In the early evening hours, Rune is busy trying to see how far Gaofele's outdoor improvement projects have come along. It took a serious effort for her to figure things out, but she eventually determined how to make passably decent tea and is setting it up near his pergola-in-progress. Portable tables and chairs have been hauled out for this, as she has invited a guest-slash-contractor.
Thus everything needs to be ready for when Homura arrives, whom Rune has called up and asked if they can meet to discuss an expansion to the house. "It feels kind of weird," she remarks either directly to Gao if he's nearby or just for her own benefit if he hasn't arrived yet. "In a few years, we'll probably be going home and will just have to abandon the improvements we're doing here. Or keep it as some kind of very occasional 'vacation home' for us. For right now though, we're actually doing so much with it to make it fit what we need... never would have expected that a year ago." She sounds fairly calm, if quietly impressed, about this realization.
Gaofele Doiru finishes bracing one of the support posts in place, making sure it's standing properly in the hole that it's supposed to be in. "It's always a good idea to feel at home wherever you live," he points out as he heads over to the table and chairs. "Not to mention leaving things better than when you found them."
He takes a seat as he relaxes for a bit. Digging up the ground to put the forms in place for the 'grasscrete' had taken a couple of days, and now the cement portion was going through the slow process of curing. Slow going, but making promising progress.
"I don't think we expected any of this a year ago," the forester points out. "And... in a way, I think that wound up being a good thing."
Homura was called, and while her secretary couldn't make it, she certainly feels comfortable enough coming over on her own. Another magical group needs the services of the mundane side of her company? That's fine. That's no problem at all.
A black corvette drives up to the Waldian's house, pulling up to the sidewalk and parking there. A familiar black-haired girl in a black formal business suit wearing red-rimmed shades steps out. She shakes her head, flipping her hair behind her as she removes her shades. The car door closes, hands go into jacket pockets, and she walks up to the front door. Purple eyes take a good look at the house as she gets closer.
Her finger presses against the doorbell, and she steps back from the door. She takes a moment to adjust her purple tie while she waits, eventually deciding that it's okay and clasping her hands together behind her back.
"Yeah... you may be right." Rune concedes as Gao sits down. "Either we get use out of it, or someone else eventually gets an even better place. Guess it works out. As for it being a good thing... well." She waves over to the approaching Homura, trying to get her attention from the front yard. "Sorry, we're over here right now!" A call out to their guest.
Then, more quietly, she finishes her thought to Gaofele. "Kind of weird that being wrong was a good thing, but you're probably right on that one too."
Hesitantly, she begins pouring tea into cups; three have been set up, one arranged near Gaofele's seat, one near an empty chair, and finally one for herself. Rune is /very/ careful about this, as if she was pouring chemicals that were going to explode if mis-handled. Then she adds for Homura's benefit, "We've been doing a lot here. /This/," she nods to the immediate area around the pergola, "is our little project. Well, he put in most of the planning on it," a nod at Gao to indicate him. "So this part is just for you to enjoy, we're fine on this end. The business part of it is seeing if we can do some expansion to add another room or two upstairs to the main house."
Gao raises his cup of tea in a silent toast of welcome to Homura, then sips on it as Rune explains things to Homura. "Small structures and outdoors, stuff like that I can handle decently well," he adds. "Renovations of larger buildings, not so much."
Homura hears Runealy first, and when she looks over she notices the alien princess. "Oh! There you are."
Homura walks over to the pergola, notices the empty chair which she can only assume is for her benefit, and takes a seat. "Thank you," she says, once Rune has finished pouring her tea. She takes a sip of it, and places it down.
Her purple eyes scan their personal project, eyes seeing in a different light than she would have a year ago. She notices the key structural points, and the solidness of Gao's work. She closes her eyes and comments off hand, "You did this? It looks nice."
Homura's eyes open again, pointed at Runealy. "Making renovations to the second story of a house? I don't blame you for not wanting to handle that alone. Did you have a floor plan in mind?"
She tilts her head up and looks at the roof of the house itself, considering just where the rooms could be added.
