A special delivery || RAS London HQ
Dated 22nd October 2021
Agents Rothschild and Dyer, of the RAS’s London Headquarters, come to Swynlake to make a few deliveries.
Trigger warnings: talk of death

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@miissbiianca
A special delivery || RAS London HQ
Dated 22nd October 2021
Agents Rothschild and Dyer, of the RAS’s London Headquarters, come to Swynlake to make a few deliveries.
Trigger warnings: talk of death
Natalie Portman photographed by Ellen von Unwerth for Marie Claire UK, 2015
Faster, Evinrude! Faster!
Nina MacLaughlin, “Hunter’s Moon”
Billie Eilish — No Time to Die
What the Blood Moon wrought || RAS squad
Dated 20th October 2021 In which the RAS field agents go out into the forest to try and find the poacher after the black unicorn, and tragedy strikes
@crickey-itsjake @agentgrumpy-gils @miss-holleyshiftwell @estrelllas
TW: Gun violence, blood, death
Your mission, should you choose to accept it || Bianca & The Interns
@the-name-is-chip @and-im-dale
The Blood Moon was fast approaching, which meant there was a lot of preparation to be done. This might’ve been an issue back when it had just been herself, a one-man-band running around Swynlake, but that wasn’t how things were anymore.
Nowadays Bianca had more agents than she could shake a stick at (a funny phrase, one she had picked up once she had started working with the Society that she still didn’t really understand - why was she shaking the stick to begin with?), which meant that the work could be far more evenly distributed. A good job, too, because there was certainly much to be done.
And thankfully, some of the more... Bianca hated to say mundane, because arguably all of it was exciting stuff for someone who had yet to be out in the field, but more of the behind the scenes work, as she might put it, could be left to the interns. Wasn’t that precisely what they were there for? She had never really interned herself, but she could remember her own days fresh out of the academy - there had been a lot of paperwork. But it was an insight into what exactly went on in the build up to a mission, which was invaluable when the time came to undertake one yourself. They would have an idea of where to start, which was often the hardest part of any new project, RAS mission or otherwise.
But before Bianca could get them doing anything, she was going to have to brief them.
So she called a little meeting, though this time, not at her office. With the university back in session she found she might as well install a revolving door for how often people were in and out of her office. With a chill in the air that would drive most people indoors, Bianca told the pair to meet her on one specific park bench in Main Street Park, and to make it look casual.
The park was as quiet as Bianca had expected it to be when she happened upon the bench, already with the two occupants she had expected. She paused by the empty end of it, and for the benefit of anyone else who might be around, she asked, “I’m sorry to interrupt, do you mind if I sit?”
Dream Role Model || Minca
madmagicmim:
“I mean, I am very cute, so I’d make a great face of a movement,” Mim said with a cheeky grin. It was her standard mixture of honest self confidence and deflection away from looking too closely at the things that mattered to her. If she was already laughing, no one could laugh at her in a way that mattered.
Although it didn’t seem like Bianca was? But she couldn’t say for sure. Better for Mim to do it first, just in case.
“But also, there’s a lot of really important conversations that are already happening. Like, the disability rights and accessibility in this town is mediocre at best, mental health access is basically a joke, women still aren’t paid fairly or given equal protections in most places, immigration issues are literally moving backward in this country if you aren’t white, and that doesn’t include that if we don’t do something about our environmental issues and environmental protections we’re not going to have much of a planet to do things with.”
She leaned her chin on her hand against the table and absently swung her leg back and forth. “But I definitely don’t want to be a cop because like, ACAB and fixing systems from the inside basically never works. So I know I want to do uni and i have to figure out what to major in and maybe that would help me figure stuff out.”
Bianca thought that was a very mature answer, actually. It was true that there were already so many movements that needed attention, at home, further afield; wherever you looked, really. Hadn't she gone and joined the fight for magicks to live happily, freely, safely, rather than finding a new battlefield all her own? She had certainly been of more use that way, she thought. And she definitely felt like she had more of a purpose. How long would it have taken her to make a difference had she decided to strike out on her own?
