Soul grumbled to himself as he situated the empty messenger bag on his shoulder.

I can't believe he transferred me all the way out here.

He'd been born into a life of magic which would have been well and good with him if his specific destiny wasn't so goddamned froofy. He envied the cool nature of demons and their lords but would have even settled for being a human warlock.

Alas, his mother's magic was rooted in love of all things.

Other amorini lived and breathed romance. Soul detested the stuff. Serenading oblivious young couples to influence their feelings? Tweaking their pheromones during the night? Setting up elaborate circumstances to bond a pair, maybe an occasional polyamory…? He wanted nothing to do with any of it. But such was his lot. He decided early on that if he had to partake (which he did, lest he suffer madness as a consequence) he would make it a point to choose the least involved methods.

Usually he would pick a target to hover around and bind them to someone who seemed like a good match. He never put more effort into matchmaking than that. Every now and then he'd get a paycheck from his contractor for (somehow) successfully matching a pair. More often than not, though, the couples couldn't find true love in their destined.

Soul didn't care much either way. It was his personal philosophy that that's what people get for putting their faith in destiny.

What he did care about, and very much so at that moment, was that his contractor had had him sent to the eastern prefectures to work his lackluster magic and hopefully collect a harvest. He was away from his family, away from the few individuals he could call his friends, and he had to board with a spinster of all people.

He knocked on the door a second time, his patience waning quickly.

'Damn hag is probably taking an afternoon nap and forgot that I'd be showing up toda–'

The door swung open wide, completely cutting off his mental grouching, and he was met with two bright, grassy eyes situated nicely on a young face… A face that was scrunched up in a glare. She ushered him inside.

"Hi, yes, come in. Make yourself at home. I have to finish up this batch of string. Someone will be here soon to collect and if I'm not done with it he'll have both of our heads."

Soul stood awkwardly in the doorway as the small blonde amorini whisked across the soft wood floors and threw herself onto a high stool. The workbench beside her and the surrounding floor was littered with haphazard piles of red wool.

"Uhh, there's a hallway to your left and the room at the end is ready for you if you want to put your stuff down," she called back to him, never taking her focus away from whatever it was she was doing.

He dropped off his stuff and returned to the living area. The whole house was much nicer on the inside than he would have expected. The exterior had looked dilapidated and he had thought that the house was actually abandoned from the state of the overgrown driveway leading up to the bowed porch. He couldn't even see a speck of mold in the corners of the house even though the smell of mildew had been strong on the front step. There was even a real bed set up in his room!

He needed to confirm he was in the right place before he would allow his relief to sink in. "You're Maka Albarn, right?"

She hummed in approval. "And you're Mister Evans, correct? The Cupid who's going to be staying here for a month?"

"That's me, although I'm more of a proxy. Call me Soul."

The girl stiffened, setting down the wool in hand. She turned to face him with an expression he couldn't place.

"…You're a proxy…" She looked down at the thread in the basket by her feet and then back up to him, seeming to see him for the first time. Her hands clapped up to her mouth as she attempted to suppress a strange gurgling sound that rose from the back of her throat. "I'm so sorry! The string it… it isn't ready yet! I spent some time this morning making sure uh…your room, I guess… was put together when I should have been spinning. I'm so—"

Soul raised his hand to stop the apologies that were bubbling out of her. "Don't worry about it. I don't actually need any until I go out tomorrow."

She eyed him warily before relaxing with a relieved huff, her bangs shifting away from her face. "I didn't realize that my ward and my client were the same person. Your contractor called you a soul eater. I was expecting you to be… not so cool about me being late on the order."

He shot her his best toothy grin, jabbing his thumb to his chest. "I'll have you know I'm the coolest guy around. I don't really conform to the whole Evan's family virtuoso-thing so I'm making my own way. That's why I go by Soul Eater. I gotta say I'm surprised to see you aren't some 50 year old crone by the way that Stein described you…"

"Your contractor isn't very good at establishing the right impression, is he?"

"Nah, he's kind of a dick through and through."

She laughed at that. "Well, then I suppose I can take just a quick break to show you around, Mister Eater."

As they toured around the house they made basic small talk that was led by the tiny blonde. Foyer, living room dominated by Maka's workspace ("Sorry about the mess, it's much nicer working in here. The shed is falling apart."), dining room, hallway, bathroom ("There's only one so please put the seat down when you're down using it!"), her room ("Off limits, of course."), his room, linen closet, library, kitchen ("You'll have to make your own food."), pantry, and finally the back door.

Soul realized after some careful observations that she was actually human; humans didn't usually get pulled into magical lines of work if they weren't born into the trade. His curiosity got the better of him.

