Closed to Philomel / Celandine
“It’s been a while, Raine.”

The girl turned, looking around quizzically and scratching her milky cheek with a single finger as she almost walked past Shinsou’s table. Her blue eyes flitted down and left to where the Telgradian was seated, and travelled up his thin face to meet his golden eyes. A smile crossed both of their faces as his former bodyguard, and one of the Gilded Quint’s former numbers, finally recognised him in the dim light.

“Oh, Shinsou!” Raine gasped, her trimmed fingernails brushing a crop of red hair behind her ear. The woman took a seat in a vacant chair opposite, pressing her back down into it neatly. “I’ve not seen you in ages! Since, uh…”

“Yeah, since after Radasanth. I know.” The Telgradian nodded sheepishly. Although it was very much a part of the past now, their last meeting had come at a time immediately after the failed Brotherhood siege of Radasanth. She had protected him from the fallout, for which he was grateful, but it was a taboo subject. At best, in public, the whole affair was an event that everyone currently seated in the Gilded Lily brothel, up to and including Shinsou Vaan Osiris, did not need reminding of.

There was a moment’s pause before Shinsou spoke up again, a warm tone to his voice. “So, how have you been? Has Philomel got you working long hours again?”

Raine shrugged and sat back in her chair. “Nah. I’m an independent security contractor now, if you’d believe it. I still come here though. In fact, most of my business flows through here. What about you?”

The pair were seated in a small alcove off the main corridor in Philomel’s main Lily brothel in Radasanth. All sorts of clientele walked in and out of this dim-lit, but otherwise clean and well kept establishment, so it was in Shinsou’s interest to keep his affairs somewhat discreet, lest an interested party pick up on his loose lips. He eyed a few patrons as they got their drinks, and their girls, conduct whatever business they had to, and left without a fuss.

“Well, it got a bit messy after you-know-what.“ Shinsou watched one guy walk past, his right arm full of mugs of ale and his left full of Lily whore. “Turns out I’m a bit of a trouble magnet when it comes to picking sub-ordinates. Someone who was working for me got ideas above his station and tried to bump us off the map.” He continued, almost chuckling at his pathetically abridged appraisal of the last eight months of hell with Arius Mephisto. If only it had all been that simple.

“I heard, yeah.” Said Raine, as she took a sip of her own drink. “You took care of it though, right?”

Shinsou set his half-emptied drink down on the table, letting the warm memories of Storm Veritas flash frying the bastard with all of his electrical fury flow back through his mind. “Eventually, we caught up to him, yeah. Whitevale’s being rebuilt at the moment, and I’m taking a well-earned rest.”

“Rebuilt? Gods…” Rained shifted, several strands of ginger hair falling out from her hair pin and across her face. “Well, if things were that bad, you definitely need a break. Are you here to see Philomel?”

“Yeah, she-“ Shinsou caught himself, and dropped his voice into a whisper. “She asked me to come over. I was going to visit soon anyway, being honest.”

Raine crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward. “You’re still sweet on her?”

Shin waved her off with a smile. “We’re not talking about that here. I’ve got a few things I want to discuss with her. If she’s got any time spare after that, then- well, it’s none of your concern.”

The woman’s eyes flashed and a smile widened with mirth as she nodded and held her hands up. “Alright, alright. Just leave enough for the rest of her clients is all I’m saying!”

The Telgradian leaned forward in kind and pointed a finger at her, smiling. “You’re unbelievable.”

She grinned and nodded as she rose from the table, having spotted someone she had presumably been waiting for. “Not the first time you’ve said that to me, eh?”

Shinsou, sipping from his mug, held his gaze tightly on her round buttocks as she swayed off into he reaches of the Lily’s den.

Nope, and I wasn’t wrong then, either.