As for how to get into all of that, well. Bianca had been lucky. A gymnast, a linguist, an exceptional student, head of a handful of different charitable movements in and around Budapest - she had been snapped up by one of the RAS's scouts, and recruited by the Director himself. A stroke of luck, apparently, he'd been on a river cruise down the Danube, but that was much beside the point. Bianca hadn't even known, when she had gone to university, that she was setting herself up for the life she would later lead.
"Well, I'm sure there are many different things," She supplied, her head tilting for a moment as she thought. "Politics, perhaps, though... I imagine it's not for the faint-hearted," She said with a small chuckle. She had a few politics majors in some of her classes, and she knew how intense they could be. Although, perhaps Mim would fit in quite well with them. "Or Sociology, even - that was what I did my undergraduate degree in. I did a little charity work, lobbying, things like that. It's important to remember, though," She continued, laying her hands flat on the tabletop. "That whatever path you take can be changed if necessary. Nothing is set in stone; whatever you decide, if you later change your mind... that's okay."
Echelon || Biancolley ft Gil
miss-holleyshiftwell:
Both her superiors looked very serious now, and Holley felt a sudden rush of guilt for her misplaced excitement. Sure, she was happy that she could be taking on a big mission and making a difference, but considering how Agent Wahed’s lips were drawn, her own giddiness seemed trite.
The key to being a good agent was to know when it was the place for smiling. When they secured their victory, that would be it. But now — now was time for planning. Now was the time to put her head down and use her skills. For all of the agents in Swynlake to do what they did best.”
“We should ask Agent Roberts about what the hunting culture is like in Swynlake — or what it’s been like historically,” she piped up. “Since she lived here before. And Agent Rogers can track unicorn habits! I’ll get right on investigating this P.O. Box — maybe I can find the credit card that set it up. Or at the very least, get more information on it, to help narrow it down.” She gave a little nod. “We’ll apprehend this culprit. I’m sure of it.”
“I admire your positivity,” said Agent Wahed. There was a ghost of a smile on his face that did not quite reach his eyes. He flicked his gaze to Agent Gabor. “There is one later this month, but if I had to guess… our poacher will be waiting for the Blood Moon in October.”
Every so often, Bianca was reminded of the fact that she was the one of the seniority here. It was a relatively new concept for her, a condition of her return to Swynlake, and though she had been back for some time now she still found herself looking for someone above her station, every so often. She had never particularly been one to seek approval from anyone but herself, but it would certainly be nice to know that she was doing everything right just now.
And of course, the way things were supposed to work was that she was a supervisor, and as such, she sat out of most of the leg work. She organised and she strategised and then she sent the agents out to do the grunt work, but unfortunately, she had been lying when she had assured the Director of that. Bianca was terrible at sitting still when there was work to be done.
Though when Holley spoke, she was reminded that she did in fact have a team behind her. Barbie knew about Swynlake - she might have a good idea of how much hunting had gone on in the past. Jake could go and track the herd - Bianca would be sending him to check on the black unicorn anyway, so he might as well make it a long term study. Holley could dig a little deeper into whoever was receiving those parcels - she was always good with details. That was the benefit of having a team, each with their own particular specialist subject, their own skills.
Bianca's job was to lead them. So that was what she was going to do.
"The Blood Moon," She breathed, wrapping her hands around the back of one of the dining room chairs for a moment. "Alright," She nodded. "Then we have a deadline. I'll speak to Roberts and Rogers - Agent Shiftwell, you know what you're doing." She looked at the equipment on the table, and then straightened her posture. "I'll keep all of this with me. If either of you find anything else, let me know - and I'll have them report to you if they can't get in touch with me." She added, nodding to Gil from across the table. "Alright. Let's get to work."
