Electra

"Oh, I, I have a friend on the team," Stesha said coyly, not sure how much she was actually supposed to reveal about that. She wasn't sure Moira even had a proper secret identity, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Revealing too much would give away her own secret, after all. "I know they do a lot of good work. That thing's not going to come back, is it?" she asked. "Or bring something else back with it? We could move the rest of this consultation somewhere else, let the room air out a little bit..." Truthfully, it smelled fine after whatever Taylor had done with it, but Stesha still had vivid memories of the pain it had been to replace the front window just last month.

"No thanks," Erin told her, stepping into the elevator when it finally arrived, then turning to face the front. "I'll be fine on my own. I'm sure Mike could use some more consoling." She kept her voice flat, but couldn't hide the flash of irritation in her eyes. "You can still catch him, there's only one way out of here and I'm sure he's not staying to train."

"Okay I won't, but just don't say anything too loud, okay?" Stesha told her nervously. She went behind the counter and grabbed a bottle of air freshener, spraying it around liberally. It made her cough, but a high-class florist shop couldn't go around smelling like rotten egg farts. She kept one eye on Taylor as she spritzed the shop. "Interdimensional guardian... that's a good guy, right? Do you work with the Knights?"

Stesha stared for a minute, stunned, then leapt into action. Propping the front door open with a wooden block, she picked up her manila folder and began fanning it frantically in the air in front of the smoke detector. "Please don't go off, please don't go off..." she muttered. Having the sprinklers go off would mean a real mess, and hours more work. After a few seconds, the smoke began to clear, and she sighed relief. Paul stuck his head in from the back room. "What was that?" He wrinkled his nose. "What's that stench?" "Um... a kid threw something in from the doorway and ran," Stesha improvised. "I think it was a little stink bomb. I'll spray some air freshener." Paul frowned and muttered something about hooligans, but withdrew back to his lair. Stesha turned to Taylor. "So... who are you, and what was that, really?" she demanded.

"Um, no," Stesha replied with a polite laugh. "The food's excellent. Best I've had in a really long time. And I had a veggie phase in college, but I made myself sick and quit. I try to be ecologically responsible in what I eat, and I don't really eat that often anymore, but when I do, I like a lot of different things." She didn't really want to talk politics or ecology at the table, so she scooted the subject over a little. "My mom's always been very big on natural gardening, so we at a lot of homegrown produce when I was growing up. That's really the best way to do it, if you've got the time and talent. Someday I want a big place like that, with room for a working garden."

"No, I'm going back to the room," Erin said flatly. "I have two more hours of history to do today, and I'm way behind. That was pretty worthless as far as exercise went, so I have a lot of making up to do before the end of the night. I'll ask James about the car later, when I actually have a permit in hand." She was obviously clamping down on her emotions as well, though not as successfully as Alex. Erin didn't seem like the sort who actually worked through her emotions with meditation, so much as stamping them down into smaller and smaller spaces. "If you want the room, I can go work in the library."

Erin didn't seem interested in starting a conversation, or in really acknowledging Alex's presence. She spared the other girl half a glance, then returned her glare to the elevator buttons, waiting for the machine to make its way down to the basement. Erin's cheeks were very pink after the confrontation in the other room, but she didn't seem at all winded.

"A few more things, but it won't hurt much, I promise," Stesha reassured her. "The hardest part is picking a theme, which is pretty much what we just did with the bouquets. Everything else we just look at shapes and sizes, and we'll make the pieces up in your colors, if that's what you want. And if you change your mind or your family wants to add something, just let us know within 45 days of the wedding, and we can change it up. I can also make color copies of some of these pictures for you to show the bride and groom." She showed Taylor all the other things on the list, from the toss bouquet to the altar piece to the pew decorations. She was a little more assertive here, since it seemed that her client wasn't entirely comfortable making all these choices. Stesha knew that the end result would look great, so she wasn't worried. "So are you in the wedding?" she asked as they started wrapping up. "Or just helping with the preliminaries?"

"Sort of a holiday, I guess," Stesha chuckled. "I took so many life sciences classes in school, it's easy to lose track of the bigger picture. With Earth so teeming with life forms, no matter what we try and do to them, it's valuable sometimes to get some perspective on how concentrated and rare that is. We know that there are other habitable worlds out there and other sentient life, but they're like tiny islands in an ocean of the dark. I think I like remembering that, because it reminds me how valuable and special all that life is, even when I'm up to my elbows in plant life that has no intention of behaving." Smiling, she took another bite of her vegetables. "And because it's just neat to learn new things. You must feel that way too, or you wouldn't go out there in the first place, right?"

"That's great," Stesha said with a laugh. "I have a big family myself, three brothers and two sisters. It makes the family gatherings so much more exciting! People ask me how I got any attention growing up with so many kids, but I feel like asking them if they weren't really lonely growing up without people to play with! You're going to have such a fun time." Stesha tagged the current page with a post-it note, then showed Taylor a few more traditional types of bouquet, explaining how each one would look and smell. She could've tossed out ten or fifteen different options for a picky bride-to-be, but had a strong feeling that less would be more in this case. "Really, in the end, it all comes down to shape, color, and smell, and how you want all those to work together. If nothing you see here is quite doing it for you, we'll put together something else. We do all our work right here in the shop, so you can customize as much as you like."

