A woman appeared behind the large man and the both of them sat at the group's table. Rookie and Tomobi paid attention to her Kiorif focused on his plate.

What could’ve been seen as a clean, fair beauty was tarnished, just as scarred across her body and even her face showed damage against her paper doll face. It seemed that she joined in whatever her husband did with Tomobi even hearing a faint wheeze from her every breath.

“Again thanks for the seats,” The man brought their attention away from her, with Rookie now being even more confused.

“This is your wife?” Rookie looking for reassurance, focusing on the size difference between them.

“Yeah,” the man continued to cut into his food.

“Feel sorry for your wi-,” Rookie was cut off with Kiorif’s heel jabbing her shin. The two of them didn’t seem to notice.

“What happened?” the man looked around for the noise, Kiorif continued to cut his food.

“Oh it’s just that I didn’t get your wife's name,” Rookie lied through her teeth, feeling her leg heating up.

“Or yours for that matter, I’m Rookie,” She stretched her hand across the table.

“I’m Arthur,” the man said with a pause from Rookie’s personality, giving a hand in return.

“This is Meili,” she waved.

“And you two?”

“Tomobi sir,”

“Kiorif, now what do you two do?” food finished he turned his attention to them, a feeling made him uncertain of them.

“Oh, um florist,” Arthur replied with an awkward grin, though Meili jabbing his arm said otherwise.

“Okay, we’re hunters,”

“And what exactly is it you hunt?”

“Wait can I ask on-”

“What do you h-” Kiorif cut Arthur off.

“Kiorif calm down,” now Rookie cut Arthur off.

“We can answer some questions, ask away,”

“Well if it’s about jobs, then can I ask what you do?”

“Soldiers,” Kiorif was one to answer, his eyes locking on Arthur.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Thought so, because of the armour and stuff,” despite his frame, Arthur was not as bold as Hudson.

“I wanna ask a question,” Rookie seemed interested in the game she created.

“What do you guys hunt, like it has to be worth the pay if you’re doing it as a job?”

“It depends on what we’re asked to deal with, sometimes it’s something easy like dromeo-toads which could give us a couple days pay but we can deal with bigger things like rabid vampires,”

“Vampires?” Rookie tried to shuffle closer.

“Didn’t like those very large bats, seen a lot that grow bigger than you. Those things give a heavy sac depending on how dangerous they are”

“Really,”

“Yeah, that’s how I got this,” Arthur pointed to a scar running down his natural forearm.

“But what about you two, what are you-” Arthur stopped as Meili tapped his shoulder, and to the group's surprise, she moved her hands fluidly, before pointing a finger to Tomobi.

“Right I forgot, sorry. So about the VitaNav,”

“Tomobi,” Rookie added.

“Yeah, how come you two have Tomobi with you? Aren’t there heavy restrictions with VitaNav soldiers?”

“He’s not a soldier, there should be nothing to worry about,” Kiorif said, the words being a little rash towards Tomobi.

“Now about your wife,” Kiorif turned his attention to Meili, who did keep her attention on him as well. Her eyes weren’t like Arthurs, having a sharp glare behind a calm look.

“The sign language?” Arthur tried to break the staredown.

“Uh yeah, Meili is on mute right now. Hears everything fine, but just needs to use sign language to get her say,”

“Does it get difficult?” Rookie seemed more intrigued.

“Sometimes when we can’t see each other, we already learned a bit so that we could keep quiet during hunts. It wasn’t that hard to learn the rest,”

“Ah, I should learn sign,” Rookie said with a smile.

“Speaking about that, how come you’re a mute?” Kiorif’s newest question was not as welcomed.

“Kiorif,” Rookie tried to stab into his shin but failed.

“You did say that you knew some of it before, so that means that she wasn’t always mute. Care to explain,” Meili’s hands were now clenched tight while Arthur looked away for a moment.

“It-it was during one of our hunts, the same one where this happened,” he raised his animatronic hand, eyes still not facing there's.

“What we hunted got the best of us that day, really don’t wanna think about it,” Kiorif felt a jolt at the hand but still wanted to continue, but Rookie pulled him out.

“Yeah sorry about that, it’s been a bit tiring for some of us,” two groups sat in relative silence in the chattering room with the clattering of cutlery being heard between them.

***

“Enjoy yourselves,” Rookie waved Kiorif and Tomobi off as she went to her own room. An awkward silence between the two of them, as normally Rookie was there to bridge the two of them together, and even then it was not a perfect path of talk.

“Um, Kiorif,”

“Don’t talk unless it’s important,” Kiorif shot down any chance of small chat.

“Okay,” Tomobi was now left to himself. Meanwhile Rookie had been a little freer.

“Ah time to live like a queen,” Rookie looked over to the bath and grew a devilish grin.

“Bubble bath,” Through her attempt to figure out how the taps work she enjoyed her moment of peace and relaxation.

“And a bed to boot,” after her bath, she flopped onto her soft bed, as the time at Fresh-Root did not have a proper bed to rest. Tomobi though was stiff on his bed, looking like a child on such a large bed for his size. Kiorif sat in silence looking through things that he had, keeping to his thoughts. It was this way for an uncomfortable amount of time, until.

“Tomobi I’ll be dealing with something, stay here,” Kiorif ordered as he left, outside he looked over to Rookie’s room for a moment. Thinking about bringing her, his judgment said otherwise as he went down the hall back to the more public areas.

He had a couple more questions to ask.