“Oh come on! You have to try it,” the slightly-disgruntled voice of a dark-skinned blonde broke through the barrier-like silence that had held the common room in a death grip for the better part of an hour. “I made it myself, ma--where are you going? You can’t run from me,” angrily shaking his fist, the shouting man chased after another, considerably larger man.

Several feet away from this spectacle, a red haired youth put her palm over her forehead, heaved a great sigh, and pretended nothing was out of the ordinary. She was dressed in a white, sleeveless turtle neck and black, tight-fitting cotton pants. She was young and it showed, but she wasn’t necessarily a child, either. Fierce eyes of orange studied passer-bys and inquisitively watched as the other agents went about their daily lives. Indeed, it would appear that the woman was specifically determined to not allow anyone to pass by without having been looked it: she was waiting for someone.

Standing behind the young woman was a much larger figure: a man heavily built and standing well within the range of six feet, his skin was near as black as pitch, and he appeared to be within his early thirties; his arms were crossed against his chest and his brow furrowed in slight boredom. Though he was obviously with the girl in front of him, he would have rather been somewhere else entirely.

“How much longer,” his voice was rough and betrayed his lack of enthusiasm. “Scott’s s’posed to buy my lunch today, Circe. C’mon, I don’t have to be here for this.”

The girl, Circe, as the man had called her, tapped the toe of her shoe against the ground impatiently, and seemed to wait a few seconds before replying to him, frustrated by his lack of composure.

“Ms. Daae’ll be here any minute and you’re part of this, anyways. That dossier didn’t just list my name, you know.”

In honest, the man knew this to be true, but that didn’t make him hate it any less. He wasn’t the highest ranked handler in the business, but it was still a little demeaning to be assigned to taking care of a rookie. After all, he had worked himself up about the same time that Circe had joined, and he definitely didn’t need this kind of troublesome thing. Sadly, orders were orders: Lilyia Daae had been assigned as a partner reaper to Dirge Agent Circe Brandt, two years the rookie’s senior. The goal was for Lilyia to have some in field training under Brandt and her handler’s tutelage; it was a bit more in depth as far as training was concerned.

“Look, I’m sure she’ll be here any minute, alright? If she’s not here in five, you can go, and I’ll stay.”

“Yeah, yeah what of it! I’m no child you little punk!” She’d kick the man hard in the shins that was treating her like a child as she then practically slapped the man with a bunch of roses she was carrying making sure the thorns of the roses hit in deep. She wanted the man to feel the hurt. “Get it right! I’m no child! I just look like this!” Lilyia hated to be looked upon as a child just because she never aged after she was sixteen years old. She was twenty-seven years old now, why did people have to make it so hard for her now that she was a grown-up.

“Ugh, Circe you really chose a place for me to come to. People are really rude to you if they just judge off eyes. I swear I need to be wearing boots over heels to teach them a little lesson in manners!” Lilyia was apparently full of wanting to just slap a little manners in anyone that treated her as if she were a child just cause she looked like a teenager. If anyone did again she was bound to do something bad to them, goodness knows she had just the tricks in mind to do it.

“Anyways, what’s the hub-bub job this time?”

Lilyia clearly knew there was a duty involved if she was called out from her experimentations with objects, specifically roses. They were her primary weapon and generally she could get them to do what she wanted and bend to her will. One prick of her rose usually was the trick she needed to really trump someone. She even carried some of her newest roses in her arms inside a special type of foil so that she doesn’t accidently prick herself.

“H-uh.”

The man behind Circe seemed star-struck for a moment; his mouth hung open and he seemed to try and mouth words, but nothing came out. No, more correctly put, he might have been feeling the urge to laugh, but just couldn’t manage the noise. The tall figure lowered and held a hand over his mouth, whispering something unintelligible into Circe’s ear.

“Right,” Circe ignored whatever it was he had said. If Circe was put off by Lilyia’s over familiarity, it didn’t visibly show, but she’d have to make a point to inform the woman to treat others a bit more respectfully.

“Lilyia Daae,” Circe took a few steps forwards and looked the woman over; she could scarcely believe that Lilyia was ten years older than her, and yet looked to be the same age. “Seems you’ve already gotten my name, but,” she pointed to the man behind her, “this is Tau and he’ll be your handler for the time being.”

