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Chapter Text

It's well-known that the Non-Performing Asset Liquidation Specialist who carries the IPC's Jade Cornerstone of Credit is by no means a warm-hearted individual.

The esteemed Lady Bonajade has, through her "pawn shop", left a trail of broken dreams in her wake that numbers well into the hundreds - and most of the benefit to her from that little hobby is, to be quite frank, still entirely hypothetical. Perhaps she's a fanatic, acting on faith for so long, or perhaps there's an addictive quality to the role of a corrupter. Perhaps her experience in her job (decades and decades of it, though anyone who's anyone knows better than to remark on that) has left her cold-blooded, veins and heart frozen in the purest Preservation of anyone save Diamond himself. Perhaps she's simply always been a little heartless.

Whatever the case may be, she's heard it all, from the amusingly intimidated chatter to the outraged cries in cruder company; she's even had the displeasure of meeting someone who tried to blackmail her with some particularly egregious slander. That last person's ashes are currently being digested into the soil of her favourite tree outside her favourite house.

So no, Jade is not a soft touch by far.

But...

There's something about the young man brought before her for judgement in the Egyhazo case - and he is young indeed, likely not much more than eighteen at the most even when she adds a couple of years to her visual estimate to account for the obvious malnourishment. She gives her wine a nonchalant swirl as he speaks, paying close attention to those vivid eyes; for a child, he has an absolutely immaculate grasp on how to make his lightless gaze look open and expressive. He's nowhere near ready to outplay her with that alone, of course - it seems like he's hardly settled on a reliable mask of his own yet - but there's an overwhelming sense of potential flowing around the boy, like the threads of fate have bunched themselves up in a skein just for him. Under the grime and rags, maybe even preempting those things in sheer force, an undeniable charm radiates from him - not just in his pretty features or lilting voice, but in his words that give her a glimpse at the mind underneath.

Just thirty of those backwoods copper coins...

Oh, and then that boastful little challenge! How endearing. Truly, adorable - so much so that something almost like cuteness aggression bubbles up in her throat, and she has to take an elegant sip of her vintage Pupsha sherry to tamp it down. Her first priority has to be the fact that this will gain their department a new asset, nothing else... All for the Amber Lord, naturally.

"You're wrong," she decides - which he wasn't, strictly, but the famed Lady Bonajade is, as ever, willing and entirely unabashed to speak things into being. "Thirty Tanbas? I'll give you that, and much more than that. Wealth, status, power... The IPC will give you whatever you want, and even what you don't want."

(In passing, she wonders whether he would take to having a pet. Likely not, or at least not yet, but maybe one of those virtual companions for children would do him some good... No, that's getting ahead of herself, and hardly a priority at any rate.

Still, she makes a mental note to have one of her assistants furnish his new lodgings with a range of heated, weighted, and cooling blankets - a little like a hug, but more practical and, she expects, infinitely more welcome from a stranger.)

"Kakavasha... A good name, but unfortunately one destined to be buried in the dirt," she muses. People will cause enough trouble about the Sigonian as it stands, clinging to their stereotypes despite the general inanity of that whole notion (and ignorant of the fact that the Avgins, specifically, were never one of the spacefaring tribes through whom the cosmos even learned about Sigonia to create such stereotypes in the first place); best not to taint the first gift his parents would have given him, especially when it's more than likely all that he has left of theirs nowadays.

At the tiny trace of doubt that statement brings out in his eyes, she adds: "You, though, you deserve to live, to create more wealth for us. Go, pick the clothes you like, then choose your desired identity... and then use them well, child. May your plans never suffer failure."

Of course, he hasn't anywhere to go on his own, nor would he get very far out of this room on just his word, so she gets up to lead the way. Perhaps it's cliché of her, but she does so enjoy shopping, so she delights in going right away - and besides, it's not as if she can simply lend some pieces from her own wardrobe to such a waifish little thing. (Her dresses would surely drown him in fabric, in the few seconds of precarious balance before the bodices would slip right off!) Despite her earlier words, she ends up doing a lot of the clothing selection for him; it shouldn't be surprising, she supposes, that this child has precious little experience with choice. She's confident that she'll get him finding and declaring preferences soon enough, so she sticks to the basics for now: a sensibly extravagant fur coat, for style and for warmth; several pairs of slightly-too-large pants with belts that he can adjust as he grows into them; and plenty of gold accessories, of course, because they suit his complexion and go well with everything. She doesn't pick a new name for him, though, nor does she rush or steer him when he struggles to think of one for himself - if she has her way (and she nearly always does), it shouldn't matter overmuch, seeing as he won't be stuck with this one for very long at all.

~<>~

Generally speaking, a Stoneheart is too busy and far too important to oversee the training of novice strategic investment agents. However, considering a certain plan of hers that's on the cusp of coming to fruition, it's easy to justify inserting herself into the Iymanika operation - who better to evaluate a new member than one of their currently diminished number?

From the shadows, she stands by and watches her protégé confront the Mad Bull. A frown threatens to spill over her lips; he has done her proud, throughout this mission, but...

Even from her obscured vantage, she can see that not all of the hands on him are content to simply hold him back from the warlord.

