What's It Worth? [Dorian, Sophie]

Ah, dear, Dorian was certainly thoroughly unhappy with himself for having not been able to properly visit Sophie until now. It was hardly surprising, of course. He'd barely made any time for himself, or his girlfriend, and he could hardly imagine that she would be particularly irritated with him for having prioritized his volunteer work and his job when things were so grim.

But, that was thinking primarily as a professional. As a friend, it really was unthinkable. That was why he was now at her door, with a lovely dessert in hand. For most, he would certainly have spared no expense, created the most elaborate gift and used the rarest of ingredients. Sophie, however, would certainly not have enjoyed such a display. Dorian knew that, and that was why he had instead made her a simple tarte aux pommes. Apples, almond, apricot jam. The simplest and humblest of French desserts, and while he had certainly utilized the absolute pinnacle of ingredients for it, she needed not know that.

"Bonjour, Sophie. I hope I've not come at a poor time?"

He knew that she wasn't likely to be anywhere else, but Dorian had no intention of treating her like some invalid as he knocked on her door. She had been gravely injured, that was true, but that was all the more reason to try and lift her spirits a bit, not simply remind her of her circumstances.

The benefit of spiritual awareness was that it didn't take her much to figure out who was at her door before she even got up to answer it. Her jacket lazily over her shoulders and hardly dressed up with her gym shorts and t-shirt underneath. There was no need to be in her office with her time off and it was actually more convenient to be tucked away at home where she could work without people fretting over her.

This was the best rest for her as she had scattered documents all over the place and it was far from tidy. It was organised chaos though.

"Bonjour. Bad time? Yes, you always come when there's a boy over."

He asked a stupid question so she gave him a stupid answer. There was no one else in her house with an easy bit of effort to sense about but Sophie wouldn't mind some company. The whole place felt a lot more quieter now that it was back to her own inner sanctum. Admittedly she was more used to spending time and catching up elsewhere, it was rare that people ever came to her house.

"Ah, what a lucky young man he must be, to have the opportunity to dote on you while you work so diligently."

Of course, Dorian was perfectly willing to play along with her retort, if only because it was far better than actually poking any holes in it. Besides, her relationships were her own business unless she needed his support, and this was nothing more than friendly banter. Setting the tart he'd brought down on a table, his smile shifted from his typical confident cheer to a more concerned, earnest expression. He had, after all, come to live this life for the sake of helping others. Empathy had always come rather naturally for him.

"I'm quite sorry I haven't been able to come sooner. Do let me know if there is anything you'd care to eat, and I'll gladly bring it next time I visit."

What else could a man do but provide for a friend? Especially when she had been in such grave circumstances.

Bold of him to assume that having a boy over would probably just get in her way. She liked spending time with Alastair but she was also cognisant that her work output dropped considerably when she had him around. Being friends suited her better and from what she had understood by off-handed glances it was better for him as well.

"It's fine, you'd only have me frustrated and irritable after all the trouble that arrancar caused anyway. It's better that you came now."

She said while eyeing the tart, a brief glance though one that would still qualify as lingering. Sophie returned her golden eyes back to Dorian's rather than shamelessly dive right into it, she was always one for being professional rather than using her current state as an excuse to do as she pleased.

"You can take a seat on the couch if you want, just don't sit on any of the papers."

There were certainly plenty of little comments Dorian thought to make for a moment. Something about her always being difficult when he came by, perhaps. But this wasn't the right time for that, not when she had every right to be irritable, and so instead Dorian took a seat, indeed being exceptionally careful not to ruin any of her paperwork as he neatly set them aside.

"I see you've been keeping busy with work. I'm glad, I'd be worried to think someone else might be attempting to fill your shoes."

That much was true, really. No particular jesting to it, Dorian simply appreciated working with Sophie, even outside of their friendship. Not everyone in the Vandenreich was quite as capable as they were when it came to these administrative duties.

"This isn't work."

She responded while kneeling at the coffee table which had turned into a makeshift workspace. Her golden eyes reading over the notes, some proper documents that she'd acquired while the others looked handwritten by her. Amidst them were some history books, she didn't really care about the message of the "Quincy Pride" it sold but they were good reading for looking over details about the Quincy.

"My coordinator is handling most of my duties at the moment to keep everyone off my back, this is all research material."

It kept her superiors off her case with the illusion of resting to recover. She felt that she was completely recovered though so naturally she insisted on doing things her own way if there were things blocking her.

"Research, hm?"

Dorian's eyes quickly scanned everything laid out, wanting to appraise what it was they were discussing before he continued the conversation. Better to do that than waste her time with inane questions, hm?

"I imagine you likely have no shortage of ideas in mind, then. Your usage of ginto was already quite impressive."

Not to say that it was something nobody else could do, for Dorian didn't believe in undue praise. But he was confident that someone like Sophie likely had far more potential than most other people did when it came to growth. After all, how could she not? When it came to the arts of the quincy, much of one's potential lay only in what they could imagine, and how hard they were willing to work toward it.

"Of course not."

She said while shifting through some papers. There was a collection of papers which were focused on casting beyond the use of gintou. She knew that some particularly power quincy could get away with using their internal reserves without needing gintou. Frankly the tool was mostly beneficial to those who didn't have much in the way of reiryoku themselves like she did.

That could be rectified though.
'
"I'm looking at other methods. I'm restricting myself by following the established systems that I learned so I want to break free of them and figure out how to create some new options."

Dorian was quite certain that others in his position would have offered some sort of meaningless words of support or praise. Perhaps even made some dreary, unimaginable connection to his work in the culinary arts. That was hardly his way of thinking, however, and he studied her research texts for only a few more moments before speaking again.

"I think the current records on this matter are probably less helpful than either of us might like. The quincy traditions are old, certainly, but it strikes me as peculiar how decentralized everything always seems to be. Every bloodline, every family, they all have some unique trick or another up their sleeve. Peculiar, wouldn't you say?"

If not for the fact that so many of them seemed almost inconsequential in their uniqueness, he might have said he understood why their kind had been so inclined toward ideas of purity in the blood. But as it stood, having seen how ultimately worthwhile it was, he didn't think that was especially helpful.

"Not really. Historically they have always functioned as small groups, it isn't like the shinigami which have remained in solidarity for centuries. It's expected that they'd continue to evolve in a fashion like anagenesis wheras the quincy would develop following the principles of cladogenesis."

She shot back. It didn't really surprise her that this would be the way of the quincy. What was frustrating was that everything was incoherent and incomplete. Their sparse populations in various continents meant that there was a bunch of quincy information in broken, old dialects of all the languages on Earth.

Much of it seemed to be missing or lost after the war and attempted genocides.

"It's like you and I. You were born in the city and I was born in the rural areas despite us both being from the same country."