Eliza Krunal was born to live a boring life. A lack of magical prowess kept her from any sort of rank in her duties, but she was versed enough to close a scrape, and smart enough to know you could still heal a lot without a spell. This, along with a bubbly smile, had landed her with a desk job, and a people facing role.

Those who knew her more casually, knew how much of a ruse it was. She hated the city she was in. She hated her boss. And she hated most of her job.

In fact, she hated her job so much, it had become more than a need to quit it. She had made it her lifelong aspiration to have her position end with her.

Along with every position in the Psych Ward.

There were very few employed by the Heroguard that cared enough to heal a follower, but it still needed to be done. And that's how she knew she could get away with a lot.

And if she did something that put her job security at risk, she had backups that would stop even Tiram from cutting her paychecks. She could punch Sithech's ratty little face and no one would have the balls to fire her. And with the way the Archon was covering every inch of her paperwork in red stamps and semantic corrections, she was tempted to.

It was a slow grind. You couldn't topple something so fundamental to the Heroguard as the Psych Ward was overnight. And to add to the problem, where many of the occupants were simply normal people with the wrong kind of magic, there were definitely a few who did deserve the bars. Athansi was one. The bitch always had something smart to say when Eliza passed her cage, but was quiet as a mouse for the rest of the staff. She was always finding the queen's little spiders in her office, and had grown past any sort of fear that would normally come with feeling one drop into your hair.

The celestial prison the fairy queen sat in was made for a god. However powerful Athansi was, it was like trapping a spider in an iron box and welding every single edge shut. The White Knight had the only key, and for the sake of his daughter he had spawned with the psychopath, he would never open that cage.

She finished the last of Sithech's corrections, pressing down her stack of papers with a sword shaped paperweight and moving on to the papers she was supposed to be processing today. She froze as the first stack of papers was a dismissal report. Followers didn't get death certificates like soldiers. They were just dismissed.

Her gaze immediately dropped to the follower number.

285.

Eliza cursed under her breath.

She flipped to the cause of death - Katryna.

No… that wasn't right.

She flipped to the very end of the report, her body flooding with relief when she saw Caleb's signature. The Follower's squadron had looked to be all dead, but there was still some hope in an otherwise crappy situation.

She started on the filing work, nearly through the report when the enchanted bell at her desk chimed.

Feeding time.

She shot from her chair, stretched her back, and snatched the white coat hanging off the corner of her desk. She tied up her hair as she walked, providing a passing greeting or nod to her coworkers. Two taller men joined her in her journey, their eyes shaded by the brimmed black hats they wore. Those hats, paired with the black coats used to be a popular style in the city. Until Sithech had petitioned to make it into a uniform for his troops to catch crime by surprise.

Eliza had never seen the citizens of a city shift to cheap dies like yellows and greens more quickly. Now Sithech's men all stuck out like a sore thumb with their outfits tailored to hide in the masses, and earned an endearing nickname. Lurkers.

Sithech had given her a personal security detail, under the lie that it was for her own protection. She didn't know the names of the two Lurkers that shadowed her outside of her office. But they were nothing but eyeballs. Too squeamish to accompany her on her nursing trips, and too cowardly to follow her into the same room as an unrestrained Follower.

Eliza looked one of them up and down, catching their gaze which they quickly tossed to the side.

"Are those new socks Carl?"

He didn't respond, but he did look down at his feet to make sure his uniform was in order. She didn't even know if his name was Carl. Sithech had banned them all from small talk around her.

Eliza made it down the checkups wing, greeting the similarly dressed nurses that had no security shadowing them. When the white stone walls mellowed to a newer paint coat of baby blue she turned left at a board marked 'Kitchen' to face a thick set of double doors.

One of the Lurkers overstepped her, holding open the thick metal door that lead into a large kitchen. She gave the older gentleman a smile as she passed. "Thank you, darling."

The din from inside flooded around her as she entered, the scent of fresh baked bread wafted over, and the warmth of the burning ovens hugged her body. She turned to the call of her name, facing a lanky man wielding two thick oven mitts and a wooden spoon that had a dollop of pinkish icing.

Eliza held back a laugh as she saw his terrible attempt at tying his hair to the top of his head, grabbing a golden apron that was hanging off his arm to put it on. He offered up the wooden spoon, waiting for Eliza to sample the icing and give a nod of approval. "Berries?"

