Irene stepped into the rain.
Anything to get away from the noise.
She leaned against a wall, and turned her gaze from the cold and sharp-edged courtyard to look up at The House.
You could see it looming from here, Atreus had built his big office building right across the street from the old family home. An incongruous, inconvenient location for it. A fuck you to any city planner that thought they actually had any power in his city. Not that grand gestures were necessary. The House had been the heart of the city for generations.
But we turn our eyes back to Irene, who was thinking about how she’d promised the new intern that they weren’t hired just to do coffee runs, and how the minute the world hits a certain chaos threshold there was no longer space for kindness.
Like a silent little shadow, The Intern ducked into the courtyard, with a latte and an umbrella. They handed the drink to Irene, and offered her the umbrella, which she waved away.
“I should have left these people years ago,” Irene sighed, taking a sip of coffee, “is this peppermint?”
The intern nodded, and she said, “I hate peppermint.”
“Um, do you-I mean I can get you something else?”
“It’s fine,” she said, continuing to drink the offending latte. The Intern produced a tablet from a coat pocket and, sheltering it under the umbrella, held it up to Irene. She nodded at the tablet “what’s that about.”
“Oh! Right, yes, I um, so the numbers on the post about, right, it’s—”
“Get to the point.”
“Engagement is up but, well, there are a lot of questions about the first daughter?”
“We don’t respond to those,” Irene snapped.
“I know, I know that’s what you said, just it’s a real spike and—”
Irene looked at them, a little pitying, wondering what it was like to be young and stupid.
“We don’t engage with conspiracy and misinformation. We’ll get plenty of draw from the main event here, trust me. Just take a breath.”
They were silent for a bit, Irene drinking her bad coffee, the kid staring at numbers on their tablet. Eventually, they said “did you see the fireworks last night?”
“Impossible to miss.”
“I mean, I know there have been issues communicating between here and Troy, but why announce it like that?”
“She has a flare for the dramatic,” Irene shrugged, “Spend enough time with these people and you’ll stop asking questions.”
They stood there, listening to the rain fall, and Irene had just started talking herself into going back in when The Intern said “Is it true that he killed a deer before the war, like, as a sacrifice? For the gods?”
“I don’t know kid, he’s religious, so maybe? What does it matter, it’s over now. Come on, the rain’s about to pick up, let’s go inside.”
The Intern followed Irene back into the heavily air-conditioned office building, both of them to remain blissfully safe on the periphery of the story.
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