The snow leopard guardian seemed unchanged when they returned the pelt of her mate. Danika wondered what she was going to do with it, although fairy tales were full of large fierce animal mothers who gifted either the skin of their mate or even their own skin to a child they cared for. MatchlessMinion was thrilled when she referred to him as "another strange visitor" from "the world within reach of the moon".
The cub though, was getting large enough that cub was becoming the wrong description. He was just a young snow leopard at this point. Danika wondered if it was strange that his messenger form remained the small cute creature of their first meeting. She laughed when Aishin dared to reach out a hand and stroke the snow leopard as he passed by, and jumped when he turned and snarled, "Rude!"
When Aishin kissed her nose right before they logged out for the night, Danika got to see the mobile game version of the kiss, and she could see why he hadn't understood how real it had seemed to her. Between their chibified forms a little comic heart popped up and floated off the top of the screen like a bubble. The feeling it gave her was still warm and affectionate, but nothing that made her heart pound.
She giggled when she received another little heart in a text a while later.
--
Her first day in the sixth began with a meeting led by Devon Yu, who told her cheerfully, "We meet for an hour every morning, although for some of our members it's every night." He nodded cheerfully in the direction of a couple of people who smiled and raised their hands.
He continued, "And whether you work in groups or alone after that will be entirely up to you after you've completed your training, but for this week you'll accompany me for the next four hours every day when we're finished here, and then when you return from your break, Ariana has agreed to help you out during your time as a fledgling." A slender red haired woman raised her hand and smiled. "If you need to call someone at midnight, call her," Devon instructed, and his whole team laughed, including Ariana.
Everyone was referred to by their first names, which at first felt both weirdly informal and a little too personal, but by the time the division's meeting was over, Danika had realized that the other 24 people, including Devon Yu, were the entirety of Design Integration. She didn't understand a lot of what was discussed that first morning, but she created a mental list of interesting fragments of information to ask about later.
Devon Yu obviously shocked everyone when he declared after one report, "I want you all to take a break from everything related to the expansion and the mechanical downgrade request. I had dinner with Lin Hao and some fresh ideas were brought to our table," he winked at Danika, "but there are some things I'll need to clear with our overlords in the first class before I can set them before you. For this week, work on clearing all the little stuff that's been building up a backlog and creating more repeatable quests so that we can toss them out like candy when the mobsters in advertising start getting pushy. The classical fairytale themed ones have been getting the best feedback so don't be afraid to recycle old tales."
That created a spate of excitement and an outpouring of suggestions. Danika asked after a bewildered moment, "All the repeatable quests aren't for messenger animals?"
Ariana said kindly, "Nope! The ones we introduced at Valentine's with low level enchanted items as rewards went over really well, so new messenger animals are being limited to only 6 a year, and we already released 3."
The first thing Devon Yu did when the meeting was over was give Danika a sharp piercing look and say firmly, "Ask everything. All the good questions, the bad questions, and especially the silliest wild flights of ideas, because those are the ones we tend to catch and cage and feed up until they become the amazing monstrosities that support the foundations of this world."
His eyes were a weird mottled brown and green and Danika blurted, "Are your eyes really that color?"
He laughed and she apologized quickly, but he waved off her apologies and said with a grin, "I'm the one who just told you to ask everything, only most people never actually will. According to the cameras available when I was a child at least, yes, this is what color my eyes were. All of our work avatars are designed to represent us as realistically as possible, apart from being maybe a little healthier, and with 10lbs taken off for the sake of our egos."
After that Danika asked only work related questions, starting with the mental list she'd created during the meeting. Many of the answers were long and complex and led only to more questions. She was shocked when a little dragon about the size of a large dog flew up and announced sternly, "Director Yu, it is time for you to seek sustenance."
Devon Yu laughed uproariously at Danika's shocked face and teased, "What kind of celestial servant are you, to be so shocked by a notification delivered by the lowest grade of celestial dragon?"
The dragon looked insulted and declared swiftly, "I am not the lowest grade! I am a high class notifier, and the messages I deliver should not be ignored!"
Devon laughed again and said, "Yes, yes, I'm going. I'll see you tomorrow morning Danika. Don't worry, after spending the morning with you, I'm sure you'll get along great with Ariana. And she'll help move you along from all this heavy theory stuff to the actual fun part of doing!"
"Director Yu," the dragon scolded.
Devon Yu winked and logged out. The dragon looked at her, but it didn't say anything. Apparently no notifications had been assigned to her yet, but after a moment Danika followed his example and logged out.
--
In the cafeteria she saw the same group that had encouraged her to sign their petition and realized with shock that two of them were from the sixth. The younger man, she thought his name was Paul, caught her eye and waved her over cheerfully. "Sit with us Danika," he encouraged. "These programming monkeys won't bite, I promise!"
The slender woman who'd asked her to join the petition said laughingly, "He's lying, I've bitten him before!"
Paul went scarlet, and Danika giggled.
The man seated closest to Paul leaned over and bit his shoulder playfully. "Hah, you dare to call me a monkey! Feel my teeth!" He winked at Danika and added, "But I'm nice to girls."
That statement let the man who'd pretended to bite Paul in for his own round of teasing. The others crowded their seats closer together and made room for her chair though, so Danika scooted up and joined them. Introductions were made in a casual and haphazard fashion.
The one who'd proposed making increased complexity take increased precision was named Josh, and he was rather quiet and glum, although he smiled a little at everyone else's antics. Danika asked him, "Um, is there something wrong?"
Anu, the slender woman who'd once bitten Paul, told her when Josh just shrugged, "They took down our petition this morning, without any word on why."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Danika replied sympathetically.
The older man from the sixth, Takahashi, said mysteriously, "I know something, but I can't say anything yet. But it's not necessarily bad news, so cheer up."
Josh straightened and said, "It's ok, you don't have to worry. I decided I'll just reincarnate and choose another path if they nerf complex devices."
He and the others kept sneaking hopeful looks at Takahashi while they finished eating though. Takahashi just maintained a bland face, even when Paul said, "Aw, c'mon, you can at least give a little hint to your own juniors. Look, even Danika is dying of curiosity and she doesn't even know you well yet."
Danika just laughed and shook her head.