Jan and Freyja

"Aha! There we are." Safiya pointed across the room, and started to make her way past a crowd of people. The Jinn stood fairly tall whereas you were still coming to terms with your height deficit, so you could only follow Safiya, slipping past the tightly packed groups of people milling about the bar and hoping that nobody grabs at you or distracts you, so you didn't end up losing track of Safiya as well. Not that she would be difficult to find again... just that you felt much more comfortable near her in a strange setting. All that magic coursing through Safiya made it easy for her to take care of any obstacle thus far, at least.

"Ladies, ladies!" Safiya stretched out her arms in greeting as she smiled at two other women seated at a far table. You halted not far from Safiya, but nobody was looking at you yet. "Can I just say, I've always loved your braids! They're quite charming."

The two women, a blonde and a brunette, indeed seemed to share that feature with Safiya. The blonde woman's loose braids draped over one shoulder, while the brunette's larger style draped over the back of her chair. Their particular clothing styles likewise struck you as somewhat out of place--the brunette's tunic had significant cleavage barely held in check by the laces woven between either side of the fabric, and the fabric strained against her toned, clearly muscular shoulders and arms. The metal bracer on her arm looked like something you'd see in a fantasy costume rather than an actual fashion accessory. The blonde, on the other hand, wore a fairly loose sort of hooded top, with the oversized hood draped wide across her shoulders. Her baggy outer sleeves extended to about her elbow, before her slightly less flowy inner sleeves were contained within wrapped bands of fabric over her forearm, wrapping around her wrist and part of her hand like some sort of glove. If you didn't know better, these two struck you as some sort of cleric and warrior.

You had to catch yourself. You didn't know better. If they were anything like Safiya such that Emilia took interest in them, clearly they would fit the bill as adventurers plucked from some other time.

"You've got an impressive look yourself, lady," the muscular brunette said. "I've never quite seen hair that is so... uh, much. You've much hair. Very well styled, though."

Safiya smiled at the two, and the brunette smiled back, while the blonde furrowed her brow, looking carefully at Safiya. The Jinn turned back to you, and then tapped her chin. "Oh, I think you should join in on the fun!" Safiya tapped your head, and your dark brown hair immediately wove itself into a tight braid all on its own. This made the brunette smile wider, and the blonde's brow furrow further.

"Have a seat, join the Braid-y Bunch, why not?" The brunette tapped at the chair next to her. Safiya was quick to sit down, adjusting her hair a bit so it would hang off one of the leg braces of the chair instead of pooling on the ground of the bar. You did the same, seated next to the blonde, although you were not sure how comfortable you were imposing on the free time of women at a bar. The muscle-bound brunette didn't seem to mind. "Always pleasant to see new lovely faces! My name's F--"

The blonde held out a hand in a 'stop' motion to the brunette, and a glove flew out of her satchel to cover the other woman's face. The brunette huffed, but relented, while the blonde stared closer at Safiya. "...Where do I know your face from?"

Safiya blinked. "I, uh... we haven't officially met. I've been in Emilia King's study all the while, for each one of your meetings with her there. I've heard it all, Miss Jan. Lady Freyja. I know you both quite well, in fact. And I know that, technically, there are the same number of men as there are women seated at this table."

Jan tapped her hand on the table. "That's it, Emilia's study! There's a picture of..." She paused, as she thought. "That can't be right. Did you have a grandmother who looked like you? The picture I'm thinking of is a young Archibald King, you look just like the woman in that photo."

Safiya nodded, with a grin. "I age incredibly gracefully, you might say. By which I mean, a Jinn does not really age. I am Safiya, this is my new Phasebound talisman, Taylor. I believe you have experience with that, Freyja."

The brunette nodded as she peeled the glove away from her face, and grabbed her pint of beer to take a pronounced gulp. "Oh, I certainly do. Emilia embedded a gem within me, now I share my body with a woman who models her persona off of a Norse goddess, and we punch things. Quite a bit more than I'd expected to do... but Emilia keeps me busy." She leans towards you, looking carefully at your form. "Interesting that Emilia didn't just try to make you share a body with your lovely friend here, that seems to be something she enjoys of her little trials, squishing things together."