Now, she's hardly a stranger to using sex appeal to her benefit on the job - there is a reason she dresses as she does, and only a little of it is related to the fact that she has always run hot - but this is different. Firstly, there's no benefit to this roaming touch; this is not a deal that that child made for information or strategic advantage. That leads nicely into the second issue, which is that it's not by his active choice at all - in fact, she notes with some displeasure that one of his hands is curling tightly as it does when he's feeling frightened or lost in memories. (He needs to get better at hiding that tell, especially in light of how well he's perfected his mask otherwise, but that's something for another time.) And finally, there's the fact that this is her protégé, the audacious, clever kid who stared up at her with dead eyes and bet his life and is a rare and beautiful creature but so, so much more than that, and—

Well. It's not the time; she pushes it aside as she waits for her cue. They carry out the plan perfectly - his plan, to be specific, and she can't deny feeling some pride at that - and soon this little test is over.

She presents the stone. She says the words. She does this properly, through and through, and when it is really and truly the new Aventurine standing in front of her, she pats his head exactly once as she gives him another piece of advice before chivvying him off to write his report on the ship back to Pier Point.

...and on her way out, she smashes the sharp tip of her shoe into the temple of one of the Mad Bull's underlings - specifically, a certain man with wandering hands. The temple is the thinnest part of the skull for most humanoids across the cosmos, and with the precise application of force (perhaps a little backed up by the power of a Pathstrider - who's to say?) the shards of bone go digging inside the veins and tissue within his brain. Deep, deep inside.

At the end of the day, it's not as though anybody of importance is going to take note of one more dead minion among the many.

~<>~

An interview with one of the many, many IPC-owned outlets is probably the tamest way available to introduce the newest Stoneheart to the public, which is especially convenient when that Stoneheart is eighteen, Sigonian, and not recognizable from any kind of more standard training or rank-climbing. In theory, Eulalia Frobisher is a good choice of specific interviewer - it'll be an article and photo shoot rather than a live show, she works with a crew of award-winning photographers, and she rarely does front pages but still has a good reputation and an avid following on cosmic social media. On the whole, Aventurine's setup for his own debut is all very well-done... in theory, anyway.

One look at him when he steps out for a break, however, and it's easy enough to tell that something different has happened in practice. There's a papery pallor to his skin, making his unnaturally flushed cheeks stand out all the more; his eyes are watering slightly, and if she listens for it Jade can hear that his breaths are shallow and ragged. She's abruptly glad that she decided to take her own break "coincidentally" in the lounge nearest to where the interview was scheduled to take place.

"Is this the latest trend in youth fashion?" she asks lightly, gesturing to his generally worn visage.

"Not that I know of," he replies, and the fact that it's said with a wince as a genuine statement of fact rather than a casual quip is another big sign that something's wrong.

She takes a deep breath and looks down at him critically. "Have you been drinking?"

"Just water," he says. Then: "Ma'am, I think I've been drugged."

"You've— child, haven't you been in an interview all day?" That wasn't even on the list of ways for this to go wrong - at worst she'd thought that maybe he'd get into a shouting match like Opal did during their first interview, and knowing the boy as she does, she hadn't seriously entertained that possibility for more than about ten seconds.

His eyes go slightly fuzzy. "I didn't meant to say that. I'll handle it, don't worry."

She's about to tell him that he certainly will not, because he has been drugged (and now that she's looking for it he definitely seems delirious, clammy, and possibly feverish), but just then, someone comes out of the room after him and she decides that that can wait. After all, why tell him that he's not handling it when she can simply put that into effect herself?

Eulalia Frobisher looks as prim and proper in person as she did in the files from her background check. She's reasonably beautiful, too - enough so that she could likely do televised interviews if she wished and not a single one of the half-dozen news outlets she regularly works with would begrudge her one bit. In her crisp pinstripe suit and red enamelled heels, she's the very picture of a Pier Point media bigwig; she even has the lavalier mic on her blazer to show for it, light still on and presumably paired to her recorder.

"Hey—" Whatever she was going to say crawls back down her throat at the sight of a second Stoneheart in the room. "Miss Jade."

"Yes," she says with a slight tip of her hat. "And you must be the one in charge of that magazine interview."

The journalist nods, crisp and eager. "Eulalia Frobisher."

"I trust things are going smoothly," Jade lies.

"Very smoothly," Eulalia says anyway, with a sharp titter. "Never fear - I have my ways of getting at the facts, even with the likes of him."

From the woman's tone, Jade gathers that she isn't referring to Aventurine's personal evasiveness or his gift of the gab. "This wouldn't have anything to do with why he told me he thinks he's been drugged, would it?"

Eulalia frowns. "My assistant wasn't supposed to mention that."

What.

"Miss Frobisher—"

"It's just a truth serum!" she promises, as if that makes it any better. So-called truth serums, at least as far as any IPC-funded research has found, simply do not work . At best, they're a specialized form of intoxicant; at worst, they're torture packed into a pill.

Despite his luck in life-or-death stakes, the general pattern of Aventurine's life suggests that he'll have ended up with something closer to the latter form.

"What," Jade asks sharply, "made you think to use a truth serum on an executive?"

The reporter scoffs. "Don't tell me this Sigonian bitch has you under his spell. Everyone knows they're liars and cheats! What, do you just believe everything he says because he's so good at warming IPC beds?"

As tempting as it is to shove Eulalia out a window then and there, Jade knows better than to cause her future self such a headache. Instead, she takes another half-step forward and places a calming, friendly hand on the other woman's shoulder.

(It takes a great deal of conscious restraint not to tighten her grip, turning her sharp nails into a weapon.)

"I haven't been... I haven't been doing that," Aventurine mumbles - and it must be inordinately important to him that she knows this, because it's the first thing that's come out of his mouth since Eulalia stepped through the door. It sends a frisson of venom across her throat, a temptation to flash fangs... though of course, she's easily able to brush it aside. Temptation is, after all, at the core of her hobby - manipulating it, regulating it, exploiting it, and more all run through the very bedrock of her domain.

