Technology? TECHNOLOGY! (Private; Mercury Arsenault)

If Mercury had to pick the one thing she loved most about Earthland, it was coffee. The young woman had never had the stuff before, having only discovered it several months ago upon arriving on this strange, magic filled little planet. From the moment the substance touched her lips the first time, her entire life had been revolutionized. It was a delicious and effective energizer to wake her up in the mornings, which was just as well considering Vandrad’s insistence that she wake her as up at awful early morning hours just to drag herself all the way from the Phoenix Mountains down to Magnolia just so they could throw punches at each other for an hour or two.

At the moment, however, she wasn’t in Magnolia. She and the Bellum prince had an upcoming appointment to meet with the leaders of the Rune Knights, Serilda Sinclair and Mythal Ragnos. They had booked the appointment under the guise of meeting under guild pretenses -- a fairly easy event to set up as the Rune Knights apparently worked to maintain an amicable relationship with Fairy Tail due to Director Mythal’s history as a former member of theirs. However, the truth of the meeting was because Mercury had finally gotten solid proof that Mythal was actually Vandrad’s brother, adopted by the prince’s father who had died a long time ago before learning that Vandrad even existed. Longing to learn more about the paternal half of his heritage that Vandrad had never known, the prince had decided it was time to finally meet and Mercury herself had arranged the appointment.

But, that didn’t mean that she was done researching. There was still much to learn about both the director and his affianced boss, so Mercury had taken it upon herself to spend some time in both Clover, where Serilda’s family was from, and Era where both of them worked. Fancy words and pretty pictures from magazines and news articles could only tell her so much about the couple’s true natures, and while she’d yet to directly interact with either of them face to face she had made it a point to pay close attention to and try to be present for some of their public appearances. She told herself it was merely out of curiosity, but the truth was that the prince had a much more profound place in her life than Mercury would ever be able to admit, and if the meeting was going to go south due to clashing natures and potentially toxic familial drama… well she wanted to be prepared for that ahead of time.

After wandering around a bit of the shopping district of Era for a time, she had slipped into a cozy looking tea shop that had caught her nose. They didn’t have a wide array of coffee options, given their specialty in teas, but they did have more than enough to make her happy. After she ordered her drink and was waiting for it to be brewed, she scanned the room curiously and her emerald gaze fell upon a young woman with white hair working on a wristwatch of sorts. Set on the small table was a moderately sized aerial drone with a propeller in each corner of its chassis and a camera dangling between its legs. Ever curious about the technology in Earthland, which so often proved to be several generations behind where she was from, Mercury scanned the drone with her internal sensors, reading it for its make up, material components, and electromagnetic output.

Surprisingly, the device was actually fairly advanced in comparison to what she was used to seeing around here. Taking her coffee when it was finished, she decided to meander her way over to where the woman sat. “Sorry for the interruption,” she told the woman with a friendly smile. “I don’t mean to be intrusive, but my curiosity gets the better of me most days. My name is Mercury, I’m an ace with the guild Silver Wolf. If you haven’t heard of us before, we’re kind of gluttons for magical artifacts and technology. Your drone there caught my eye. It looks pretty quality, more than others I’ve seen around. Did you make it yourself?”