Thread: Wish Upon a Kithril

Eric had been working all day trying to put together the perfect presentation for a high level meeting of the board with their Japanese counterparts in the sister organization. He'd taken every member of both sides into account and included items from both their home country and city, but their in depth heritage as that kind of thing was a show of respect to the Japanese businessman. When he was in the middle of finalizing the copy room order for duplicates...the man in charge of the meeting operations called. It seemed that the delegation from Japan had been reorganized and 34 of the representatives were either pulled from their positions or simply fired....thus making 34 of his presentation less than desirable. As a result Eric was scrambling to piece together all of the new information he'd acquired. the original took weeks to obtain through discreet communications...this time however it was bold and bluntly requested at odd hours of the daynightmorning depending on what part of the world he was calling. He was at wits end to be sure! At 40 years old Eric had remade his career having lost his position in IT when the new administration cancelled a bill to bring hundreds of thousands of outsourced jobs back to the US so he found a nitch and filled it. At 42 he had learned the system and developed into a position where people needed and depended upon him. At 6'2 he seemed an imposing figure to some, but once he opened his mouth everyone learned that he really wasn't imposing as much as welcoming. He made people feel at ease and were often opening up and offering information to help him out without too much hassle it made his job a lot easier. Besides, with a kind smile, well groomed brown hair and kindly blue eyes, people couldn't help but feel a bit disarmed around him. While rifling through fax copies and coordinating facts with emails Eric thought he heard something thump..and then as he redirected his attention back to the task at hand he clearly heard a small voice swearing at someone or something. The floor, and likely the building, had been emptied hours ago and his was the only light remaining. Eric's first thought was vandals sneaking in...then of perhaps one of his coworkers coming in to poke fun at him for the comedy that had transpired to thwart him so....but after looking at his watch he decided that it was far too late for that...and WAY too cold for vandalism. No teenager with a can of spray paint and a crowbar would bother coming out tonight! So the question remained...who just ran into something in the dark and swore out loud as a result?? He walked about 10 feet from his office door and quickly flicked the main room lights on, fists balled and ready for a fight if he had to be. Eric wasn't much of a fighter, but had sworn many times that he wouldn't let some idiot thug keep him from going home each night. As his eyes became accustomed to the glaring lights he looked around ....and almost missed the petite body half hidden behind a door frame across the room. Long Silvery hair draped down to cover part of her face and half of her upper body, but there was no doubt that it was a girl...a very attractive, if not dirty, girl. Hello?..who are you?...are you all alone in here? It was all he could think to say...obviously she had come in from the bitter cold, especially dressed as she was, but other than that he was really at a loss for why she was there and how she'd gotten in.