"Miss Frobisher, I suggest you remember your manners as a guest," she says in an almost dangerously genial tone, angling the other woman gently but firmly away from her protégé. (If her eyes are glowing at all, well... it's nearly noon, and the bright lights of the lounge tend to help out with masking that sort of thing anyway.) "I'll give you one more chance. Why don't you reschedule the interview for tomorrow, to give my colleague time to recover from this... mishap?"

It is very clearly not a suggestion.

"Oh. Yes, I— I'm so very sorry, Miss Jade. I don't know what came over me," Eulalia replies, paling. "I won't overstep like this again. I apologize."

Notably, not one word of that was directed to Aventurine.

"Take the rest of the day, enjoy Pier Point, and then come back tomorrow and we'll forget this ever happened," Jade reiterates. "In fact... I'll call you a company car. I was planning to take a stroll before the end of my break, to enjoy the lovely weather, so it's not even out of my way."

"That's too kind of you," Eulalia simpers. "Really, I can't thank you enough for your graciousness."

Aventurine looks between the two women, his confusion abnormally transparent. He seems to be biting his lip fairly hard to keep from saying anything, presumably on account of the drug.

"You take the rest of the day, too, child," orders Jade, giving him one more appraising look. If anything, her earlier observations on his state were a massive underreaction, though only to someone who's known him a while - and it seems perfectly calibrated not to disrupt a photo shoot. His cheeks are flushed, but in a way that's flattering at first glance, and the sheen of wetness that hints at a pained sting in his eyes makes the vivid colours stand out that much more; even the shivering could easily be hidden or exploited via burst photographs. "Oh, but stop by the tenth floor on your way out - as I recall, the Intelligentsia Guild sent a doctor over to consult on those budget negotiations."

(Those meetings are scheduled to continue for the rest of the week anyway - and she's known enough academics to be fairly certain that the man won't mind spending a little less time in them, regardless of any personal feelings he might have about Aventurine's current predicament.)

As the younger Stoneheart goes ahead to the elevators, she flags down an assistant and tells her - loudly and visibly - to handle the overnight arrangements for Eulalia and her crew. With that handled, Jade leads the way to the north parking garage and summons a company car as promised; she even instructs the robot driver herself, keeping a sickly-sweet smile on her face all the while to show that she's moving past their earlier altercation. The journalist has come to her senses enough to be practically falling over herself with relief by the time she gets in the back seat and Jade waves her off.

The head of the security patrol that finds Eulalia Frobisher's body two days later is quick to deem the cause of death a mugging gone wrong, and the specialists brought in on the investigation concur. A random, tragic murder is something that even the IPC's vast influence cannot reverse, and since Eulalia was in the area for an interview with a Strategic Investment Department executive, Jade magnanimously volunteers a large sum for information leading to the arrest of the culprit. It goes viral within hours, and generates a fair amount of good press for the department - especially after word gets around about just what part of town she was in. "A mugging gone wrong" turns into "a deal gone wrong", with plenty of pearl-clutching speculation on what the details of said deal might have been.

Either way... What a pity - a very convenient pity - that most such incidents go unsolved.

(When Frobisher failed to show up for the rescheduled session, Aventurine had quickly done a second interview with one of the photographers, who was very apologetic about the drugging and soon became too wrapped up in his charms to take the questions any direction other than exactly where he wanted. It became a smash hit and left business students all over the cosmos swooning over the young man, heedless of just how little they really learned about him and the Stonehearts at large that they didn't already know.)

~<>~

Despite both being part of the IPC and thus operating out of the same complex at Pier Point, the Strategic Investment Division and the Marketing Development Department have relatively minimal interaction. This is generally a good thing - some might say that the heated rivalry between the department heads has trickled down across all the ranks, while others would say that the Marketing Development Department is remarkable primarily for its ability to turn otherwise decent people into utter bastards, but whatever the case it is perfectly true that encounters between the two divisions' personnel tend to go awry rather quickly.

For exactly that reason, when she sees a woman with an MDD uniform badge practically climbing onto Aventurine across his desk, Jade doesn't entertain the possibility that it's romantic in nature for so much as one minute.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" At the sound of her voice, Oswaldo's underling pulls back, knocking papers and shiny knickknacks all over. Now that Jade gets a good look, she can see that, while Aventurine's hair is mussed, the woman has nary a lock out of place - not exactly something that supports the idea of a mutually-desired liaison - and, other than an ever-deepening blush, seems quite nonplussed by her actions.

"Just discussing some unique marketing opportunities, Ma'am," says the MDD worker, with a self-satisfied smirk, before turning her attention back to Aventurine. "Remember, Beautiful, whenever you're ready to film you can come straight to me - I've got plenty of experience to guide you, and you can bet your first time will absolutely rake it in for the company... and the Amber Lord above all, of course."

Jade is such a polished professional that it would take far more than some crass implications for her to break her façade - but dear Qlipoth, if she's reading between the lines correctly...

"Out," orders the pink-haired Stoneheart, incensed enough that she struggles to conjure up a playful comment to go with it.

Face falling, the other woman beats a hasty retreat.

"Have the Marketing Development Department really taken to producing risqué dross as their newest approach?" Jade raises an eyebrow, not expecting a real answer. "You know, child, hardly anyone over there short of Oswaldo himself outranks you any longer. SID or not, you can simply order them out of your office."

"It's fine, Ma'am," he says, and a part of her smiles to note that he doesn't bother hiding the frayed edges to his tone. "She's been doing things like that every other day since I got this office in the first place - and I'd say I'm getting pretty good at handling it diplomatically!"

