Being low man on the university totem pole, one with aspirations of tenure one day, means putting in hours outside of the usual. So here Solomon is, on a Saturday, in his office, working. He's not the only one, but the building is near silent; the couple other faculty members in the same boat are all in their offices, working. His door is open, and he's wearing his glasses as he frowns at a computer screen and types industriously. A pack of gummi bears is open on the desk next to him - the nice kind, made by a local shop in the shapes of galaxies, stars, crescent moons, and little round planets. There's no music, but the window is open, letting a small breeze come in and stir the slightly over-warm air.
Ji-Ho peeks around the door, more or less like a normal person. It's not totally unheard of for a student to come up to the edge of the open door, peek, and then lose their nerve and beat a retreat. Solomon's just _got that vibe_. "Hi," he says from the door, which he stands outside of, like a normal person, in the hall. He is so overtly Normal that one could almost forget the way the shadows lengthen and stretch and darken around him, the way his eyes are a hollow of nothing, the way his whole frame fades into darkness.
Solomon grunts at the first sound. It's less a hostile grunt and more a 'wait a second' sort of grunt of acknowledgement. Either way, he finishes typing his sentence before he looks up from the screen, turning so he can see who's at the door. "Ah. Hey." He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, then uses them to gesture at one of the uncomfortable, mismatched chairs in the office. "C'mon in. Sit down. Unless you're just here to drop off more free food?" A lift of his mouth at that.
"No way. We're even. No more free food." Ji-Ho slides around the doorway and into the chair with a spill of shadow that falls exactly as light does not. In his mask, his legs are pulled up, feet on the edge of the chair; as he is, he's a coiled lil' blob of limbs, folding more times than limbs should normally fold. "We _are_ good, right? Because it turns out I'm in your territory so I wanna make sure."
Solomon's head cocks to one side and we watches Ji-Ho take a seat with a fascination that appears, in part, involuntary. His feelers twitch this way and that, as if trying to pick up more about the other Lost's shadow shenanigans. "We're good," he says, after a moment. "The debt has been paid, and all is well." He gestures to the gummi bears. "Want one? And it's good to know. About the territory. Living here or just...what is it that you do?"
"Uh, pretty broad question. Wanna try again?" Ji-Ho leans forward to investigate the gummi bears. He has a fairly obvious color preference: he detours toward anything that looks peachy: pink, pink-tinted orange, orange, yellow, pink-tinted yellow. "These are fucking cute! Where'd you get them? You always have the best food at the meetings." And he always has whatever was in the clearance section, soooooo.
Solomon snorts with amusement. "Are you a student around here, or have a job, or just live here?" He ticks off possibilities on his fingertips. The gummi celestials are in a wide variety of colors; peachy galaxies and rosy planets abound. "These? They're from 'Tooth Sweet', a bit uptown. It's over near Portage. I drop by when I have time. They're fucking great. Try one." He actually beams at the compliment about the food. "Thanks. I try to pick something that can make even a boring meeting bearable. Cheetos are actually pretty damn tasty, by the way."
"Oh, I just live here. I work in the area, though. I don't exactly have anything _steady_, you know." Ji-Ho gestures broadly, encompassing all of the _everything_. He leans forward and grabs the galaxy, then the planet, and then looks like he might wanna go for a couple more before he pauses. WAIT. BE REASONABLE. He tries _a few_, going for them one by one. "They got that _crunch_. I love a good crunch. Meetings haven't exactly been boring, though, have they? Just weird. I _know_ you think they are weird, because you actually open your mouth and ask things, like Razi."
Solomon reaches out and snags a couple of his _favorite_ gummies before Ji-Ho can try them - luckily, he seems to prefer the green ones, bursting with lime flavor. "Can't beat a good crunch," he allows. Then grimaces, and it's not from the citrus as he pops a gummi in his mouth. "It's fucking weird. Razi mentioned that you were gonna help look into the southern freehold? We need all the information we can get. Before we end up in a war with people whose only crime as far as I can tell, is having had their trust shattered."
