Benihime hauled herself up and onto the sill of the window of Erich’s office, following the thread of Kisuke’s presence, a bit surprised to find him still in his hunting-partner’s territory. Usually he left as soon as he managed to chase Erich from the room; nothing that Erich did here was in any way a surprise to Kisuke. It was only Erich that interested Kisuke, not the man’s paperwork.

She perched on the sill and watched her partner, ears perked and tail-tips twitching against the siding. He was bent over Erich’s desk, quill in hand and tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he quickly scribbled line after line. Whatever he was writing had his full attention, so much so that he hadn’t even noticed her presence.

(Usually he was so good about sensing her.)

(How fascinating.)

Curious about what held his attention, Benihime slipped from the sill and slunk across the room to peer over her partner’s shoulder.

Papers littered the desk, half-started letters and lists and the odd doodles that Kisuke resorted to when the words just refused to come. Erich’s neat stacks of correspondence and contracts were pushed to the side in favor of Kisuke’s chaotic sprawl, but if her partner wanted to keep this from his hunting-partner…

“You’re going to need to replace his paper and ink supply, Ki-su-ke,” she murmured in his ear, arm draping across his shoulder and pinning him into the chair.

Kisuke squawked and flailed, his ridiculous hat flying from his head and a large streak of ink slicing across the letter he’d been writing. “Benihime!”

She grinned and nuzzled at his chin, scenting the excitement-glee-anxiety that radiated off him. “You have a plan for our slippery friend, then?”

“If I can get Alexis here then she can convince him!” Kisuke told her with a grin, then paused, grimaced, and tacked on, “Or help him come up with a different one. Her letter doesn’t exactly sound agreeable to Rerugen-san taking over the Guild, so I have to hope…”

“They had plans to leave, but the Adephagos got in the way,” she said with a reassuring bump, grinning wide-wide-wide at the look that got her. “He told me so just now.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Kisuke grumbled, setting down the pen and giving the destroyed letter a pained look. “Now if only this was so easy…”

Benihime huffed and swiped his previous failed attempts off the desk then hopped up to sit, ignoring his squawking in favor of attempting to read his latest attempt. She didn’t know what his problem was; the letter read fine, everything laid out the way she knew most humans — even almost-Entelexia humans — needed. “This looks fine.”

“But it’s not!” Kisuke glared up at her from the floor, displaced papers clutched in his hands. “If we’re pretending then no one can know, and that means that I can’t tell Alexis anything about it because what if someone else in her Guild reads the letter?!”

“I don’t see what this fuss about ‘pretending’ is,” she grumbled, crumpling the letter up and bouncing it off the top of Kisuke’s head. “You want to mate him and he’s not opposed to it—”

“The hell do you mean he’s not opposed to it?!”

She blinked, ears going back as she stared down at Kisuke. Her kitten was so hopeless sometimes; did he not realize that he was the one Erich continually gravitated towards in their Guild? She’d seen the man shut down a potential courtship in heartbeats, and yet for all his complaints about Kisuke he’d never turned that sharpness on her kitten. And even now, his complaint was that Alexis hadn’t agreed. “Well he hasn’t maimed you, after all, and you keep pushing your suit—”

“Pretty sure not maiming me is just because he’s too polite,” Kisuke mumbled, shoulders slumping. He rubbed at his face and sat back on his heels, staring blankly at the papers in his other hand. “Still. I can’t just tell her what’s going on, we don’t have a cipher between us — hell, I don’t even know if Rerugen uses a cipher with her!”

“Well then write out the start of that letter again and just give it to me.” Benihime huffed, tail thumping against Erich’s desk and rattling the pens and mug. “Invite her to come to escort him back and I’ll tell her what she needs to know when she’s alone.”

Kisuke gaped up at her, before snapping his jaw shut and scrambling to his feet. “You mean it? You will? But I thought— you’ve said— you always refuse to be a messenger unless it’s life or death!”

“Anything to stop you kittens pining everywhere. It’s a disgrace. The two of you are so obnoxiously suited to one another and I can only hope that Alexis has an ounce of common sense to share.”

“I’m not that bad!”

She fixed him with an unblinking stare, ears flattened and her twin tail-tips twitching across the desk, sending some of Erich’s paperwork scattering.

“I’m not,” Kisuke muttered with a huff, looking away from her and picking up the last of the papers she’d knocked on the floor. “I don’t pine. And stop knocking stuff down!”

“Mhmmm.” Benihime shook her head, giving up on convincing him. If he wanted to live in denial, she’d let him… for now. And then laugh when the ‘pretend’ relationship turned real. “Just write your letter so I can deliver it.”

He shot her a suspicious look as he retook his seat and pulled a fresh sheet of paper over. When she did nothing but grin, however, Kisuke snorted and set pen to paper, writing out a quick message and signing his name with a flourish.

The minute he set the pen down, Benihime snatched the paper up and scanned the letter. “Not bad,” she said as she folded it up and tucked it into the envelope that Kisuke handed her, then tucked the envelope into her sleeve. “I’ll run this to her tonight and see what she says.”

Kisuke breathed out and leaned back in Erich’s chair, running a hand through his hair. “Thanks, Hime. I just hope she’ll listen…”

Benihime scoffed and hopped off the desk, landing on all four paws as her human form faded away. “She will,” she said with confidence, tossing her head and bounding to the open window. “Unlike the two of you, she has sense.”

Kisuke’s wordless squawk of protest was the last thing she heard as she leapt through the window and landed easily on the grass outside. She spun, oriented herself, and took off.

It would take her the entire night to reach the Quincy Guildhouse if she ran the whole way.

(Good thing she wasn’t afraid of a little exertion.)

(Monsters better not get in her way!)

(She had no time to waste.)