Job Hunting

“Mercury?”

The Ace glanced over at the sound of her name, halting her trek through the entry foyer as she made her way from the spas to the living quarters of the guild. To say the last few days – honestly the last few weeks – had been rough would be an understatement. Between her recent kidnapping and subsequent rescue, the freeing of her people, and the disappearance of her fiance shortly after his near death, it was a wonder that she wasn’t losing her hair with anxiety. So much had happened in such a short period of time, and while Vandrad had returned safe and sound his enemies had sought to strike her fiance while he was down, attacking not just him but also his family, his allies, and Mercury herself. Thankfully nearly everyone they were close to had survived, but the assassins had completely destroyed the entire du Wolff estate, including Mercury’s home that Vandrad’s mother had gifted to her the first time they’d met.

Not all of her possessions had been demolished, of course. Truthfully, Mercury owned very little by way of personal affects, and a lot of what she did have had been split between her house in Bellum and her suite in Silver Wolf. And thankfully, she had taken great care to install protective measures around her basement where her personal lab was at her house, so everything in the lab that she had been working on survived. Still, the house was the first home she had ever really had, and it had been difficult to accept and process that it was gone. It was one of many things that would require time to adjust to and heal from… But she still had Vandrad and Silver Wolf, and at the end of the day that was all she truly needed.

Well, that and a nice hot soak to wash all the stress away.

So she’d gone to take a dip in the famous spas at the Silver Wolf guild before starting her work day, and that was when the receptionist at the front desk had flagged her down. Adjusting her course, she approached the woman. “What’s up, Lyvia?”

The receptionist moved a few papers around until she found what she was looking for, handing Mercury a small package. “We got the mail a bit ago. Most of it I can take care of, but this seemed like it should go to either you or Leona. I think it’s a resume.”

Mercury blinked. “A resume..?” That was odd. Most people wishing to join Silver Wolf, or any guild for that matter, didn’t send resumes. They just walked in and expressed their interest in joining, had a quick chat with herself or the guildmaster, and that was it. Curious, she slipped the papers out of the package along with the lacrimas and took a quick glance over the document. There was a picture with it that showed a young man around her own age, with dark hair and eyes and tanned skin, with a few healed scars on his face. He was actually quite attractive; not the most important thing, of course, but Mercury hardly ever let silly things like “priorities” stop her in the past, so there was no point in starting now. “Thanks, Lyv. I’ll follow up on this.” Sliding everything back into the package, she took it with her to her room to review the lacrimas in private.

His references were… certainly something. There was clearly an entire backstory of workplace drama happening with his current employer that Mercury couldn’t help but be both intrigued and amused by, her insatiable curiosity practically demanding that she get her hands on more details. It was more than enough for her to want to meet the applicant in person, so she took the time to reach out to him by whatever method of contact he’d supplied inviting him to come meet with her at the Silver Wolf guild hall for an interview, with instructions to ask for her at the front desk when he arrived.

Passing the time had been easy enough, as there was always plenty for Mercury to do somewhere or another between the guild and dealing with the aftermath of what had happened in Bellum. Granted, she had to be more careful now with where she showed her face, given that she needed to maintain a low profile for the time, but there were very few places more secure than Silver Wolf so it was easy enough for her to teleport back and forth from the guild to the other locations she needed to go to while remaining out of sight. There was never an end to the work at the guild, so it was easy enough to keep herself busy by checking on her Scholars and seeing how they were faring with their respective projects.

Before she knew it, the day for the interview had arrived. She busied herself with one of her own experiments in the meantime. One of the things she had managed to save from the wreckage of her home was the new weapon she had been working on for Vandrad’s father, the giant oversized hammer that Gren had commissioned from her a number of months back. Mercury was in the middle of testing it in the labs when the intercom turned on and Lyvia’s voice sounded through the speakers. “Your appointment is here, miss.”

“Thanks, Lyv! I’ll be right out. Come on, Bandit!”

