INTERLUDE: Heat-Seeking Behavior Crossover

"Shrike, got my hands full here, get the phone?" Martin says, knife flashing in his hands, precisely cutting away at the target with honed skill.

"I shall." She takes the cell phone from his bag, answering it as she watches him chop through the head of lettuce. "You have reached the phone of Martin C, and are speaking with Shrike C. Yes, I am capable of answering on his behalf... I see no issue, personally. Allow me a moment to give him the phone."

She stands beside Martin, who shoots her a smile and takes it with care. "You've got Martin... Uh-huh... Uh-huh... Would we get paid for doing this? Done deal." He hangs up, and returns his phone to Shrike.

"I assume we are doing as requested?"

"Why not? It's just babysitting."

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"The hell... Mirka!" Lena calls from the kitchen, reading and rereading the same email in the vain hope it'll change.

Mirka rolls over on the couch. "You come here, I don't wanna get up," she says back.

Lena dramatically stomps over to Mirka, phone in hand and eyes narrowed. "What the hell is this?"

"Something I can't read from here."

With a groan, Lena holds the phone a few inches from Mirka's face, who pulls her head back to read it more clearly before simply taking it from Lena to look at properly. "What? It's just training."

"In Utah. I would rather die than go to Utah. Why can't they come here instead? Anyone should feel lucky for an opportunity to leave that hellscape." Lena snatches her phone back from Mirka, reading through the email for a way out of it.

Mirka watches Lena throw her exaggerated tantrum, trying hard to hold back laughter. "You know, I'm the one who requested we have a little supplemental course."

"Why the hell?"

"Because if we prove we're not incompetent, we can get special permission to work alongside each other before reaching the rank when we'd be able to select a permanent partner."

Lena bites the inside of her cheek. "And there's no one who can do that within, I dunno, twenty minutes?"

"MBR said we needed a team that was in a similar situation to us. Unfortunately for us both, it's pretty uncommon for a human to be in a romantic relationship with a non-human, them both being magical beast hunters, and them being good at their jobs."

"You could have asked me first," Lena complains, mostly for the sake of complaining.

"Well, I'm asking you now. You can just decline, if you don't want to work together for a few years until I move up the ladder. So, what'll it be?" Mirka's smug smile burrows itself straight into Lena's core.

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"Martin."

"Shrike."

"Why are we not calling them over? We are approaching the ten minute mark of watching this pair of women wander the baggage claim."

"It's test number one. To see if they can find the magical beast and her partner." And because it's funny, he thinks. A perk of the job is lightly hazing the new recruits.

"I understand. Are these tests created by MBR, or your own imagination?"

"The latter."

"Are they aware they're being tested?"

"Nope."

A brief pause, before Shrike turns her head to him in concern. "Is this necessary? The darker-haired one appears to be verging on violence."

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"I can and will call in a bomb threat if they don't show up in the next five minutes," Lena flatly states, seething in place with folded arms, anxiously scratching her arm.

Mirka glances around to make sure security didn't hear her talking. "They said they got here ten minutes ago, but aren't answering when I ask for specifics. I think it's supposed to be a test."

Lena loudly groans, watching an unclaimed black suitcase circle the baggage carousel for the twelfth time. "A test? How about I just start swapping shells until I cause enough of a panic that-"

"Shush. I bet its those two." Mirka subtly gestures towards two people sitting on a bench together. "The tall girl looks pretty suspicious, right? Her eyes are a bit too focused on us."

Lena doesn't waste a word, storming over to the pair on the bench, and leaning in close. "Assholes."

Mirka lays a hand on Lena's shoulder, directing her to a different bench a few feet to the right, apologizing to the very confused Vietnamese couple whom Lena just insulted.

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Lena is as far to the left of the back seat of the Jeep that she can manage, both annoyed with and wary of Shrike: she has a strange glow in her eyes, an unsettlingly placid demeanor, and is half-buried in a small mound of blankets. Creepy.

"Sooo... Martin, right?" Mirka asks, forcefully ending the tense silence.

"Yep," he responds. "Might as well do proper introductions. I'm Martin C, been a hunter for around... three or four years, now. Got my start working on cleanup, though, so I have more experience than you'd think. Met Shrike a little over a year back. Shrike?"