Dream Role Model || Minca
madmagicmim:
Mim shrugged, although she couldn’t entirely hide the small grin at Bianca’s comment. It didn’t feel impressive since she’d grown up in a bilingual English and Spanish household, and Latin lessons had started early as part of her magic studies. French was all about fancy culture and the other Coven members and because she hadn’t been allowed to take anything else in school. BSL was the only one she’d really had to work at, and that’s because it was Martin teaching her and not her parents making her practice.
Still, it was wonderful to have someone like Bianca think that anything she did was impressive.
“Wow, I didn’t think of that. But yeah, I can see why that would be cool. Kind of like unlocking an achievement but it can happen a bunch of times. And getting to talk with people who actually care about the same stuff you do is one of the best feelings in the world!”
Mim knew there was a pat easy way she could answer it and probably should. She was supposed to talk about the Coven, and being a sorceress and being a good ambassador for her family name. But maybe since she didn’t really know her, she could afford to be a little more honest. Who knew? Maybe she would get lucky and find someone who would listen without laughing at her.
“I don’t really know? I don’t think I want to try and make a living as a sorceress, and I don’t really want to be a lobbyist since that is an incredibly frustrating life and even if you want to talk about something besides Magick-issues, being a Magick makes everything a Magick issue. I want to actually help people somehow, in a real way, but, I don’t really know how. I just-yeah. I don’t want to wait for policies to move when there’s stuff that needs to happen now.”
Though it was really just a cover, Bianca did in fact enjoy teaching, and very much for the reason she had given. She was mostly a Modern Foreign Languages tutor, which meant a lot of lessons on the cyrillic alphabet and masculine and feminine words in German, but she got to branch out. Lectures on the history of Eastern Europe, on politics and economics. Things Bianca never really sat down to discuss with anyone, because usually she had mission reports to go over and debriefings to sit through.
It was also nice to get out of the house for a moment. To get around Swynlake a bit more, and to see other people. Her last cover in Swynlake, working in a publicist's office - it had been fine, as covers went, but it did make things quite insular. There were far more excuses needed if she wanted to get about - this way she could breeze about in coffee shops and around campus and no one had any reason to suspect.
Bianca's head tilted a little as she listened, and she smiled softly. She'd had no idea what she'd wanted to do after university either. She had studied sociology because she had thought it would be interesting, and it had been. Looking at how societies had evolved, talking about crime, gender, migration. It had been quite general, but then again, she'd enjoyed that. It had given her more avenues to wander down, more topics to explore.
"So you want to be a revolutionary, then." She surmised, giving Mim a small, amused smile. It was no laughing matter, of course; it was a wonderful thing as a matter of fact. But it did seem very similar to that dream, didn't it? "Start a movement?"
Echelon || Biancolley ft Gil
miss-holleyshiftwell:
“A full moon,” said Agent Wahed.
Holley studied his face. He kept his expression purposefully blank, his mouth nothing more than a straight and undistinguishable line. His brows did not furrow, his eyes did not darken. His voice was steady. And yet — and yet, Holley felt that something was off about him, something that went beyond the methodical answers he gave Agent Gabor.
It was a gut feeling, which Holley knew was important as an agent to have. Logic could only get you so far — she liked having order and reason and interrogating those gut feelings, but at the end of the day, sometimes you just had to follow them. That’s what separated a good agent from a great one.
Not that Holley would impulsively follow her gut; oh not at all. She would tuck away this feeling and save it for later, dutifully interrogating and dismantling it till it became useful.
Besides, she had more important things to do right now.
“I can absolutely start tracking those shipments and see where they originated from,” said Holley, breezing away to her laptop.
“We’re going to have to prepare for the worst,” said Agent Wahed. He flicked his gaze to Agent Gabor. “You mentioned a particularly rare unicorn you and Rogers tracked? If it’s the one I think it is… this might be even bigger than just a small hunting party. There is an annual challenge in certain elite poaching circles and I believe this years’ involves that particular breed of unicorn.”