The bird gave her a shrill caw before flapping down from his perch in the rafters to land on her shoulder. Putting the hammer back in its case and locking it, she secured the box in her room before heading out into the foyer. A caravan had recently brought a number of guests for the spa, and a number of guild members were already busy getting them set up with their accommodations. Mercury’s gaze panned the room until it landed on an individual who matched the picture that had accompanied his resume. Apparently, one of the spirit wolves had taken an interest in him as the ethereal creature was sniffing his hand and lingering by his side. Judging by the readings from the radars in her internal HUD, he was utilizing some kind of light spell that had caught the wolf’s attention, but the color of the light was different in a familiar way; it glowed, but it was a purple-ish black, much like Mercury’s own magic used to be before it had evolved. Was he a god slayer of some kind? That would be interesting…

With a small smirk, Mercury wandered in his direction. “I see you made a friend already.” He would find himself being greeted by a rather small woman dressed in a gray-green engineering jumpsuit that sported a few grease spots, complete with leather boots, gloves, and a pouch strapped to her thigh that presumably held tools. Her short lavender colored hair was pushed away from her face by a pair of work goggles, and she had bright emerald colored eyes that carried an unmistakable glint of mischief behind them. She was about half a foot shorter than him, with a thin lithe frame. Sat upon her shoulder was a large black crow, the creature tilting its head to study the man with a beady black eye as it shifted back and forth.

Taking off one of her gloves, she offered him a petite, well manicured hand to shake. “You must be Tim. I’m Mercury. The jackass on my shoulder is Bandit. Don’t take it personally if he screams at you, he just likes to listen to himself complain.” Normally this process wasn’t this formal, and to a point it still wasn’t considering that Mercury was dressed in more practical garments that betrayed she spent most of her time getting her hands dirty rather than sitting at a desk pushing papers without breaking a sweat. However, considering the content of some of the references he’d sent it, she figured it was best that she conduct this meeting in a more private setting rather than out in the foyer where most new members were inducted into the fold.

Tilting her head to invite him to follow her, she led him into a small office where there was a sturdy wooden desk that was free of clutter. It was obvious the space wasn’t used by any one particular person in the guild as there weren’t any personal items in the room outside of the standard office supplies. There was also a small fridge in the corner. As Bandit flew off her shoulder to pick a new roosting spot up in the rafters, Mercury gestured for him to sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk while she quietly shut the door behind them. “You thirsty? I know the road up can be a bit killer your first time. Gotta watch out for dehydration. It sneaks up on you fast in the cold and snow. We got some water, juice, soda..?” She’d grab whatever he expressed an interest in, if anything at all, and would hand him the bottle while taking a bottle of water for herself.

Then, she sat on the other side of the desk and made herself comfortable. As she took off her remaining glove, he might notice the small ring of gold with an emerald stone on the finger that typically indicated one was engaged to be married. Mercury set her gloves off to the side and  took the envelope with his resume and the lacrimas out of one of the drawers. “I have to say, you’ve got quite the rep sheet here. I’m looking forward to exploring the possibility of your membership with the guild. Though, I suppose I should introduce myself a little better first.” Screwing the cap off her water, she took a quick swig to wet her pallet. “My official role with Silver Wolf is an Ace, and essentially what that means is that I’m in charge of the guild when our guildmaster, Leona, isn’t around. Primarily I focus on overseeing our Scholar branch, but at this time the Ace positions that command the other two branches are vacant, so I’m basically running all three branches for Leona on an interim basis until we can find the right people to fill the other two roles. And yes, it’s exactly as exhausting as it sounds. I use the spas a lot.”

Mercury grinned at her teasing comment at her own expense, slipping in a little candid humor to hopefully help him feel more at ease. “So I’ve obviously read what was on your resume, but I’d like to know a little more about you on a personal level. The man behind the application, so to speak. Is there anything you’d be comfortable sharing about yourself? Maybe some of your hobbies or interests, or a bit about where you grew up, any kind of magic abilities you may or may not possess… whatever you feel is appropriate or interesting, really.”