"I'm not going to stand here and argue about who has a sadder sad story," Erin snapped at Mike. "That's pathetic, and it's stupid. I've made my choices, and you've made yours. But just because you've decided you'd rather be afraid of your power than learn to use it, that doesn't make you any better than me. It just makes you more afraid. Exit." The door slid open and she stalked out, her footsteps echoing against the bare white walls as she stepped into the long corridor.

"Tradition doesn't become tradition for no reason," Stesha agreed cheerfully. "It's really nice that you're helping your brother out this way. A wedding is such a nice way for a whole family to get together and celebrate, especially when everyone had a hand in it." It could just as easily go the other way, she knew, with the family at each other's throats by the end, but she preferred the optimistic and romantic view. "There's no better celebration of love, for the couple, sure, but also love for family, and for friends." She flipped a few more pages. "If you're looking for solid color bouquets, what do you think about arm bouquets? Roses for the bride and lilies for the attendants, with matching boutonnières for the men? Spreading the pages flat, she pointed to the picture she meant. "This is definitely a more modern style, but using traditional flowers makes a nice blend. You cradle the bouquet in one arm instead of holding it in both hands, you see, and the stems are visible, tied with ribbon. "We can do up the altarpiece in the same colors, with roses and lilies to highlight, and then variations on that theme for the swags and pew pieces. The whole church will smell like a garden," she said enthusiastically. Even the flowers in her hair seemed to brighten with her countenance, though that was of course just illusion.

"It's easy to get worked up about the details of a wedding," Stesha agreed, "just because there's so many of them. But flowers should be one of the fun parts. You just pick them out, I put them in my computer, and on the big day we show up with everything looking and smelling beautiful, and you don't have to worry about any of it." She smiled at Taylor. "You should be glad you're in charge of the flowers and not the catering. I've seen fistfights, I kid you not. It sounds like the bride and groom are pretty laid back about the details here, and that's going to make everyone happier." She opened one of the books, leaning over it to leaf through the pages. Taylor got a whiff of light floral scent, either from the flowers in Stesha's hair or her perfume. "Take a look at this bouquet," she told Taylor, pointing one out. "The red roses are classic, they smell great, and they're really dramatic against a white dress. Add in some mini calla lilies, which also smell just amazing, and you lighten up the color of the bouquet and make it a lot more interesting. Photographers love bouquets like this, because they can nestle the rings right into one of the lily cups and take a gorgeous picture."

"If it hurts your feelings, then stay out of it," Erin suggested to Alex, voice snapping. "This isn't about you." Most of her attention was still on Mike. "You think I don't know what it's like to live with the dead pushing at you?" she demanded. "I've killed more people than you've probably ever met. And maybe it was a mercy to put them out of what passed for their lives, but it turned me into something I didn't used to be. I look at who I would've been, and she's a total stranger. You can call me a murderer or a monster and maybe you're right, but don't tell me I don't understand what you do about killing. This isn't playtime, and it isn't safe for anyone. If I'm in a fight and someone gets hurt or killed because I didn't act, that's on me just as much as if I'd killed them with my own hands. And it's the same for you."

"Why should I have to explain myself to him, or to you?" Erin demanded, turning to face Alex. "I spend fifteen goddamn hours a week in therapy and three times that in training to fix what's wrong with my fighting. What's he doing except being a coward who won't even try?" She looked at Mike. "You haven't even been in here since your placement test, right? I know I'm not supposed to kill people, I know it's wrong. But are you any better than me if you know you could kill someone and you just cover your ears and try to pretend it away? But you're right about one thing, we're not going to learn anything here today. End simulation," she snapped at the empty sky. The rooftops vanished, leaving them all standing, or floating, in a blank-walled room.

"How am I supposed to know?" Erin retorted. "I thought it was a stupid idea. But what was I supposed to say, "no thanks, Headmaster, but I'm not going to take your advice because it's dumb?" She clasped her hands together behind her back, her voice low and her words sharp. "We obviously have different styles of fighting. I decide to fight. You decide not to fight. When there were thousands of lives at stake, I decided to fight, and when my own life and everyone else's was at stake, I decided to fight. You decided to disarm him, and it turned out that he had another weapon to use. Maybe if I hadn't hit him, he wouldn't have ended up in the hospital. Maybe if you had hit him, he wouldn't have almost shot Edge." She took a step back, deliberately. It had been a rotten day, and there was no point in taking chances. "The school people would rather I do it your way, that I avoid taking the shot if it might hurt somebody, even a bad guy. Those are the rules and I want to get along here, so I'm learning it. But if I'm stepping back, you better start stepping up. I know all that BS about how you might hurt somebody, but this isn't a game and these aren't normal humans you're fighting anymore. We can hit at each other all we want and it doesn't mean anything. But if either of us flakes out in a fight, somebody could die."

