. She wasn’t really useful at all today, really. All she could do was just be there, show that at least she was trying.

She wrapped her hands tight around the steaming mug of tea as she stepped back into the room where she’d left Ted, citing a five-minute break. “Ah, fuck, I forgot to ask if you wanted any. Kettle’s still hot, I think.” The yawn she’d been holding back finally escaped. Lucinda took it as her cue to go sit down. “How’s everyone holding up? Everyone’s still breathing and all that?”

reggiecatastrophic:

Reggie jerked his head up as he heard Remus yell and turned back toward the door, watching the baby carefully to make sure he hadn’t jostled it in the process. It was still fussing but slightly less. Maybe Reggie… was good at this? At very least, it wasn’t actively mad to be in his arms. That was enough for right now.

As Lucinda yelled too, Reggie started moving. He swear to himself, hoping the parents in the other room hadn’t heard him swear in front of their child. “I’m coming!” he called, a little louder. Reggie jogged rather than ran back to them, not wanting to bounce Rosie more than he had to. Bouncing was bad for babies, right?

As he came through the door, Reggie’s eyes snagged on the mirror first before taking in the way the people around them had joined hands. Figuring it was smarter to get close to the mirror. He didn’t have hands to grab on, so he locked eyes with Remus, hoping the other understand as Reggie hurried toward him. Grab my arm. Hold my waist. Do something to get me in on this.

@melancolialunar

The portkey buzzed to life, threateningly, too quickly given the fact they were still missing someone from their team. Anxiety built up in Remus’ gut, his eyes locked on the door where Reggie had disappeared into.

The family all gathered around – thankfully no one needed to be petrified and forced into it. Spencer was a good one, he could tell. The boy held onto the mirror, eyes filled with confusion and wonder as he watched it vibrate in his hand. Merlin, Remus was so fucking glad to be getting this kid out of here.

“Alright, everyone, hold on tight, it’ll be over quickly.” He instructed the family, eyes still nervously glancing back to where he could see Reggie jogging back now, arms full of a bundled up little human. 

The mother seemed worried about that, but there was no time to exchange a baby into another more experienced set of arms at the moment. Besides, it was probably better for Reggie to have her anyway, knowing what to expect from the landing and being able to not squish the kid in the process. A fleeting thought came to mind, the dread of not having enough time to explain to the family the eery sensation they were about to feel, the pull on their bodies like nothing else they’d experienced before – but then again, maybe it was better they didn’t know.

The portkey buzzed, and buzzed, and Reggie was just within reach. “Come on!” Remus stretched out, hooked an arm tightly around Reggie’s waist, and then felt as if his insides were being yanked back.

@txlkalots​ 

Lucinda wasn’t able to catch if Reggie made it before the portkey activated; it was out of her hands now, and the only thing she could do was try and keep upright as the entire world lurched.

The feeling of moving though space this way never really stopped being disorienting. For a brief moment, Lucinda had no idea what was up and down, before suddenly the ground was coming at them. Bracing, she managed to land on her feet and she gripped Spencer’s little arm, managing to keep him upright in the process as well.

She allowed herself a brief second to gather herself before taking an overview. Spencer was next to her, his eyes wide. Yeah, this was probably a pretty rough introduction to the world of magical transportation - especially with no warning. His mom seemed to have managed to keep on her feet, with the dad having keeled over. Served him right. Lucinda managed to bite back a comment on how they would have warned them if they hadn’t lost so much time. Turning, she saw Remus, and, mercifully, both Reggie and tiny, fuzzy human in his arms.

“Everyone’s alright, yeah?” She asked, taking stock. “Don’t worry, the feeling of being scrambled goes away quick enough. Just, ah, maybe walk slowly for a little while.”

She looked around the room they had landed in, but before she could say anything, Rosie the baby decided that she decidedly did not enjoy being flung through a portkey and went back to wailing. Her mom stumbled forward, and Lucinda stepped in to catch her. She glanced at Reggie, waving her free arm towards them. “Reggie, baby please?”

reggiecatastrophic:

Reggie initially flinched as Remus came into the room, but the situation seemed to be resolving itself. The dad–as Reggie eyed him nervously–still didn’t seem fully convinced, but they had the mom and they had the kid. And as protective as the man was being, Reggie doubted he’d let them go without him. 