“Your profile said y’like twenty-seven,” he looked the girl over and held back a smirk. “Lying about your age is serious, girl. And you’re our responsibility! You can’t just hit random people, y’clock a superior and we pay for it! Y’clock a specialist and we all die! Don’t do that. ”

Leaning down, Tau picked up an unassuming, albeit small, box, and held it in his arms.

“Come with me,” Circe announced and started walking towards the exit of the common room with Tau in tow and giving Liliya only a few seconds to follow.

“I never lied at all about my age actually. If you had the brains to actually scan over my energy, you’d see that I am the age I say I am. Most in the right mind do that before questioning me when I speak my age.” Lilyia wasn’t dumb and didn’t act it. Her eyes had that fierce appearance too just to back up her words. She never once backed down. “So, this is the next handler huh? He’s already got something to learn then, about women with something to actually prove. We don’t lie.” Lilyia kept her roses actually near her as she looked at the man she clocked. The man wasn’t unconscious, just wishing he hadn’t called her a child when she admitted her age. He was a dappy one that was for sure.

“Circe, this better not be another mission that again, I’m made to be tested about my age again. If it is, I’m liable to have no use of my newly developed roses again.” Lilyia meant her words to him. She didn’t like missions that were so easy she could skate by without the use of her roses. If she had no need of the roses for a mission, what was the point? She needed to test each batch of roses for every mission as each batch held a different chemical make-up that she had been specifically testing herself.

Lilyia didn’t let her eyes wander like a child or adolescent teenager would. That would be the indicator she lied about her age. If the man doubted her age, he would have to pay close attention to her actions. She actually demanded respect, but usually gave it when it wasn’t put into question. Lilyia instead would blow some rose petals from her hand and let what would seem like a sustained pattern flow about her body letting the petals swirl about her and dance. It was her way to just train while waiting for the mission to actually begin.

Walking, the three Dirige agents would find themselves in a long hallway, doors decorating its sides, but relatively devoid of traffic, as well.

“Careful with the words, girl. Might not like it, but I am your boss.”

Tau shrugged and would say nothing else for the time being, that is, unless otherwise prompted.

“Your job’s to aid souls,” Circe spoke rather matter-of-factly. “Trust me--you don’t want the hard missions. I don’t want the hard missions, but we take what we‘re given.”

Circe’s job was to keep Liliya alive until the training period was up or until it was determined that Liliya just didn’t make the cut for this line of work. It was fine to want better or harder missions, but the last thing Liliya would want would be to face a Voleur d'âme of any kind or class. That was just asking for trouble.

“Well,” Circe smiled, though with her leading the other two, it’d go unseen, “I do understand what you mean, though.”

Circe would come to a stop just before a door, equal in size and shape as any other door in the hallway, but one that was specifically meant for their use; the door would slide open and allow access for the three agents.

The room was a mess of papers and empty mugs, it hadn’t been cleaned in ages, it appeared, and the faint smell of something akin to tobacco smoke would assault everyone’s senses. At the northernmost wall of the room were two large cylindrical devices, a faint hum of life coming from them and several flashing lights in no particular order. Near these devices were several large screens, considering Liliya’s lack of experience with the Dirige, these were most likely sights she had never seen before; in fact, not many in Utopia would even be able to comprehend the science behind the very existence of such things.

“H-eh, y’two going t’Greoul,” Tau, who had placed the small box on an easily missed desk, finally broke his silence and announced the destination for today’s mission. “Routine stuff, girls. Few weeks ago we picked up a spike in this area," he walked towards one of the screens, which came to life as he pressed a few round, colorful 'buttons,’ and a map quickly appeared on the screen. "And it’s been in stagnation ever since. Quite a bit there, too, a village was razed t’the ground, I think, but nobody should be there now (except maybe the odd survivor). You do not engage natives,” his voice grew chilling for a moment, but he was mostly speaking to Liliya. “You’re a reaper. They shouldn’t even know you’re there.”

Quickly, Tau rushed back to the desk, opened the box he had been favoring for the last five minutes, and revealed two items, these Liliya had already been familiarized in her initial training: comm-links.