Rune looks on with unusually focused attention as Gaofele tries the tea... she's pretty sure she did not produce a top-notch brew; not on one of her very first efforts doing this herself, when normally servants or friends handle it. If it's /tolerable/, she'll consider this a victory. Her peripheral vision keeps Homura in view, gauging the Puella Magi's reaction to the same drink for the same concerns, half expecting either one of them will be holding back disgust. "He has been doing a lot of it, and it's not the first time. I've seen him do all sorts of little projects like this, came in handy when we first arrived here and needed to fix a few things right away."
Then she ponders Homura's question. "A floor plan?" A tinly jolt of panic hits Rune as she realizes that's missing, then nervously admits: "Not exactly. No drawn out diagram, anyway. We have one room we've set up as our Safe Room for guests. Thing is, that's pretty much Fate's room now. We're going to ask her if she wants a window added to it or not, but either way she either gets to keep it, or claim one of the new rooms. What we need to do is add two more rooms up there that we can protect, but are comfortable for our guests too. ...Kind of a big project, I think."
Not the most exquisite tea, but certainly refreshing to Gao after putting in a few hours of work on the pergola. He smiles at Rune's compliment, then takes another drink of the tea.
"It's a slightly bigger deal than the job we did for Mamo-kun's apartment," admits Homura, "but not as big a deal as the jobs we've done for Mitakihara General."
Homura is... not a tea expert. If there's something wrong with Runealy's tea she might not notice beyond 'it tastes funny'. If there's any disgust, well, Homura's often blank face doesn't betray it. She picks up the tea cup and swishes the beverage around a bit as she talks. "Though, if we're talking about 'safe rooms', I feel obligated to ask if you want... some kind of reinforcement. Something to make the walls stronger. It'll be more difficult, and there's only so much you can do against a direct magical attack, but it's something to think about."
She raises her free hand and flips it back, closing her eyes again. "Comfort isn't that big of a problem. Good carpeting and furniture can handle that. I could make the inside look just like any other room in the house."
Her eyes open and to go towards to the house again. "For a project of this scale, I'll have to have one of my architects look the house over. You know, just to make sure that everything is structurally sound when we're done."
Rune calms down once she realizes neither of them are displeased with their drink, smiling a bit and finally taking a sip of her own... then going wide-eyed. Not from the tea itself, but what Homura just said. "Wait, you can /do/ that? Adding more protection to a room already built? That's actually a really good idea, if you can. Basically, here's what we do with those rooms..."
The princess takes a breath to gather her thoughts. Then, "They're kind of an extension of what we got after a while. When we first got here..." She looks over to Gaofele. "We were living in trash. An abandoned store. It had a /lot/ of problems. Gao here fixed the ones he could, and he took it way more calmly than I did, but... it was pretty much the worst. After a while, Virtue loaned us a place. We can't quite do that, but what we /do/ want to do..."
She pauses again to figure out the right words. "Is have some nice rooms to offer to people who are scared like that. Who need somewhere that isn't covered in trash, somewhere they can be surrounded by people who won't be very happy about their guest's enemies showing up. Somewhere that our guests can feel okay. The better protected, the more I like it. If you can do that, then go ahead and bring your architects in."
Gaofele Doiru nods in agreement with Rune. "A place for friends -- or would-be friends, even -- to realize that they're not alone, and that they're safe," he confirms.
Homura silently listens as Runealy discusses the intent of the rooms, reiterating the details in her mind. Gao confirms it, and Homura nods. Something like that... She takes another sip of tea as she considers what exactly that would take, and when she sets her cup down again she speaks.
"A kind gesture, and a generous one, though somehow I wouldn't put it past you." She smiles, briefly, and then starts getting into details, "Alright, I can do that, but it won't be... simple. Adding new rooms to the second floor means making sure that the first floor can support the weight, and no matter what it will also affect the roof and insulation. It'll also affect the electrical wiring and air conditioning of the whole house."
"As for reinforcing rooms that have already been built, well, we'd need temporarily cut open the walls. For the new rooms themselves, I'll ask some of my more strategically minded magical employees for input on the layout. I'm sure we can do a lot to make the house more defensible. As for a window, well, that's by far the easiest part of this project."
She frowns for a moment, before adding, "Though I should warn you, and this probably goes without saying, but this is going to be an expensive project."
For all her faults and struggles with some mundane concepts, Runealy's eyes /don't/ glaze over; she's not overwhelmed as Homura lays out the details of what they're facing. "I think for the friends and 'would be friends'," she nods over to Gaofele to endorse his choice of wording on that, "that this... well."