And now, a tell: his jaw twitched slightly. Just slightly enough that Holley noticed, because she was already looking at him, and she immediately looked away and made a mental note to maybe keep that in mind later.
"We didn't just track it," Bianca sighed, folding her arms over her chest. It was hard to take her gaze away from the table, and everything that lay out on it. "We brought it here."
Swynlake was meant to be a safe haven for it. The rare black unicorn, a one in a million specimen - the London branch had rescued it from illegal animal traders, and when they'd suggested Swynlake might be a good place to relocate it, Bianca had agreed. There was an established herd, they would be there to protect it. What could go wrong?
They were looking at what could go wrong, she supposed. A variety of weapons and storage equipment, right on their doorstep. They hadn't so much protected the unicorn as they had placed it right in the spot one might expect to find it.
But they still had time.
And they had bought themselves a little more by finding this package. Whoever had ordered all of this wouldn't be receiving their shipment - they'd have to order again. And Bianca assumed that custom made pieces like these were available for overnight shipping.
"We'll need a list of full moons coming up," Bianca mused aloud. It would be easy enough to get, something she could set Chip to, but it would be good to have. "And try to look into that more - the annual challenge thing." She said to Gil, her face grave. She knew it would bring him no joy, but it needed to be done. "If there is something like that going on, there'll be talk about it."
She now had a laundry list of things to do: she would have to get Jake to check on the herd, and she would have to fill both him and Barbie in on everything they'd discussed today. She would have to report back to the HQ in London, let them know what was up, see if they had any ideas. It would keep her busy for a while, at least.
"We'll need to keep our ear to the ground. Keep an eye out for anyone new in town who seems like they might be here to poach."
It wasn't easy to keep an eye on an entire population, though. Bianca huffed a sigh; this was going to be an even bigger job than she'd thought.
Dream Role Model || Minca
madmagicmim:
Mim’s eyes honestly only got bigger as she talked. She was a professor who taught about history and politics and languages! It was all the kind of stuff that Mim had studied mostly on her own because her dad was too busy instructing her in magic, biology, and physics to pay attention to the other stuff. Or Arthurian history but that hardly counted. Plus she had done other stuff which basically meant she was a total boss.
“Oh, no, I grew up there and my parents are based there. But my brother is Martin Ambrosius? He’s a grad student for Magick History and he TAs for Professor Khan a lot.”
It was kind of fun to be able to use the Ambrosius name just because it was connected to Martin who worked in the same place as Bianca. Not that that guaranteed that they would know each other because it was a big campus. But still. Getting to ignore the fact that her parents were politicians and instead focus on how cool Martin was in some ways was much more fun.
“I know a couple languages, but its only English, Spanish, French, and Latin so far, so its nothing useful except outside Western Europe and some parts of the Americas. And BSL but I’m never sure if that’s classed the same as like, spoken languages when it comes to uni stuff. Why do you like teaching so much?”
"The name rings a bell," Bianca said with a nod. She wasn't sure she had ever met the young man, but the name did sit somewhere at the back of her mind. The young man with the owl, if she remembered correctly (and it was very rare that she didn't). As was often the case with Bianca, however, she couldn't reveal the true extent to just how well she did or didn't know someone, lest she give herself away.
All she could really do was smile politely, though her eyebrows did tick upwards as Bianca listened to her list off the languages she spoke. It was, in fact, rather impressive, and though she meant no offence, it was even more impressive for a native English speaker. Bianca had spoken three languages as a child only because she lived in a bilingual household, and because one needed English to survive in the modern world. And native English speakers weren't exactly known for their desire to pick up another language, not when everyone spoke English everywhere you went...
"I think that's very impressive," She informed Mim, reaching momentarily for her drink. And for the record, though she didn't say it, she did think that BSL counted; it was a form of communication, after all.
The next question was not so easy, though. Bianca crossed one leg over the other, humming as she considered her answer. "I think for me, it's the moment where the student understands. When it clicks, you know? It's wonderful to pass on knowledge, but even better to know that it's actually been received. And especially at the university level, having conversations with people about subjects you're passionate about... well, it makes my job feel a lot less like work."