Reggie was already taking a step around him, a step toward Lucinda and the portkey, when the cry sounded. “Baby,” he repeated. They didn’t have time for a baby. He looked at the door Spencer had come through, where the baby must have been left to hide. He looked toward Remus, figuring the other would make a call as to what they should do. The other was older, had been in the Order longer. Regardless of any other factors, Reggie wanted to trust him.

Then a loud boom sounded from outside. Reggie jumped. That wasn’t good. Rather than wait for Remus’ opinion, he moved on impulse. 

“Do not leave me here!” he yelled after him as he ran past Spencer and his mother through the door. The kitchen looked empty, although he could still hear the baby crying, he didn’t initially see from where. Then he realized the pantry door was partially open. From Spencer coming back out, he suspected.

Reggie opened the door the rest of the way and looked in. A little bassinet had been set in the corner and inside was the crying baby. Rosie. Its mother has said its name was Rosie.

“Hey Rosie,” he said, trying to keep the panic at bay. How did one hold a baby? Why the hell was he doing this?

Reggie swallowed hard and reached down. Support the head. He knew you were supposed to support the head. “Shhhh, stop crying please. They’re waiting for us, and we don’t want anyone else to know where we are. Stop crying please, Rosie.” He awkwardly cradled her against his chest. Was it safe to portkey a baby? Merlin, he hoped so.

@melancolialunar

The family actually started to move forward, listening to Lucinda’s instructions. They were still confused, scared, their wide eyes bouncing from one Order member to the next as if still expecting them to burst into flames any second.

And then the baby cried.

“Fuck.” He only realised the murmur had come out of his own mouth when it reached his ears. He swore he didn’t read anything about a baby when they got briefed for this mission – just how young was this kid? By the looks of it, their cries barely louder than the thumping sound of Remus’ heart inside his head, they were small. Tiny. A full-on baby.

He caught Reggie’s eyes, exchanging a glance that was equal parts what the fuck and what the fuck again. He was about to nod, to give the other the instruction to go get the baby, when the boom happened.

He flinched, cursed under his breath again, and moved further into the room. “Come on– no time to lose, everyone move up.” He moved his arms widely, motioning for the family to all come closer in the center of the room, so they could gather around Lucinda’s portkey.

Could they portkey a baby?! Portkey, portkey, baby– Remus tried to shuffle through every content in his brain in search for answers, but he didn’t remember reading a single thing about portkeying actual newborns. He knew there was something about the difficulty of apparating with little kids, but that had to be a different system, right? Would the baby have to touch the portkey, or being in someone’s arms suffice? Fuck– they were about to gamble with a baby’s life here.

“Reggie, come on, Reggie!” He called out, nervous. “We have to go now!”

@txlkalots​ 

It felt like everything was happening at once, but not in the same way as how time tended to move differently in a battle. There it was all instinct, all reactions. This was choices, making decisions as the factors of the puzzle kept changing. 

Mercifully Reggie bounced for the baby -had Lucinda actually ever held a baby?- and Remus took lead. Lucinda settled into the role she had been given today, fishing out the little pocket mirror that could get them the hell out of there. For a moment she paused; Severus had set up wards. Did portkeys mess with them? He’d only said that they were aimed at anyone intending to hurt Spencer. And they were saving him.

It would be fine. Probably. The nearby explosion told her that they didn’t have time to deliberate it; she would just have to trust that Severus had known what he was doing.

“Everyone, link together,” she said in her most authoritative voice. The portkey had started buzzing once she’d brought it up - it was starting to activate. “Reggie will bring Rosie, and this here will take us all somewhere safe.”

Spencer seemed to be the one won over, equally worried and fascinated with magic. He stepped forward, eyes locked on the portkey. “It’s a mirror,” he stated.