Well, he certainly wasn’t much of a talker. Or at the very least he liked to observe people before speaking too much. Aside from agreeing to a water, he didn’t really say anything while Mercury introduced herself and got him settled in the office for their scheduled one on one. Perhaps he was just shy? He did seem a little nervous as she approached, though his handshake had been firm and confident enough. Whatever it was, Tim was becoming more and more curious by the minute, and those were Mercury’s favorite kind of people.

In fact, it was only after she invited him to open up about himself a bit that he finally started stringing a couple sentences together, but his answer wasn’t quite what she was expecting. He stopped her almost in her tracks by admitting that he felt there was some kind of mixup in what exactly kind of work he was looking to do for them. Mercury raised a single brow in surprise, her interest piqued as he avoided answering her rather general question and chose instead to change the topic a bit. Thankfully for him, Mercury was a bundle of patience that simply let him do so, if only because she wanted to see exactly where he planned on going with all this.

So she listened without interruption as he explained that his interest in the guild was due to knowing that they held one of the largest vaults of relics and artifacts in the country, and his hope was to apply his years of experience in warehousing to helping to keep them organized and inventoried. It wasn’t until he spoke about magic being imprinted upon him and the particular emphasis he used on the word “mage” that her computerized brain started putting the pieces together. He clearly had magic; she’d seen him use a small amount of it only a few minutes ago. But just as clear was the fact that he wasn’t comfortable with that fact and the mere implication that he might be associated as being a mage was making him fidget and panic.

As he continued to try and brush off any kind of discussion that might equate him with magical abilities, something strange began to happen. While she kept an even expression and maintained her easy, casual composure, her eyes couldn’t help but drift to take in the sight of his skin changing color, taking on a hue as dark as night. He didn’t seem to notice right away, but it didn’t take more than a second or two for him to realize that her gaze had wandered, and as Bandit squawked some loud, untranslated commentary, Tim practically leapt out of his chair and backed away from her in fear, all but begging her to remain calm and frantically assuring her that what was happening to him wasn’t dangerous. All that before tripping over the chair he had been sitting in only a moment ago.

The room was quiet for a moment as Mercury calmly stood to her feet and came around to the other side of the desk where he laid prone, tangled up with the chair and presumably a fair bit of embarrassment. “You good there?” she asked, a small note of amusement in her tone but nothing malicious, and overall she would seem genuine in wanting to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. She offered him a hand to help him get back onto his feet, and if he accepted it he would find that she was able to pull him up with very little effort, hinting at a physical strength that didn’t seem to match her petite build. Then, just as casually, she took the chair and set it right side up again in front of the desk and gestured to it. “Have another seat,” was the gentle invitation.

Walking around the desk once more, Mercury sat across from him again. She leaned back comfortably in the chair, her emerald gaze studying him kindly for a moment as she pulled her thoughts together and formulated a plan of approach. This kid needed a soak in the hot springs even more than she did, and that was saying something. When she did finally speak up, her tone was patient and lacking any hint of judgment toward him. “I’m going to assume that you’ve had more than a few negative reactions to whatever this is,” the ace said, nodding her head toward him and his changed skin. “A shame, really. It’s pretty neat. Not sure who’s been feeding you this idea that you’re ugly, cause that’s a bold faced lie if I’ve ever heard one, and as far as I’m concerned this makes you even more attractive, not less.”

She shot him a playful, somewhat flirty look before her expression sobered into something a bit more serious. “But my unprofessionalism aside, it’s obvious that whatever is going on is new to you, possibly even scares you a bit. If that’s true, it’s understandable. I myself have only been able to use magic for a little over two years, now, and I can recall how alarming and exciting the first couple months of that adventure were. Anyway, my point is this.” Mercury looked in right in the eyes, holding his gaze evenly and without reproach. “We’ve all got weird shit. If I told you even a quarter of my weird shit, you’d probably assume I was either making things up or look at me like I suddenly sprouted two extra heads.”

