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First Impressions are the Worst [story, ooc welcome] - Naunet - 08-19-2013
((RP done in the CRA's IC chat box. This occurs roughly a week after An Opportunistic Proposal.))
***
The Limsa office utilized by D'hein was sparsely furnished; it was not used more than once every few weeks. Spacious but not large, comfortable but not beautiful, it was furnished with a single desk and a handful of padded seats. The walls and floor were bare wood. Windows at the front were hung with red curtains of a reasonably-priced fabric, and they were drawn to either side to let the light into the room. D'hein moved about in a red robe that had a very business-like collar and sleeves but was otherwise loose and built for comfortable travel, adorned with only some brass buttons and some white border-work. The office bore the scent of potted flowers that set on the corner of the desk, and the rest of the desk is covered in a pile of unorganized paperwork. A single, vast, broad and short pile. A terrifying pile of hundreds of pages with no organization at all. D'hein pays this pile no mind as he paces about the room, reading a few pages he holds, smiling at nothing.
Ildur looked back at Dhein's organizational nightmare, not turning completely. He was standing in front of one of the windows, wearing a very simplistic dark red coat and black trousers. He also had a scarf, under the coat, carefully placed over his shirt. He looked back at the pile of papers with a mix of scorn and pity. "How can you work like that?"
The Miqo'te stopped walking, and glanced up at Ildur for just an instant, then at his desk for a moment, then back to what he was reading. Then he threw Ildur a smirk, "Oh, I've already been through all of it. I know where everything is."
He didn't look particularly confident on those words. "I'm sceptic. Where in that pile is the report of Antimony's last client, then?"
Flashing his teeth in a broad smile, D'hein let out an annoyinglingly loud and sudden, "Ah ha!" And followed that up by fast-walking to his desk and proclaiming, "I love skeptics! So fun to prove wrong! Oh the look on your face when you see, it's the page right here!" He thrust his hand into the pile blindly and pulled out a shopping list, holding it up to Ildur without looking at it. "The report!" The shopping list has the following items: milk, chocolate, tea, biscuits, a tuna, milk, apples, walnuts and milk.
The highlander smiled slightly, turning only enough so his hand could reach and take the magnificent report. "Ah, the report." he said. "Have you read it?"
D'hein, still clueless that he pulled out the wrong piece of paper, chose to believe he drew the correct one from the lot. And so he crossed his arms smugly over his chest and beamed, speaking voluminously, "Of course! Practically memorized it!"
"Excellent. I'd like you to tell me more about this 'tuna' mentioned here." Ildur inquired, raising a brow at the list with faked interest.
Suddenly very serious, Dhein turned his head down so he was looking up at Ildur. His ears turned forward and his tail swung about behind him, one time audibly whacking the chair. "Tuna. What tuna?"
He turned the paper around so that the Miqo'te could see it. His index finger pointed at one line. "This tuna."
Frowning at the page for a few seconds, Dhein then smiled a crooked smirk, "Ah, you're making fun!" But then his ears suddenly lay flat against his head and his cheer vanished, "But curse the twelve I forgot the walnuts!"
"I'm sure I can get you an assistant so that you don't miss on any more walnuts" he nodded before pointing to the desk, his hand still holding the list. "I swear to the Twelve, that if paperwork had a Primal, this pile would be it"
"Bah," Dhein waved both hands in front of his face vehemently, "I don't need an assistant. I'm doing just fine. I've really read it all, I swear!"
Ildur moved away from the window- "Since our chances of finding it are now quite dim, I'll have to appeal to your memory. Did it say anything that would suggest he will send more hitmen against our newest employee?"
After taking an entire fifth a half a second to think over the question, D'hein's broad smile split his face again, "Besides the fact that he's absolutely scared to death of a middle-aged Miqot'e grandma, no!" He pulled one of the chairs over behind his , sat at it, and began going through the pages. "Of course, if he hired more people, we wouldn't find records of it very easily."
Ildur was now on the other window, gazing outside. "Probably not, but something in his finances might suggest about it. He's hired at least three already." He tilted his head, his attention drifting towards one of the many ship docked outside. "I'd rather not have to bury an asset before it has the chance to be useful."
D'hein turned his gaze up from his pages long enough to say in an only half-joking tone, "Why not just kill him? If there's no employer, there's no pay, there's no job!"
