Having nothing of worth to contribute, Chie merely stayed shrunk back, out of the way. When Kurisuna eyed her, Chie squirmed uncomfortably, cheeks reddening from the attention. Once the taicho had claimed the devilish bird, perhaps they would be safe from its mischievous wrath. Considering the winged demon's personality, Chie wouldn't be surprised, if she knew Kurisuna better, that the creature belonged to her.

Be that as it may, Chie was not all that acquainted with either female, other than a handful of interactions in the division, and hearsay. Naturally, Chie had heard a thing or two about the taicho, enough to make her observed discomfort appropriate.

As the cage was relinquished into her hands, Kurisuna raised it to eye level and wagged her index at the no longer agitated bird, telling it to 'know better' and 'cease harrying Sumie' in manners decidedly less firm than how she treated her staff. When the raven crowed and resumed preening its feathers, she let it hang abreast, waiting for the Lieutenant to produce the necessary utensils and assign Chie her list; in the meantime, Kurisuna was content loitering about the rearmost wall to inspect the condition of Sumie's flora.

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With the external influences of Sumie's life being erratic at best, the woman had become more or less a creature of habit over the years. Her office, even at earlier dates than the present, when clean, greatly resembled what it would be in the future, even in the case of the plants her office hosted; a combination of sunflowers and lavender. Kurisuna would likely be unsurprised by their presence, though there were a few small pots of budding succulents that Sumie had intended to transfer outside when she had the time. While the buds varied and not what Sumie had in her office two months prior when she was raising different colored daisies, the concept did not; Sumie often let a variety of plants sprout in her office where she would be better reminded to tend to them before contributing them to the vast garden landscape of the Third Division.

Their condition was far better off than the majority of the papers in Sumie's office after the bird had pecked havoc throughout it. There were a few overturned milk bottles at the base of the sunflowers closest to shelves, but it was unlikely the dairy would negatively effect the flowers. It was a different story on Sumie's desk as she sought a dry piece of parchment to write out Chie's task list. If Sumie was any other, she would have probably been rather distraught at finding the current master task list utterly destroy by a combination of honey and ink, but part of Sumie's daily routine was to check and update the master list. She had done as much the night before and easily recalled who was taking care of what and where more help was needed.

After a few moments of awkward almost-silence, Sumie did find a sheaf of paper in relatively good condition - a bit wrinkled, but free of any foreign substances at least. Sumie balanced the parchment on a knee she lifted, which was in turn balanced by her right foot on the chair of the desk, and pulled an ink brush free from her hair. She dipped the bristles into a nearby puddle of ink that had pooled at the corner of the desk and went about drawing up the order of Chie's reinstated job. Sumie seemed oblivious to the manner in which Chie had responded to Kurisuna's presence overall as the words bled onto the page from the odd consistency of the displaced ink. While this was not actually the case, Sumie had simply become accustomed to the reaction, or variations of, from other people and it passed through her mind as normal.

Writing the list took less time than actually finding the necessary materials as Sumie had known what she wanted to put down before it was actually time to make the list, thanks to the interruption by the devil in black. Once done and her position returned to both feet firmly on the floor, Sumie held out the paper toward Chie. "I'll trade you your task list for my zanpakutou," Sumie said, her voice having lost the edge it had when it was running amok, though she didn't quite thing a finger wagging was an appropriate outcome.

SPOILER: Click to show

Morning:

Feed the fish in both koi ponds in the garden.
Dust fiction and poetry bookshelves.
Sweep floors in and around fiction and poetry bookshelves.
Place returned fiction and poetry books back on shelves.
Check to make sure books aren't misplaced in the fiction and poetry sections.

Afternoon:

Help work the front desk under a seated officer for checkouts, book returns, and helping visitors.

Not daring to shoot a glance at Kurisuna, Chie kept her gaze locked on the sword of Sumie's, which was currently clutched nervously in her hands. She admired the weapon, thinking and wondering what sort of mysteries it held, what talents the fukutaicho possessed, other than bird wrangling.