“Yeah,” Lucinda murmured, holding her hand out to him. He hesitantly took it, causing the chain effect. His mom grabbed his shoulder, and the dad, probably realising that this was happening wether he liked it or not, grabbed her. Lucinda reached the hand holdning the mirror out to Remus, inviting him to grab on. It was electric now. “Reggie, you gotta move! It’s active!”

reggiecatastrophic​:

Reggie nodded as Lucinda spoke, then his eyes darted to the door opening. He caught a glimpse of the kid before his mother stepped between them. 

Leap of faith, Lucinda said. Reggie suddenly wondered if magic might be a way to go here. His first thought was a patronus, a flash of warmth and a pretty animal to make them see how marvelous magic could be. Reggie couldn’t do that in the best of times, though, and trying then failing now wasn’t an option. No, he needed something else. Something harmless that would still let the family see a positive and hopefully trust them for it. He couldn’t prove they were on a good faith mission, but he could prove they weren’t lying about the magic. 

Lumos, he thought, then a bright glow appeared on the tip of the wand in his hand still raised toward the ceiling from putting them up at Spencer’s dad. 

“Spencer will be able to do this someday,” he said. “He’ll get a wand and training. Honestly the school was probably going to contact you soon.” Reggie knew they would, but he didn’t want to make it sound like some institution was going to take away your child to train them soon anyway. “There’s… Not everyone with magic are good people. Those people are outside right now, and our people are trying to hold them off. We need to get you out because they aren’t going to be so good to Spencer or to you.” He swallowed hard and let the light on his wand tip die. “We need you to trust us.”

The dad still looked unconvinced, but since the knife had lowered, Reggie wasn’t going to complain. The mom looked on the fence, but the door behind her opened wider. Soon Spencer was right behind her, clinging to his skirts as he looked at Lucinda and Reggie in wonder. 

“I’ll be able to do that?” he asked.

Merlin, Reggie was not the person who should be explaining this to him. “Uh huh,” he said, “but we have to go if you want to. We need to keep you safe.”

( @txlkalots​ @melancolialunar​ )

Things had already gone to shit when he had felt the owl amulet warming up and then squealing in his pocket. The rest of his team was busy fighting the burst of spells that lightened up the night sky, Remus had made a mental checklist of his team; Severus, Theo, Gideon – Lucinda. When it hit him that the request for help was coming from inside the house, he’d dipped as soon as he could. Asking for someone to cover for him, he ducked down and ran until he could barrel into the house.

And then he searched the rooms, until he walked in on Reggie against the wall, everyone standing awkwardly stiff, a man holding a knife.

“Accio knife!” Remus barked, and the knife that was on the father’s hand flew briskly to his own. He dropped it to the ground behind him, but kept his wand up. 

Everyone’s feathers were ruffled, the woman seemed to suck up some air to deliver a shriek, but Remus tried to talk in his best authoritarian voice before anyone could react. “We have to go now. Sir, please refrain from threatening my friends with any more weapons, it’ll be greatly inconvenient to have to keep stopping you. We’re not the bad guys here.” He turned his eyes towards Reggie and Lucinda, though he kept a close watch over the others, ready to react in case of any wild movements. He didn’t want to alarm the family any further by mentioning things weren’t looking good outside, but he tried to convey his anxiety through the look he gave the witch. “Is everyone here? Lucinda, the portkey.”

@txlkalots @reggiecatastrophic​

And there Remus swooped in, just as they were getting a handle on the situation. Lucinda had to begrudgingly admit that he was almost astoundingly efficient -accio-ing the knife without accidentally slitting any arteries in the process- and talking the family down. She glanced at Reggie; they would have gotten there. Eventually. Still, she was glad for the backup.

“Right,” she said. This wasn’t the moment to ask Remus for an update-report from the field, but based on his polite urgency, it was probably best to haul magical ass out of there. Her hand flittered over her pocket where the mirror functioning as an emergency portkey was safely tucked away (neatly put in a different pocket than her summoning amulet, lest they avoid any unfortunate mix-ups) and she cleared her throat. “Time to go. Don’t worry about things - we can come back for that later. I need you all to gather around, and we’ll take you to the safe-house. Ready, yeah?”

