[Mission] The Interview | Hadiyya

»Diya whistled long and low at the sight of the café. She didn’t go to the temple district often and places like this were usually not her scene. But she was willing to go through a lot of abnormal steps today to make sure this went well. When getting ready in the morning, the voices of her moms played in her head: Brush your hair, iron your labcoat, are you really wearing that shirt underneath? Ay, habibi, put on a nicer blouse! Put on perfume, you smell like liquor! Fortunately her mothers had sent her plenty of care packages over the years, including nicer clothes. The labcoat, however, was non-negotiable.

The request was vague, but interesting. Exploration, danger, fame and money? Sign her up! If she had to put on a nice show to land the job, hell, that was fine. Whether or not she’d remember to keep herself in check, however, was up in the air.

She whistled again when she stepped inside. Damn, if she’s meeting people in a place like this, the pay must be better than expected. She had to blink a few times; did she hear him right? She reserved an entire floor in this fancy-ass place? She was uncharacteristically silent as she followed the apathetic host up and into a seat, right on time (for once in her life).

She had a little bit of time to collect herself. For posterity, and with Ami’s help, she prepared a semi-decent portfolio of her achievements and transcripts, including the materials from the trip to Mungu Island. Gods, Ami… she’d be proud of her for actually looking presentable and being on time. Diya couldn’t even figure out why this vague request interested her so much. Maybe because it felt like straight out of a childhood story: Go and adventure! Explore ruins! Fight danger! Gold and fame! She smirked at herself. Being an adult was a lot less exciting, but Mungu taught her that there was still a lot of “adventure” to be had out there.

The door slammed open and her eyes went to the… charismatic man responsible. She couldn’t help but laugh; not the awkward laugh of someone who was uncomfortable, but the confident, mocking one that said ‘Get a load of this ridiculous asshole.’ If she were more self-aware, she’d have recognized the hypocrisy, but as it was, he looked like a fool and she got some entertainment out of it.

Her laughter tapered off quickly when her eyes hit the source of the lovely voice. Holy crap, her tits were huge! Damn, and here she expected some old fogey or antisocial dweeb. Instead, she got a total babe. Now she definitely had to land this one.

Still, for all her faults, Diya was hard to catch off-guard, and maintained her confidence with a smile. She raised an open hand in front of her. “No worries; always nice to start the day off with some amusement, yeah?” She laughed again at her assessment of him as she obeyed the doctor’s command to follow. “Really? He struck me as such an interesting gentleman, too.”

Diya grasped the doctor’s hand (wow so soft) firmly and gave her a shake with a nod. “Hadiyya Nejem, Runic Student, Master level,” she said. It was the best title she had at the time. “But I go by Diya, usually. Nice to meet you, doctor.”

She followed suit and took her seat. She tried her best posture, but the bit of a slump was never really going to go away. She took the offered menu with a smile. Drinks! Now there was a relief. “I would, thank you.” Her eyes lit up after a bit of scanning the menu with a light hum. “Ay, no way; they have Surajan imports! It’s been too long since I’ve had a good qahwah¹ with Desert Rum.” Hopefully, it’d be halfway decent. She was pretty convinced from her years her that Etheans had no idea how to brew good coffee.

She decided to wait for the doctor to start before saying anything after her order. She wanted to hear a bit before going off and asking questions in the dark. And try as she might, her gay little heart overrode her brain and her eyes would glance at the woman’s… land. Though it wasn’t terribly hard to stay focused on her face, either; she was a good-looking woman, through and through. It would keep a light smile on her face throughout the interview.

¹ Coffee

»Diya grinned at that. Finally, her alcoholism was doing her some good rather than getting her into trouble. She nodded with respect at the doctor’s order; any woman who could pound down an entire bottle during her workday was a woman worth getting to know.

“Born and raised,” she said, her voice and chest swelling with pride. “Only moved here to study at the University, around five years ago. Which I had more chances to visit home, yeah? Not enough sand here for my taste.”

She laughed lightly at her own lighthearted conversation. Honestly, she felt relaxed around this woman, which was not what she expected from an interview in the fanciest damn café this side of Felici. But someone who drank and laughed at angry men? Those are the people Diya liked to spend her time around. She heard Ami’s voice in her head, lecturing her (and rightly so) to sit up straight and be somewhat professional, dammit. So Diya adjusted her posture, and folded her hands casually in her lap.

“Ah, not much to say about myself before that, yeah? Just another orphan kid from a Surajan shanty-town who was too curious for her own good and would never make anything of herself, according to most.” She shrugged with a grin. “Proving people wrong is a hell of a motivator, yeah? Did well enough in school that the University noticed and I enrolled as soon as I could. Tougher than I expected, but that never slowed me down before, ay?”

The smile never faded, and she had no trouble maintaining eye contact with the doctor the entire time (aside from the occasional drift downwards…). “Been putting the University back on the map in sciences since year one, yeah? Spend most of my time in a lab, you probably figured out; guess my curiosity turned out to be a good thing after all, ay? Always looking to find answers to my questions and trying new things. Been getting out of the lab more and more lately, though; ever since I helped take care of things on Mungu Island I’ve been itching for fieldwork, yeah?”

If the drinks came, she’d waste no time taking a sip, then nodding in appreciation. Her face would light up with a wide smile. “First place in Ethea that gets this drink right! Might need to come around here more often. Compliments to the bartender, yeah?”