Erin tumbled out of the way of his grab, coming back to her feet out of arm's range for either of them. "This can't be what he wants us doing. We both know how all this works. Maybe something different." She raised her head to consult the room. "Simulation Wander zero four, daytime." Suddenly the training room disappeared, to be replaced by a panorama of rooftops and city skyline. Some rooftops were close together and near in height, others were further apart or higher up. The pommel horse Alex was sitting on was replaced by a power cabinet of equivalent size. "Maybe this will be better," she told him. "I had to fight a couple of flyers in my placement tests. It's a lot more challenging someplace like this. You want to keep going?"

Erin dodged the series of jabs, then suddenly dropped to the floor as though someone had cut her strings. She lashed out at Mike's body with both feet, once again trying only to bruise. Her color was up, but she was still obviously in control of herself and her reactions in a way she hadn't necessarily been at the baseball stadium.

"That's great," Stesha told her, noting that down. "And is it a daytime or an evening wedding? Is it in a church?" She took Taylor through a list of relatively simple questions and noted down the answers, eliminating catalogs as she went. Finally, they were down to only two photo books on the table. "All right, I think we can probably find just what you're looking for in one of these books. And if not, we can always design something that'll be perfect," she offered cheerfully. "That's a beautiful necklace, by the way," she added. "Is it an heirloom?"

The punch took Erin solidly in the midsection, making her gasp and wheeze for just a moment. It looked like it hurt. She stepped back for a moment and held up a hand, catching her breath and making sure she wasn't going to do anything really unfortunate. After just a few seconds, she stepped forward, nodded, and hit him back, but doing her best not to actually break him with the hit.

Erin spends an HP, misses by one, is bruised. After six seconds, the bruise level fades. She full-out power attacks, but because this is just sparring, she is not going for lethal damage today. Attack roll is 29 DC 30 Toughness Save, but her defense is lowered to +5 now. She needs to stop doing that. ;-)

Stesha sized this customer up as a reluctant proxy, and gave her a reassuring smile. "No problem. I'm sure I can help you find exactly what you and your family are looking for. If you'll just have a seat by the window, I'll get out some of our wedding books and we'll take a look at your list." She gave the list a quick scan as she walked behind the counter to fetch the books. It was a pretty standard list of pieces, but light in the specifics. Hopefully Ms Chun knew her future sister-in-law's tastes. Picking up a stack of books she carried them over to the table and set them down. Figuring it would be useless to start too soon with colors and dimensions, she led with a broad question to get the lay of the land. "So it's your brother getting married? What are he and his fiancee like?" she asked as she sat down.

"You go first," she told him. "Hard as you can. If I go through the wall, we'll just tell Summers it's not going to work." Erin took a defensive stance, her hands raised to block, feet poised to move. "Even if you hurt me, I'll heal up in just a minute."

Stesha had spent most of her morning on the front end, studying a catalog of oddly shaped vases and bowls that her boss was hoping to get some inspiration from. Most of them were godawful ugly, but there were a few eye-catching pieces that she'd marked with post-it notes. And you never knew with rich people, some of them were inexplicably drawn to the godawful. When the door chimed she checked her list of appointments and looked up at the new arrival with a friendly and professional smile. "Ms. Chun?" she asked, just a little quizzically. The visitor didn't look much like their usual customers, but looks could be deceiving. As Stesha came around the counter to greet her, Taylor got a look at the front-desk florist. She was young, a few years older than Taylor herself, probably, and wearing a neat and attractive outfit of powder blue slacks and matching blouse covered with tiny blue flowers. The most arresting thing about her, though, was definitely the hair. It was green as new leaves and braided into a bun that was decorated with real tiny blue flowers. "My name is Stesha Madison. What can I do for you today?"

"Yeah, he said I should work out with you specifically, that it would be good for both of us." Erin tapped her foot as the elevator descended through a number of basements. "You need to hit harder and faster, I need to hit not so hard, or something like that. I'm hoping we aren't going to be able to hurt each other too badly, and maybe we can pick something up from each other." She shrugged. "If nothing else, getting a better idea of how we fight when we both aren't really distracted by other things." She stepped out of the elevator and walked into the sterile white corridor. She'd been very relieved to find out that the business with one bank of lights turned on at a time had just been a trick to scare her the first time, and that the lights generally turned on all at once. Their steps echoed as they walked the long corridor, finally stopping at the heavily reinforced steel doors to the doom room. A palmprint scan got them into this room, which was blank and black. "Simulation Wander zero-one," Erin told the empty room. A moment later everything shimmered and reformed into a training room simulation. Various metal punching targets stood near one wall, heavy bags, a high-tech treadmill and a few metal chairs lined another. The middle of the room was empty and bare. "If there's anything you think we need," she told Mike, "we can add it now."