Naturally, she always wondered of the Taicho's strength as well. It surely was awesome, compared to the puddle of strength Chie possessed, Kurisuna's was surely a great lake. Though, this was not always to be. Chie had decided, during her long isolation, that changes were to be made in her life. No more would she truly embody the meek, weak child persona that had plagued her all her life. It was true to her for a time, but the years after her mother had passed had hardened her, icing away parts of her heart, leaving a bitterness that took a massive amount of effort to conceal. That effort, in part, probably was a key drain to Chie's mental and physical well being. But, a decade in the care of the medical staff of Seireitei gave her time, time to rebuild herself, time to harness the 'mask', so to speak. Had she not been given the opportunity to distance herself from her division and her family, she may not have been able to learn to continue to exhibit her stereotypical behavior in such a calculated manner. She may not have been able to master the duality of who she was expected to be, and who she truly wanted to be, and by doing so, she was able to construct many, many walls between herself and the world around her.

Never again would she be vulnerable through connections with others, never again would she be hurt, or so she thought.

"I'll trade you your task list for my zanpakutou,"

Jerking her head upward, having been awakened from her thoughts, she blushed and nodded. "Y-Yes, thank you." She handed the sword over carefully with one hand, taking the list with the other. She took a moment to scan the paper, then nodded, "Thank you, Fukutaicho, I'll get started right away, unless you or the Taicho require anything else from me?" She didn't dare to look over at Kurisuna, rather she took another look at the paper in her hands. The tasks were relatively light, but would serve a purpose. Her physical well being was still iffy, she knew that, and these things would help build up her strength again without taxing her too much. Of course, she would be implementing a training regime as soon as possible, but that would be on her own time of her own accord.

Secretly, between you and me, Chie was pretty pleased about the fish care in her tasks. Koi fish are just so darn cute, after all.

A familiar anxiety had spiked in her stomach. What a mess. The magnitude hadn't truly registered until she'd ducked into the wide, seamless window pane, and fanned the grid open to aerate Sumie's office. The culprit caught, her Lieutenant could always slide them shut at her leisure soon as she left, but the bureau was in such a state of disarray that she had found it entirely too stifling, too deep-seated for her to maintain a semblance of professionalism without circulating fresh air.

Had the Unseated not been there, she might've started tidying up zealously, too. But this was drudge work, and not for a woman of her caliber, Kurisuna reasoned against the obsessive-compulsion to rear back Sumie's drained bottles of milk from her otherwise unscathed sunflowers. If the devil bird had learned one thing, it was that wrecking havoc upon plants inescapably resulted in a near-death experience.

Putting palms to sill, inclined at the waist toward the winding asphalt walkways and well-tended flora, Kurisuna silently reprimanded the shudder that streaked down her spine--she had cataloged each wretched pulsation in a scrupulous repertoire, so that she didn't even need to acknowledge Chie's position to know that something, somewhere, had roused her aversion of children. ''You're dismissed, Tanaka-san.''

Biting the grim line of her lower lip, Kurisuna dwelled on how Sumie would chastise her for making recruits too uncomfortable. ''... Welcome back.''

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Sumie took her sword back in exchange for the paper and rolled its familiar weight over in her hands, her eyes scanning its length to see if any stray honey, ink, or other foreign substance had marred its surface. It passed inspection and was returned to her back where it was wedged between Sumie's own frame and her obi so that the handle peered over her left shoulder for an easy and swift reach across and slash in the event of combat. Well, perhaps easy for anyone with the skill to do so, but Sumie wasn't exactly that person yet. She could wield one well enough at the time to not cut her own arm off, but combat had never been her forte.

In response to the unseated woman's question, Sumie's lips started to part as if to address it, but closed when Kurisuna dismissed her. The Fukutaichou had been going to remind Chie that though she had her own individual task list, she would be working with others who had similar ones. After all, it'd be absurd for just one person to do maintenance on even one section in the large library, much less two sections. However, while Chie had been gone for awhile, it's not like she had never worked in the division before. Sumie assumed that she probably did remember such generalities and it was best to not add on and keep her lingering when Kurisuna dismissed her.