"Yeah." Ji-Ho narrows his eyes a bit more thoughtfully as he considers Solomon. He chew, chew, chews ever so thoughtfully on the gummi planet. DELICIOUS PEACHY CLOUDS. "I haven't been part of a lot of freeholds. I pretty much came out here and right into the zoo and then that whole clusterfuck. But I gotta say everything going on right now, uh. Doesn't feel. Much better."
Solomon sighs. "People are scared. An attack on a Freehold is a fucking nightmare for all of us. And not one of the fun ones." He grimaces. "I'm hoping that it's just...overreaction to that loss of security. But no. It doesn't feel good." He reaches out for another gummi, and nibbles it. "I suppose we could all jump ship for the south if things are...untenable."
"Wow," Ji-Ho says under his breath as Solomon speaks of fun nightmares. He places his chin in his hand, arm folded and folded until his elbow rests there. "You must be really content in the Autumn court. The south seems to have their shit together," he says, which is a bit telling for someone who is GOING TO help look into them, and sure sounds like he's already DONE A LITTLE.
"It suits me well." Solomon looks amused. Then intrigued as Ji-Ho either makes a wild speculation...or suggests some knowledge of his own. He settles back in his seat. "Do they? What makes you say that?" That reflective, compound-eye stare centers on him, although Solomon doesn't seem to be TRYING to creep him out.
Given that Ji-Ho has no eyes at all to meet Solomon's gaze, he doesn't seem bothered by the compound-eyes. There's no taste of unease or fear in his manner, either, which would tell more than his body language. "I took a bit of a peek at them, trying to get an idea of what it was like. Haven't talked to any of them, though. It can be real different when you actually talk to someone."
"It can. But, if you're willing...what did you see that makes you think they've got their shit together? How many of them are there? Did you overhear anything that makes you think they are planning hostilities?" The questions are fired out with an abrupt intensity, and Solomon's fingers are tip tapping on the desk as he thinks.
Ji-Ho grins as he looks at Solomon. "I'm gonna need more gummies," he says, shadows creep-creeping to curl around the rest of the peach-flavored gummies as he leans forward in the chair to collect them. "I didn't see all of them or anything. It wasn't during Court. I don't know how they are set up, if it's another seasonal court, or anything. I just saw a few of them: the tree elemental they mentioned, Hubert; a snowcloak, Veera. They seemed to be pretty well-respected, and she deferred to him, but no idea who their actual monarch is. Hubert impressed me though."
Solomon flaps a hand towards the gummis in permission, although his momentary scowl says that he's wondering if he got the good side of that deal. Tap tap tappity go his fingertips. "Well. Interesting. Does Razi know this? He was gonna reach out all diplomatic like, and it sounds like this Hubert might be the one to go to. See what their perspective on this shit is, anyway." He grimaces. "We've got enough problems without all this political shit, you know?"
"Razi knows." Ji-Ho says that much; the beat of quiet consideration suggests more, which he swallows along with a galaxy. "I don't do politics. But I trust Fiametta, I trust Razi. And Razi seems to trust you, and so does Javi, who seems really solid, so I'm willing to trust you enough to tell what I have so far, yeah?" He tilts his head, watching Solomon more closely as he says that. "I leave politics to people I trust. But I'm fucking terrified of the idea of us going to war," he says, a shiver of deep and raw fear aching beneath the darkness.
"Hopefully it won't come to that," Sol mutters. He doesn't look reassured by the thought of Razi or Javi trusting him. There's another of those grimaces. "Razi seems solid. Diplomatic. I just poke at shit until it either gives up or I understand how it works. But I won't tell Marybelle or her circle anything you aren't comfortable telling them yourself." He rubs the back of his neck. "I don't suppose you're any good at following people?" It's a rhetorical question - his crooked smile says that he's _very_ sure that Ji-Ho probably is.
