Taiga bit his lip to keep from saying<i>our kind.</i>Some things needed the right time to come to light.<br/><br/>Taiga finished the turn into the parking lot of a beautiful office building. He drove to the best parking spot, by the door, which had a "Reserved for Mr. Hisoka" sign on it.<br/><br/>Humming to himself, Taiga got out of the car, and walked around, opening Loki's door too.<br/><br/>"Come along," he said, and didn't talk to Loki or exchange two words with him as he pressed his key fob to the building, and then to the elevator next to the door, where two large men in suits bowed to him respectfully.<br/><br/>At the very top floor, he opened the door, and a beaming man about Taiga's age or a little younger stood up in front of Taiga's secretary.<br/><br/>"How nice to see you again, Mr. Hisoka—" the effusive young foreigner said in accented Japanese, bowing a shade too deeply.<br/><br/>Taiga didn't acknowledge him, breezily saying to the receptionist, "Hold my calls."<br/><br/>She was already standing and bowing. "Of course, Mr. Hisoka."<br/><br/>He beckoned the excitable young man in, who scooped up his suitcase and nearly skipped in behind Taiga and Loki.<br/><br/>Taiga perched on the edge of his beautiful desk, planting his gorgeous ass right on the polished mahogany.<br/><br/>"Dr. Mahmoud Magdi, if you would," he said, opening his hand to Loki.<br/><br/>Humming, Karim Mahmoud Magdi began examining Loki's cold iron collar. "Just hold still, sir. I'm Karim, and I'll get you out of that in a titch!"<br/><br/>He snorted once, pulled out a long metal device, and touched it in three different spots to Loki's collar. It beeped on the last one.<br/><br/>"Got it," he said, suddenly looking a little ill. He pulled on a pair of thick work gloves and pulled out a strange machine with a saw blade that whirred and emitted sparks and pulled out a plug of the collar. Inside it was a small battery and an electronic device the size of a thumbnail. This, Karim hooked onto another small device. Taiga looked tense, but Karim smiled at it. "Beautiful," he said. "and the bore is perfect."<br/><br/>He reached into the suitcase and pulled out a ring that looked like cold iron, perfectly analogous, same color, caught the light the same. Karim shaved off a thin slice of the top of the cold iron, and then pushed the plug into a similarly sized compartment on the inside of the other collar, which was opened, as all collars for mages were (they were not so cruel as to suffocate a mage who'd gained significant weight—if indeed such a happy occurrence had ever happened to a mage). Karim then pushed a round something surrounded by something sticky in its place, so no cold iron was touching Loki.<br/><br/>"Now I just..." Karim muttered and touched electricity to the collar around Loki's neck. It sprang free from around his neck and Karim caught it deftly and wrapped it in a heavy black cloth.<br/><br/>Karim reached up with the other collar.<br/><br/>"Wait," Taiga said. "Let him feel life without the collar for a bit. I'm sure it's been a long time."<br/><br/>"You're so right, Mr. Hisoka, how thoughtless of me. Don't worry, sir." He touched the fake cold iron to Loki's arm, and let him feel that it did nothing to his magic, actually helped replenish it faster. "You'll only have a fake to wear, from this point on."