She brushes her hair back. "Hello. I am Shrike. I am a magical beast, specifically a kynde. I have been alive for roughly twelve thousand years, though much was spent in hibernation. I have been Martin's hunting partner since our meeting, though our romantic pairing is relatively new."

An short sigh comes from Shrike's left. "I have no idea what a kynde is."

"It is a general term, of little consequence. Perhaps it is better for me to ask the question of you, Lena?"

"I have no idea what I am, either. We have so much in common." Lena smirks at her own joke, looking out the window to the mountains.

Mirka silently closes her eyes. This is going to be a long trip. "Right... I'm Meerkat, but you knew that already. I was in magic crimes since I got out of high school, but just started in MBR about a month ago."

There's a long pause, until Lena perks her head up. "Oh, shit, my turn. I'm Lena, obviously. I have been shot three times since joining MBR a week ago. Before that, I was a cop for a couple months, where I was shot once. Before that, I was at a desk job where I never got shot." She starts to roll down the window, waiting to see if anyone tries to stop her before fully doing so.

The rest of the drive down the endless highway is back to being tense. Shrike and Lena, though, don't seem to mind: Shrike due to not recognizing the tension, Lena due to apathy.

"Test two," Martin says as he pulls into his driveway, "is one on one interviews. We're both going to talk with you and get a sense of who we're dealing with, and see what you two are like."

Lena opens the door to the car before Martin even has it in park. "How about instead, you just say we did a great job and we can skip the hassle? You don't get anything extra out of this, right?"

Martin considers it for a moment, before shaking his head. "Good idea, but no. If you two die on your first mission together,, it'll reflect badly on us."

"Shame."

Mirka takes a long breath, looking pleadingly at Lena to take this seriously. She hopes there's no punishment for failing the test.

"Okay," Martin stands in the small backyard, opposite a seemingly angry Lena. "you ready to start?"

Lena nods once, her eyes off to the side. "You're into older women, huh?"

Martin grins, but doesn't seem flustered. "Nice try, but I'm not so easy to throw. First question: are you claustrophobic?"

Her attention snaps to Martin, scowl slowly lifting, replaced by confusion. "What?"

"You were tense as all hell at the baggage claim, you were fidgeting as soon as you got in my car, you were pissy the entire drive here, you rolled down the window and stuck your head out of it for a while, and by the time I parked you were already outside. I might be off base, but I'm pretty sure you hate cramped spaces."

Lena's eyes fall to the grass below. "I... I never really put a label on it. And it's not the size that bothers me, it's just spaces without an easy exit."

"Pretty hard to exit a moving car or plane, I take it?"

"Yeah." Lena observes Martin for a moment. "You figured that out just from watching me?"

Martin puts his thumbs in his pockets. "A lot of the job is just figuring out what makes people tick. I'd say over half of our hunts with non-human people end with both sides happy."

Lena's mind drifts to the crystal beast. Maybe she could have handled it differently? "Huh... I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a hunter's mercy. I'm a victim of it myself."

He lets out a low chuckle. "Let's stay outside for a bit, just talking. It's a nice day out, and I'm in no rush to go inside."

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Mirka sits on the unfamiliar couch, as the pale, golden-eyed magical beast gazes into the fireplace.

Shrike turns around to face Mirka. "Tell me what you know of me."

"Oh. Uhhh..." Mirka thinks to herself, studying her for a moment. "Okay. Let's see... You're a kynde. You tend to defer to Martin in discussions, but have your own opinions. You really like heat, judging by the blankets and the fireplace. Whatever kind of magic you have, though, it isn't heat, since you lit the fireplace with a lighter."

"I see." She looks back to the fireplace. "I would like you to determine my favorite bird. You are allowed only one guess."

"...what?"

"Discover my favorite bird, without leaving this room. A simple task."

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"Jesus Christ, she was in there for a year?" Lena's pissed on behalf of Shrike. Good, Martin thinks. Shows she has empathy after all.

"Yup." Martin confirms. "Give or take."

"How the hell did she not murder everyone there? I'm terrified of MBR, but I'd still go down swinging. I'm not going through anything like that ever again."

He takes note of that. "She's not the violent type. More importantly, you're scared of the organization you work for?"