"That you are," she allows with a fond chuckle, and then checks: "You aren't actually interested in filming such... things for them, are you? With her or otherwise."

His catlike smirk turns uncertain for a fraction of a second. "I can be if I have to."

So that's a no, then.

"No, no, there's no need for that, child," she assures him. "I was just wondering."

(Specifically, wondering exactly how much she'll be wanting to draw out that foul worm's suffering - but there's no need for him to know that.)

The conversation goes quickly from there, being mainly a social call as she's collecting a brief point of clarification on a draft contract related to a recent new development in one of their major material-sourcing affiliate systems, and soon she's headed back to her own office... where she's not too busy to make use of the materials at her disposal.

With the help of the keycard access logs for the higher security floors of the IPC headquarters, it takes about twenty minutes to identify the lowlife as Vivien Veldt - a P37 talent scout and producer, far enough up the ladder in Marketing Development to have clearance for the block where Aventurine's office sits, but fortunately not someone with a skillset that would be particularly hard to replace. (Nor, more to the point, would sudden issues involving her be quickly noted by Oswaldo's actual best people.)

Leaving a paper trail would be mildly inconvenient at worst, but she has no reason not to follow best practices here - she arranges to encounter Veldt face to face when the horrid thing is on her way to Aventurine's office a few days later, and forestalls whatever the wretch is intending by bumping into her. It's amusing to watch the vile thing scramble, tripping all over herself to apologize, but that's merely an extra treat compared to Jade's actual plan...

The average piece of technology used by IPC office workers has little protection from external hazards - they save those resources for the things that actually need the toughness, of which there are many across their pan-galactic enterprise. Hence, a quick jolt of Quantum is all it takes to plant a dozen half-formed entanglements on Veldt's belongings, from her tablet computer and her keycards to her ID and her phone. Entanglement is a tricky thing, especially in machinery that lacks the capacity for self-repair... which, again, these pieces of tech are, as there's no reason to invest that kind of effort into low-security things that are meant solely for in-office use.

That nudge is all it takes to move the woman's deficiencies to centre stage. Late arrivals, wrong rooms, undelivered reports... Within the month, she's dropped below P30 and can no longer be an official producer for the Marketing Development Department, which is somewhat satisfying but not nearly enough even as she's poised to keep falling.

The next step involves sending her a bottle of liquor and a box of chocolates.

A bottle of 180-proof rum and a box of special liqueur chocolates, to be precise.

Although Jade does know how to fake all of the other Stonehearts' handwriting as a precaution, she decides against signing the note as Aventurine - the card she's using is made from a special fast-decaying paper and should be entirely vanished within days, so there's little need to worry that it will get around, but she doesn't want to give Veldt the satisfaction of thinking even temporarily that her deplorably unsophisticated coercion might have wrought some of the desired results. Instead, the note addressing the chocolates to "Vivien Veldt, fair rose of Marketing Development" is in a generic, novice-like calligraphy, so clearly affected as to be borderline unrecognizable.

As a finishing touch, Jade takes the paper slip cautioning about these chocolates' intensely high alcohol content... and tucks it neatly under the opaque plastic tray. (These chocolates aren't just any liqueur chocolates: they're from a project that got their inventor kicked out of an Intelligentsia Guild medical research lab, and each piece contains the equivalent of roughly quintuple its volume in pure alcohol. It's notable mainly for being at once an impressive expression of Quantum aptitude and also entirely useless - or, well, useless until now.) If examined, it will be found that the warning label was there; the natural assumption would be that Veldt read it, stored it out of view, and forgot it, more fool she. Of course, the treat isn't designed to kill her outright, so it's unlikely that any investigation will occur, but it's best to account for these things ahead of time to avoid regrets later...

Sure enough, hours after the parcel arrives at her cubicle, Vivien Veldt is admitted to the nearest hospital for severe liver failure. What dreadful luck that Pier Point has a grand total of two healing Pathstriders in the planet's entire population - and that, of those two, the one who might have the skill to repair recent cirrhosis is off taking a vacation in the Patrevia belt.

(Jade was, in fact, the one who gave that Pathstrider's entire family all-expense-paid show and cruise tickets in a so-called random drawing to ensure they'd be off-world for most of the month. Their presence and absence have both been extremely useful to her at various times, so it's something of a side benefit that this plan involved sending them a little gift.)

Of course, IPC hospitals aren't free - at least not to the rank and file - and synthetic replacement organs don't come cheap by any means. A P28 office worker isn't valuable enough in to have her treatment specially seen to, and prior to her demotion Veldt had never been the most responsible saver; she leaves her inpatient treatment with some pills and her name on an old-fashioned transplant waiting list, and simply files a performance impact notice on her return to work.

Jade strongly considers printing a copy of that notice and giving it to Aventurine as a present, but she'd much rather he never think about that little blip on his first months in the office ever again. The notice won't be in effect very long, anyway; she quietly changed Veldt's records to claim a vanishingly rare blood grouping, so there's no chance of a compatible transplant being found in time.

~<>~

Decadent and glitzy social events aren't exactly everyday on Pier Point, but they're not exactly rare, either. There are many ways they set about the grand mission of bringing as much of the cosmos as possible into the fold for Qlipoth's order and protection; one of those ways is by generating admiration for the immense wealth and prosperity at their fingertips, which naturally means showing off that wealth and prosperity in their own domain. The scale of this particular party is, however, unusual even for the IPC's central seat of power, especially when it comes to the range of invited guests... and, for that matter, of guests who actually showed up. Over by one of the decorative ice fountains, the up-and-coming Halovian pop star Robin is chatting with a pair of scholars from the Armed Archaeologists; at the window, an Intellitron ruminates over a glass of some bright layered cocktail. There are even several representatives of the Xianzhou Alliance in attendance - not just the mirthful Amicassador Tingyun with whom the Stonehearts semi-frequently cross paths, but also one of the Arbiter-Generals and a contingent of his family.