Walking over to the desk, Circe removed a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, embarrassing things, to be sure, and held them out towards Lilyia.

“These are for you,” Circe grinned and, using her opposite hand, removed a small ear-bud which she quickly placed into her ear, and then motioned towards Liliya once again, with the glasses extended. “They’re really ugly but they’ll let Tau give us instructions.”

Lilyia simply nodded as she took the glasses and put them on. She said nothing as she kept up the dancing petals around her body. Eventually, she’d let the petals settle to the ground. “Ugly or not, communication is important, am I wrong?” Lilyia knew when things were needed and when they weren’t. She had her own talents in modifying the chemical compounds of a rose to fit the benefits and needs of a mission and use them to her advantage. Such an advantage, was this current mission. She had currently tested roses in her arms, but not used in live missions yet. They were just produced. “All I have to warn about is, don’t get pricked by the roses or cut by the petals. You might not like the after-effects that will occur afterwards. I put in some not so nice qualities into these little beauties. They’re suitable for this mission. They have been tested, but not for live missions yet.”

Lilyia would not set off a rose for the sake of not giving away their position. It would be the wiser decision for now to hold back their secretive effect for now. The moment she had to use the roses would be the time the effect would be revealed. She knew the compound was mixed between something exploding and something poisonous to the body or the touch of someone’s spirit. It could corrupt or send a spirit off pending on the situation at hand. She had only need to will the rose’s chemical make-up to alter itself in the heat of battle to suit the needs as four compounds was present. Each compound would reveal itself based the basic instincts that would rise out of Lilyia’s body.

“Who’re the intended target? I need to know this so that I know which of the four chemical compounds to keep in mind for the roses I carry. The roses won’t show their chemical make-up unless I will them to show, but it based of situational standards.”

Lilyia looked at Tau with the showing that indeed her profile of age twenty-seven was showing as correct. A teenager, let alone a child would hold the knowledge that she did. She would take out a flask and pour on her bouquet of roses some sort of black liquid that would be absorb into the roses to add the fourth compound so that she would be ready just in case. The roses would change their coloration from red to white so that when she used them they would not be known by the person she was up against as to what they would be actually doing. Lilyia even had some plans for her roses of how to trick the suspected person involved into taking the rose and using her stunted growth to her advantage.

Circe snapped her fingers and grabbed a hold of Lilyia’s left hand, stray petals were gently swatted by an invisible force, and the older woman’s hand would be guided to the left side of the glasses, where Circe would place one of the woman’s fingers onto a small indention in the frames of the glasses.

“These comms activate with Qi,” Circe’s voice was authoritative, often switching from friendly to superior, though she never meant any harm by it, it was just that she was set in her ways and it wasn’t bound to change anytime soon. “It’s not like sending souls, but it’s based on the same principal. You can activate it once we leave,” she smiled and let go of the woman’s hand.

“Our target,” she shook her head, “we don’t have a target, Liliya, and we’re only going to be sending wayward souls; more importantly, you’re going to be doing most of the work. I’m just there to supervise you, you know. Our responsibility isn’t to avenge these people,” her voice grew sour. It was obvious that she didn’t like what she was saying, either, but they had their rules. “Even if whoever is responsible has stayed in the village, we can’t do anything to them outside of self-defense, alright?”

“Girls,” Tau brought attention to himself by tossing an oddly shaped leather sheath towards Circe, who caught it effortlessly and hooked it around her waist, like a belt. “You’ll be leaving in just a second,” removing some of the clutter on his desk, Tau took his seat behind it, and neatly folded his hands atop its surface. “You’ll be sent outside the village parameter just in case, but you’ll still be within walking distance--don’t worry.”

Walking away from Tau and Liliya, Circe headed towards two semi-large crates near the cylindrical devices, opened one of them, and removed a small scythe attached to a weighted chain, the clinging of metal filling the room. The scythe was placed into the sheath at her backside and the chain was wrapped around a hook coming off from where the weapon was situated, the weight hung just a bit off the end.

“We’re off,” Circe excitedly announced.

With the press of a button, the two devices would ominously open, and Circe would direct Liliya to take her place within one of them; she’d take the other.

