A Frozen Orchid

Wu Lan took the elevator to her penthouse apartment. It was 1:30 AM. Stepping in, she yawned widely and sleepily smiled as her black and grey Maine Coon kitten, Hui, rushed up to her feet and put his paws on her legs. "Long time, no see, Xiao Hui," she lethargically said as she picked the cat up in her hands. Hui scrambled onto her shoulders and hung there, limp, mewling. Wu Lan walked into her bedroom and got undressed, revealing a body taut with lean muscle, an array of scars, seemingly made by a host of weapons, including a few deeper scratches made by claws, bullet wounds, and blade marks. Not visible when she was wearing her long sleeved pantsuit, there were also tattoos winding through her arms, into her back, ribs, and midriff in an unknown language, adorned with thorn covered vines. She put on her pajamas, walked up to her bed, and saw her other cat, a fully grown Russian Blue named Ao, sprawled across the bed. She huffed a breath and nudged the cat aside, falling asleep in the middle of two resting cats.

Four and a half hours later, Wu Lan woke up, feeling refreshed. 'Ah, I slept in today,' she thought. She got up and wiggled out from in between her two cats, both resting their paws on her body. After carefully tucking them both under the blanket, she took a cold shower, got dressed in workout clothes, and headed to the personal gym she had built in her apartment. After about two hours, she left and took another shower, hot this time, and got dressed again, this time in a pair of dark jeans and a grey long-sleeve crewneck shirt. As she was eating her breakfast she cooked, just a simple omelette and coffee, she thought to herself, 'What shall I do on my day off? It's been a few weeks since I took a break, maybe I can just play drum set for a few hours and figure something out later?'

She walked into a large, open room full of different instruments, including, but not limited to, a five octave rosewood marimba, drumset, marching tenors, a marching snare, a piano, cello, trumpet, and more. While she preferred percussive instruments, she also knew how to play string instruments and wind instruments. Music was something Wu Lan had an interest in ever since that mysterious woman had taught her how to play the first note on a child sized xylophone. In her free time, she would even compose her own works and go play at a local venue with local musicians, but she never even considered releasing her works, claiming that she didn't want to make money off her music, and just enjoy it as was. In reality, Wu Lan had long decided that she would only form a group with people she really trusted, and only when she had ample time to entirely focus her efforts on one career, which Wu Lan highly doubted would happen within the next ten years, at the very least.

After playing along to a few of her favorite tracks to warm up, Wu Lan continued writing a jazz piece she'd been working on for a while, and before she could tell time had passed by, it was already 2:30 PM. She got a call around then, and it was from Wu Fan! "Yo, Fan, what's up?" she asked.

"Nothing in particular, Lan, I just called to let you know I'm in City S right now, want to get a drink, maybe have a quick spar?" Wu Fan said through the phone.

"Wow, drinking in the middle of the day, I see you've only gotten to be more of a degenerate since the last time I saw you, I'm almost proud," Wu Lan laughed through the phone.

"I'm only doing what my degenerate sister taught me to do, let's meet at Winter Dragon tavern in an hour?" Wu Fan responded.

"Okay, see you there," Wu Lan hung up the phone, cheerfully humming. She hadn't seen this brother of hers for almost half a year, since he was off collecting intelligence for the Sickle Alliance Army. The Alliance Army consists of six countries, Country S, which she lived in the capital of, Country I, where she grew up, Country C, Country K, Country L, and Country E. 'Looks like he finished his latest assignment, I should share my intel with him as well," Wu Lan decided.