"Huh. So this is definitely your thing. I bet Taimi will love having you around."

"This is absolutely my thing!" she agrees, smiling. "And yeah, I bet she will, too. Though, standard field practices have probably changed in the past couple hundred years, so I might not be up to the highest standards for data collection." Smirk. "Yet."

He laughs. "You're amazing."

"Yep, thank you for noticing!" she agrees. "Later in my career I ended up doing more and more field research, because, uh. People started realizing that it was useful to have me around to disentangle weird magical stuff. I got ordered to go to weird places with growing frequency. Ironically I ended up being more of a specialist in dealing with out of control magical anomalies, because, well. I could often just shut them down."

Then she winces and looks away.

"Which is how I fell into the Mists."

"—oh. I'm sorry." He scoots over closer to her to wrap his arms around her.

She leans into him and closes her eyes, giving a little hum of appreciation.

"Thanks. It's okay, it was a long time ago, I have since lost all of my bitterness about the circumstances. I made my peace with it, it's just. Hard to talk about."

He nods and kisses the top of her head. "I can imagine. You know, I'd always wanted to come here but never had time and reason to get around to."

"Thanks, Primordus?" she wonders, wryly. "The place is certainly something, I can see why you'd want to see it. Do you want help finding reasons to go to other interesting places?"

"They usually come around one way or another."

"Well, all right, you are pretty busy and well travelled. But if you get bored and antsy, I'm ready and able to help you out." She leans over and kisses the end of his nose.

He grins. "I'm sure you'll be great at it."

"Hopefully. It'd certainly be nice."

And they finish eating.

"So, shall we?"

"We shall!" she agrees, beaming at him. Picnic blanket is packed up and shoved into her bag, and then they can go.

More equipment fixing! More sample collecting! Whee!

James: is very good at what he does. At least when what he does is hitting things. And Vetareh's help is really useful, there, too.

This makes it a pretty good date. She likes being useful, she likes doing things that matter, she likes getting to watch James work and fight with him, and she likes gathering samples. There are very real stakes at play and she doesn't think that's changed or her own personal sense of fun is somehow more important than saving the world, but she sees no reason why she shouldn't enjoy herself while she's saving the world.

She slowly learns the ins and outs of the destroyers, and counters them more effectively as time goes on. At the same time, she also gets more of a feel for how James's spells work, and carefully times her own to synergize better with his. It's sort of romantic, actually.

Eventually, though, they're going to run out of equipment to fix.

And so they should get back to the asuran researcher.

    "Oh, you're back! I see you've been busy."

"Busy as a bee. I think I managed to fix everything I could find."

    "And you're still alive. I see the reputation isn't undeserved."

Vetareh produces an impressive amount of samples from her mesmer bag. All labeled. With attached documentation. All together, the package is almost bigger than the researcher.

"And here are the destroyer samples for Taimi. This is an explanation of the preservation signet I used and all expected effects and all of the parameters it meets. I'm afraid I haven't worked with asura before, and so wasn't sure if there was a scientific standard you kept, so I just used my favorite."

The researcher raises a sceptical eyebrow but accepts the package and starts skimming through the report. She pauses on page six, then continues skimming but with a bit more attention paid to it, the eyebrow going from sceptical to pleasantly surprised.

    She reaches the end and looks up at James. "How come you have a reputation and she doesn't?"

James just shrugs in response.

Vetareh beams.

"I only started following him around yesterday. I'd call him a trouble magnet, but he seems to run towards it, too. At some point I expect people will catch up and start expecting me." Shrug. "Everything in order, then?"

"Yes. I'd never seen a signet like this one before. The standard one is better, of course, but this is close enough I wouldn't expect a b—a human to know it. Anyway, I'll take them to Taimi at once."

And then there's a sudden tremor, apparently all over the island, strong enough to almost knock the asura over.

Vetareh catches herself and frowns.

"Is this amount of sesmic activity normal...?"

    "Not this much," the researcher says, shaking her head. "Ember Bay's always presented powerful volcanic and seismic activity, but the intensity of these events is unprecedented."

"Thanks to Primordus, I'd guess. The ground felt like it was about to come apart right under us. Are the islands in danger?"

    "Given the dragon's presence, it's certainly a possibility. Unfortunately, I lack the proper equipment to know for sure. One of my colleagues was tasked with monitoring the seismic activity just east of here. He may know more."

"We'll check it out tomorrow first thing in the morning."

    "Good luck, Commander and... friend."

Yeah, calling it here sounds smart. It's starting to get dark, which will not help them fight destroyers, and she's rapidly running out of the time the caffeine bought her. They push it much further, and she might start being a liability.

"Vetareh. Thanks, you too, with your research and equipment."