“Oh! This isn’t going to be fun, by the way.”

“We’ll just have to see what happens then. As I said, the roses will react based off the situation.” Lilyia looked at her roses and knew that concentration would be needed greatly to control the energy within the roses themselves. Lilyia would take her place and simply close her eyes as she prepared herself for the mission. She knew her role better than most would expect of her. True she had a way of fighting back with people that treated her like a child when not on a mission, but during one she would make her situation to her benefit so as to fool those around her. “I guess for once I have to act like teenager, it might be a ruse. But, I suspect it might work if what I’ll be doing has to be done.” Lilyia said this even with her eyes closed before finally opening them with a blank look upon them. They held the look of preparation that usually held the expression needed for sending wayward souls on. It was like she synced her soul with the roses she carried.

“Let us go, before I lose sync with the roses. I have only two hours timing before the connection is lost completely. They’re life span will begin to tick upon transportation.” Lilyia’s words sounded more like an omen than something to look forwards to. She knew her abilities better than anyone however. She only had her lifespan to know what she could do to understand it. “Fun, isn’t the operative word. I hate letting my roses die. It pains my own being. It’s like losing a piece of me.”

Lilyia often wept for her roses, even if they were experiments. She did weep over them. Lilyia closed her blank eyes as she prepared herself. She kept to herself for now as she stood there. The roses at the time seemed to come to life for a split second as they too synced with her energy to prepare for the upcoming mission.

“Not what I meant,” she warned. “You’ll see.”

Once Liliya and Circe were both in their places, the doors to the devices would slowly shut, a locking mechanism clicking as a suction sound came from where door met seal, and a flood of white would blind the two Reapers. An obnoxiously loud noise came from the two devices and helped in drowning out the sound of Tau’s fingers guiding across a familiar path on the keyboard that operated the Dirige’s systems.

After a minute or two, the sound of the machines would die down, the room would grow quiet save for the noises coming from Tau, as he double checked his work, and attempted contact with the girls.

“How's the kid doing? H-uh, anyways, Hetzer's---”

Klak!

Lilyia would find herself sleeping in a small room, scarcely decorated, as she was new to the organization, and most likely did not have the funds to place any extensive care in the room; at least, not yet. Regardless, it was still her room; it was where she would find most of her time spent, when not on missions, or going about the centralized headquarters of the organization that employed her.

Klak!… Klak!…

A soft rapping sound bounced across the walls, originating from the door of the enclosure, and was of obvious nature: someone was knocking.

Klak!… Klak!… Klakk!---

More knocking would commence, this time louder, more aggressive, and longer, too. Someone was obviously attempting to rouse the sleeping Lilyia.

Klaklaklaklak!

Faster now, the knocking grew even bolder, and a kick or two were given to the door.

“Li~lyia!”

The high, feminine voice of the woman’s partner, Circe Brandt, would ring perfectly loud through the door, and yet more knocking would follow.

Circe had been at this for quite some time and she was starting to get tired of waiting; at least she understood why Lilyia might have been so tired, though. Their last mission had left taken a lot out of her, it seemed.

“Door's, open.”

Lilyia, kept her words amazingly brief. She was still laying in bed, only cause at the time she couldn’t move, yet she was right back at experimenting with her roses again. Her needs to heal came from knowing that her roses were vital to this. They could speed the healing process of her scars to covering over with a thick layer of skin once more. If Circe were to come in now, she’d see about a dozen roses floating over the bed that Lilyia was laying stomach down upon with her back exposed showing that of wing-like scars to the roses firing off some kind of healing energy.

Lilyia by all rights should have been crying out in pain from this little escapade, but it didn’t register enough for her. She’d gone through more pain than this, plus she wasn’t connected to the roses for the pain to even be recognized by her. “Increase output of healing energy by twenty-percent, must heal the two winged scars quickly.”

Lilyia’s door would slide open almost immediately after the woman called out; it would reveal a disheveled Circe Brandt, juggling several boxes in one arm, and using the opposite to close the door after her entrance. She wore clothing in similar fashion to what Lilyia had first met her in: she had switched out her white sleeveless turtle neck for that of a black one and wore a desert variant of typical camouflage pants, one of several she picked up in Sythinia a few weeks ago.