He nodded. "Strawberries were in season, I got some older ones and cooked them down…"

Eliza nodded along to his detailed breakdown of the icing, finding two more golden aprons to hand off to her Lurkers. They complied with the dress code, only because of the defensive enchantments that were woven into the fabric. At least that's what Sithech said. Eliza was convinced that Carl secretly liked the frilly accessory.

A Follower lashing out in the wards had become rarer during feeding time, but it wasn't unheard of. Especially since most of them associated the black uniforms with being beaten.

Unlike Eliza, the man in front of her, Max, loved his job. And Eliza loved Max, because according to Sithech, the young new Archon was doing his job completely wrong.

As she stared at the army of pink cupcakes he had assembled as part of the lunch menu, she couldn't agree more.

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"What's for lunch?"

Max's eyes glowed with excitement as he pointed at a few pots being loaded into trays, gooey cheesy pasta pouring out of them like a river of gold.

Eliza smiled at Max, pity heavy in her words. "They can't have spoons."

"Aha! I know, I remembered this time!" He beckoned her to follow him over to one of the ovens, waving the steam away from a cooling sheet of baked breadsticks. These ones were a little different from the usual ones Max had made a recipe for, the bread pressed and molded to resemble scoops.

He grabbed one, knocking on it to show its crispy integrity, then laying his hand flat and stabbing it into the backside of his hand. The bread spoon crumbled without harm.

"Impressive." Eliza cooed.

"Sith's gonna love it!"

Eliza nodded. Sithec was, in fact, going to absolutely hate that Max had found a loophole to his 'No cutlery' rule.

She wandered back to the edge of the kitchen, finding the cart with her name placard on it. A couple food-filled trays had already been loaded onto it. She counted the dishes, snagging a carafe of water and wheeling on her merry way. Max quickly joined her side as she made it out of the kitchen, clipboard in hand. He skimmed the familiar names, his eyes glowing like a puppy in a mud puddle. "Oh! Eliza, I have a surprise! Don't let me forget."

Eliza tossed a smile over her shoulder at the younger Lurker. "Make sure I don't forget, Carl."

She wheeled along through the normal tenant halls, the baby blue walls turning a soft green as she entered the wing with First Strike Followers. And then the green turned to a very soft magenta as she entered the Second Strike quarters with Max.

She distributed food to a few names on her list. All of them people that had called the wing their new home.

Without a squadron that either wanted them, or could handle them, they were left as permanent tenants of the Psych Ward. They needed to be regularly socialized to keep their four walls from driving them more insane than being exposed to the Golden Arch had. Eliza's list consisted of most of them, with Max having a small handful of the aggressive ones. She would come back in the afternoon for socializing activities - she didn't want the food to get cold.

She passed a set of iron double doors, the locking enchantments carved into them sliding open for Max. The Lurkers that trailed Eliza did not follow her past them. The Three Strike wing had no guards.

Human ones, at least.

Max went through the doors first, showing his open palms to the two arcane hounds that rushed him and the cart of food. Eliza kept still as the beasts rounded her, prodding her clothes and the various trays to try and catch the scent of illicit magics. When they finished their search empty handed, their snarls subsided, and they each took a corner of the door, runic blue tongues lolling, and metal ears perked upright.

They both wheeled the cart into the new hall, the walls an apricot orange with full sets of enchanted plate armour golems facing each other with readied weapons every ten steps. If a follower ever escaped in this wing, the alarms would trigger, and the full squadron of golems would come to life and attack.

Max took a seat on a bench by the doors, prepping up a tray for Eliza. The new Archon never moved past the bench into the three strike wing. Not anymore. The last time he had been in there was before he had gained the Archon title. Sithech had taken him in to identify his father's body parts that had painted the walls after a three strike tenant did not want to ascend and walk through the Golden Arch. She did not know what was more terrifying. The fact that the Follower had slain an Archon with ease, or the fact that, after it had slaughtered him, it walked right back into its cage and closed the door.

Eliza did not give that Follower a name. It was the only one the Psych Ward did not socialize. She fed it, but it did not eat. It simply sat in its dark room, head bowed, sleeplessly reciting praise to Ra'zerun.

Eliza took a tray of food, approaching their room and removing the old tray of stale food, and wordlessly loading in the new one through the food slot.

