#pays homage to the pilot - slamming doors in Alastor's face.

[famiglia-lealta]

The fact that anyone in Hell would bother to knock at all was the first call for suspicion. Especially in such a musical fashion, she almost had to wonder..

But no, surely not. That was so very long ago, it might as well been only the flicker of a far off memory.

Pulling off some dirty gloves, she tossed them in the wastebin as she moved to open the door - honestly, she was just expecting another plea for free drugs she didn't even have. "Yes, can I help..?"

Words caught in her throat as in an almost comical fashion, she looked from the face to the big fluffy ears down to the hoofs-in-boots back to the face again. A moment of silence passed, before the door was swiftly shut. A few seconds later, it was opened again, and Neri pressed a hand to her face.

"Right, this is it, isn't it? It's finally happened. They all warned me it would - I suppose I'm just a little late blooming to it, why isn't that a surprise? I've gone completely mad. That's the only explanation for this. The working too hard, the lack of intelligent conversation-- of all the people an addled brain could of conjured, why is it focusing on you?!"

@famiglia-lealta, you're on the air!

Alastor was not a man prone to sentimentality. Shocking, perhaps, given his affinity for all things antique! But his interest in the past laid more in the hands of a practical sensibility, of what those old relics were capable of and what they represented in the cultural zeitgeist of his own era. He admired them, because they had proven themselves worthy of his admiration.

Once he'd come back from his seven - year hiatus, admittedly, there were very few places he felt he needed to revisit. Hers was ... not a need, precisely, though certainly the urge to see his would - be doctor was compelling. And she had been the first person that popped to mind when he was pondering just which positions at the Hazbin Hotel still needed occupation. The girl was surprisingly durable, stubborn in the face of opposition, and fiercely dedicated to her own beliefs however little Alastor had come to understand them in the few debates they'd had on the subject. She and Charlie would cooperate swimmingly.

Maybe, in this occasion, he was feeling a little sentimental at the prospect of seeing a familiar face, after his time away.

The door to her practice was tapped with a knuckle, beating out a jaunty rhythm before the hand retreated behind his back once again as Alastor awaited her greeting.