"Yes." There was a sigh. "Though we shouldn't make that solution an habit. That's how one ends drowning under the docks, the same night your associate also drowned."
Blinking, "That's awfully specific for-... Oh!" His ears shake, "Haha! You're right! Well, how about this?" He took a break from his papers and went to a drawer on his desk, speaking as he searched through it, "We could do some digging. Based on what our new friend already found. Find a reason to freeze his assets and put him in the lock-up. Fix it 'legal'. Act like us!"
***
Antimony picked her way carefully through the crowded hall of West Hawkers' Alley, tucking her arms close to her body to squeeze between merchants and speculators and economists and tourists and who knew what else. She always felt small when traversing Limsa, with its preponderance of Roegadyn filling the walkways with their bodies like mountains, or at the very least rather large boulders.Â
She spun suddenly, twisting to the left to avoid the large, green arms of one of these citizens hefting an equally massive crate, and ducked her head just in time to keep from getting brained with one corner of the wooden box. She managed a muttered, “Excuse me,†and gave a last push to the side until she burst out of the crowd into a small alcove, within which sat a simple door with a simple sign that read “Commerce Regulation Agency†engraved in bronze.Â
Antimony took several moments to fix her somewhat frazzled, heavily greyed hair and adjust the wrinkles out of her robe – a utilitarian cut with a high collar in dark blue fabric. One hand absently smoothed down the fur of her ears as green eyes peered up at the sign and worked through the words of introduction she had planned all of yesterday, and then scrapped and re-wrote during her walk to this very door. First impressions were absolutely important, and Antimony feared the one she’d given the one Ildur Vaernian who had come knocking at her door several days ago had not been especially… respectable. She could only hope he had excused it as stress. But then what did that say about her ability to handle stressful situations? Not good, not good! She needed to fix this! Drawing in a breath, she reached up with one hand and rapped her knuckles on the door in sharp staccato.
Ildur turned away from his window gazing. For a moment, D'hein had his attention, but the knocking at the Miqo'te's door shattered it. "Someone's calling at your office," he remarked.
"Yep! Should be that woman we were just talking about!" He pulls a large glass bottle of milk from the drawer and sets it on the desk, pushing some of the pages out of the way, "You should let her in!"
"It's your office. I don't want her thinking this mess of papers is mine."
D'hein scoffed at that, "What, are you afraid of her now too? Fine, I'll get it." He pushed his chair out and stood, unopened bottle of milk in hand, and made his way over to the door, frowning at Ildur all the way. "Rude to make her wait."
Antimony dropped her hand from the door, clasping them both in front of her for a moment before deciding she had an appointment and she had announced her presence, so it was only reasonable to... She moved to push the door open.
Moving up next to the door and going to open it, he was completely broadsided when it opened on its own and knocked the bottle of milk right out of his hand, sending it to shatter on the floor. D'hein danced away from the glass and white liquid and spat out, "Ah, Twelve! What!"
Ildur raised both brows and chuckled in amusement.
Antimony reeled back from the door a good step or two away and stared with a sort of disbelieving horror for several seconds before bursting out, "Oh no, I am... My sincerest apologies! I’d knocked, and I thought I'd waited the appropriate length of time and then I don't know what got into me I must've just--I wasn't thinking! Of course you would come to the door, why would I possibly need to let myself in, I've never even been invited save for the appointment today and--are you alright??"
Looking on the mess near his door, D'hein grit his teeth and pulled on his ears with both hands, shifting about in torment. "No! Ah, fu-! That just can't-! It's not fair! That was my last bottle! Why must I have all the worst luck? Just every bit!"
"You could have just shouted 'Come in, it's open'. Just for future reference." Ildur said.
Antimony's ears and tail wilted, and she moved forward to begin to attempt to gather up the glass, all the while apologizing, "I shouldn't have pushed so vigorously. Of course someone would be on the other side, it's only logical to assume that, considering I knew you were all here, and why wouldn't you be - you scheduled an appointment to meet with me! And look at this mess, it will take forever to clean up, I just can't believe I opened the door, and without an invitation, it was horribly rude. I'm so sorry!"
"Oh, would you-" D'hein made a sort of a hiss-growl sound at Ildur, "Yelling like that is not how a man greets a lady!" And then, walking towards Antimony, he said with a rather impolite bite, "Please leave that. I'll get it. Just go take a seat."