She paused, head tilting a little. "What is it you're thinking of doing after school?"
Echelon || Biancolley ft Gil
agentgrumpy-gils:
“There’ve been a few sent to that same PO box,” said Shiftwell. “But this is the first that’s come from that specific reroute that we have on file from Agent Wahid’s last mission.”
She shyly glanced up across the table at Gil, who was quiet, studying the items on the table. He met her gaze briefly, but furrowed his brows and did not respond.
“I can certainly pull the old tracking for other packages and see if the rerouting matches up to anything else in the databases…” Shiftwell continued. “And if not, well, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on them.”
Gil was quiet again. He looked at the tools, at the serum, and he felt that familiar pull that twisted in the pit of his stomach. Granted, there was no way to connect this particular poacher to the ones he sought but… if there was even a remote connection, he would find it and he would use it and —
Well, maybe his time in Swynlake was going to be useful after all.
“If there’s one poacher, there are usually more in the wait,” said Gil, finally. “They follow each other. If we figure out who this is, we can prevent more poaching.”
That was precisely what Bianca had been worried about: the idea of there being more poachers, waiting in the wings.
She was from a family that had enough wealth to make shooting an attractive sport. She had never gone herself, but her father, her uncles, and a rather large party had gone out looking for pheasants or geese, and the occasional big game, if there was occasion for it. No one ever went hunting alone - it was a hunting party for a reason.
The idea that Swynlake might become some kind of safari for poachers seeking magical game was abhorrent, and most definitely under RAS purview. It was the very last thing they needed, too, on top of everything else.
The headache at Bianca's temples was getting worse, but she ignored it, gaze flicking to Holley again.
"Try and pull up as many of the old tracking details as you can. It's too late to know what was in any of those packages, but if they're from the same address, I think we can make an educated guess."
That would only confirm their suspcions, though. They were going to have to be proactive. "I'll organise a watch at the edge of the forest, to see if we can spot any suspicious activity. People coming and going frequently, taking anything out of the ordinary in with them, that sort of thing."
It would be a lot of work, admittedly, but it would be necessary. They had to get ahead of this, before it was too late. "And I'll speak to Agent Rogers. See when he thinks the best time to hunt a unicorn might be." She paused then, looking up at Gil, eyebrows arching. "Unless you've any ideas?" And then again, eyes flicking to Holley - she was a good source of information on things that surprised Bianca, occasionally. "Either of you?"
Something on the horizon || Barbanca
estrelllas:
“I couldn’t imagine it.” Barbie paused as if she was even thinking about it. The group of them while all smart and capable were a handful in different ways. In Theory, Jake and her the worse considering the connections they had made.
“Good, nothing too special, with Bruce in the play I’ve been able to keep an eye on him there. Edward is doing fine though he’s a pretty loose canon. But I haven’t met the interns yet. What are they like?” Pulling out a tin of cookies Barbie set it on the counter as they waited for the water to boil.
They needed a proper team, that was what Bianca thought. Most other magical towns had their own RAS hub, so it was about time Swynlake had a proper group of agents to deal with whatever might come up. They all had different skills, different strengths, different weaknesses; that was what they needed, so she supposed, the more the merrier.
"They're... very eager." She said diplomatically, reaching out to take one of the biscuits Barbie offered with a polite smile. "But then again, so was Holley, when she first left the Academy. Still is, I suppose. I just worry, with them not being fully qualified yet..." Well. She worried they might get themselves into trouble that would jeopardise everyone on the team, but she almost didn't want to say that out loud. "They have a good support network, though. With all of us. So hopefully that'll help them."
Dream Role Model || Minca
madmagicmim:
As soon as she agreed, Mim slid into the seat across from her. She did her best to sit up straight and look competent and responsible, like she had been in the dream so that Bianca would take her seriously.