The Herta Space Station, too, have sent representatives, in the form of one of the Genius's puppets and a bright-eyed girl Jade recognizes from a couple of IPC gossip rags; the young Lady Asta's career leap to being an HSS researcher made some waves, to say the least. Topaz's work on a project with the girl's mother has led them to meet a few times, and she insists with an adorable level of passion that it would be a great waste if Asta were to go back to being a socialite heiress. At the same time, the redhead doesn't seem entirely out of her element at a function like this one, either - which is more than one can say for most researchers. As a point of contact with the HSS, she's got a good deal of potential.

Jade would know; she has an eye for these things.

Speaking of potential, she's happy to note that Aventurine is working the room with practiced ease at this point, flitting from conversation to conversation nearly as briskly as her. Although it remains to be seen whether he's gathered any useful intel, there's a more than decent chance of that by sheer volume if nothing else; it's hard to find a time to swap information so they can recalibrate, but by a few hours into the soirée, they both manage to drift to an area just past the central dance floor, tucked away by the mouth of a dark corridor leading to the hotel's business side.

"Enjoying the party?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at the glass of prismatic liquid in his hand. He tends to favour champagne or cider, from what she's seen, and there's plenty of both on offer.

"Hm? Oh, just something a new friend recommended," he says, smirking. "And speaking of new friends, I met a man who had some very interesting things to say about the Bituin Informatics M&A."

"Is that so?" She hums, pensive and pleased.

"So of course the Feilubin star system's been having some trouble with their neighbours, but that's not the reason behind the rush - I think there's been a..." Aventurine trails off, smooth voice all but dying to a soft rasp over the course of his statement.

Jade frowns and takes a moment to drain the rest of her honeyed wine, setting the empty glass down on a passing server's tray. "Hm? You were saying...?"

"Uh - yes, Ma'am. I..." He shakes his head, trying to straighten but instead pitching forward, just barely catching himself against her shoulder. He makes an... awkward landing, to say the least; from a distance it probably looks like they've been caught in a compromising position. It's a good thing, then, that her eyes are keen enough to catch the sheen of a camera lens halfway tucked behind an ornamental plant, viewfinder trained on the two Stonehearts too perfectly not to have been waiting for a moment like this somehow...

Oh.

Oh, that was almost something resembling a clever scheme.

"Miss Yunli," she calls over to the nearby little girl who's wandered away from her contingent of adults and seems to be looking for something - likely dessert or a more entertaining pastime, given her age.

The child closes the distance and inclines her head formally. "Lady Jade."

"Could I ask you to do something for me? This is Aventurine. He's... become afflicted with something all of a sudden, so I'd appreciate it if you could help him to the velvet-lined conference room just down that hallway to take a breather - use this card to open the door, make sure he closes it behind him, and give it to him before you come back." Jade takes out one of her spare keycards and holds it out, making note of the code on the back for her own reference to remotely deactivate later as she does.

(She picks that room because, in addition to its distinctive appearance for ease of giving directions, it's one of the most secure meeting rooms in this particular building. She would take him there herself, but she suspects he'll feel at least a little safer being dragged around by a child than an adult when he's in this state.

Also, she intends to be quite preoccupied in the immediate future...)

"I'll see to it." Yunli nods, face pinched into a mask of businesslike seriousness. "Do you need an alchemist? Yēye - General Huaiyan - would probably be happy to mediate that for you if you go talk to him."

Jade tips her hat gratefully, keeping her smile elegant and close-lipped. There's something quite endearing about a small child playing at politicking; she's glad that this girl hasn't thought to parlay the little favour she asked for into a proper negotiation. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you."

Looking proud of herself, Yunli sets to guiding Aventurine away down the corridor. The half-conscious blond follows with worrying pliancy, and soon the pair of them are safely enveloped by the darkness of the after-hours office space.

Now, then, to deal with the one behind this... Ah. Perfect - he hasn't gone far.

Jade approaches her target indirectly, circling like a shark as she wades into the crowd. (He's made a decent go at blending in, if only because of his drab and unremarkable looks.) Her fingers glitter with Quantum energy, and in one simple flick, the camera's memory is cleared. Rather than take the loss with grace and move on as would be wise, the reporter - more of a paparazzo, really, by his general air - decides to confront her about it, which saves her the effort of tracking him down again later. How... considerate .

"Is this how the Strategic Investment Department behave to their guests?" The odious fellow sneers at her, waving the still-sparking camera indignantly.

She coaxes her mouth into a venomously sweet arch, inclining her head just-so in order to have her hat cast a demure shadow over her eyes. "I apologize, Mister..."

"Clary. Ademar Clary," he supplies, rage fizzling down to something like slightly miffed avarice as he changes tack and grabs her hand to kiss her knuckles in mock gallantry.

"Charmed, I'm sure," she drawls. "I'm afraid my powers don't mix well with strong spirits, Mister Clary."

He nods sympathetically, face stretching into a lopsidedly toothy thing that he must think is a magnanimous smile. Unsurprisingly, this piece of slime is neither a Pathstrider himself nor very familiar with any, or he'd know better than to believe her what with the precision that move had taken. "Well, I'll overlook it... if you give me appropriate recompense, of course."

