a beautiful day

Who: Andrei
Where: The streets/Eris' building
When: Late morning

It was a bright, blue day. The sun shining down amongst picturesque clouds, it's light bouncing off of buildings, and its rays touching down to warm the city's fine citizens. And Andrei appreciated it.

Hell, Andrei was whistling.

Which, actually, wasn't a rare occurrence. It was something he did when he was feeling cheery, and Andrei was a man who was often cheery. It was a perfect tune really, a simple old lullaby his mother had sung long ago, and even if he couldn't recall the words for the life of him he had never forgotten the tune. It was one he had quickly realized the infinite value of: of a cadence perfectly suited to the rhythm of his work, and how the song itself could grab the sounds around it -- the lapping of the river, the click of a steel-toed boot, the thud of a crowbar against a surface much softer than its metal -- and entwine them into a perfect symphony every time. Every time a simple whistle, with the rise and fall of each note flawlessly pitched, or a mere humming (if he needed more concentration) could take all those sounds and create such perfect beauty. He really couldn't think of another tune that could do that half so well. And, really, it was a shame the audience never seemed to appreciate it.

But the people on the street seemed to appreciate it. Catching his tune, many smiled at him as they passed by. And Andrei smiled back. And then some of their smiles would falter, and they would continue past at a pace a bit quicker than it had been.

But Andrei wasn't at all put off by it. It was a beautiful day, after all -- which was what had him whistling in the first place. He actually didn't care one way or the other that the sky was blue, or that the weather allowed a short-sleeve shirt instead of a long one, or that the soft breeze was caressing his skin. All he cared about was that it was a wonderful day for colors, and a perfect day for delivering a bouquet.

A rather expensive bouquet, because Andrei had been extremely particular as to the shade of each rose. He had even gone so far as to comprise the bouquet from several florists, sometimes even only buying an individual flower from one, as none of them had the entirety of what he was looking for. And that effort was paying off in spades, as the bright sunlight danced upon the petals, revealing the subtle nuances to the spectrum that were giving passerbys pause even if they couldn't quite put the finger on why. Every flower was perfect: no red too bright, no purple touching on pastel, and each black was shown to be deeper, brilliant shade of the other two in such sunlight. They were the colors he worked with most, and he knew them well, and his bouquet had caught them perfectly -- of which he was extremely proud.

When he stepped into the building, the concierge -- seeing a man bearing a bouquet -- greeted him with a smile. But that smile had slipped into an uncertain frown by the time he made it to the desk. And, although the smile was quickly recovered, the eyes couldn't help shifting between the man and the bouquet, trying to determine just what exactly was off with such an outwardly typical picture. But, as the man put the bouquet down and snatched a paper from the desk's notepad stationary, the concierge finally clicked onto something that was noticeably weird about the picture: the bouquet was held by a belt, a leather one although it was without a buckle, and a small dark ruby on a chain hung from it.

When the man had finished writing the note, his teeth bared into a smile that gave the concierge pause even though he didn't know why, as the man pushed the note with the bouquet toward him, "For Miss Stockard." The concierge took both items with a polite smile, although he let it fall once the man had turned around and -- whistling -- exited onto the street. That had felt weird, and disturbing, even though the concierge couldn't really explain it. But he went ahead and called, glancing down at the note as he did so. Nothing unusual about it, just a date and a time of what seemed to be a standard dinner reservation; and at the end of it was simply: Enjoy the necklace.