“I know you’re not dangerous to me, or anyone else here. If you were, you wouldn’t have made it this far. The wolves wouldn’t have allowed it. They would have either taken you out or run you off the mountain before you got anywhere near the guild hall. They certainly wouldn’t have been begging for your attention like love starved puppies, like your ethereal buddy out there was.” She chuckled lightly. “Here at Silver Wolf, we’ve made it our mission to seek knowledge pertaining to all things science and magic, to understand and preserve artifacts and history and culture exactly how they are, without bias. If we were to approach the unknown with fear or prejudice, it would defeat the whole purpose of what we do. So relax; no one here is going to fly off the handle just because your skin changes color. If anything, it would probably make you a lot of friends here, myself included.”

Giving him a small but friendly smirk, she shifted a bit in her seat to get a little more comfortable, leaning forward and taking on a more engaging posture. “As to why we are here having this conversation, I don’t believe there’s been any misunderstanding at all as to what kind of work you’d do here, mostly because I didn’t have any assumptions at all about what kind of work you were interested in. All I wanted to do was get to know you a little. Establish a rapport and familiarity with one another, as it were. Making small talk. There’s a lot of opportunities for work with Silver Wolf, and not all of them revolve around being a mage. In fact, we have plenty of members that don’t use magic at all.”

“However, if you’ll humor me in making a small observation… I am starting to think you may not be very familiar with guilds and how they operate. Most people that want to join a guild don’t typically send in a resume.” She tapped on his paperwork lightly with the pad of her finger. “They just show up and express an interest, and as long as they seem like a good fit, they’re in. It’s not really a formal process that requires a full fledged interview or contacting a list of references. We just have a chat and get to know each other, and at the end if we like you and you like us, then you become a member. It’s that easy. You don’t need to try to impress me, here. I just want you to be yourself.”

“Most people that are truly interested in being part of a guild generally know how it works. If I may say so, and I mean this kindly, it’s clear that you’re unfamiliar enough with all this that you haven’t really looked too far into it, which leads me to believe that we weren’t your first choice for putting your resume toward. And that’s fine, I’m earnestly not saying that to call you out or make you uncomfortable or anything. It just makes me wonder…” Her voice trailed off for a moment as she sought for the right way to word what she wanted to say. Finally, she nodded toward the lacrimas on the table. “Your references. Did you happen to listen to them before you sent them off with your applications?”

Mercury truly was not one for speeches. In fact, she was much more prone to being quiet and letting others do the talking while she listened and absorbed everything going on around her while she went unnoticed in the background; habits from a lifetime of espionage and trickery. However, there were times where speaking up and doing a little talking was beneficial, particularly when she was trying to help the man across the desk from her feel more at ease. He didn’t really seem to know how to take her words, but that didn’t mean his attention or interest was lacking. She was simply throwing a lot of information at him, and Mercury had been in this position more than enough times at this point to know how overwhelming that could be.

At the end of it all, she finally just opened right up with what she was getting at: his references. She did not stop him from listening to him, though her expression did sober quite a bit as she waited, knowing that he was not going to be happy about the contents of at least two of the lacrimas. As he got started, Bandit flapped softly down from his perch to land on Mercury’s shoulder once more where he eyed Tim briefly before gently preening the Ace’s hair with his beak. Without taking her eyes off the starry skinned man before her, she reached up a hand to softly pet the large crow as she waited.

The first recording was the good one from Edna, though as he soon found out the ending of her recording was some cause for concern. It spurred him to move on to the next one, and it was obvious the recording hit Tim a lot harder. The last one he didn’t listen to for more than a second or two before he stopped the recording. He sought confirmation that she had listened to the recording fully and she shrugged lightly. “I knew what they had to say,” she told him simply while he took a moment to gather his thoughts and emotions. “There were obvious inconsistencies between their words and your resume, but I highly doubted that you would knowingly send references that didn’t speak in your favor. Mix that with my suspicion that Silver Wolf wasn’t your first choice for employment, and well… As far as I could tell, at least two of these people are trying to control you. I would have offered to meet with you no matter what, but as far as I’m concerned you have a right to know what steps people are taking against you, whether or not you join my guild.”