The reality was that inside she felt extremely giddy just being here. Maybe it wouldn’t go anywhere and Bianca wouldn’t want to talk to her or wouldn’t have anything to say. But this was the best possibility she’d found since coming here besides Zira, and she didn’t really want to let it go when she had such a clear in.
“Ok, so the quick rundown on me here in reality is that I’m still a transmutation sorceress, although its kind of in training. I’m about to start my last year of Secondary School, and I live with my brother Martin because our parents are in London. I’m still really good with tech stuff but I’m not like, hacker level good like I was in the dream. Mostly I play a lot of videogames. But-”
But I really want to hang out with a woman who has her life together and is competent and doesn’t think I need to do everything my dad says just because he’s a guy.
“But what about you? You seem like you’re working on something?”
Bianca didn't mind talking, especially not to young women. Before she had become an agent, when she had just been an heiress with a sociology degree, she had worked with quite a few programmes that aimed to help young women and girls in Budapest and beyond. Offering chances for education, or independent housing, or whatever it was they might need. She missed it, sometimes. Just because she had a lot of secrets to keep nowadays didn't mean she couldn't chat; it just meant that she had to be more careful about it.
She saved the file she was working on and closed the laptop, showing Mim that she was focused on her, rather than seeming distracted. It was a courtesy thing more than it was anything, but she highly doubted Mim was going to be interested by anything in the powerpoint presentation she had been putting together. Although, stranger things had happened, she supposed.
And it seemed Mim was not your ordinary girl, anyhow. A transmutation sorceress in training, living with her brother, away from her parents, and gearing up to leave school. That was a lot to have on one plate.
"Ah, nothing too exciting, I'm afraid, unless you're interested in the history of communism in eastern europe." She said with a smile, placing one hand on top of her laptop, to gesture what she had been working on. "I'm working as a professor at Pride University at the moment," She explained. "Modern foreign languages, with a few history and politics classes thrown in here and there. I've had quite a... varied career up until now, though. Some charity work, a little publishing. Teaching is what I keep coming back to, though." Not exactly a lie; she had been a professor for cover before, back in Budapest. "Are you from London, then, or is it only your parents that are away?"
Echelon || Biancolley ft Gil
miss-holleyshiftwell:
Holley was thrilled about this.
Okay, sure the package they’d intercepted probably meant that the person who ordered it was up to some very bad things — but, here was something finally exciting happening in Swynlake! And Holley had been the one to find it! She’d been proactive about it, cross referencing tracking labels and incoming shipments and noticed that this package was coming from the same place where the Nostero Syndicate often rerouted their packages —
Anyway, just a little bit of hacking away and she was able to file return to sender so it never reached the unmarked PO box it had been addressed to and she picked it up at the post office, with a little lie she’d spun up and the faked credentials to prove it.
Okay, it could’ve been nothing (in which case, Holley would’ve sent it right back), but sometimes an agent had to trust her gut!
And her gut was right.
She was trying not to smile as Agent Wahed looked over the contents of the package. He looked very serious, brown drawn, lips pressed together. She tried to look very serious too.
“It’s poaching equipment,” said Gil. He reached for the little bottle, holding it up. “You might have to verify with Rogers, but I believe this is a tincture designed to preserve a severed unicorn horn.” His lips tightened even more. “I saw a fair bit of this at my last assignment.”
Exciting! Holley finally felt like a real agent!
It shouldn't have come as a surprise, and she supposed it wasn't one, not really. Jake had predicted it when he had come to see her at her office: the unicorn herd had moved because there was some sort of danger about. Not just a hapless tourist, not just a change in their grazing patterns, but someone seeking them out. Someone they considered a predator.
She had half hoped that perhaps it was some kind of predator. Bianca didn't know very much about magical creatures, or creatures of any kind for that matter, which was precisely the reason they had Jake in the first place. It hadn't seemed so far out of the realm of possibility that something could have moved into the area, started hunting. At least then they could've sent Jake and a few of the other animal experts from London out into the field to capture and relocate it.