...ugh, seriously? Learn to extort people better, Ademar Clary.

She rolls her eyes, but only on the inside - unlike some people, she knows how to play this game, and she'll get what she wants faster if she lets him believe that this is going well for him.

"Of course," she says smoothly. "Why don't we go someplace quieter to discuss the details?"

He follows her without hesitation, eyes ravenous with an array of trite and base desires as his gaze rakes over every inch of the foyer and then the parlour beyond like he's trying to record a map. She grabs them a tray of hors d'oeuvres - some dainty skewer thing she doesn't remember the name of - on their way out (it's not like anyone will complain to her, of all people, about that) and sets them down invitingly on the windowsill as she's staking their claim on a couch off to the side.

And really, you'd think someone who goes around spiking drinks at parties would be more familiar with the concept of perfectly odourless poisons.

~<>~

Over the years that follow, Jade watches her child's career with vested interest, and is happy to find that there's seldom any further need for her subtle manipulations - as his reputation builds, fewer and fewer people make an issue of his homeworld, and even the type of scum who would wish to turn unwelcome attentions on him do at least seem to have enough pattern recognition to realize that the worst of their ilk have a tendency to mysteriously vanish soon afterwards. (Her personal garden has expanded significantly from just the one tree, thanks to an excess of fertilizer that she's had to go through.) Aventurine steadily blossoms into a well-known power in the business world, charming and gambling his way through project after project - and for all that, she can see plainly that he still has plenty of growing to do. With the right combination of care and circumstance, he could be the best of them, his perfect combination of genuine charisma, fierce cunning, and ruthless ambition making his "Aventurine of Stratagems" Cornerstone a particularly apt fit.

It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that she's proud, though of course she doesn't share that information haphazardly.

The next notable time she has to intercede - albeit in a new way - is at a much smaller social event, celebrating the ultimate success of their grindingly long negotiations over the handling of a new supply chain redundancy protocols. It's just a tier above a plebeian after-work hangout, really, with the team from the assignment filling up a Pier Point bar that's been rented for the purpose. There being no major reason to network with any of these people, Jade is content to watch and listen and perhaps see if anyone here strikes her as the type that might be interested in the Bonajade Exchange.

At some point in the evening, her eyes fall on Aventurine, perched on the back of a booth and cheerfully flipping a little black disc into his champagne. (She appreciates the discretion - or apathy, perhaps - of the R&D intern she commandeered to design a series of poker chip–shaped devices with detection and neutralizing capabilities that work on most pharmaceuticals. One weakness of putting up a charm offensive is that it makes it quite difficult to outright refuse drinks much of the time, and not everyone has had the time and resources to acquire her sheer variety and level of poison immunity.)

He's laughing at something that that celebrated young doctor of his has said - likely not with the intent to amuse, given the scowl and slight red tinge on the plum-haired man's face. It's a pure and bright sound, glinting faintly of the innocence that had already been burnt down to cinders at best by the time she met him, and unbidden, the corners of her mouth tip ever so softly upwards.

Unfortunately, it just so happens to catch the eye of a certain middle manager who's always thought their relationship vastly more intimate than it actually is.

"They grow up so fast, don't they?" remarks Ida Borsson, an older woman with such a head for numbers and accounts that her utter lack of social awareness hasn't posed nearly as much of a barrier to her advancement as it normally ought to.

Jade idly swishes the wine around in her glass. "I'm not sure what you mean, Ida."

"Your boy - how long has it been since you took him in? He's grown so much from that poor little wisp of a thing I remember you dragging around the department store," Ida says with a fond chuckle. It isn't true, really - it's no surprise given his age and long-term malnourishment by the time of the Egyhazo case, but he's hardly grown an inch in all this time.

"Oh, don't say it like that." The Stoneheart reminds herself to keep the tone of her voice light and casual. "You'll give someone the wrong idea."

(Or the right idea - she's not honestly sure which of those labels would fit. Either way, it's not an idea she wants getting out there; none of the Stonehearts is fragile by any means, and Aventurine arguably among the least of all, but everyone has moments of weakness, and being known to care for another person in effect multiplies those moments by a factor of two at the absolute least.)

"I don't know how you're not the proudest parent in the office," Ida continues blithely, her chuckles turning into something near guffawing. "Sure, he's all grown up, but you've got a great kid!"

No fewer than three of the conversations around them conspicuously stop to listen in at that. It's a lost cause to hope that no form of rumour about the two Stonehearts is going to be circulating by this time tomorrow; too many people who've consumed too much alcohol have heard it now, from what sounds like a reliable source. The name of the game, then, is damage control.

"I think you've had enough to drink for one night," Jade says, just a little louder than she needs to. She makes a slight show of prying the glass from Ida's hand, fuming on the inside and braced for this to cause her at least half a dozen different kinds of headache as that supposed new information inevitably slips into the hands of some of the IPC's many enemies - or, for that matter, her own personal enemies as Lady Bonajade.

This can't happen again.

Of course, it would be plain wasteful to dispose of an IPC manager for such a small threat caused only by a certain sentimental foolishness... So she supposes she ought to take other, less drastic measures instead. A few well-timed applications of certain hallucinogens should be plenty to ensure that no gossip from the old lady's mouth will ever be believed going forward.

(And if that loss of trust ultimately has some unexpected ramifications, well... It's not as though one more death via chain reaction makes any sort of a splash in Jade's ledger.)