Lena tightens the corners of her mouth. "It's complicated, but I'm here willingly. Mostly willingly, anyway, and only because of Mirka. Meerkat. Damn it, still getting used to that."

"You go through a lot for her, huh?"

Lena shrugs, absently tapping the toe of her shoe into the grass.

"You're scared of enclosed spaces, but took a plane to get here. You're scared of MBR, but joined for her sake. You probably think this interview is a waste of time, but you're giving it your best shot anyway so you can work with her, instead of just quitting."

She scratches the back of her head, softly. "She puts up with a lot from me, too. Normal relationship fare."

"You're not very good at the whole 'being a sociopath' thing in your file." Martin breathes calmly in a warm breeze. "I've met actual monsters that fake having a heart. They don't go this far, and they aren't this consistent."

Lena is a little jealous of his relaxed demeanor. "People keep saying that."

"You know, Shrike doesn't have much sympathy for people she doesn't know well, either. It's tough for her, trying to fit in with humans."

A pithy smile covers Lena's face. "Shrike and I do have a lot in common."

"You seem to be managing. If I didn't know better, I'd assume you were human."

The smile fades, and she seems almost insulted. "People keep saying that, too."

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Mirka has looked through every book on the shelf for some kind of clue, examining Shrikes reactions as she asks the kynde question after question about random birds, but she's out of leads. She sits on the couch in dejection as Martin and Lena come in from outside. "Time to swap," Martin says.

Mirka gives her last ditch attempt. "Is it some kind of seagull, Shrike?"

She shakes her head.

"Damn it... Good luck, Lena," Mirka says as she follows Martin outside.

Lena stands next to the kynde, hands loose at her sides.

"What do you know of me?" Shrike asks Lena, in the same way as with Mirka.

"Not much. Martin and I briefly talked about you, and I know what you said in the car, but that's it."

"Indeed? Very well, my test is simple. Discover my favorite bird."

"What?"

"My favorite bird. Determine what it is. You have one guess."

"Ooookay. What is it, then?"

The fire illuminates a mild frown. "Are you conceding so quickly?"

Lena sits down by the fireplace next to Shrike. The heat doesn't affect her shell much. "Nope, I'm just asking you to tell me. Lemme guess, Mirka spent the entire time doing everything except asking?"

Shrike takes a moment, lost in her own world. "My favorite bird is the white pelican."

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"Then I'm going to say your favorite birds are white pelicans."

The kynde smiles at Lena, before looking back to the fire. "You are correct, of course."

A long pause as a log splits from heat, Lena taking in the smell of burning cedar. "I think I'll sit here for a while and watch the fire with you, if you don't mind."

"I do not, not in the slightest."

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"So. Meerkat. Your partner is certainly something."

Mirka smiles softly. "Yeah. Thanks for being patient with her today. She doesn't like planes, or long car rides, or pretty much anything where she feels cornered."

"I noticed that. Any idea why?"

"Yep, I know why. I'm not going to share it with you, though. That's her story to tell."

Martin nods in approval. "A good answer. This is out of nowhere, but do you like your job?"

"Me? Kind of. You know, I only joined MBR because of Lena."

Martin laughs for only a second. "She told me the same thing."

"It's-"

"Complicated?" he finishes.

"...yeah. I'm assuming I failed the interview portion since I failed Shrike's test, so could I ask you a couple questions about living with Shrike while I wait for those two? Might as well learn while I'm here."

That's a good attitude to have, he thinks. "Sure, ask away."

"So... Lena's tough to adapt to. I don't know if I'll ever get used to opening the apartment door and seeing her leaning over a tarp covered in her own organs. Does it get easier? I mean, in relation to the non-humanity?"

"I still sweat in the car, if that's your question," Martin responds, maintaining comfortable eye contact. "Shrike needs hot temperatures, so I try to keep it warm, but I never really got used to the heat. It doesn't really matter in the end though, at least not to me. I love her, and I'm willing to sweat a little more if that's what I need to do. Same way she puts up with the uncomfortably cold temperatures I like."

Mirka tilts her head back, looking to the dimming sky. "Thanks, Martin. That helps."

"Anytime. Just call if you need any help, okay?"

"I will."

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Martin and Mirka return through the back door to see Shrike eating a sandwich while chatting with Lena about MBR, bonding over their shared distaste.

