It hurt. Ava could all but hear the straining of her muscles and the crunching of her bones as she was forced into the ground. What a poor stroke of luck. The boss was back early, before she'd had a chance to even start cleaning up after Fafnir, and, speaking of, the cute little dragon had gone and made herself into a shut-in too.
"So you're telling me that your Servant did this?" Atop her, was a brown haired woman that could only be described as 'disheveled'. Her hair had more akin to a mane than anything that would come out of a barbershop, and her clothes weren't much better. The only sign of her post, that as the head of the Burial Agency, were a pair of heavy, silver crosses dangling from her ears. "Let me get this straight. Not only do you expect me to believe that
you of all people managed to summon a Servant on her lonesome, but also that they're a
teenager, and that the house being blown halfway to hell somehow isn't your fault?"
Above her, Ava heard a hefty sigh as the weight pushing down on her was released.
"As absurd as it sounds, I somehow can't picture even you being dumb enough to think up a lie that stupid. Get to your feet, Ava." The woman spoke with a firmness that had grown to be as familiar to Ava as the back of her own hand. Groaning all the while, the white haired woman followed her orders with hesitation, pushing herself up and onto her feet in one swift motion.
"Did you have to pin me down like that? Wasn't it written somewhere in the Bible that you should like, be nice to people or whatever?"
"Something along those lines, but I don't consider you a person." The boss's time away hadn't dulled her tongue, she could see. Weren't vacations supposed to cheer people up? "Anyway. You said you summoned a Caster, yes? I suppose that isn't too bad a result... Though that doesn't change the fact that you've turned my generosity in finding you a proper catalyst into nothing more than a massive waste of time." With a briskness that matched the authority with which she spoke, the woman begun to pace towns her wreck of a home, Ava falling in tow behind her without needing to be asked.
"It goes without saying that you'll be introducing me to this Caster of yours, yes? I've a vague idea of the Servants you could have summoned using what we have in the house, but I hadn't imagined any of them filling the role of Caster. Are they a man or a woman? At the very least, are they of faith? You didn't summon an ancient cultist out of one of those war trophies of yours, did you?"
"Well..." Letting out a nervous chuckle, Ava took the reigns of both the conversation and their trajectory, navigating the two of them towards what was now Fafnir's treasure trove. "No, uh, not exactly. They're not a cultist, or even a demon... I made double sure to check! But they uh,
she is calling herself a dragon named Fafnir."
No response came at the reveal, but Ava was pretty sure she could feel a glare digging into her back.
"Personally, I think it's a pretty impressive summon! Right? How many of the other Masters do you think summoned a walking talking fighter jet? I bet we'll just be able to fly around and breath fire on everyone else! That is, once I convince her to..." Before revealing the
tendencies that Fafnir had started to display since her arrival, Ava's voice trailed off. She'd gotten too excited there. There was no need to go and get herself abused again because she summoned a Servant with a 'bad personality', or whatever. What the boss didn't know, wouldn't hurt her.
"Right, so what I'm gathering is that I'd be much better off talking to this 'Fafnir' on my own." This woman. Ava wasn't exactly the type to take insults and rudeness to heart, but was there any way she could speak to her other than trying to make her feel bad? She'd definitely make an awful mother. But at this point, she knew that there was no point in arguing with this abusive husband of a woman, so she kept her thoughts to herself, and led her into Fafnir's resplendent lair.
The moment she entered, as if her presence had been sensed the minute she set foot in the cave, Fafnir begun to babble from atop her tower of wealth. Apparently, in her absence she'd somehow managed to find herself a meal. Pizza, no less. How had she even gotten someone to serve her food in that outfit of hers?
"Uh, yeah. Pizza is pretty good. I'd rather have something with more meat and bone. I think they were looking at you funny because you're dressed like a freak, though. I got in trouble for that a bunch of times when I first moved in." Her voice aside, Ava's approach was heralded by the metallic crunching of gold and silver underfoot. "But uh, that aside, my boss wants to speak with you. Be careful, she's got even more of a temper than you do."
At her last remark, Ava could feel yet another glare cutting into her. But, perhaps because they were in the presence of one of the Servants that the boss had been lecturing her about for so long, no punishment came to match it.
"Please ignore her. You're Caster, I presume?" Stepping past Ava and taking back her rightful place in the front, the brown haired woman regarded the girl in front of her with a critical eye. "Milburga Narbareck. It's a pleasure. I'm what you could call... Your Master's Master, I suppose? Now, I wouldn't deign to expect subordination out of you, but in exchange for your destruction of my home, I assume answering a handful of my questions wouldn't trouble you too much?" Unlike the tone she took with Ava, Milburga spoke to Caster with an air of grace and respect. It wasn't a side of her that Ava had never seen before, but it was certainly one that she didn't see often.
"First, and most pressing. Can you explain the state of her Command Seals? I"m hardly an authority on the subject, so it may be semantics for all I know, but they're supposed to manifest as a very distinct shade of red, no? Yet-" Pausing for a moment, Milburga seized Ava's hand and jerked it towards Caster. "These are even whiter than the girl's, frankly absurd, head of hair. Any clue as to why?"
@HellsHaven