~<>~

By the time they receive the invitation to the Charmony Festival, Jade suspects Aventurine is at least beginning to have an inkling about her support and affection from the shadows - but she is quickly proven wrong about that at the meeting where they begin to lay out the task of making inroads with Penacony, because his plan involves finding a way to stage his own death with an overwhelming likelihood of it not being fake. Which - yes, okay, a dead Stoneheart would justify sending ships and agents to Penacony in great numbers, but...

It seems like he expects her to have no problems with this.

It seems like he expects Topaz to have no problems with it, either.

It seems like he expects Veritas Ratio , his frequent mission partner and an avowed humanist, to have no problems with it. Somehow.

"Child... Is this really your plan?" It's a good enough plan by the numbers that she has no grounds to veto it, but that doesn't mean she's happy. She would very much like to ask him what the hell is wrong with him, if she weren't now quite sure that it would be taken poorly.

"You can trust my luck to get your Cornerstone back in one piece," Aventurine promises with a smile.

...wonderful: he's identified the wrong problem entirely. As a wielder of Quantum, she can safely say that his oxymoronic (and, on occasion, regular moronic) balance of wit and obliviousness ought to count as a system in superposition.

~<>~

Somehow, the silly child gets it into his head that her calling him and expressing relief at his survival is meant to "poke fun". Jade forbears to make any form of annoyance or exasperation audible across the line - she's better than that - but wonders what, if anything, could possibly get Aventurine to entertain the notion that people might genuinely care about him. For Qlipoth's sake, that doctor he likes so much addresses him almost exclusively by nicknames and yet he still seems to believe they have no emotional connection!

She makes a mental note to send him more of those plush weighted blankets sometime soon. It won't help anything, but she does so enjoy hearing the boy's water cooler stories about the mischief his cats keep getting up to with those things... and also his general befuddlement about why she keeps sending him soft, warm items in the first place.

As the call ends, a chuckle escapes her throat, gracefully transitioning into a sigh after a moment. That child... She'd say he's going to make her hair go grey, were that an actual possibility for her. Despite acting as Diamond's mouthpiece a good fraction of the time, she doesn't actually hold sway over any but a few particular types of decisions - and personnel promotions are not such an area, falling quite decidedly outside the scope of her power.

What's not outside the scope of her power is picking the phone back up and dialling a number that's long since become second-nature.

"Diamond, I have a recommendation for you," she says sweetly, her voice dripping with the dewy candy-apple richness that means she will not smilingly brush off a denial. She seldom takes that tone with him, not only because he's her boss but also because their wishes align far more often than not, so he's sure to afford it the gravity it deserves. "When the Penacony investment deal goes through - and it will - consider promoting Aventurine to P46. You won't regret it."

(Hardly deserving of even a footnote among his many distinguishing qualities, but arguably as impressive as any of the rest, is Diamond's status as the one person who can get away with commenting on Jade's soft spot in perfect safety.)

Chapter Text

Getting ready to depart Penacony after a very successful stock acquisition (which came with bonus ties to the Astral Express, at that!), Jade finds herself musing on several things - including a certain youngster whose daring scheme paved the way for the Penacony deal to go through.

It is rather comical how much every little display of genuine care seems to confound Aventurine - deeply sad, too, she supposes, but it feels much more pleasant to focus on the amusement angle for whatever reason. For all that the blond is cunning and a quick study and reads people as easily as posterboard in negotiations, something as simple as a pat on the head or a gift with no strings attached can go a surprising ways toward causing his mask to slip. It's a potential problem, and she has to admit she doesn't know just how much of one; naturally, the other Stonehearts being too nice to him will be about the last thing he'll have to worry about when they gather for his hearing over the broken Cornerstone, but after that, staying allied with the Astral Express might put his limits to the test on that front sooner rather than later.

(And there will be an after - she doesn't particularly think the rest of their colleagues are the kind of absolute nincompoops who'd prioritize a shallow, fixable breach of proper Aeon-reverence over the continued existence of one of their proven rising stars, but if it does seem to be going in the wrong direction, she has some amount of suitable blackmail on all but one of the likeliest holdouts. Also, thanks to one lovely drinking party a couple of decades ago, Jade currently holds power of attorney and legal proxyship for about half the other Stonehearts - so in truly dire straits, a bit of sudden 24-hour nap time can certainly be arranged...)

Anyway, it's worth considering how to get around this potential weakness before it does them any actual detriment. There are a few workable plans that occur to her, off the top of her head, to test the parameters of the issue - but one of them is notably more fun than the rest...

Mind made up, she starts a text conversation with that grey-haired Nameless in which she ends up casually "revealing" that Aventurine's birthday is tomorrow. (She discovers in the process that the young Stellaron vessel is almost extraordinarily bad at suggesting gifts. What in the name of the Amber Lord do they expect Aventurine would do with a capsule machine?!) For all she knows, it very well might be true - there's... what, a one in two hundred chance? The lengths of the non-standardized years observed on planets in triple star systems tend to be tricky to calculate, but about that many days sounds like a reasonable guess for Sigonia-IV. She's fairly certain he doesn't celebrate his birthday at all, so there's no harm in lying about exactly when he doesn't celebrate it, now is there?

><*✴︎*><

Aventurine is pretty sure the Nameless are going to kill him, but at present he can't really bring himself to care.

It occurs to him that that's probably the sort of thing he should be contacting a doctor about, as far as Nihility exposure aftereffects go. He doesn't particularly feel like bugging Dr. Ratio, though, so at March's bubbly insistence, he covers his eyes and lets her and Stelle lead him to an unspecified location away from the Reverie. Although this isn't quite the way he imagined it happening, he did more or less expect to die on Penacony; what does it matter that it's after he somehow survived his latest life-or-death gamble?