Martin's eyes linger on the sandwich for a moment, before Mirka answers the question he was going to ask. "She keeps food inside her core. Mostly my favorites. It's really sweet of her, actually, since apparently it takes up a good amount of room."

He nods his head slowly, looking to the non-humans on the floor. "Been meaning to ask about that. Hey, Lena, how much can you actually store inside you?"

"Huh?" Lena loses her train of thought, turning her head from Shrike. "I dunno, like 3 and a half corpses, or like five times that in raw elements?"

Martin elects not to ask why her unit of measure is corpses. "Interesting. And you can duplicate things?"

"Yeah. Mostly dumb bullshit, like a fidget toy, bottle opener, or insulin. Damn shame it doesn't work with magic."

"That sounds useful. You know, I have these really expensive bullets-"

She knows where this is going. "Before I answer, did we pass test two?"

Martin's eyes glimmer, seeing through Lena's poorly concealed nervousness. "Shrike?"

"Mirka demonstrated impressive deductive reasoning techniques and was advancing on a solution with only minimal information. Lena had acquired the answer within thirty seconds simply by asking me. Both were satisfactory approaches."

"Good. As for mine, it was mostly just gauging their temperaments. Mirka's level-headed, and Lena's not going to do anything stupid around Mirka."

"Wow," Lena gripes, "thanks for the vote of confidence."

"You're welcome." Martin takes the oversized sidearm from his hip, and ejects a round. "Can you make these?"

Lena takes it, and places it into her pocket, thinking for a moment. "Yeah. Kinda high in silver content, though. I don't have a ton on hand."

"And if I get more silver?"

"With that, I can probably make... I dunno, one every five minutes? They're really simple in design."

Shrike's pupils dilate and constrict rapidly as she speaks, focused intently on Lena. "Would you be capable of duplicating a large battery in full? The model was discontinued, however it is for my favorite heated blanket.

Lena nods, sharing a subtle look with Mirka. "Sure, I have enough lithium stored... this counts as the third test, right?"

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Mirka takes the couch in the living room to sleep in for the night, while Lena opts for the backyard. The stars are so much clearer out here than back in Michigan, without the constant cloud cover and light pollution.

She hasn't had much time to brood lately, she thinks to herself. Since she quit her office job, she's been busy pretty much every day, with little room to sulk. Even during the nights, she's either been hanging out at the coffee shop, producing something, or zoning out in Mirka's hands as she sleeps.

Strangely, though, she doesn't feel like sulking. There's only the quiet breeze out here in the dry grass.

I guess, she thinks, I'm doing something right.

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Martin leaves the local coin store after it opens, smiling broadly as he enters the Jeep again. He notices Lena rolled down the window again, but doesn't address it. Better for everyone not to call attention to her anxiety.

"My guy sold me a ton just under spot price." He offers a small plastic shopping bag full of broken jewelry and old silverware to Lena, who reluctantly takes it.

She hefts it a bit. "There's a lot in here. It'll be faster if I retract my shell."

"Mirka used the term 'shell' as well, and your file was really vague about it. Want to explain?" Martin asks.

"Not really." Lena withdraws her shell, and submerges herself into the plastic bag. Judging by the movement of the organic chemicals nearby, Mirka is laughing at Martin's deeply confused reaction, while Shrike is looking at her curiously. Strange, Shrike's chemical makeup is a lot more human than she expected.

It doesn't take long for Lena to absorb the disjointed mass of metal. She once again extends her body from her core, startling Shrike into reeling backwards defensively. Lena announces, "Aaaand I'm back," to the car.

Martin eyes her carefully, locked on to her after the display. "Never seen anyone like you, Lena."

"No one has. Myself included."

Martin seems lost in thought for a moment. "I might know a guy who-"

He's interrupted by a particularly concerning pattern of vibration coming from his phone. Three long ones, finalized by two short. The called ID displays 'Jess from Maintenance.'

"Shit..." He answers quickly, staying silent as he absorbs every word of the call. He intently listens, scrambling to write down everything he can, until the line goes dead. After a few seconds to finish writing, he smashes an address into his GPS app. "Two options. You either wait at this coin store, or you stay in the car. I'd normally drop you two off, but there's an emergency."