»Diya took another blessed drink; gods, she wasn’t kidding! The drink was probably three times as much here as it would be anywhere else, but maybe as a treat to herself she’d return sometime.

“I was,” she confirmed. She tilted her head slightly as Dr. Mathea continued. Usually she was wary of people who called out magi specifically, but there was no denying that the terrorism existed; part of her wanted to applaud them for taking a stand against a shitty authority, but in the end she couldn’t abide by actions that ended up hurting innocents. Explosives weren’t picky things, after all. There was also the mention of zombies, which was still a mystery that bugged her. She laughed at the doctor’s good-natured mocking; it was always nice to talk with someone who wasn’t a stuck-up prick.

“Ay, you’re right,” Diya agreed. “Those spirits… gods, they killed so many. I’m just glad me and Taran were able to stop it, even if it did take some quick thinking and creative use of Pull runes. And those zombies in Camlorn? Still trying to figure out what went on there, ay? Hard to get some concrete answers with that one.”

She nodded to the doctor, and she went on about herself. She smiled. Archeology and Ancient Theology, huh? Gods, this was like some movie shit; if she was only moderately interested before, she was definitely in now. “I understand that,” she said with a low chuckle. “University could use more focus on other subjects. I’m making them put more effort into the sciences, whether they want to admit it or not, ha!”

Next question, okay. She took another drink and listened carefully. She thought it was going pretty well, so far! She tapped her finger and hummed as she considered the question. It… was kind of hard to tell, given that the doctor wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details. But eh, she was winging the interview so far, so she decided just to be blunt, as usual.

“Well, I said I wanted to get out there and experience and learn new things, and that’s a lot of what caught my interest, yeah? There’s a lot out there, past the walls of labs and schools; going to Camlorn to investigate zombies and Mungu to stop killer spirits reminded me of that. Even learning history is interesting, yeah? Would rather be the one people read about than the one learning from someone else’s journey. Guess you could say I’ve got something to prove, ay?” She laughed at herself. It sounded funny to word it like that. “Going from the little nobody orphan from a Surajan shack to the woman who was part of some big discoveries and solved some tough answers? That’s my goal, right there. And this job? I get a good feeling from you, Doctor; I think this is the right opportunity to help get myself out there; broaden my horizons, yeah? Don’t see offers like this everyday.”

She paused for another drink and offered a small shrug. “Sounds pretty dramatic to put it all like that, I guess, but I’ve got curiosity that won’t quit and motivation to do something about it. Hope you weren’t expecting I just wanted this job to pad a resume or something like that, yeah?” She offered the doctor a grin and waited to see what she made of all that rambling.

»She nodded and took a sip of her drink. Gods, it was good. “Thank you,” she said. At least her winging it seemed to be going well thus far. Maybe she’d have looked more into the good doctor and her field of study if she’d seen the ad sooner. As it was, she hardly had time to get a portfolio together and look halfway presentable. She had nothing to rely on now but her resume and her social skills (And if most of her family knew that, they’d say she’s doomed).

She stretched her neck and sat up, leaning forward on her hands with her elbows on her legs. Tricky questions, alright, bring it. She thought she was ready, but it took her a bit by surprise, her furrowing brows giving that away. The gods? She wasn’t used to people asking about them in the Uni.

She did, however, catch the way she said the Uni ‘pushed its views on its students.’ Given that she went to the Uni, and the location of the café in the midst of the temple of the gods, she could guess at the “wrong answer.” She hoped that was right, because it went with her own views.

“I’d be a pretty bad science student if I ignored evidence and dismissed theories,” she started. “Personally, I’m sure they exist. I mean, magic exists, right? Spirits, too. There’re too many people having encounters and too much history for me to go along with the Uni on this one, yeah? I’m not a praying woman personally, but that’s just my choice; they exist. I’d stake my life on it.”

She shrugged and took a light sip of her coffee. She came to this conclusion by rebelling against the Uni, as one might expect. And while looking into it and talking to people, even diving into some history research for the fun of it, it became pretty clear to her that there were some things that science and magic couldn’t really explain; the zombies were just one example. The elusive answer of Runic ink’s composition was another. “Just like scientific theories and laws, there’s a leap of faith you have to take if you’re going to find any answers, ay? I’d like to confirm it for myself one day.”

She couldn’t guess at how she took her answer; the doctor’s face was as solid as a statue. In the end, she supposed it wouldn’t matter; either she liked it and they’d move on, or she already failed her and it was for the best that two conflicting people didn’t work together. Diya would, however, be upset to miss such a wild opportunity.

Diya looked up thoughtfully as she finished her thankfully alcoholic coffee. A locked door? Is this supposed to be some sort of metaphor, or more literal? She considered asking for clarification but surmised that doing so would not make her happy. She rolled her shoulders and just went with it.

“First I’d want to find out why it’s locked, yeah? Not going to snoop around in a stranger’s house; I want to get at least a vague idea of what’s behind it. Might even scout it with an astral projection rune, if necessary. But after doing that research… Well, my first go-to would be just to ... knock. But if nobody's there and I need to go in... I'd use a reverse-lock rune combination. Straightforward, ay? Save breaking it down for a last resort.”

She pushed her coffee aside, indicating it was finished, and wondering if it would be too forward to ask for a second…