Sumie did wonder whether the taichou did so out of a simple impatience or if there was something more. It seemed these days that there was always something more. With her uninjured hand, Sumie reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment before her arm fell back to her side, a motion that was fairly ambiguous for any behind her who could not see it in full, though Chie would see it clearly if she had not scurried out the door quite yet.

With a quick bow, Chie took her task list and departed.

"Thank you, Taicho-sama, Fukutaicho-sama. Good day."

With as much speed as she could politely muster, she scurried out of the door and out of sight. Onward, to the great tasks!

[Exit]

Kurisuna released the breath she'd held as Chie exited. The knots in her shoulders, the tension in her posture, and the daunting stringency in her tone diffused as she visibly unwound before setting down the raven's cage and rotating on her heels to face Sumie, palms pressed to one another. ''Gomen, gomen! I'd never thought it'd come here,'' the Taichou begged for pardon, smiling apologetically; she had not accounted for Sumie, and the possibility that her Lieutenant had left either her door or windows open.

Reluctantly, she took in her surroundings with ill-conceived contempt, unsure. But with the Tanaka gone, and no one out the window's horizon, Kurisuna caved--she stooped down and began collecting the spilled bottles of milk and scattered paperwork, starting with those nearest to Sumie's sunflowers. ''Mind, you really should've been more careful.''

Kurisuna was not easily deciphered, but Sumie was savvy enough: she did not want to touch upon Chie, daughter of the Soutaichou.

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Sumie scratched at her chin for a moment after Chie had departed, wondering if everyone but herself, Kiba, and Malik had the same way of leaving Kurisuna's presence before turning to face the woman in question as she began to tidy up the back wall of Sumie's office. "There's no need for that," Sumie said, referring both to the apology and the daunting task of cleaning, but choosing to ignore the comment about her own carelessness lest it turn into an argument; normal people did not have highly trained assassin birds as pets. Even without the effort of an argument, her voice held a trace of exhaustion that matched the dark circles under her eyes, present even then though as time wore on they would become more pronounced.

The limp in Sumie's leg also found itself more pronounced than it had been in the very recent past. Chasing after it had aggravated the sore joint far more than it had been after her jog that morning as Sumie found out when she took a few steps in Kurisuna's direction. She stopped and her right eye twitched itself into a wince. On the bright side, it diverted her attention away from her bloodied hand for the time being. "I should probably bandage my leg," she confessed before Kurisuna could question her gait if she had seen it.

Her body turned part way to direct the Fukutaichou back toward her desk where she kept an assortment of ripped cloth, usually from Kiba's uniforms, on hand as makeshift bandages. It was then that she saw what had become of the painting she had been working on and an unrelated to pain groan escaped from her mouth. "That was suppose to be Kiba's birthday present. I don't think I'll have time to paint him another one."

''Don't be silly,'' Kurisuna started, brows cinched in disgust as she peeled from the floor a sheet of milk-sodden paper. With a resigned groan, she deposited the page into the appropriate receptable and resumed amassing the debris littering Sumie's office, sorting the waste and uprighting what bottles had been drained upon the window sill. ''If you don't think of me as your Captain, this isn't so unbecoming. Besides, the clutter in your office has been bothering me for a while.''

Kurisuna seldom permitted herself to cut loose in the presence of anyone but Sumie, and this reflected the levels of energy drawn upon as she worked doggedly to attenuate the destruction her raven had wrought. Tucking the white dove's tail of her haori where it would not transition into a glorified mop, she hadn't even looked Sumie's way until her confession of an injury, at which point her resolve wavered, and Kurisuna shifted to regard the woman.