She stepped forward, ready to get this over with and get back to the battle-field, when the air was split by a wailing noise. Lucinda frowned, looking over to her team. That wasn’t any attack.

The woman seemed to startle equally by the noise, looking ready to bolt. “The baby, Rosie… we can’t leave without her!”

Lucinda blinked. “The what?”

Reggie slowly raised both hands, mindful of the wand in one of them. “Please listen to her, sir.” He swallowed hard. “We’re like Spencer. We want to help.” Lucinda was going about this a little aggressively, in his opinion as the person with a knife to his throat, but now wasn’t the time.

He kept his face as neutral and nice as he could make it as the man seemed to consider. 

“We need to get him out of her,” Reggie said again. “We’ll all go. You too. You’re not leaving him.”

The man wavered, lowing the knife just a little. Not enough that he couldn’t get Reggie just as good but enough that Reggie felt like he could breathe without risk. 

“Harold,” his wife whispered, and her voice was loaded with something that Reggie couldn’t read. 

Harold looked at her, and Reggie took the opportunity to step back, arms still up. 

“We’re here to help,” he said again.

@melancolialunar

Lucinda’s eyes darted towards the door again, her body still on high alert in case the death eater ambush moved towards them. How long did they have? Of course she trusted the team fighting outside, but the numbers were not on their side. She swallowed as she moved her attention back to the family.

Gently, she reminded herself. She tried to match Reggie’s tone, but the words still came out more rushed, more urgent. “There’s a safe-house, ready for all of you,” she said. “There’s people there, just like Spencer, like us, who can keep him safe. Who can keep all of you safe. They’ll be able to explain everything that’s happening.”

The knife mercifully lowered further. Maybe they didn’t have to physically drag them out of here after all. Out of the corner of her eye, Lucinda spotted the gentlest movement from the crack of the door she assumed led to the kitchen. Two dark, wide eyes met hers, filled with the same fear his parents held.

The woman’s gaze followed Lucinda, and she took a protective step in the direction of where the kid was hidden. “Spencer, stay back, honey,” she instructed. Her focus went back to the duo. “How do we know you’re not lying?”

Dirk was working on the Homonculous Charm for the maps that he’d pitched to Hestia the day before. It was tough work, making sure each location made sense - the spellwork being focused just on the Order - but if he kept his head down, he would finish it in time for the final planning meetings the next day. He was engrossed in the work with his wave moving slowly - so slowly it almost looked as though he weren’t waving it at all - over the pages.

Which was why, when the door practically burst open, he jumped slightly and looked up, his wand falling. Shit, he thought to himself. He’d have to start the one over from the beginning. The charm required non-interrupted movements from start to finish. His face paled slightly as he took in the person at the door, but didn’t flinch. He didn’t know what to make of Lucinda. They’d been in the Order together for months, but Mica was still all he could think when it came to her.

“Oh,” he said, surprised at her question. “Uh, yeah. Well, me or Hestia, but she’s not here right now…” He looked around as though trying to prove that she wouldn’t come shouting Surprise! from the curtains. “What did you need?” he asked Lucinda.

-

So he was the startling type. And judging by the look on his face, not the kind of person who liked a good startle. Or maybe just one who didn’t enjoy it when it came from her; she could never quite be sure on the difference. Still, there wasn’t much to do about that now.

Lucinda glanced towards the work-station, halfway tempted to ask if she’d interrupted something, but let that idea go equally quickly. That would open the door to either getting shoo-ed away because she was interrupting, or ending up in an apology-hell because was interrupting something very important. Instead she leapt to one of the inquiries she had settled on beforehand, before Dirk could get over his startle and change his mind, sending her to find Hestia instead.

“Exit strategies,” she settled on. It actually was a good question that she should figure out the answer to. While she’d never admit it to the rest of the Order, wanting to avoid that shitstorm, the secrecy laws came second for her on this mission. Better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that. But if she could avoid grovelling for forgiveness at all… She straightened up a bit. “Say it all goes to shit, what’s the plan? Grab the kid and go? Or have the brains figured out a way to get the targets out without the Ministry showing up bright and early the morning after?”