She came back to Max, the Archon smiling with a silent thank you as she took the next tray.

And then the next one, and the next.

She stopped as Max prepped the last tray, circling the small trolley to brush up against his side. She felt him stiffen as she rested her head on his arm. She watched Max quickly shoot his gaze left and right, making sure a person hadn't somehow made it past the barking security.

"Are you scared Sith is going to find out?"

"That would be terrifying." Max whispered, pulling a laugh from Eliza at how spooked the Archon looked.

"I do hate the way he doesn't knock." She edged closer to him, slipping her hand down his back to squeeze lower things. "Is that a no?"

He shifted his legs uncomfortably, looking at the flat wooden bench behind him, and then at Eliza. "Here?"

"No." She caught some relief flood Max's face. "Artifact storage again? My office is getting boring."

"There's so many guards though." Max replied, pouting his lips at Eliza's frown. "My office?"

She hummed in thought. It added an extra, annoying step. But she could work with that. "I'll stop by after I clock out. Be back in thirty," she replied, grabbing the last tray and venturing to the final one on her list.

Eliza stopped at a small closet facing her tenant's door, carefully setting down her tray to look through the shelves of boxes and toys.

She grabbed a larger wicker basket, 'Doc' painted in black across its side. It was best to socialize this one during feeding time. They burnt out quick with multiple visits every day.

She turned to their door and slid open their food slot, peeking through the crack instead of sliding the tray in. The occupant was in plain view, their head cocked in her direction. Unlike most of the Followers in the Psych Ward that preferred the loose pyjamas, this one was comfortable in their field gear. Black baggy robes covered their body, tucked tight into thick black gloves and their grippy socks. Their chosen mask was a bird with a long beak, which made them look somewhat ridiculous when they had to turn their head completely to see things.

But Eliza understood the ridiculous attire. It covered them completely, and gave them privacy they could find comfort in. Their squadron had delivered a pre-emptive punishment before tossing them at the Psych Ward. The scars they left all over the Follower had only mutated into something worse after he survived strike three.

She paid the follower a soft smile. "Can I come in, Doc?"

The Follower bobbed their head, giving the door some space for Eliza to open it.

She came into the room, gently placing the tray of food in front of Doc, and laying down the wicker basket to sit on the floor facing him.

"How are you today?"

Doc tapped his fingers along the ground, taking longer than either liked to give a drawn response. "Fiiiine."

Eliza smiled, moving around the bowls and plates of food to wipe down the food tray with a cloth. "And what does fine mean today?"

"A little bit sad." Doc murmured, looking down at the tray as Eliza took a tiny crumb from each of the dishes and popped them in her mouth.

She showed the follower her empty mouth after she chewed them down, waiting for a nod of assurance.

"Why are you sad?"

Doc shifted his legs uncomfortably, his beak cast to the floor in ponderment. The Follower was always bothered by small problems. But had been trained to think these small things would bother others to fix. It had taken Eliza a lot of time to convince him even small things deserved attention, but habits that had been painfully driven into him were hard to shake.

"You can tell me."

Doc tensed his shoulders, finally giving in with a nervous sigh. "My… sock." He tucked his legs tighter, hiding his feet completely. "There is a hole. Do I have to show you?"

"I believe you. I'll get you a replacement. Can you last until tomorrow?"

"Yes I think so." Doc nodded, "Yes yes. I will, yes."

"I'm glad you told me." She slid the box closer to them, showing the usual games it was packed with. "Would you like to eat first? Or socials?"

"Games!"

Eliza chuckled, tipping the basket to show the various games to Doc. He grabbed a drawstring pouch filled with little square wooden pieces, each piece holding a letter of the alphabet.

Eliza fished around for ten pieces, handing them off to doc and grabbing her own. She spelt out the first word she could see and lined up five pieces on the floor to spell 'Actor'.

Doc played around with his pieces for a bit, then laid out half his pile to spell 'spider'.

Eliza frowned. That was the next one she was feeding after this.

Doc grabbed some new pieces, "You're sad too."

"I got a report that a commander died. He was a very nice person." Eliza replied, adding 'web' onto the end of spider.

"Oh…" Doc replied, fidgeting with his pieces, before placing down a word. "It is a good thing to be sad for."

She smiled bitterly. "Yes, it is good."

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