“Ehh?”

Circe seemed surprised for a moment and just stood there, awkwardly balancing the boxes, and frozen in apparent shock.

“W-why aren’t you any better yet!?”

Her voice bordered on shrill surprise and anger, but she wasn’t entirely sure what she was mad about; still, it had been a week since their mission and Lilyia hadn’t seemed too badly injured and she could have sworn she requested medical to giver her a once over.

Okay, Circe thought to herself. This isn’t too bad, she’s not bleeding, I think, and probably doesn’t have anything broken.

The boxes were dropped to the floor and Circe followed in suit, going onto her knees, and individually un-stacking each box, placing them close by each other, but allowing enough room for the contents to be stacked beside their container.

The boxes were all full of manila folders and loose papers; they were categorized by various cataloging means, differing from each box, but nearly all of them had Zaki Sa’id’s signature running along their spine or on a sticker at their front, along with a one-word description.

The first file that Circe removed was labeled: Voleur d'âme; however, she also removed a second file, shortly after, and this one was not labeled.

"How do you feel about scavenger hunts?"

“These aren’t normal wounds, or the type of scars that heal the normal way. Medical can’t do anything to heal them. It takes…special healing to even seal them shut and scar back over. I doubt you’ve even been alerted to why they exist. Do you know what the shape is?” Lilyia knew what the sound in Circe’s voice was, but had an absolute calm to her own as she laid there stomach down. Her eyes weren’t even showing an ounce of pain despite the increase of energy being fired upon her back now. “Output increase now to forty percent, if the scars do not seal by then. Increase to one-hundred percent. These scars must not remain open.” Lilyia obviously was speaking to the dozen roses above where her back was while her eyes were looking at Circe.

“Scavenger hunts, huh? Only been on one in my entire lifetime, but that’s neither here nor there on that issue.” Lilyia spoke still in an absolute calm as the energy firing on her back had increased from twenty percent to one-hundred in almost a split second. It would be enough pain to cause most to cry out, but Lilyia just laid there without as much as a peep out of her. She didn’t cry out, the wing-like wounds finally scarring over to the point a very thick layer of skin had covered over enough for her to place a new top back on. It’d be much like the dress she was wearing before when Circe had first seen Lilyia in coloration, but different in that it was the second piece to the skirt Lilyia was wearing. It matched Lilyia’s roses that were firing on her back earlier.

Those very roses would then move to the side planting themselves almost as if guided by some invisible hand into pots set aside for them and Lilyia would water them to keep the roses alive. Lilyia then turned her eyes upon Circe completely after having finished at least what she needed to do at least considering she’d been on her stomach trying to make the winged scars, a scar once again for some time now.

Lilyia, for now just sat there, the epitome of looking either like a child or a life-sized doll. Her expression even matched a life-sized doll, considering she didn’t smile at all, but then again she never has before anyone in her life time. The last time she ever smiled was when she was truly a child, instead of stuck in a teenager’s body. On the bed-stand by Lilyia seemed to be a folder, one that she personally kept with her. Probably the only thing with information about her that was kept hidden away from anyone that wanted to ask about her past. It had no name, no label, nothing, but it was thick and riddled with information from the looks of it.

“What’s in need of being scavaged?”

“Yes,” she shrugged before continuing: “but you have a mission and if you were still hurt, I should have at least been told beforehand,” being asked what shape the woman’s scars were prompted Circe into surveying them; she leaned over for a moment, half-a-second, really, and then re-planted herself onto the ground. “They look like wings,” she said, “but you mentioned them during our time in Hetzer so I already knew that.”

Starting to rummage through one of the other boxes, she pulled another three folders out: the first was marked ‘Worldly Details’, the second ‘Terran Discrepancies’, and the third and final file: ‘Xi’.

“Information,” she smiled coyly and nodded to herself. “Remember Hetzer, right? Well Hetzer wasn’t just a massacre,” her smile slowly vanished from her face, but did little in halting her explanation: “It was orchestrated by something a bit more force-y. Now, we think we know what this force is, but that means squat without real proof; that breastplate we got off that guy in Hetzer? Useless! I--we--need to know where and when they’re going to strike next and we need to be there when it happens.”