She holds up a hand, buying time as she runs the numbers in her head. They're incomplete, because the princess does not have the true costs for modern conveniences... but she can make estimates.
"...No, that's actually worth saying. The sums you're talking about..." The hand lowers. "If I'm even within half of the real costs... I'm going to need to ask father for funding. I think he'll agree if he realizes what we're getting out of it, but... wow. We're going to need an estimate, definitely have to have that. Gao,"
She returns her attention to him, "Can you think of anything you want for this project, before we start getting numbers and going through with this?"
Gao thinks for a few moments. "Maybe some growth bulbs for plants that don't have good window access, but that's more of a furnishing concern instead of structural," he shrugs. "Having places for plants is a good idea, especially for those who enjoy flowers and the like."
"I can tell you this much," starts Homura, "it will be cheaper in the long run to do it all at once. So if you have anything else you want to do at this time, please let me know." Gao mentions growth bulbs, and Homura shrugs. "For something like that, I'm sure I can have my electricians install a few light sockets. That's no big deal, compared to what you're already asking for."
She leans back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. "It will take a few weeks worth of preparatory work. Looking things over, planning things out, and so on. After that, I estimate a project like this would take... about a month, maybe a month and a half. I can't give you an exact estimate without consulting my people first, but they can estimate that once the house is looked over. The kinds of numbers you should be prepared for are, well, something less than five million yen but something more than one million." Between $10k and $50k. "Sorry that I can only give rough numbers but that's about as close as I can get without the advice of my experts."
"That..." Rune pauses to assess what Gaofele just asked for, her head both running the math on the costs and what the end result might look like. Apparently she likes what she comes up with, as a bit of a smile forms. "...sounds pretty good, if that's what I think it is. Get with them, see what we need to make it happen, and we'll get it added!"
She's quickly reassured by Homura's estimates, "Wow, that's about half of what I was expecting. Still a lot, still going to have to talk to him to get funding, but that's not /as/ far out as I thought. I like it. Go ahead and get your experts looking at it, please? I'll pay for their time regardless of whether we proceed with the actual building or not, but it sounds like the more we know and the sooner we know it, the better. Thank you for going over this with us!"
With the structural things accounted for, Gao can figure out indoor planters to go with them. "Yes, thanks for stopping by!" Gaofele smiles to Homura.
Homura grins across the table at Runealy and Gao. Then she stands up. "As the CEO of Salamander Construction, that's about as much as I can do for you right now. However..." She crosses her arms. "... as the leader of the Contractors, I can offer you a bit more magical firepower, if you ever need it while protecting someone. I'll set aside my kindest magical fighters if the need arises. Although..." Homura glances towards Gao, and then at the house, "You seem to have that well in hand as it is."
She bows slightly. "I'll be happy to help you in any way I can. After all, we live in a dangerous world, and there's no telling when someone needs a friend." With a flip of her hair, she adds, "It was a pleasure. I'll send a team over sometime in the next week. Don't worry about paying for them. I don't charge for estimates. I make enough on the actual job."
She affixes them both with a stare, "I work with a lot of people who don't necessarily have the luxury of committing money to a project that they might abandon, so it's just kind of a policy."
Hands to back into pockets, and Homura glances towards the street. "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss with me, while I'm here?"
"We're pretty good on the protection side of things," Rune suggests. "Really, making sure our guests are happy too... well, that was great when it was /just/ one or two guests in the room, but now we're going to have more than that soon. I want them to think they deserve better than the living room. So, other than that...?"
Her head tilts down in thought, "No, I'm good unless..." A glance to Gaofele, "Did you have anything else?"
"Nothing relevant to that project," Gao says after a moment's thought. "At least, nothing that will affect the designs. Furniture is furniture; I can design planters once the rest of the plans are finalized."
Homura listens to them both, and then nods. "Well, if that's the case, good night!" She starts to head back over to her corvette, and she gets halfway there before she pauses, half-turns around, and glances at them both.
"... before I go, I should mention that Madison Perry knows that I have Hana Shiroi..."
She waves her hand dismissively. "Don't worry too much about it. No one has ever broken into where Shiroi-san is being kept. That said, watch your backs."
With that dire warning delivered, she heads back to her car.