She stood swiftly at the limp in the woman's palsied gait, the ghostly after-image of a life she was accustomed to seeing burn so bright. Concern marring the half-smile curled at her lips, she intercepted Sumie's desk and pulled out its chair with a flourish; she could've succored the weight off the Lieutenant's leg, but Sumie most likely did not need her assistance to close the gap. ''I'm sure Kiba will appreciate any gift. Here, we can pretend like my present bore from our collective efforts.'' Kurisuna had a habit of donating gratuitous quantities of poison sumac to the adjacent divisions, partially because she hated her neighbors, and partially because even her own had taken to complaining; somehow, she knew that this would not hearten Sumie any, but there was no remedying the Captain's humor.

However, Kiba's painting was ultimately but a small, shapeless blur in her periphery; she had more pressing questions to pose. ''What happened to your leg?''

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Sumie's face somehow managed to merge a grimace and pout at the same time as Kurisuna commented on the perpetual state of Sumie's office. It wasn't necessarily that it was cluttered, at least not to the fukutaichou, so much as it was a lot of things went through Sumie's office for processing. Enough that Sumie spent more time in the room than she would have liked, meaning she often brought her outside work in, such as Kiba's painting, so that she could work on the projects during the fleeing moments of downtime she captured between rushes of business.

Still, her office was quite full and it was even more evident than usual now that everything had been upended and scattered about, making it precarious for Sumie to continue on her way to her desk in limping steps. "I don't know who I'd feel worse for; Kiba or the plant." Sumie enjoyed gardening well enough, though certainly not to the extent that Kurisuna did, but Kiba was a different matter entirely. He might like the parts where he got to dig or play in the dirt, but when it came to sustaining a plant after that... Sumie would just have to grit her teeth and buy Kiba an actual present this year. Not that Kurisuna would refrain from her own gifting if Sumie did, but because if Sumie gave Kiba a plant, he might actually try to keep it alive, which somehow turned out worse than when he didn't.

Speaking of Kiba and things turning out worse... "Oh, it's nothing; just a little training accident. You know how clumsy I can be sometime." It was no secret that Sumie often trained with Kiba, but she was kind of clumsy when she got ahead of herself and everyone knew that the fukutaichou often went on runs in the city and occasionally out in the Rukongai, though never too far out. Sumie had learned that lesson the hard way when she jogged out through the First District one evening and was too tired to make it back to Seireitei. Luckily she had found lodging at a farm for the night, but it could have been much worse. Despite the Fifth Division's presence in the first two districts of the Rukongai, hollow had been known to infiltrate. Sumie had never told Kiba or Kurisuna about that either, because even if nothing had happened, they likely would still imagine the worst things possible while berating her.

''Probably the plant,'' Kurisuna conceded, smiling affectionately. She could sense the gaiety curling her lips. This was not the strained, resentful smirk she reserved the enthusiastic upstarts she so delicately informed could not afford the slightest faux pas in her division, nor was this her customary thin-lipped scowl. No, this was her Kurisuna smile, the one she had worn well for over two millennia, and though she felt an ache in her heart, she could not be brought to drop her simper; for this brief respite, this tiny, contained moment, she was happy. ''Ideally, I should gift him something hardier. Like a cactus. Something that'd make Kiba think twice before he inexplicably challenges it to a fist fight regardless.''

But the more she fixed Sumie, the more her joy buckled. The smile withered, and the irony did not escape her as she moved to guide the Lieutenant back to her chair, sweeping past the litter and looping her arm around Sumie's waist. The limp in the woman's leg was marked, now, and Kurisuna grimaced at the Fukutaichou's decision to have concealed it up til now. ''It isn't nothing if you can hardly maneuver around your own office.'' Frowning askance, her tone took on a more ill-tempered note; it had been no secret to the childhood duo, as well, that Kurisuna was not fond of the pair sparring with one another. ''You're impossible. As soon as I leave, I'm notifying the 2nd. They'll fix you in no time at all.''