"Obviously we're coming. Emergency maintenance?" Mirka asks, more amused than bothered by the extended trip.

"It's the number for top-level emergencies. We're closest." He effortlessly tears onto the highway after an illegal turn, speeding south.

"Well, damn. What can we do?" Mirka asks, brow wrinkling.

"Stay put. This isn't rookie business."

Lena replies with a short "'kay," going back to her bullet manufacturing.

Mirka ignores Lena's response. "I know we're new, Martin, but we can help. I'm fairly competent with spells and sigils, and Lena is as strong as an ox in addition to all her other stuff."

Martin stays quiet for another moment, weaving around traffic. "What other stuff, besides shapeshifting and storage?"

Lena demonstrates by withdrawing the gun from her void and holding it to her head, which Mirka talks her down from while explaining how her shells work to Martin. He doesn't seem to be paying attention, until he speaks. "We might be able to use this. You two are going to do exactly what I say, got it?"

"Yeah, sure," Lena replies, before thinking it over. "Wait, this is just another test, right? Nothing serious?"

Martin's dark eyes grow darker as they move away from the rearview mirror.

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Martin screeches to a stop in the middle of the street, immediately getting out and checking on a person bleeding from massive trails of claw marks. Upon inspection, he had his skull caved in, too. "Christ..."

Mirka turns her head away after seeing it for herself. "Looks fresh. Less than an hour."

"Yeah. This is definitely the work of a silver cat. Subspecies of ball-tailed cat. About the the size of a mountain lion, with a tail which ends in a hard ball that's blunt on one side, and spiked on the other. Something's been making all the magical wildlife act up lately, but I've never seen one active in a town before..."

"It makes sense, though, doesn't it? It went where the food is," Mirka offers.

"Does this look like something ate it to you?" Martin grimaces at the corpse. "I don't know where to go from here besides finding it before it finds us. These things are almost impossible to track."

Mirka already has her spellbook out, and casts a spell that seems to envelope her eyes in a faint white haze. "I can only tell you within a quarter mile of where it is. This spell is designed for people and former people, not natural magical beasts."

"That's better than nothing... silver cats are stealthy. They don't gleam like the name suggests. They're more like polished mirrors, subtly reflecting the environment around them. It's damn good camouflage, especially in trees and foliage." Martin's eyes don't seem to relax, constantly shifting. "It's almost impossible to see a silver cat without specialized equipment, unless it wants to be seen. They're ambush predators, but there's already a shelter-in-place alert for the area, so it won't be attacking anyone else. We're shit out of luck. Hopefully if we bunch up together, it'll still attack, and one of us can kill it first."

Mirka turns to face Lena, who is crouched over the corpse. "Lena, please focus. I have an idea."

She sheepishly raises her hands as she pulls them away from the body. "Yeah? Is it me fist-fighting the monster?"

A conspiratorial grin grows over her face. "The opposite, actually."

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Shrike, Mirka, and Martin wait patiently in the car, pulled within a hundred feet of a cluster of trees within the range of Mirka's tracking spell. Shrike's hand is on the door handle in the back, Mirka at the wheel, and and Martin's gun is drawn and ready to move.

Lena, meanwhile, casually whistles as she walks around the small park, intentionally walking below every tree she can find. It's admittedly a good plan, but it's still ridiculous.

As she passes beneath a denser cluster of trees, she feels a huge mass of slightly curved barbs pierce into her back, yanking her up into the tree like a meathook, tearing through her flesh. Just as planned. She grabs the tail as close to the ball at the end as she can, and starts yanking on it, letting gravity help pull the thing from its hiding spot. It's a fruitless attempt, as despite her strength, the silver cat is still many times stronger. Lena meets it face to face. The faintly reflective, silvery monster's eyes are the only perfectly visible part of it, though they are blown and unmoving. Something's wrong with it, for sure.

Within a moment, the tree the silver cat was perched in explodes outward in spears of bright light, the wood splintering apart with a loud crack. Lena feels the tail go slack, as it drops her down a few feet. She feels the descent increase in speed until she hits the ground, the now hole-filled silver cat corpse collapsing onto Lena immediately after, forcing the barbed tail deep into her heart.

