(no subject)

[moonsheen]

They wouldn’t be staying long in the Other World this assignment, but Lena still found the time to nurse a tiny flower box in the window of the apartment. They flourished there, overlooking the old ruins the lazy town so prided itself in; Lena touched the blossoms with her fingertips, and it seemed to Leon sometimes as though they unfurled for her approval alone. It wouldn’t have surprised him if they did—she had a lovely smile.

It was a game of patience, dealing with the spirits in the ruins—the reason the shaman and her partner had been sent. The spirits only emerged on full moons, and Lena and Leon had missed the last one by a day, so the month was spent gaining a scope of the territory, adjusting to the slow way things worked in that particular town in that particular part of the world. It was relatively easy; Lena’s French was flawless, and Leon’s, though slightly accented, was fair enough—he couldn’t have passed as anything but a foreigner anyway. Just how foreign, though, a secret he shared with her alone.

As assignments went, it was practically a reward. Their last one had not gone nearly so smoothly, spanning over three months in a remote, snowy city, tracking a power that had taken human form and developed an affection for human spirits. It had been a sly one, and grown violent in the end—but they’d subdued it, and sealed it, and Lena had suffered minimal injury. That was what had mattered most to Leon, though he came out of the fight with his forearms neatly shredded by the claws the power had manifested in a final, desperate effort. In comparison, the month of waiting this time was quite pleasant. It was warm, too—Leon found he enjoyed summers in the Other World nearly as much as he did in the Guardian World.