"Have a seat, Herian, I'll be with you shortly." It's so familiar as to be reflexive- that voice, that tone, the sharp civil rap against the wood of her office door.

And then the taste of that name comes back like thistles, caught and bitter and sharp in ways she hadn't considered until her head comes up slow to stare into the face of a girl she'd thought dead. That she'd been certain of losing among so many others.

"...You're late." Step two of their usual dance and she can, perhaps, be forgiven the pause and thickness of her voice. "I expected you-"

An exacting number of minutes ago, that is the line. "months ago."