[dp] made of flecks of light and dark and parasols [elijah]

It was deadline day, again. Somehow it always snuck up on her, even though she had a calendar and a mini-Remembrall at her desk. She was blaming it on the time difference, this time. Perhaps it was a mistake to Portkey-travel while hungover, but it beat trying to fly the Muggle way, and she was well out of Muggle cash after Disneyland. The first day back to the office had been just reacclimatizing, putting some snacks in the breakroom for everyone - rice "krispie" treats in the shape of Mickey Mouse, which seemed to have older staff members perplexed - and pulling together her notes from the trip.

On her desk now were three stacks of papers - one on Oliver's band and the party, one on general California style, and one on Disneyland. The Disneyland stack seemed more like a stack of souvenirs, but her editor had seemed excited by the idea of a destination piece more so than the others. Of course, her piece on the Banshee birthday party would have been more exciting if she let the cat out of the bag, but Cordelia didn't want to betray Oliver's trust. At the very least, she needed more trips abroad before blowing that bridge - which she would never do, of course.

Cordelia took a break from her furious scribbling to massage her right hand. The piece was short and light, certainly not front-page material but good enough for her current department. She looked wistfully across the room to the political reporters, their investigation boards just out of site. Wizards live for a long time, making seniority hard to come by. But Cordelia was impatient.

A memo flew onto her desk. C- add pictures! it read, in her boss' scratchy handwriting. Ugh, of course. She hadn't brought a camera, was rubbish with a camera. Foolish. She stood up, grabbing one of the postcards from her stack of mementos and a copy of the article. Her low heels lacked across the floor as she made her way to the Art Department and beelined for her favourite illustrator.

“‘Lo, Elijah,” she said, coming up behind his desk. “You got a minute?”

Elijah ran an inked stained hand over his face as he focused on the drawing in front of him. This one was a political cartoon, and he was determined to get the caricatures of those involved just right. His hand had left yet another smudge of ink just above his eyebrow, though it was one of many. He was always perpetually covered in ink, and while some thought it was unsightly, the lanky brunette considered it a hazard of his job as an illustrator. There was nothing the man loved more than drawing, except for maybe reading muggle comic books.

There was, however, one thing that Elijah hated, and that thing was being interrupted when it was clear he was busy. Never mind that on occasion his definition of busy and others clashed. Eli was no stranger to having different opinions than most of his peers, and by this point it did not bother him in the slightest, especially since he knew he was almost always right.

When a voice interrupted his train of thought mid-line the wizard wasted no time in flapping his free hand at the offending voice in an impatient gesture that was not meant to appear as rude as it might have. He was focused and did not want to stop in the middle of a line when he was inking. A moment later Elijah pulled the ink pen away from the page with a slight flourish as he examined his work, and tucked the pen behind his ear and turned to see who it was who had disturbed him.
He’d had one eyebrow arched, ready to send the offender scurrying away, until he realized that it was Cordelia. His eyebrow dropped and his eyes narrowed instead as he greeted her suspiciously “Cordelia..” Most of the editorial staff had a tenuous relationship with him at best. But Cordelia was alright as things went, she was at least nice to him, and not a moron like some of the older staff was getting to be, in his opinion.

He still squinted at her as he waited to see what she was after but let the slightest hints of a smile play across his face, knowing that this was probably going the way of the majority of their interactions had and he was feeling less annoyed than usual “whose got you on a deadline this time?” He asked evenly before adding “and what’s in it for me?” The questions were serious, but Elijah knew he would already take her project, being that he was in a good mood, and she was one of the few people he could tolerate on their floor. But he also had a reputation to uphold.

She hushed as directed, smiling at the ridiculousness of Elijah's entire pose. He had ink smudged on his forehead again. Classic Eli. Cordy leaned against the divider, patiently waiting for him to finish whatever - or more likely, whoever - was the object of his ire this time. When he turned to her Cordy thought he might shout at her to go away as he did to so many others, but she was clearly still on his good side. Wonderful. "Hi, Eli," she said again, giving a little wave with her free hand.

Who had her on a deadline? She rolled her eyes, smiling. "Oh, Craig again, you know how he is." Craig Applebottom was very... empathetic about what he wanted. He had a way of raising his voice that was terrifying to witness but utterly harmless to everyone except maybe Craig himself. Applebottom also insisted on calling Cordelia not Cordy, or Lia, or Cora or any other nickname that made sense, but just C. "C" wasn't sure if he remembered her name. "Pictures say a thousand words, so better bring him two thousand, total."

She glanced at his desk, which was remarkably empty of crumbs or Disney print wrapper. "My eternal gratitude and affection?" Cordy tried, smiling mischievously? "A favour, maybe?" She pulled out her wand, waved it next to her and stuck a hand out above her head. There were a couple of yelps from the breakroom as one of the rice Mickey heads flew through the air, landing neatly in her open palm. It was like a baseball sinking into a mitt in a cartoon. Sometimes she thought she'd be good at Ari's job, if Cordy had taken Minister Shacklebolt's offer. She had the wandwork skills, if not the mental fortitude. 

Cordy waved the treat in front of Eli. "And I'll throw in one of these. Have you had one yet?" She probably didn't neeeeeed to ply him with all this but it was good fun and costed her nothing to do, so why not?

Ah yes,Craig.

With a brief roll of his eyes Eli nodded “Oh yeah, he can be a right twat. I just don’t get all the shouty business.” Eli was under no pretense that he was a jolly fellow to be around most of the time, and he did occasionally bellow thunderously when someone asked him a particularly insipid question, but that was not without reason (of course.) Editors with their damned deadlines, always making everyone’s lives more complicated but especially his it seemed. “Elijah, I need this” or Elijah, I need that…and oh, it’s due by the 3 o’clock run.” He loved drawing and art, and loved seeing his work out for broad consumption, but it was almost enough to make him pull his hair out.