"Oh I shouldn’t have strayed from the plan," she said mostly to herself and then straightened with a few of the larger pieces tucked carefully in one sleeve of her robe. "It's alright, I'm quite familiar with cleaning up messes." She finally got a look then at the person she'd managed to nearly bowl over and blinked once as her brain ran through a few assumptions before smiling tightly.
Ildur didn't move away from the window. He looked at the scene with great amusement, though he concealed it behind a small smile. That is to mean, he did not conceal it at all. "Please, do not mind yourself about the now gone milk bottle... it now is one with the light of the Crystal." He smiled broadly, drowning a chuckle. "That man that was so fond of it is my colleague, D'hein."
D'hein blinked down at Antimony's smile, having not gotten a good look at her yet. His ears gestured very subtly and his tail twitched, and he muttered, "Yes, I'm D'hein. You aren't nearly as old-looking as that report made me imagine."
Her smile fell with a short, "Excuse me?"
"I think he's trying to compliment you on your looks."
His ears shook again, and he smiled broadly, chuckled, "Uhh.... hah. I've said something terrible, haven't I? Can we, uhm..." He looks around, catches Ildur's words, and says, "No! If I was to do that, I'd be far smoother. That was quite a bungle on my part. You know what? I'll just show myself out." He stepped around Antimony, through the open door, and closed it behind him.
Antimony stood very still just inside the door, save for her tail that twitched confusedly at the very tip, with an increasingly baffled expression.
"A charming, if odd, individual." Ildur said lowly.
"Ah..." Her eyes dropped to the floor, where the milk had spread about as far as it was going to reach and had begun to become one with the flooring. "I should... clean this up, I think."
From outside the room, D'hein knocked on the door. Twice. Sharp and firm.
"Do not worry about that." Ildur looked past the woman and raised his voice "Come in. It's open."
D'hein took a moment to go to the window and scowl, shaking his head at Ildur. Then he returned to the door and defiantly knocked again.
Antimony half-turned towards the door, looked to Ildur, and then back at the door. Her ears, which still drooped against the top of her skull, twitched briefly before she - very carefully - reached out to pull the door open, stepping slightly to one side cautiously. She managed to restrain her features into one of just mild bewilderment. Ildur just shook his head.
When the door came open, D'hein was there waiting with a smile so wide it looked like his face might tear. His greeting emphatic and loud, and gestures with a hand over his head, "Hi there! My name is D'hein and I'm one of the big-shots with the Commerce Regulation Agency! You must be Antimony, right?"
"I... am," she replied, with what she was inwardly proud to be a rather certain tone. She blinked at D'hein again before taking a deep breath, collecting herself visibly, and uttering, "A pleasure to meet you, and your colleague."
Ildur kept quiet, letting D'hein take care of the strange formalities. The miqo’te hefted a broom he now held in one hand, probably taken from somewhere nearby. "Oh, it is our honor entirely! Might I say that the report on you did not do you justice. You're quite well-composed, and pretty besides, if I could be allowed to say!"
Antimony leaned just slightly away from D'hein and the broom as he brandished the item and shook her head, "Those are not the kinds of things that should be in any report regarding... myself." Her ears twitched only slightly in discomfort with the almost theatrical compliment.
"Erm... Well, no. It wasn't. As I... said." He blinked, and his ears shifted about in his heavy mane of blond hair. "Let's go in to the desk and talk, huh?"
"Please" the Hyur said, gesturing to one of the chairs. "Have a sit."
Bowing her head briefly, Antimony replies with a careful, "Right," followed with a pause and then an apologetic, "Watch your step," as she moved away from the door to the indicated chair. Only when she had settled into it did she remember the shards of glass she'd gathered off the floor and looked down at them cradled in the cloth of her robe with a twist of her mouth. "I don't suppose you have a... waste bin?"
D'hein followed her in, broom in hand, as if he couldn’t wait for a chance to use it, "Just toss 'em on the floor and I'll put 'em with the rest."
"I assure you he's much more professional about his work than he is to those shards at this moment." Ildur couldn't stop himself from smirking with sarcasm.
"Again, I am very sorry. I can replace it, if you'd like," she began again, pressing her lips together briefly as she, very carefully, set the shards down on the floor - not tossing them, that's for sure! - near the chair.