What Circe Brandt were proposing; rather, what her superiors were proposing and what she accepted in full, was that, with preparation, they were to find, and physically confront Hetzer’s destroyers; obviously, they had reason to believe that Hetzer was not an isolated case and that more attacks were bound to occur.

“I’ll be working in Greoul for a little while,” her smile returned as she opened the ‘Worldly Details’ folder, removed a page, and then picked up the ‘Xi’ folder. “You’ll be going to Xi,” she tapped the folder lightly with her index finger, and then opened it; similarly, she removed a page and sat the folder down. “We actually have a local agent for Xi, but he’s not able to carry out the mission for health reasons and it’d be too odd for him to go around asking the questions that need to be asked without people getting suspicious.”

Circe placed the two pieces of paper she had removed from the folders on top of one another and then opened the unlabeled folder from earlier, into this, she placed the two pages, and then sat the folder down; she did nothing with ‘Terran Discrepancies’ and ‘Voleur d'âme’ for now.

“Understand so far?”

“Yeah I understand so far, but I honestly don’t know how someone that masks their voice to be like a teenager’s would be any better for the task. Wouldn’t I be just as stranger?” Lilyia knew the mission probably needed to be done and the rest of that, but what had her questioning things was the fact she didn’t truly know what to look for in the first place. She knew things were off at Hetzer in the first place. It was a sort of inkling in the back of her mind, but she kept much of her own past hidden from everyone.

“Hetzer wasn’t the first time I’d been there by the way. It was the second time. I guess I should let you read my full biography. No one has ever read it before. They’ve only had the bridged version. It has nothing about my past in it, only what I allowed to be known, but you might find it invaluable to know. Since, the winged scars themselves are partially what hinder me.” Lilyia had a serious look on her face, almost like what she had to share was beyond even Circe’s first hand knowledge. The file that Lilyia’s hand went to was the one on the bed stand next to her. It was the thick one that Lilyia kept in her room either locked up or hidden from anyone ever reading.

“What I’m about to tell you, is very important to remember. It is what is written in this file my hand is over. Very important details about the curse I’m under, the marks on my back, and what did it is all written inside, but not why I became a dirge, not even those that first placed me in missions and training knows these facts. I’ve kept them all secret.”

Lilyia’s eyes held a look of dead seriousness, almost like Circe couldn’t escape this bit of truth if she wanted to. Lilyia wasn’t going to let her out of it, it’d be the first time Circe would find the reason why Lilyia never took up another form of training in her entire life and why she only used roses in her missions.

“A long time ago, when I guess I was about sixteen. I was on a mission, so to speak. I was already on the path to becoming a dirge to begin just I was human. I was called the Tentative Watcher, or Rosebloom at the time. They were my nicknames. I watched people or used my roses to the needs and desires required at the time. Eventually, I would run into my first real obstacle, and the reason my body would become stunted. It was a battle I cannot forget, it would be what left the scars on my back in the form of wings. Ever heard of a demon leaving their mark? This one left their mark on my body in the form of wings, but instead of it being demon’s wings, they looked more angelic. However, if ever I went to a certain frequency or stage within connection of my roses I would cause the scars to break open and be subject to what you came into my room now. I would require special healing to make the scars themselves seal shut.

It’s not a task easily under-taken. You have to match the frequency of the scars themselves, as I have not found the demon that did what it did to me. I continued to grow up, while trapped in a teenager’s body till meeting you for Hetzer. That was actually my second time there. I was actually surprised no one that was there recognized me. It was at Hetzer that I was cursed, or so that I can as vaguely it seems remember. I still believe a demon did this to me. I have not been able to counter-act the effects done to my body, nor anyone else that’s even slightly seen what the curse actually is. They only said if they tried to remove it themselves, they’d likely kill me in the process of removing it from my body.”

Lilyia would watch Circe to see if she even understood what Lilyia was saying, considering none of this was in Lilyia’s original file that was readily open for anyone to read. It was a private file that Lilyia kept that had all these hidden details, but if Circe was to be Lilyia’s partner, it was time these details were shared.