Mercury wasn’t the most altruistic of individuals, and she would almost always be the first to admit that, but she had grown and matured a lot as a person since coming to Earthland and finding an unexpected home here among the planet’s people. While she couldn’t say that her intentions for bringing Tim to Silver Wolf were completely selfless – after all, she was an exceptionally curious woman that loved getting the scoop on all the latest drama – the man’s odd predicament had struck her and left a sour taste in her mouth. Mercury knew what it was like to be controlled, more than most people understood. Up until only a few weeks ago she had still technically been a slave to the people that had nearly eradicated her entire race, that raised her to be an unquestioning, emotionless tool, and as such she knew how much she loathed being treated like an object for everyone else’s convenience. In her mind, this was what was happening to Tim now, albeit to a less severe and violent degree than she’d grown up with… but still. This Arthur Schwartz and Tim Timson the fucking-millionth were showing their arrogance in these lacrimas.

And Mercury hated very few things more than people like that.

Whether it was her explanation for her actions or his own retrospection of their interaction thus far that swayed him, Tim found enough grounding to inquire if what she wanted was for him to just open up and talk to her. And truthfully, yes, Mercury very much wanted to know every little detail of all the histrionics that had presented themselves, but there really was more to it than just that. “I just wanted to give you a chance to speak on your own behalf, to prove these dipshits wrong.” She nodded meaningfully at the lacrimas from Dr. Schwartz and his father. “However much you want to tell me of yourself in the process is entirely up to you.” Mercury would not press him for more information than he felt comfortable giving.

And it seemed he was open to sharing quite a bit of it. Mercury listened in rapt silence as he went into the history of his family, claiming his true legal name rather than his alias of Watt. As he explained it, his family was blessed by being direct descendants of the goddess Nyx, who had once mated with a mortal, and from it a member of his family every generation since had inherited what he described as “inklike” skin. Though, by his own admittance, he very much wished he was not cursed with it. For his own reasons he had run away from home, which was where he had met Edna. She had taken care of him, employed him even, and despite his age he viewed her as a parent figure.

However, it seems he had been conned by a man that was slippery and charismatic enough to convince Tim that he was trustworthy. And to the man’s credit, it seemed that he had helped Tim grow past many insecurities over the years, but it seemed now that most of that was merely to Arthur’s own benefit. Mercury made no reaction when Tim materialized a knife in his hand, nor did she panic or flinch as he attempted to stab himself before her. Her emerald eyes only narrowed in study and curiosity as he demonstrated his ability to avoid taking damage as a result of his curse, the limb moving through the knife in much the same manner that Mercury had seen Serilda avoid injury with her Void magic.

And that life had been beneficial for a time, but especially now that he knew what his former employer had been saying behind Tim’s back, the young man knew he couldn’t go back to where he had been before. By his own words he had very little to offer, but as he finally looked her in the eyes and gave her what one could only describe as a hopeful smile, he asked if she would take him on, promising not to let her down. It was only then that her own stoic expression from the last several minutes finally broke, her playful smirk shining through once more. “I regret very few of my choices,” the younger woman humored.

“I’ll tell you what, nightlight: I think I can do better than just hiring you, so here is what I’m going to offer: Membership of the Silver Wolf guild, and all the benefits that entails, which includes twenty four hour access to the cafe, the spas, as well as your own private room here at the guildhall for you to live in, should you choose. You will have access to steady work, whether that’s here within the hall helping us manage our inventory and business or taking jobs beyond the guild’s walls, as a mage or otherwise. On top of that, you’ll also have access to our labs and libraries, and to top it all off you’ll have a one of a kind opportunity for education the likes of which you’ve never had; a true chance to not just understand your abilities…”

Raising a hand, she summoned a small orb of light into her hand. It would look exactly like the light he had summoned for the spirit wolf not long ago, a purple glow that was so dark it was nearly black, and there would be no mistaking that she was capable of controlling the same energy that he had. “...but perhaps how to control and expand them as well.” Giving him a knowing smirk, she waved off her light spell, the orb disappearing as she reached into a drawer and pulled out what appeared to be an enchanted stamp with the symbol of Silver Wolf on it. “If that sounds good to you, then all I need to know is where you want your guild mark and what color you want it to be. Then I can give you a tour of the guild and get you squared away. How does all that sound?”