The other three hunters run over, as Lena dramatically holds her hand out to Mirka. "I... I'm not gonna make it... Mirka, before I die, I have one last request..."

"Stoooop." Mirka's hands cover her face in embarrassment.

"...my search history, Mirka... delete it..."

Lena's shell dies with a final pained gasp. Perfect timing, and she can tell Mirka is struggling to hold back a laugh over the corpse of her girlfriend.

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The carcass of the silver cat was left in place for a cleanup team to remove, only the ball on the end of its tail taken as proof of the job's success. Shrike diligently holds it, elated by the newly produced second battery Lena finished on the way back.

Mirka turns slightly green at seeing a large section of the military base in ruins, currently under heavy maintenance by a massive construction crew. "What the hell happened? Did you guys take the nuclear approach to containment?"

"That is incorrect," Shrike replies, "it is due to my light manipulating ability. Additionally, it is not my fault."

"Shrike," Martin politely requests, "please stop telling people you did that. It was a stupid decision by a stupider researcher, not you."

"Soooo, did we pass?" Lena prods, while holding a trio of the special bullets she made for him between her fingers. She's made twenty already, and has his address written down for when he needs more.

He stays silent, much to Lena's disappointment, as he pulls the car into the lot, and shows them to the temporary MBR HQ: a series of secondhand trailers and mobile homes, inconsistently labelled with active power lines barely ten feet above their heads. He takes the group into a larger trailer labelled as 'MBR Retrievals Non-Human Personnel.'

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Ximena looks over the four hunters who found their way inside. They're the definition of 'eclectic.' There's Martin and Shrike, who she knows well at this point. Then there's a somewhat taller than average girl with a sunburn and both a spellbook and a sigil-plated handgun, who she assumes must be Meerkat. It's a rare combination: spells and sigils require two very different mentalities. Spells are the harnessing and controlling of magic, while sigils are more like conduits to let the natural magic of the world control you. Next to the spellcaster, an incredibly normal looking woman named Lena, who she remembers little of beyond being a magical beast. They were here for some kind of training with Martin and Shrike, if she remembers correctly.

Shrike displays a silver cat's tail-ball, which Ximena looks at with distaste. Those two are the only ones who keep bringing in monster chunks to her office directly instead of just sending a photo like every other group. "Just throw it out somewhere. And please just send a picture next time, I'm begging you two."

"Us four, actually. Put these two down as having helped well." Martin's easy smile doesn't help Ximena feel any better.

"I thought they were here for training, not for hunting."

The one probably called Lena dramatically leans against the wall to the trailer, sighing far too intentionally. "I died for this, and this is the thanks I get?"

She sounds playful, but not like she's joking. Ximena opens the desk drawer to find nothing but office supplies. Right, her headache meds ran out... "Do any of you happen to have migraine pills on you?"

All heads turn to Lena, who scratches the top of her head for a moment. "Why does it feel like all I do is alternate between being a pharmacy, a backpack, and a clay pigeon?"

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The four hunters sit outside around a black metal table, a red and white umbrella jutting through the center and shielding them from the sun. The menu at Jake's has exactly five items on it, not counting the ice cream, but they are five damn good options. Even Lena is enjoying her meal, mostly from having seen Mirka make the teenage worker at the counter construct a drink consisting almost entirely of syrup meant for the top of a sundae for her.

"So... Lena, did you want me to ask my contact to help figure out what you are?" Martin asks, carefully observing her reaction. Her words are less important than the way she says them, when it comes to this type of question.

Lena stops drinking the thick strawberry syrup for a moment. "What's the downside?"

"He's a creepy bastard. He knows his shit, though."

Shrike wordlessly affirms his words by drawing her arms in towards her chest.

With a sigh, Lena looks over at Mirka. "Do you care?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. I don't particularly care, at least, not anymore. I'm not planning on doing one of those bullshit 'I have to be with my own kind' things, so why does it matter?"

Mirka thinks it over. "No, I guess I don't. Besides, what if the answer is boring? Then it'll be way less fun to explain to my parents when you meet them."

Lena slumps in the bench. "Ignoring the parents part for now, I guess not, Martin. Don't waste your time on it."

He nods. "No problem. Your flight is in a couple hours. I should probably start driving you both back."