"It's okay. I can afford milk. I've money. I'm a big-shot." He moved the broom swiftly and swept the glass shards Antimony set down over to the others in the puddle of milk.
"Well," Antimony blinked at his words. "If you insist." She looked then from D'hein to Ildur and found that her carefully prepared introduction had fled her mind along with the milk spilled all over the floor.
"I am glad you decided to accept our offer, Antimony." Ildur said. "I hope you have rested as much as you needed during these days."
"Oh." She nodded slightly at that, tail curling slightly against one leg of the chair. "Yes, I appreciate your generosity, though I believe I'm quite ready to get back to work as soon as possible now." One corner of her mouth quirked in a small smile.
Wholly without pomp or hesitation, D'hein began to sweep the glass and milk out the office door and into the Hawker's Alley outside. Antimony's gaze shifted towards D'hein's activity, and she looked as though she wished to comment, but instead remained silent, if somewhat concerned.
"I assume you received the copy of the contract I sent you, yes?"
Green eyes flicked back towards Ildur. "Oh, of course. I had a few... well, I appended the salary to be more comparable to what I had been making with... Perelon and Ernafalk." Her brow wrinkled as she spoke their names, and then she shook her head. "It all read as fairly standard, though I'll admit some hesitance over some of the confidentiality clauses. Considering recent events."
"The confidentiality is standard. You should read some of the stuff I've signed in Ul'dah!" Finished sweeping out all the glass and most of the milk, he tosses the broom out the door haphazardly and closes it, "There. All done."
"I understand your concern. It is, as my colleague says, fairly standard procedures of the Grand Companies. It's needed to avoid unsavory individuals and organizations from finding out that we know their finances don't match with what they declare."
"Oh, I understand that perfectly," Antimony nodded and her posture straightened, the angle of her ears lifting somewhat as she settled into more familiar conversation. "But you have to understand I've... experienced first hand what an abuse of confidentiality can lead to."
Making his way back to his desk, D'hein said, "I'm not sure that was an abuse of confidentiality so much as... A lack of sufficient over-seeing authority!"
Her brow lowered slightly. "That is possible." And then her hand went to remove a letter-sized envelope from a satchel that hung against her hip. She looked between D'hein and Ildur. "Regardless, I am willing to sign this, with the few edits I've included."
Ildur extended his arm to take it. "Of course. Let us see it, if you please."
D'hein sat at his desk, leaned his elbows into the pile of pages that cover it, and knit his fingers together under his chin, watching Antimony and Ildur with a static smile.
She held the envelope towards Ildur with a nod. "In addition to the salary negotiation, I included a clause regarding the extent of accountability I am expected to hold for any given analysis, as well as a few edits regarding the duration an audit will remain in my hands under analysis."
He took the envelope, opened it and read it silently. He nodded once while reading it. Once he was done, he handed it to D'hein. Antimony's eyes followed the movement of the papers, though when they reached D'hein's desk, they dropped to the chaotic pile in front of him. Taking the contract, the miqo’te began to peruse it as well, "Ah. That's a number of things to negotiate on. Most people stop at a modest request for an increased salary." He lay the contract on the top of the pile of papers as he looked it over.
"I've performed audits out of Limsa for the past five years," Antimony replied simply, dragging her eyes up from the pile of papers to D'hein's face as he read the contract over. "I know what is standard good practice."Â
Ildur waited.
"Oh, I was just observing." He looks up at Ildur, "What do you think, boss?"
"I think the changes are modest, but the added length to audits might slow our work down. Not considerably so, of course, but I can see them stacking and bringing us some trouble in the long run."
Antimony shook her head. "The time originally given would not be enough for a thorough and accurate assessment, and that is what you want, is it not? Of course there may be assignments that take less time, depending on the level of scrutiny required, but you can't rush such an exacting process."
"At the risk of earning your ire, I'll respectfully disagree. Exacting, yes, but one can't get too caught up in the work." Looking at Antimony and tossing her a smile, "One must be both thorough and expedient in order to be truly efficient."
"There is a line between expedience and hurried," Antimony said, meeting D'hein's smile with her own straight expression, "And I am concerned the days you allocated would cross into the latter. It's my job to ensure that all facts are illuminated. Sometimes, this takes time."