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"The Second Division should focus on people with more serious injuries. Like Kiba if you give him a cactus. You know he'll touch it if you tell him he can't. That's just how he is," Sumie replied, her tone amused as she imagined Kiba fighting a cactus. Perhaps she should gift him a quick sketch of the image she saw in her mind. It would be both amusing and serve as a warning in case Kurisuna did gift him a cactus.

Despite her refusal of treatment, Sumie did not resist the contact with Kurisuna that led her to the chair. Though it was pockmarked with ink and the oozing sweetness of honey, Sumie let herself slide from Kurisuna's hold and into the chair. Sitting felt nice, Sumie admitted to herself though after a few seconds of relief with the pressure from her standing weight being removed, her knee began to throb even more violently and she grimaced again. "Though I suppose if they aren't too busy, I wouldn't mind."

In the meantime, Sumie reached for the desk drawer with her injured hand to retrieve the strips of cloth. Her sleeves weren't nearly long enough to cover the pecked out wounds and Sumie's eyes fell upon them. She had forgotten about them with the pain of her leg taking precedence, but now that she had seen them the heat of pain flared to life there as well, like when one cut themselves on a sheet of paper and didn't realize it hurt until they saw blood. "Ouch," Sumie said simply as the skin stretched causing what little clotting there was to loosen and fresh droplets of blood to pool along the jagged edges of flesh.

"I really hate your bird."

''Whether preoccupied or not, the Second Division will make time. That's just how I am,'' stated Kurisuna matter-of-factly. She'd known certain Shinigami to seek out treatment over less debilitating injuries than Sumie's limp; the Gotei had dedicated an entire division to medical care, Harupia be damned if his establishment cannot dispatch a member of his staff to relieve her Lieutenant's knee.

Kurisuna slunk out from behind the chair, sweeping her gaze to Sumie's makeshift bandages and raw fingers. Shame curdled the excessively imperious mask she'd summoned as she'd menaced the 2nd. ''I know you do. It got to your hands, didn't it?'' Sighing, the red-maned Taichou leaned in and presented her hand to take the ribbons of cloth from Sumie's. ''I apologize. Here, let me.''

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It was easy to tell when there was no point in arguing with Kurisuna, which was most of the time, though Sumie got away with it more than others, but she wasn't inclined to anymore as her knee and hand pulsed painfully in unison. The strips of cloth were passed over without any fuss and Sumie had a good handle on keeping her face from showing that she was hurting as to not upset Kurisuna. Despite the incident with the hell-spawn and her injuries, today was going well; certainly better than the days to come in Sumie's future, and Sumie didn't want to disrupt that by careless behaviour. Unfettered by thoughts of what was to come for now, Sumie cemented her compliance with an amiable, "Alright."

Gingerly, Kurisuna accepted Sumie's makeshift ribbons, and paused. She knew the procedure--applying bandages to one's hand was nothing that elicited a medic's doing--and the 2nd Division would be dispatching a member of their personnel in short order, but she would nonetheless need to do a more thorough job than she'd envisioned prior, which meant depriving Sumie of her impressive dexterity.

Pinning one end of the strip to the woman's wrist, palm up, Kurisuna unfurled the cloth, and rolled over the extremity thrice over before bringing the dressing across the back of Sumie's hand and winding it from fore to smallest finger. She left the fingertips exposed, and curled the ribbon back and over the outside of her hand; from there she would repeat the process diligently, swathing the wrist, palm, and digits until the fabric could be spent in a small, secure knot. ''I have nothing to pin this down, but it'll have to do. I'll go ahead and notify the 2nd so they can tend to your knee, all right? I don't think we'll be doing it any favors.''

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The wounds were far from deep so it was a fairly simple to task keep her features straight as Kurisuna applied the bandages. Pain was always easier to deal with one expected it rather than when they were surprised by it, at least when it came to modest injuries. Sumie wasn't willing to lose a limb to test the theory on more grievous ones.

Once Kurisuna was finished, Sumie attempted a weak wiggle of the digits. Even without being pinned, the wrapping was tight enough to stave off the effort. "Okay," Sumie replied. It was probably best not to bind her own leg as she wasn't sure the extent of the injury and what would make it worse, though it was swelling up fast. She could feel the usually loose fabric of her pants tightening over the joint.