Now they had a poacher on their hands. Bianca looked at the small bottle as Gil held it in the light, and then she rubbed at the spot between her brows, eyes closed, sighing softly.
When she opened her eyes again, Bianca's gaze landed on Holley, who looked she was trying very much not to smile. Bianca wished she could be more upset by that, but she knew the very same feeling. The first time she had successfully intercepted a coded message, she had stood in her Handler's office, trying and failing to look like she understood the gravity of the situation. She had, of course. The message had been awful. But she had been the one to decode it, and wasn't that exciting?
"Agent Shiftwell," Bianca adressed her, glancing back at the table and the contents of the package. "This is the first package like this you've seen?"
It seemed like a lot of specialist equipment, yes, but surely you needed the basics before you could get the rest. Whoever their poacher was, they must already be sitting upon some kind of an arsenal; they weren't unprepared.
Dream Role Model || Minca
madmagicmim:
@miissbiianca
Mim had…complicated feelings after waking up from the Hunger Games dream. On the one hand? Objectively terrible place. It managed to be even worse for Magicks and added in the whole ‘forcing people to kill for sport’ thing. Like the real world had so many shitty aspects, but on the plus side, it didn’t have that. Low bar to clear, but it made it.
But the complicated part was that Mim had sort of liked who she was there. Like, she was the exact same age. But she’d been incredibly high up in a resistance movement that was actually working to change the world instead of just sort of shouting about it on twitter. She’d had all this amazing responsibility, and she had been really good at it. Magic had been part of it. But most of it had just been…her. Actually focused on a goal that mattered and connected to people that shared that goal.
She wasn’t really sure what to do with that information. But she also wasn’t sure who to talk to. Martin was trying to pretend he was fine, but he was also super clearly not fine, and she didn’t want to bug him with this.
So, trip to Hatters. Time for some horribly ridiculous over the top coffee drink because sugar and caffeine solve most problems - or at least make you feel like you’ve solved them.
What she didn’t expect was to walk in and see her literal Dream Mentor and Entire Reason She Was Cool And Not In Prison sitting at a table. In Hatters. Like this was totally normal and not potentially the exact solution to her problem.
Immediately, she beelined out of the line and over to where the woman was sitting. “Hi, Bianca? My name is Mim. We knew each other in that Hunger Games dream, and you were really cool and totally influential for me there and I didn’t expect to see you here, so do you mind if I join you?”
Bianca had woken up and briefed all of her agents with the same message: act natural. React to it however you want, just don't be suspicious about it. Admittedly, a dream where they were all members of an underground, secretive resistance movement was the very last thing Bianca needed right now, it was also extremely easy to play off. How ridiculous it all sounded! Her, the leader of any kind of organisation? Why, she was just a lowly professor, not much up to organising anything more than a verb conjugation assignment.
It would blow over, just like every other Swynlake dream would blow over. Something else would happen to take its place, a scenario that was far more likely, and she wouldn't have to worry about it further. She had much bigger things to worry about besides - wards to care for, a potential poacher to find. Those really were concerning.
But Bianca still had to maintain her cover, and the best way to do that was to be present and visible. She needed to be exactly where one might expect her to be: in Hatter's, with a cup of tea and her laptop, getting ready for the next semester. Some agents might find it tedious to have to work a normal job as well as their role as an agent, but Bianca found that preparing for a class on the history of Yugoslavia and Soviet successor states since 1941 was in many ways a nice change of pace.
It wasn't uncommon for a student, or anyone for that matter, to approach her whilst she was working, so Bianca looked up from her notes on Lecture 2: Political Factors of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's creation with a polite smile. She immediately recognised the face, but not from her waking life.
"Of course," She nodded. "I remember. Well - I remember we knew each other." The rest she would be more humble about but she did agree she had been, as Mim put it, 'really cool'. "Please, take a seat." She agreed, nodding to the empty chair opposite her.