<div align="center"><span class="bbc_u"><strong>Wednesday, January 8th - 8:00 AM</strong></span><br/><em>Marley's Bedroom/Office &gt; Kitchen</em></div><hr/><div class="floatleft">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/6a/13/6c/6a136c3876bb0b7116281a2a64c67163.jpg)</div><strong>WHO:</strong>Marley Ann (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=316749.msg15283294#msg15283294)<br/><strong>WEARING:</strong>Pajamas, fake glasses (both pictured)<br/><strong>DOING:</strong>Eating breakfast, stressed<br/><strong>NOTE:</strong>--<br/><strong>TAGGING:</strong>Anyone in the kitchen<br/><hr/><br/>Marley opened the fourth letter from the IOS. She hoped it would be different than the first three letters, all torn open neatly on her desk in front of her. She pulled the letter from its envelope. '<strong>DENIED</strong>'. Alas, it was the same. Another polite 'fuck off' from the IOS in response to her requests.<em>It was almost like they had just been through a god damn Apocalypse or something.</em>Something indeed. She sighed and set the letter over top of the others, glancing out the many windows in her office. It was sunny already, and<em>hot</em>. She missed the snow. January should always have snow.<br/><br/>She pressed her lips together.<em>If the IOS wasn't going to cover any of the necessary improvements on the Cathedral, she needed to acquire them in another way.</em>Marley turned behind her, and retrieved a black notebook from the shelf. It hadn't contained graphing lines, so she'd drawn them in herself -- page after page of hand drawn charts. Names, responsibilities, cost, benefit analyses. Slowly she began to flip through the pages.<em>Things had changed, after the Eclipse.</em>Some names had black lines drawn through them, others had question marks next to their former responsibilities. The cost columns kept getting longer, and the benefits were half-assed, even for her. I mean, she couldn't keep insisting that Tori develop treatment protocols for hypothetical catastrophes<em>instead</em>of treating wounded students. Eventually, Barry was going to figure out that asking him to '<em>run as far as you can</em>' during combat training was really a request to '<em>do a 20-mile sweep of the surrounding area for threats</em>'. Sure, GiGi was happy with her logistics duties<em>now</em>, but she was like a puppy with a new chew toy, naive and unbroken.<br/><br/>Marley was sure some new shit storm was going to wander into the Cathedral.<em>It always did.</em>And she doubted it would work out as well as Dani had. They couldn't have gotten lucky, and withstood the Eclipse, for something<em>worse</em>not to happen. That was just karma. And karma was a total fucking bitch. She sighed, and flopped face-down on her desk with a groan, covering her latest, '<strong>DENIED</strong>' chart. She missed the days when her only concern was which hallucinogens to illegally order off the internet for that night's party. Getting the perfect substance cocktail was surprisingly difficult when you could rapidly heal yourself. Her stomach grumbled.<em>At least she could solve that problem.</em><br/><br/>Marley sat up in her desk chair, closed the black notebook and returned it to its rightful place on her bookshelves. She turned back around, and lined up the four rejection letters from the IOS, before opening a bottom drawer on her desk and tucking them away in a labeled folder. Now that her desk was clean, she wandered down one flight of stairs, then the second, before turning to head into the kitchen.<em>Kaine's course on Power Control started in a hour, so the breakfast rush would begin soon.</em>She opened the fridge, looking for milk but ending up with some yogurt concoction. She rubbed underneath her nose with her index finger before scooping some into a bowl, then topping it with a cereal that looked way too fucking healthy. She leaned against the counter as she dug into her breakfast with a spoon, looking out the window again.<em>Sometimes, the heat made the air feel funny.</em>But at least it wouldn't kill her.