Ji-Ho looks at Solomon with wide eyes: a puddle of deeper dark within the shadow of his figure. "_Following people_?" he asks, sounding ever so shocked by the question. "I mean, I suppose in theory," he says, modest, demure. He takes another gummi. They are _running low_. He is gonna work through the _whole bag_. "As long as you let me say what I know when I wanna say it, we're good. What're you thinking?"
Solomon waves a hand. "I'm not the boss of you. Don't want to be, either. We're good." He does crack a smile at the shocked! tone. "Right. Rook." You know, the guy in charge of the Autumn Court in Chrysanthemum. "Do you think you could follow _him_? Without being seen. Or captured. He's not fast, but he is violent."
"I think so." Ji-Ho's eyes narrow as he considers and calculates: can he? should he? will he?
He can!
Who cares if he should!
Of course he's gonna!
"And I _might even tell you what I learn_." After a beat, Ji-Ho says, "I'm definitely gonna tell Fi and Razi, though. They'ved backed me up. You good with that?"
Solomon watches Ji-Ho think about it, his expression impassive. Although with the follow-up, he snickers. "That's fine. If there's nothing there, I don't even need to know. If there's something there, Razi'll probably tell me. Or he'll go berserk in a Court meeting one day and try and kill Rook with a letter opener. Either way? Deeply entertaining."
"Nah, it's Fi you gotta watch out for," Ji-Ho says, his teeth showing in a bright smile. "She'll totally have already taken care of Rook before Razi even gets his hands around a letter opener. It's _Real_ I'm kind of interested in. What's your read there?"
Solomon hrms. "She seems smart. Grounded. But whatever is going on, I'd suspect she knows at least some of it. She seems loyal to Marybelle. And how much _Marybelle_ is involved in anything is debatable. She seemed more...together. Which perhaps bodes well for the Season if she's lucid and not a part of whatever nonsense is happening. And bodes badly if she's lucid and is _driving_ the nonsense. I don't know any of them very well. And people aren't," he grimaces, "my specialty. It would be easier if they were ants."
"She _seemed_ together, but she didn't say much. She only interrupted Real that one time, and otherwise Real basically--." Ji-Ho walks his fingers across the edge of the desk. Whatever he means to suggest with that walk is unclear. SOMETHING.
"It's still an improvement," Solomon grumbles. "But you're not wrong. We don't know how much of her is _here_, and even if she's lucid...god only knows what she's thinking." He clucks his tongue. "Ah, well. We'll account for what we can, and adapt to what we can't."
"_Exactly_. Like, how much of it is actually her? I don't know. It's hard to really judge her when she is not and hasn't been the one leading the court." Ji-Ho's knees fall in a spread of shadow, falling against the side of the chair. "And if she really is lucid, she's gotta understand why this is so bad. But who wants to be the one to say something? No thanks! I like living!"
Solomon smiles. "If it comes to an actual declaration of war, _I'll_ say something. I'm not going to be pushed into some stupid conflict unless I'm very sure it's worth it. Not agains other of our kind. We've got enough shit to deal with." He rolls his shoulders when they try to hunch; he's not particularly looking forward to the idea, but the set of his jaw says he _thinks_ he'll go through with it, anyway.
"It feels too much like one of their moves," Ji-Ho says in a quiet voice, hunched in on himself. "I'll see what I can find out about Rook. First thing for _anything_ is knowing, and we don't know ... much. So I'll let you know how it goes, and you'll give me gummies. Deal?" He says Deal so Very Seriously, expression So Solemn, but it's not much of a Deal in the end.
And yet, Solomon is equally solemn as he nods and says, "Deal." He reaches out and pushes the rest of the bag towards Ji-Ho. "Go ahead and take these. Consider it an honorarium paid in advance." Then he waves at his computer. "I should try and get back to this, though. The submission deadline is approaching and I'm one article behind my schedule."
"I have no idea what that means," Ji-Ho says, unfolding and scooping up the gummies to pocket them with a blissful ease. "And I don't wanna know. Catch you once I know something." And then he takes his -- HIS now -- gummies, and he scoots. To scout.
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