When Cordelia offered her eternal gratitude and affection as a form of repayment, the dark haired wizard laughed heartily and wrinkled his nose in mock distaste “Please, I know you can do better than that.” Favors were more up his alley though, and her suggestion had him arching an eyebrow in a silent invitation to go on. He was most certainly listening. He was happy to find that while he waited to hear more, he was not at all disappointed as he watched something fly out of the kitchen and nearly hit Ned Jones in the head before disrupting Prudence somethingorother in the midst of sipping her tea. That alone had been brilliant, and almost worth it.
 
He eyed the proffered treat for a moment before he realized what it was “It’s Mickey Mouse. How clever!”  The hint of enthusiasm was all she was getting. He wouldn’t let Cordelia know it, but anything to do with muggle cartoons was a quick way to make it in with him. He mostly preferred superheroes and action heroes, but it was hard to know muggle cartoons and not know Mickey. He bit off one of Mickie’s ears and chewed. It wasn’t actually terrible for a homemade sweet. “You did sweeten the deal, I suppose.” He poked with deadpan humor before he continued, but I’m still curious to see what you think a comparable favor would be in this situation, especially since you haven’t given me Craig’s deadline…” If it was pictures of Mickey she needed, he was fairly sure he could have them wrapped within the next two hours tops.

Cordelia sighed, thinking about Craig. "I think he cast a voice-amplification charm on himself and never figured out how to turn it off," she said fairly. She didn't really believe that but it was a fun image. "He's a git, but he's a good editor. For the text." She had to give Craig Applebottom a little credit, but only a little.
 
Eli's eyes lit up when he saw the treat, and Cordelia grinned. These had been wasted on the older staff, but Elijah appreciated it. "Straight from Disneyland California," she crowed, watching him chew. At the mention of deadline, she shrugged. "End of day, for the weekend edition press," Cordelia offered, rolling her eyes. The weekend edition didn't even go to print until the day of, but Craig wanted the society pages printed a day early. The man was paranoid they were going to cut his job, she thought.

"Oh, favours, favours," Cordelia said in a sing-song voice, thinking about what would be good to offer. "I can take your turn cleaning the break room this week?" She furrowed her brows. "Or... do you like music? I could get you into this new band's gig, it's very exclusive," Ollie would be fine with that, right? Probably. If not Ollie, Jonesy would probably cave and pass her a comp ticket. "Ooooooooor," she glanced at Eli's face, inscrutable as always but not outright hostile. She smiled. "Help me help you? I'm open to suggestions." Cordelia shuffled through her stack of papers, pulling out a photograph showing tourists gazing up at the Disneyland castle. "What is the going rate for getting this drawn in signature Dasher style, with," she pointed at the sky, then the ground, "wizards and witches in it, by half past four?" It was still morning, and Eli had a rep for being quick on the draw.

Cordelia’s assessment of Greg had Eli snorting softly “shame for the rest of us.” Eli had nothing against the editor, really. But there was something about the man that just irked him to no end. As long as Cordelia thought he had value, Elijah would say no more on it, since it was her judgment in the end. Eli rarely had to work with Craig directly these days anyway.

"End of day, for the weekend edition press." Cordy said.

Eli continued to munch on the treat in his hand as he considered “It would figure that he’d ask for them that quickly.” He paused, considering “am I adding sounds to these, or just animating them?” Her answer didn’t really matter, but he wanted to give her an accurate quote on time “If you want it with sounds, it’ll probably take me an extra forty-five minutes or so. The new ink doesn’t like to cooperate as well with the required spells” The thought made the cartoonist frown, he’d told them that they shouldn’t change the inks they were using, but they hadn’t listened to him, of course. He only worked here with them. He took one last bite of Mickey and brushed his hands against his robes.

He could have it to her by 3 that afternoon, easy but as much as Elijah liked Cordelia, he was an opportunist and wasn’t about to cut her any slack. He offered her the slightest shrug as he began to hang up some of his drying prints, shaking one in which the occupant had been cheeky enough to yell at him “Help me clean the break room, since Friday’s have been the worst lately” He paused then, and offered the witch a sharp smile “And A ticket?” He had no interest in going to the show, but thought it might be something that @Arden Dasher would like, and he could give it to her. “I’ll have them done by half past two..” he offered, his voice light, clearly hoping she’d take the deal.

Sounds! Cordelia had forgotten about sounds - she didn't get illustrations done for her articles all that often. Usually, if there was anything it was a photograph, done by Camm or whoever was available, and the photos didn't do sound for whatever reason. She pursed her lips. "Do you do music?" Cordy tilted her head to one side and hummed a little bit of It's a Small World. "Nah, that wouldn't get the point across," she decided mid-phrase. It sounded like a nursery rhyme - it was a nursery rhyme - and that wouldn't do for this. "Don't worry about sounds." It would be distracting. "Just a little bit of animation will do the trick, I think."

Eli was caving. Cordy grinned. She could give up her Friday tea break, though the ticket might present a problem if neither Ollie nor Jonesy had extra complimentary seats. "Half-past two works for me," she said sweetly, twirling a lock of brown hair around her finger. In the picture Eli was holding, some poor figure was getting jostled around. Cordy stifled a giggle. "Friday cleaning and a ticket. You drive a hard bargain." She was teasing, but even though Eli wasn't smiling she was pretty sure he was feeling, on the whole, positively towards her. She tucked some hair behind her ear, smiling and looking towards the ground. "I'll come back this afternoon, then?"