"So…" Soul started lamely after a silence had fallen over them. They had made their way back to her table. "What made you wanna get into the amorini business?"

"My dad was a shepherd." He saw a flash of disgust (or maybe it was shame?) cross her face before she schooled her expression into something neutral but the hard edge in her voice suggested he drop the topic.

Soul knew he was prying but he didn't care about social grace very much. "Was?" She'd tell him if she wanted to.

She ran a hair through her bangs and made to speak before shaking her head. "C'mon."

He followed her out through the back door.

The yard behind the house was overgrown but it looked like more effort had gone into its maintenance. The shed she had mentioned before shrugged heavily to its left at the edge of the property, it's door coming unhinged. What really caught his attention was the towering brick wall that made up the back fence and cut through the surrounding forest with no end in sight.

"What in the…"

She led him right up to the wall, opening a shoddy wooden gate that seemed all too out of place inside of the classical archway. She swept her arms up to present whatever she'd taken him to see with a sarcastic, "Ta-dah!"

Acres of… what looked to be clouds stretched on before them. The hilly plain was scattered with small huddles of sheep; they were easy to see against the billowing cottony plants because of their rich red wool.

"Woah."

He heard a strained laugh from the spinner behind him. "Yeah. Woah. Trying to take care of all of these little guys and weave destiny is a little too 'woah' for me."

He considered her skeptically after managing to tear his eyes away from the landscape. "Is that why you're taking in tenants? You need farm help?"

She grinned devilishly, "Well now, I didn't say anything about farm help but if you're so insistent…!"

"Hey, hey, hey don't you try and put words in my mouth, woman," he couldn't help but grin back at her.

It had been a long time since he'd met such easy company.

They shared a chuckle as they made their way back into the house. "No, I'm just getting some stipends for housing you. It's enough that I can focus on managing the fields and taking care of the sheepsters without worrying about doing commissions— I will keep you stocked up on string, of course."

She returned to her perch and started spinning the wool onto the wooden tool in hand. He knelt beside the finished basket of string and ran a length of it between his fingers.

"Holy shit."

She grinned proudly as she worked.

"What grade even is this?" The feel of the stuff was enough to tell him that it was premium, but he could also see small tendrils of silver, as thin and gossamer as spider webs, weaved delicately through.

"The wool is Spirit Standard," she explained.

Now, Soul hated this business… He hated mushy-gushy sentimentality with every fiber in his body. But he knew the trade and had been raised in the industry. So he couldn't help but gape at the unsuspecting woman in front of him.

"…You're Spirit's kid?"

"Unfortunately."

"Those sheep out there…"

"They were Spirit's. Now they're mine, I guess."

"And this silver stuff? I've never seen this before. It's not arachnia, is it?"

"When he took off and left me alone with all of this stuff I decided to take some creative license and add my own spin to things."

He glared.

She snorted.

"It's unicorn hair," she hummed.

What.

The.

Fuck.

"This…This is not only Spirit Standard red-destiny but Spirit Standard imbued with fucking unicorn hair red-destiny?"

"That is correct!"

What the fuck.

Soul stared at her owlishly. Moments of silence passed between them until his bewildered gaze broke her concentration. "What about it?"

"Giving this to me is a bad idea," he emphasized, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously.

She considered him skeptically, "And why is that, Eater?"

"I'm not exactly a highly esteemed matchmaker. I'm honestly pretty bad at it." He had already wasted enough regular, run of the mill, mass produced red-destiny. He didn't want to be responsible for fucking up the good stuff.

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and turned back to the task of spinning wool into slender yarn. "Well you're in luck, then. You know why unicorn hair is so valuable right?"

He blinked at her. Of course he did. "It magnifies the power of the thread. Like, a lot."

"It magnifies the effect and it does half of the work for you!"

It was his turn to eye her suspiciously. "What do you mean, 'it does the work for you?'"

"I'm sure you'll figure out when you try using it. I don't know the specifics of it, but I've gotten some sweet reviews."

As she spoke she pulled the last bit of wool against the dowel with a spin and detangled the yarn from the spinner. She hefted the basket of finished string into his arms. "Anyway, this is yours. If you get low let me know and I'll work on spinning you a second batch. It will end up paying for itself if you keep on using this kind, too. Just… give it a chance."

He stared dumbly between the spinster and the precious mass of string in his arms. "Oh…uh, well thanks then."

The grins she had shot him earlier had been cheeky and proud; the one she turned on him now was bright and genuine. "No problem!"

It was at that moment that Soul's stomach dropped and he knew it was going to be a long month.