Moriarty didn't like surprises, he hated them to be precise. He may act like he didn't mind them or find them pleasing but it was all forged, a fake smile and a fake laugh just to antagonise the world around him that shared the displeasure of a surprise with him.
Some people would say it is karma and he wouldn't have put it past the universe to do such a thing but he had to admit that is was kind of petty, why would the universe scramble his plans a little bit in exchange for the hundreds of lives he had ruined or even taken. Moriarty was sane enough to realise that surprising someone was no punishment and he was smart enough to work around it. Most of the times he had planned for something to go wrong and a planned surprise was always better than a unplanned one.
There was one thing however that the master criminal had not planned for, something that had quite startled him when he discovered it. He didn't like feeling startled, it felt like all his plans would fall down around him in a big pile of uselessness. The pile would grow and grown and he had to quickly reassemble things before they went astray, before his empire broke apart. It may be a bit confusing and over the top but Moriarty was at his core a micro manager, not a mom with to much time on her hands but a dangerous man that would set an example if things didn't go like they should, and no one liked those examples.
This is why the first urge he felt after walking into the living room of his new safe house was to walk out, find the nearest of his employees and make such an example. There was a girl sitting in one of the elegant high back chairs, she was looking through the window next to her and he wondered why he hadn't seen her as he entered the house. She was looking up at the sky with a forlorn look as if she was looking for a lost place or memory.
Something was off about her, her edges were to crisp as if she was trying to pass as human but barely succeeded. Her hair was to bright, such a colour red was not natural, the strands mixed between wine red and almost bright orange but when he focused a bit more he could see a whole spectrum of red hues as if it was woven in her DNA, she had trapped it in a high pony tail but he could swear he could see some of it flow around her like a halo. Her eyes had the same effect and the green of it distracted him just as much as the red in her hair. She was lanky but graceful as she was dressed in a casual but strangely elegant outfit which consisted out of a pair of form fitting jeans and a t-shirt made out of a material he couldn't place, it looked black like the night sky but it had a silver sheen about it as if the girl, no, woman had plucked some starlight from the sky and made it into a fabric.
Moriarty was about to say something when the alien woman spoke up, her voice sounded like a melody mixed with mystery, a hollow husk that had once been filled but lost its contents long ago. "I would have done anything to stop the likes of you when I was younger." She spoke like this time she mentioned was eons ago. "To stop the evil in the world, to stop it all." She was still looking out of the window as she reached out as if to touch the thing she was staring at only to be stopped by the glass. "But times change and people learn," It sounded like she wanted to finish that sentence but she closed her mouth and turned her head towards the criminal in the room.
Moriarty looked at her and once again took in the strangeness of the situation, his head ran through multiple solutions, most of them violent, but he wrote them all off. There was a certain aura or force around the person sitting in his lounge and he didn't want to challenge it without learning more. "I wouldn't exactly call my brand of business 'evil'," he paused for a second to look for the appropriate words, "it is more like making a profit." His words were confident as always as he acted around the surprising situation.
The woman looked at him for a few seconds and her eyes bore into his own as if she was trying to claim information from within his brain but her the effect was halted somewhat by the detached look on her face. "You are making a profit by destroying lives." There was no anger or disdain present, she was just stating a fact and Moriarty found himself musing more and more about her presence in his house.
"A sacrifice I actually don't care about." Moriarty's tone was nonchalant but there was also a playful edge hidden within the words.
"I did once, I even cared to much, I couldn't stop caring but with the passage of time came the realisation that I was one of few who actually did." The woman shifted and placed herself in a cross legged position on the chair while she faced him, Moriarty noticed that she wasn't wearing any shoes but only socks with a print of small golden orbs with wings. "No one cares enough to offer their lives to better the world around them, I once did, but time goes on and you see things repeating themselves and you just ask yourself why you care. They are going to repeat it eventually so why put in the effort if it is going to happen again?" The indifference in her voice wrapped itself around her body like a blanket and Moriarty could sense she had long ago lost her motivation and had given up all pretence of actually caring.
"Your view on the world is an unique way to live." Moriarty said as he finally decided to move, he walked over to his sofa and sat down and the woman in the chair followed him with her eyes. He sat wide legged and placed his elbows on his knees as he leaned his chin on his clasped hands, he inspected her again but he still came up with question marks. "I must ask however why you are here and who you are." A little smirk formed on his face at the prospect of learning all he could about this person before him.
"Hariel Potter is the name my parents gave me at my birth," she instantly spoke without missing a beat or blinking her eyes, "most people call me Harry." Harry finally blinked her eyes as she spoke as if she just realised that she had to do so to pass for human. "I am here because you set things in motion and my friend is less than pleased to be forced to fulfil those motions."
Her description was vague to say the least which irked Moriarty to no end. "I do such things all the time, I set things in motion and wait for them to be done. Who is your friend to send a woman to deliver his messages?" His tone was mocking as he spoke just to see what her reaction would be.
"My friend is the one who has to do the true dirty work of your organisation, if your condition is ideal you will only meet him once when your old and lived your life." Her tone was firm and cold and Moriarty could almost perceive an emotion in them but he could not for the world of him place what that kind emotion it would be. "Some people meet him twice but it is rare but eventually he has to greet everyone in the end."
"I don't like riddles, it will help more if you just pointed this friend out and I'll take care of it personally." The threat was evident in Moriarty's words but Harry just smirked at this.
The woman in front of him just stood up and looked down on him, Moriarty was about to stand too but was stopped by her words. "They will soon find the lady in pink and everything that happens after that will decide how long I'll stay." She disappeared with a pop of displaced air and nothing but the memory of the conversation they just had remained.
It wasn't until Moriarty saw the news that evening that he realised what Hariel's parting words meant. He saw a picture of a crime scene outside a run down house that was crawling with police officers with a headline running beneath it; "NEW SERIAL SUICIDE VICTIM."