At the very least, Sumie would pull back the material and prop her leg up on her desk once Kurisuna left. She wouldn't do it now because the woman would probably gut Kiba if she saw the spattering of purple bruises across the lightly tanned skin of Sumie's leg. They had probably spread with all the movement too. To avoid looking guilty, Sumie smiled up at Kurisuna and added, "Thank you. I'll be okay until they get here."

Upon Sumie's assent, Kurisuna had moved swiftly to retrieve the cage of her raven. The bird quivered upon its perch from the brusqueness behind her movements, crowing resentfully; the Taichou paid it no mind, however, and swept across the Lieutenant's office, belaying her exit at the door. She glanced over her shoulder, smiling. ''I know you will. This shouldn't take long; I'll check back on you later.''

In stark contrast to Sumie, who had made a habit of spending indeterminate spans of time in her company at the beginning, and conclusion of every shift, Kurisuna was not nearly so consistent; as she had moments prior, it was not unlike the Captain to visit her Lieutenant at any given hour over matters that, for all intents and purposes, did not require the extensive deliberation of professionals.

And as she slipped past the door jamb, Kurisuna was loathe to admit that she did not entirely resent the sight of Sumie in pain, wounded. It bolstered her crippled maternal drive in a fashion she knew was warped, reprehensible. But there was an amoral appeal to the prospect of doling out harm as a mean of dispensing relief, and she had shaped the conception into a recurring story motif in the vignettes she'd taken to writing since the pivotal Hollow attack of 1613.

Of course, she would channel the inspiration through pen and paper at a more appropriate junction--the 2nd needed to be notified, and a crew would have to be scheduled as to tidy up the war-front of Sumie's office more thoroughly.

[exit]

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Sumie waited until Kurisuna left to gingerly lift her injured leg upward and prop it atop the desk before her. To compensate for the angle of the limb, Sumie tipped her chair back ever so slightly. There wasn't much the Fukutaichou would be able to accomplish in such a state, not to mention with the mess in her office so Sumie let her eyes slide shut to block out the chaos around her.

She had never had a problem with clutter if it was organized, but when her surroundings were in a state of disarray like they were it, it was another story. Something about it made it hard for Sumie to focus. Her thoughts felt oddly disjointed. It was not a new occurrence. She had figured long ago that she required some sense of external order to have internal order. It wasn't anything as serious as OCD, but rather a quirk. She could function if she had to, but as she didn't now, Sumie chose to block it out.

A sigh escaped her lips as her body sank deeper into the chair, seeking relief of the tension which had built up in her frame; it wasn't entirely related to her office or her injury, but Sumie didn't feel the need to place its origin at the moment. She felt unduly weary and a nap, even in her current position, seemed delightful. Conscious control was willingly let go as Sumie sought the escape of sleep.

It was on the edge of waking and dreaming that the sound of creaking and the motion of the chair wobbling jarred Sumie into a groggy version of understanding, but she was still too slow to prevent what was to happen next. The chair had shifted too far back as Sumie neglected the incline, becoming more precarious as moments slipped away. A single adjustment in her near-sleep caused it to go too far backward and Sumie found herself hitting the ground with the chair, accompanied by a loud crash of flesh to wood to floor.

She could hear people thumping across the floor outside in the library, probably to her office to see what had happened now that the threat of the captain had been removed. Sumie just groaned as she remained still, her eyes staring dully at the ceiling. The day had really only just begun and she was ready to call it quits. The door slid open and Sumie put the smallest of effort in shifting her bulk only to find her clothing adhered to the floor and chair in places by the sticky hold of honey. A second sigh passed through the woman. Hopefully she still had a spare change of clothes that was untouched in the office.

[exit/end thread]

Thread Rewards:

Chie - 15 RP

Sumie - 20 RP

Kurisuna - 14 RP

Points added, thread locked.