"Our situation's a little more complex," you said, glancing between the other women. You didn't have magic or muscle at your disposal, so you felt a bit more **** than you would've liked at this table. Your one recourse is that you could control Safiya's body if you needed it, though you weren't sure what good that might do you in this situation. "If you consider folklore, I'm sort of like a genie's lamp, except I can walk around on my own."

Freyja held her hands up, making grabbing motions. "Do I get some wishes if I pet you?"

"Stop it, Frey, or I will make sure you have another one of those 'wardrobe malfunctions' right here and now!" Jan rolled her eyes at Freyja, and glanced at you. "It must be a big deal if she bound her prized possession into you. I've heard Emilia talk about a Jinn contained in her grandfather's glasses before, it seemed like one thing she wouldn't have ever parted with while alive. I have to imagine that she felt like she had ****. What is it she wants from you two?"

"That's the thing, we don't know yet," you said, glancing back to Safiya who buried her face in the drink menu. "Safiya wanted to leave before we talked with Emilia again, so at the moment, we're... trying to gain some perspective." That was the nicest way you could put it after Safiya booted you in the shins. Even if these women were not the same sort of hired help Emilia would normally have, saying you ran away from her almost immediately is likely not very helpful. "Like, uh, you're not running around like supervillains or anything to do everything she wants, are you?"

Jan leaned back in her chair, stirring at a particularly fruity-looking drink. She glances at you after taking a moment to compose her thoughts. Freyja had basically tuned out of the conversation entirely, as she prodded at Safiya's hair. "She asks us to do things that are at times might be, let's say, 'legally complicated'. I, personally, have never had to compromise my morals for Emilia's gain, but that depends on one's comfort level with her. Freyja won't hurt innocent people, but she has no problems bending Yabusa bots in two."

"They have this really satisfying crunch to them," Freyja confirmed. "Jan's right though, I don't hurt those who can't fight back, but I will push them aside if they're in my way of getting whatever I'm picking up for Emilia. It's never, like, someone's heart transplant or something, this stuff is harmless to normal people. It's things that might cut into Yabusa and Hideki's profit margins, or it's stuff they keep under lock and key but don't even utilize, so really sometimes we're making their jobs easier by taking stuff off their hands."

You frowned. Corporate theft? Was that really what you were going to end up doing too, if you help Emilia out? Especially with Safiya's powers, you assumed there could be some significant collateral damage depending on how everything falls into place with her and you.

"You'll really have to set the tone with Emilia, though she probably already picked you based on something she knows about you." Jan sipped more of her fruit-flavored concoction. "She will ask for more, especially if she thinks you'll give it. My wife, in particular, will do just about anything for Emilia. That includes possessing teenagers helping demo Yabusa machinery and coercing them into helping steal that Phase Binder she used on you two. That didn't sit well with me, I got those kids out of jail myself, but that's the kind of thing to watch out for. Emilia can be a total softie or completely heartless, depending on what she needs done. She basically paid for my whole wedding, even held it in her mansion, and we talk like old friends--but I've seen the cold way she stares at scientists from Hideki. She would not hesitate to put them out of a job."

"If you think your wife's bad, you're forgetting the Apollo incident." Freyja glanced back at Jan.

Jan shook her head. "Not forgetting, just... not worth mentioning." With a shrug of her shoulders, Jan took a deep breath, and then smiled. "Enough work talk. You two need to get some drinks and we're gonna all have some fun together, since apparently nobody else is showing up tonight."

"Agreed!" Safiya finally decided to speak up. She wanted you to hear all that without bias, so it would rattle around in your head for a while. But, with that out of the way, a drink sounded good at least! You wondered what Jan's idea of fun might be with four ****-filled ladies but it seemed you would have to wait and see...