(Besides, it's very possible that all this will change is it'll save the other Stonehearts a bit of time. The hearing isn't scheduled just yet, but given the shattered Cornerstone and all, there's a pretty good chance they're going to kill him - and in a much more literal way than most people worry about their coworkers and superiors doing.)

"Okay, you can open your eyes now!" announces March when they've been walking for maybe ten minutes and made so many turns that he genuinely has no idea where they might be. He does, just in time to see her twirling happily into the centre of an unfamiliar but lavish room where she rushes to pick up a pair of small cones, tossing one to Stelle; in the few seconds as the two youths scramble to ready themselves for... something... Aventurine's eyes scan around the strange location. Based on the presence of all four Nameless he's met before and the large windows looking out into the stars, he'd guess that this is the Astral Express - the small, fluffy creature in a conductor's uniform must be the famed Pom-Pom.

Several people other than the Astral Express crew are present as well: Ratio, Topaz, Jade, Black Swan, Robin, and even the Knight of Beauty who rescued him are there, along with a few he doesn't know. He thinks they must be more of the Nameless's allies and Pathstrider friends - he's gotten snippets of information here and there from March's Cosmogram timeline, but not enough to recognize any of them by face.

"Happy birthday!" they all shout. Confetti showers the room, and even though it's dry his mind fills with rain and mud and blood.

><*✴︎*><

Veritas has to admit that he was rather uncertain about whether a surprise party would really be to Aventurine's tastes - the gambler is generally impulsive, yes, but he's also wary and cynical and surprisingly pessimistic outside of his confidence in his bets. It might very well also be too much fuss and fanfare; it hasn't escaped Veritas's notice that in the roughly two years they've known one another, he's never once heard any mention of Aventurine's birthday - not even in the half a year since their relationship quite inarguably left the confines of standard Guild-IPC professional collaborations.

Out of all his partner's possible reactions, though, completely freezing up wasn't exactly one that the doctor had afforded much consideration.

"Hello? Helloooooo?" Stelle is the first to react, predictably enough - and with their usual lack of tact, too, as they snap their fingers in front of the gambler's face. Dan Heng and March team up to yank them back by their hood, both sighing.

"What's going on here?" Aventurine asks, a little snappish and far more palpably guarded than he tends to let show anywhere other than the heat of battle.

"We're throwing a birthday party for you, silly child," says Jade.

Aventurine makes a heartbreakingly confused noise.

"Look, we got you some presents! Here's one from Qingque, and she's never heard of you before today," Stelle declares proudly, gesturing at the Xianzhou girl who's been practically bouncing up and down on one of the sofas next to a wrapped box-like object for the past half hour.

"I heard you like games of chance and skill," the girl - Qingque - says, eyes twinkling in a way startlingly similar to the way Aventurine looks at people who are about to lose grand bets to him. "Do you know how to play Celestial Jade?"

"A little," says the blond, who Veritas knows to actually be extremely skilled and experienced at that classic Xianzhou pastime.

The girl cheers and sets to unpacking the new game board and tiles with nearly alarming speed.

"But why would you go to all this trouble?" Aventurine asks no one in specific.

Veritas can't help but arch an eyebrow at that. "Gambler, your supervisor has arranged or committed what I suspect to be a great many murders for you. By comparison, do you really think organizing a birthday party is at all an extreme gesture?"

At that, almost everyone else in the room turns to look at Jade in varying levels of shock, which Veritas finds a little excessive considering how easy it had been to arrive at that conclusion on several cases and abstract a pattern thereafter. (Really, he has to imagine the main thing giving her general indemnity on the matter is her status as a Stoneheart and one of Diamond's most trusted lieutenants.) Perhaps it's simply because most of them have had little in the way of dealings with the Stonehearts, but Topaz and especially Aventurine himself really have no excuse.

"I organized the party, actually," Stelle says, leading to hushed bickering between them and the other two Nameless youths over the extent to which that's true. Based on what he knows of the Astral Express crew, Veritas presumes Stelle's main role was sending out invitations and asking for permission to use the Parlour Car - in that order, most likely. As for the rest of it, the decor has March 7th's distinct touch, and everything else was obviously Pom-Pom.

"You wouldn't have known it was his birthday in the first place if not for Miss Jade!" March points out amidst the bickering.

At that, Aventurine seems to snap out of his shock at least a little more.

"It isn't my birthday," he says.

For the second time in the past half hour, Veritas is completely taken aback. Let this be a lesson, he supposes: there's no such thing as outside the realm of possibility when it comes to the gambler.

Jade shrugs, looking unsurprised. "The odds weren't in my favour, but I made a guess regardless."

"You lied?" Stelle sounds significantly more upset about this than they did about the mention of murder. Not for the first time, Veritas finds himself mildly concerned about the Stellaron vessel's unknown age and developmental state; he knows from debating with them that they have some latent intellectual talent (even if they seldom elect to deploy it), but it's easy to forget that they only have something like a year of life experience.

At least Aventurine seems to be quite calmed down, now. They will need to talk about what caused his initial reaction later - or Veritas will need to insist that he talk about it with someone else at the least - but for now, such heavy matters can wait.

><*✴︎*><

Jade smiles as she watches Aventurine and the petite Quantum girl absolutely wipe the floor with two of the Nameless youths in bridge, having set aside Celestial Jade temporarily in order to see what happens if they join forces. There's a certain satisfaction in noting that her plan has, if anything, done better than expected or hoped for; maybe she should let this be a lesson and figure out what to do for little Jelena in a similar vein...