"Yeah... thanks, Martin. And Shrike. For everything." Lena hides her expression behind the cup she's drinking from.

"You are welcome," Shrike replies. "Would you be interested in exchanging phone numbers? I am in contact with others in similar positions to us."

Lena hesitates, until Mirka gently pats her on the back. "Yeah. Thanks again."

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Lena anxiously rubs her shoe against her other leg as she waits by the terminal. Now that she knows how much she hates flying, there's an anxiety before even stepping on the plane.

Her girlfriend gently takes her hand, and guides her to the bathroom. Lena lets her, confused but trusting her judgement.

Mirka glances around to make sure no one is watching, and pulls Lena into the handicapped stall with her.

Lena looks around the large, sealed away box. There's a concerningly intense look in Mirka's eyes. "Uhh, this really isn't the kind of thing I'm into..."

"Shush. Just retract your shell so I can smuggle you onto the plane. It won't be suspicious that your seat is empty if you never get on in the first place."

"...why would I do that?"

"Because you always feel calmer about tight spaces when you're not in your shell, doubly so when I'm holding you. If anyone asks, you're a stress ball." Mirka pantomimes squeezing a ball in her hand.

Lena doesn't try to hide her relief, though a faint blush tinges it. "This is really embarrassing. I shouldn't be afraid of flying. I literally float, for God's sake. I can probably power through it, right?"

"You could, but there's no reason to hurt yourself. Now tell me, do you want to suffer for the sake of looking tough to someone who already knows you don't like flying, or do you want your caring girlfriend to solve your problem in literally five seconds?"

Her eyes fall to the ground, as she softly mumbles 'solve it in five seconds' before retracting her shell.

"That's what I thought." Mirka scoops her up with one hand, leaving the bathroom with faint pride in herself. I'm such a good girlfriend, she thinks.

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"Shrike, does this look good enough?"

Martin turns the laptop screen to his partner, who quickly scans the email.

"Yes. It has looked appropriately worded the last six times you have asked as well."

He rubs his eyes, before looking back at the glowing screen. "Yeah, but I don't want to leave anything ambiguous here, and it's kind of hard to nicely word an email that essentially says 'I don't like the idea of either of them working without the other.' Mirka seems to stabilize Lena's half dozen insecurities, while Lena is basically immortal and keeps the slightly reckless Mirka way safer than she'd otherwise be."

Shrike reads the email once more. "Martin, you understand that you are omitting details, correct?"

His forehead falls to the table. "I think they're cute together, too. Is that so wrong?"

"It is a poor rationale for approving their partnership, but I cannot disagree on either the summation nor your decision. They are indeed the second most 'cute' human and non-human couple I am aware of, and they are an effective team."

Martin reluctantly looks at the laptop screen again. "Do you think I should rephrase-"

Shrike quietly sits on his lap, and sends the email with a few short clicks.

Martin takes a long, slow breath, the stress of the email already having faded away. "Thanks, Shrike."

"You are welcome." Shrike rests her head on Martin's shoulder, as he gently pets her head. She's asleep in under a minute.

Martin picks her up, and looks up the stairs to their bedroom. It's only nine-something, but seeing Shrike asleep always makes him want to sleep too. May as well, he thinks. Not like they have anywhere else to be today, and they both sleep better with the other nearby.

----------------------------------------

Mirka and Shrike hunch over a phone screen, looking between two spam emails at an actual message entitled "REQUEST FOR DESIGNATED PARTNER DECISION" together.

"Worst case scenario, I could always work as a stunt double. Think of how much money a movie studio could save in CGI if they could actually just cut the head off a celebrity actor." Lena makes a chopping motion at her neck.

"Just open the file before I lose my nerve."

Lena taps the email.

'Meerkat,

Your request for a designated Moon-rank partner has been approved,'

Neither of them finish the email before tightly hugging each other in relief and celebration.

"Thank God. I don't think I could keep another Hyrax alive," Lena admits.

Mirka laughs. "Yeah, or protect him from me if he tried anything with me around."

"Or that, of course. Damn. I guess you're officially my sidekick now."

"Don't you dare." She hugs Lena again, as tight as she can manage. She knows hugs aren't really Lena's thing, but she can't help herself. She'll make it up to her later. After all, compared to being sweaty all the time, what's a little thing like this?