Ildur nodded. "Both haste and cautiousness in excess can have dramatic results. It's a matter of balance."
"I'm sure it's not worth getting in a fight over, hm, Antimony? As employers, we're supposed to expect a little more than you would prefer, otherwise work wouldn't be so bad. You come highly recommended, so I don't think the day allotment is out of your capabilites. Especially," and Dhein pointed at a line on the contract, still wearing and speaking with a slight smile, "Considering how we're also negotiating your salary."
"If I am as highly recommended as you say, then it should hardly be a negotiation," Antimony replied, features firm but not unkind.
"That is not an argument regarding our current worries. Yet, I will propose you the following: we will accept your editions but we will cut the time it will be in effect to three months. Then we will have a meeting and weight your performance before discussing a new, hopefully more long-term contract."
Antimony paused, looking away from both D'hein and Ildur for several moments as her features pulled into thought. "Can you assure enough assignments to have sufficient demonstration of my work in three months?"
"Of course we would. i don't think it would be a very good deal, though." D'hein had a pen in his hand, and he fiddled with it idly while looking at Antimony's contract and saying, "Choose either the increased salary or the increased auditing periods and sign a more long-term contract, if you ask me. Job security's worth a lot."
Ildur didn't add anything to his colleague's words.
Her lips pursed in consideration. "I've enough confidence in my own abilities that a performance assessment doesn't worry me, however, I think six months is a more reasonable contract period."
D'hein cast an amused look up at Ildur, "Seems my assurances aren't enough for her, old man."
"If you are as confident in your skills and are as good as our recommendations imply, then three months should be more than enough for the probation."
Turning, Antimony directed a somewhat narrowed look towards D'hein and Ildur in turn. "That may be true, but three months is not a reasonable employment period for anything but the lowest of temporary work."
"Evaluation period," D'hein corrected, "We only do long-term employment here anyway."
Ildur smiled at Antimony, lowering his head slightly. "Indeed. You are asking us to allow your audits to last longer than what is usual. We cannot commit to such terms until we are sure that your work will be the best it can be thanks to those terms."
"They are precisely as long as I was given by Perelon and Ernafalk," Antimony countered. "Though I'll note only rarely did I have need to make full use of the time - and then it was very well spent."
"You need to have some give. You can't have all of this. Ildur's three-month evaluation offer was already very generous."
Ildur repeated her words "Only rarely did you had to make full use of the time." He smiled slightly. "You just said so yourself."
"I am simply trying to look out for the best interests of your agency, while maintaining my current situation," Antimony replied. There's a long pause, and then, "I will accept the shortened audit times, only if you amend a clause that provides a means of appeal for an extended deadline in extraordinary cases."
"Oh, that's not...?" D'hein looked through the contract again, "Yeah, okay."
"Very well." Ildur nodded. "That is acceptable."
Nodding emphatically and picking up a small number of papers that included the contract and whatever random stuff happened to be immediately beneath it in the pile, D'hein held it out to Ildur, "I'll let you do that since you're the lead on this whole thing." And then, quickly looking to Antimony, he said, "Hey, have you ever eaten at the Bismark?"
Antimony had been watching the transfer of the contract - and making note of the extreme disorganization accompanying the hitchhiking papers - and thinking over her decision, so D'hein's words caught her off guard. She looked at him after several seconds and wrinkled her brow. "What? Well, no, but what does that have to do with the contract..?"
Ildur took the papers out of D'hein's hands. "I don't think it involved the contract more than in passing." He picked off the random papers the man had mixed with the contract and left them on top of the pile. A small bastion of order in that terrible, unholy mess of anarchy. "Have a good evening, both of you." he smiled and left.
D'hein waved at Ildur as he left, and then returned his attention to Antimony. "Sorry, the question was completely unrelated. I like to eat at the Bismark at least once when I'm in town. Before heading back to Ul'dah, see. Food's better here."
"Ul'dah?" Her ears flicked back briefly. "I didn't see mention of... Well, I suppose it makes sense to have branches elsewhere." She shook her head slightly and then, "The food is certainly better here than in Thanalan."
"Yes it is!" His ears shifted on his head, pointing towards Antimony, "I figure since I'm out of milk I might as well go early. I hate to go alone, though, and nobody came with me from home this time, so I've nobody to ask along."
