"Almost Green"

(Second Wind)

Swipe-swipe. Error.

Fiammetta sighed.

Swipe-swipe. Error, again.

Who would've thought.

"Less greedily, Fia." Chattered the blue blabbermouth. Be it the presence of a soon-to-be convict, or the ailment provided by the environment, but the redhead didn't bite back. She resorted to a harmless scowl instead.

"It's not about greed, or dexterity, which I know you like complaining about as well, but just these mechanized doors. It wouldn't hurt to nail a regular, wooden gate here."

"Would it, now..." Mostima's eyelids fell, a set of curtains halving the ongoing show of mockery. "... You think a looney with a gun would have a harder time getting through a coating of Lateran cardboard, or a metal vault door?"

"I wasn't talking about cardboard."

"Me neither." She said, softly, then tapped her nails against the nearest wall. Carved from the thickest of oaks Laterano supposedly had to offer, the construct all echoed emptily, belying its hollow bellows. Andy couldn't help but chuckle.

"... It's kinda like Lungmen." He found the notion incredibly funny. Neither girl seemed to share his humor, though, as they stared blankly at his giggling self. Soon, a concerned woman approached the three.

"Hello? Excuse me, ma'am, are you alright? Is everything okay...?" Softly, her hands spun Andy like a spool of yarn, unveiling a grander misery wooled behind layers of smaller unfortunates. He got taken by the wind of her motion, and carelessly fell ill beneath her spell, drifting away to a land far away – up until she spotted the most glaring marks of his deplorable condition, and spoke. The world came to be as it was – conscientious and real.

"Dear Law, what's happened to you? Dear Light almighty, dear Saints above... where were you thrown into? A nail processing facility? A woodchipper? A pack of hungry hounds? Oh, dear, oh dear..." Her feet carried her in circles, now doing laps around the three. Fiammetta couldn't spare an annoyed look, while Mostima thrived silly in the woman's trepid ramblings. "... Dearie, oh dearie, where have you ran in from? The west wing? God, where are your robes? Your pyjamas? You oughta be all striped up, you poor little thing! Military gray looks terrible on you."

"Mm?" Mostima caught her last statement, as it seemed to stir something a little deeper beneath her reflective surface. With a grin, she leaned into Andy's ear and murmured. "See? Told ya eight years ago."

He didn't quite catch the implications.

"Oh, you poor pup, you poor, little thingie..." Her hands enveloped Andrew's face in a protective embrace, and there couldn't have been a single terrible monster on Terra that'd dare rip them away. He found himself sinking in her grasp. "You sweet, sweet, armless creation... How did those nails come to be? How, in Law's name, did no Saint dare intervene in the process...? Ah, and the arm? Was it amputated here, in Saint Stephen's? Or was it at Ambrosius...? If it was Ambrosius, then I can already tell some knucklehead had botched the job." She scoffed, non-literally spitting on the good name of the Ambrosius Avenue clinic. "Terrible people! They say our hospital's a total hovel, just because it's the only one in the whole Avenue! That's all hogwash! They dare say that, then refuse to treat a bundle of Liberi streetworkers the following week, those hypocrites. Well, it was a real nasty case of Oripathy I guess, but still..."

"..." Andy nodded, hugged from all sides by her comforting warmth. In her hands, the world and life in general seemed just a little more bearable than usual. Mostima must've noticed his attempt at dozing off again, and promptly elbowed him in the ribs. "O-Ow...?"