Belatedly recognizing Ildur's absence, Antimony cast a brief glance towards the door before looking back to D'hein. She gave him a sincere, albeit mildly confused, look. "That's, ah, unfortunate..?"
At this, D'hein merely nodded once, rather quickly. Smiling. His ears turned back for a moment, then forward again. He renewed his smile. It was a very charming smile.
Antimony turned her head slightly to one side, watching D'hein. Her tail curled upward along the side of the chair, flicking again one thigh. "Is there something else...?"
"Oh, nothing official. I'd offer you tea if I had amenities here, but no. What I was trying to broach was an inviting you to the Bismark." He paused a fraction of a moment to renew his smile again, and his tail shivered. "I'm not one to eat alone, and Ildur's not the best conversationalist. I think he doesn't like fancy food anyway."
Antimony watched D'hein for a moment longer and then blinked. "Oh. Well, that doesn't exactly seem... you're to be my employer, after all. And then there's Ulanan..."
Looking a bit confused, D'hein said, "Employers should get to know their employees. Who's Ulanan? Wait. Are you one of those city-Miqo'te and you've got some jealous city-nunh?"
Antimony's eyes widened. "What? Oh, no, no, nothing like that." And she shook her head rather vigorously. "She's just a friend I've been... well. No. There's no one." She blinks. "Not that that is an invitation."
D'hein chuckled, gave a crooked smirk, "Okay, you've confused me now, but I guess I'll just forget about the whole H'linan thing."
"Ulanan," Antimony corrected. "She's... lalafel. A friend, and visiting the city." And why was she bothering to explain this? Her grey ears flicked back briefly in undirected annoyance. "... Are you inviting me on some kind of... business dinner, then?"
Turning his eyes to the window, D'hein took a long, deep breath before nodding and saying, "Yes, I am. At the Bismark. Which is very professional. Half of their business is business dinners. Maybe more. They even have whole business meals. And-" he stopped himself from talking and began to organize his papers into piles of random papers that make no sense.
Watching his hands shuffle papers about with a critical eye, Antimony considered for a moment before letting out a small sigh that was more a brief drooping of her ears and tail than it was a noticeable exhalation. "Very well. Perhaps you can better inform me of the reach of the agency and other such things over a meal."
"Ah ha! That is my exact intent!" He stands quickly and knocks over the piles of pages he had just made, "I've many stories of the reach and business of the Agency that I'm sure you will find very informative, and enthralling as well! I may take a story or two from you in trade, though. Anyone who's friends with a Lalafel is bound to have a few."
She eyed the papers as he spoke, fingers all but twitching with the urge to sort through them, but she restrained herself both from action and comment on that out of sheer politeness. "I'm not so certain on my end, but I'm sure you have valuable information to share." Settling the decision soundly in her mind, Antimony nodded to herself and straightened her posture, leaning forward just slightly. "When should I meet you there?"
D'hein blinked; this was stated, by the way, because D'hein in this moment blinked with his whole face. As though he'd been struck or a bright light had been shown in his eyes. His tail flicked back and forth behind him, as he said in a thoughtful voice, "Well, what time is dinner time? Or... Actually!" And he smiled broadly, "You just show up whenever you get hungry and I'll be there! Preferably sometime tonight or tomorrow!"
She gave him an odd look. "The second bell of umbral water," she stated after a moment.
"Done," And then he thought about for half a second, nodding again, "Yes, done indeed."
Her lips pursed briefly. "Alright." And she stood, smoothing out the front of her robe as she did so. "If there's nothing else...?"
"I don't think so. If I think of anything later, I'll bring it to dinner with me." His smile suddenly vanished, and then he's looking through the pages on his desk again, "Did you see what Ildur did with my shopping list? It was milk and... Something."
"You're.. shopping list?" Her ears lilted sideways in confusion before she shook her head and turned towards the door. "I would presume what you're looking for is somewhere in that mess of papers, which--" and she just couldn't help herself any longer, "--if you are unable to, I will gladly organize it if only to help streamline the agency's work." She moved to the door and opened it, but paused just before going outside to say, "Walnuts. You mentioned walnuts." Then the door was swinging shut behind her.
The last thing Antimony would have heard was a torrent of papers falling from the desk and the shouted words, "Yes! Walnuts! Thank the twelve!"