Brigitte Yrsdottir | ??? | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

Brigitte thought her day would begin as it always would, but not this time.

The dream starts in her assigned room of the Drunken Phoenix. Early morning. A low fog sitting on the floorboards like it belongs there. She gets up, gets dressed, and opens the door. Standing in the hallway with his back to her, fiddling with something, stands a wolffolk...

He introduces himself as Fen'ryk. Brigitte can feel her pulse in her throat. He tells her that he's waiting for his friends. His shoulders are relaxed and he appears as if there is nothing wrong with him at all. He does not seem to know they have already met...

Brigitte passes him by and goes down the stairs, only to find herself in the same hallway again. Where she finds him again, with his back turned to her. He turns to face her again and introduces himself again as if he didn't just meet her less than a minute ago...

Hi. I'm Fen'ryk. Just waiting for my friends.

Brigitte passes him by yet again, going down the stairs once more, only to find herself back in the same hallway. She tries jumping out the window. The fog curls around her boots where she's crouched on the floor and then drifts back to where it was, undisturbed. She stands up and she's back in the hallway. Stuck in a loop. He's there yet again.

Hi, I'm Fen'ryk. You look a little stressed, he says from behind her. Can I get you a beer?

At some point — she has stopped counting the loops because counting them makes it worse — she stops trying to escape and starts trying to look at it. At him.

She turns around and actually looks, the way she hasn't let herself look, and he is just a young wolfman in a hallway. Blond fur, someone she could imagine being friends with, the right kind of ease in his body, the kind that comes from not knowing anything bad is going to happen yet, or the kind that comes from it already being over.

She tells him she knows him.

He seems genuinely confused by this. She tells him they've met. Many times, in this exact hallway, and she can't get out. He tilts his head slightly, the way someone does when they're deciding whether to be helpful or whether to be worried. He asks if she needs a cup of tea instead of a beer. She grabs his paw.

She walks him toward the window, thinking that if she can make him look — if she can show him the fog, the wrongness of what's outside — something will give. Something in this loop will crack. She gets to the window and she turns to face him...

He is not the man she faced in that battle...

Not anymore.

The fur on half his face is gone, in the way that things go when something has been rotting long enough to forget the shape it used to be. There is sand where the skin should be. His arm, the one she's holding, has shed all its fur and skin, only bone remaining...

It's not as if you can kill me twice.

The bottom drops out of her stomach.

She takes a step back.

Then another.

An axe appears in his paw.

She remembers again...

She killed him.

She stood over him when he had already yielded and she killed him, and she cannot remember doing it, which is somehow worse than if she could, because at least then she would have the memory to argue with. She has only the after. She has only Gurak's voice and the dark and waking up tied to her own bed and Coldrock's face in that meeting saying what everyone in the room was thinking.

She stumbles backwards.

The walls change. Pipes appear on them, bolted to the stone as if they were always there and she simply never looked. Valves begin to press out thin curls of steam. The fog rises. The light drops by half without flickering. The axe is hanging loose in his grip the way it hung loose in the ring, the grip of someone who knows exactly what they're about to do with it.

It's not as if you can kill me twice!

She should get up. She knows she should get up. Every part of her that knows how to fight is telling her to get up, to move, to put something between herself and what is coming. But her hands are flat on the cold floorboards on either side of her and they are pushing and her legs are not answering, and she stays down.

She is sitting on the floor of the hallway and she cannot get up and he is standing over her and she is looking up at him and this is not a position she has ever allowed herself to be in.

She doesn't move.

Because she doesn't know that she should.

That is the part she cannot argue her way around, down on the floor of a hallway with a dead man walking toward her with an axe. She does not know that she should get up. She does not know that she has the right to. She stood over him and she let something loose that she was supposed to be able to control and a man is dead and the family is split down the middle...

Coldrock has left, Kaelis has to pretend, and she put all of it in motion the moment she breathed in that smell and let go.

The axe comes up.

She watches it come up.

And in the moment before it comes down she makes her choice — not to dodge, not to run, not to fight — just to stay there and let it happen, because there is a version of her that has decided this is what she deserves, and the Beast Within remains quiet.

She closes her eyes...

And the axe comes down...

Brigitte Yrsdottir | Early Morning | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

She wakes up on the floor beside the bed, hand at her own throat, checking that it's still attached. Her heartbeat is somewhere it shouldn't be. She sits on the floor for a moment before she trusts herself to stand up. Outside the window: bright morning. The fog is gone. The street below is just as always. She opens the door to a hallway that is just a hallway, with the correct number of doors and no one waiting in it...

As she moves toward the staircase, she checks twice if it actually goes downstairs. One of the doors of the tavern's bedrooms opens. A young adventurer asks Brigitte if she's alright, pointing out that it looks as if she didn't sleep. He introduces himself as Pascal, and Brigitte asks him to go down the stairs first, but in actuality she practically drags him to the stairs.

Brigitte double-checks the stairs again and again... Pascal taking the lead, and she's finally downstairs. Not yet another hallway. Pascal, despite his... confusion, decides to go along with it for the moment...

While Pascal goes to find the two of them a seat, Brigitte orders a water, an ale, and two breakfasts. The bartender looks at her, takes the order without comment, and slides her a second glass of water she didn't ask for. She doesn't argue with this.

Sitting at the bar, Bertus and Marisse are having their morning meal — the oldest couple in the Scaffold District. They clock her when she comes down the stairs and exchange a look. Marisse asks if she's alright, but Brigitte doesn't have the energy to explain it.

Brigitte finds Pascal again, who found them a seat out of sight from the two other wolffolk in town. She sits across from him, noting his orange eyes and that he was reading a pamphlet.

Pascal asks if she's alright, she tells him a vague version of her dream — the loop, the fog, the man who kept introducing himself. He says, mildly, that sometimes when you're avoiding something it keeps repeating until you face it.

She finds this annoying in the particular way of things that are accurate.

He mentions the Needlethorn sheep farm, near the Alluran Dam — heading out there today on a hired job. Some missing sheep and cows, apparently, which is a lot to lose track of. She files this under things to think about later. As they talk a bit more, she finishes her ale considerably faster than the water. W

hen she gets up to leave he asks for her last name. She tells him she doesn't really have one in the way he means. He tells her he'll be around town for a while. She steps out into the morning. The street is busy and bright and entirely unbothered by what happened in her head a few hours ago.

She has things to do, and things to think about...

Reinald Vulperian | Morning | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

A good bed. Six pillows, at least four more than necessary, and Reinald has decided he has no objections to this. He wakes up like someone who slept without incident and is aware of what a gift that is.

Röka is already awake in whatever way Röka is awake, which is less sleeping and more waiting with the patience of something that experiences time very differently. Reinald washes up, combs his hair, puts his gloves on, and heads downstairs.

Mathilda is already moving between the kitchen and the dining table with the quiet efficiency of someone who has run this house for long enough that she's stopped needing to think about it.

The gallery door is down the hall. Closed. Locked, when Reinald tries the handle — the same as last time, which he knew but wanted to confirm. He is still standing there when he hears footsteps on the stairs and has exactly enough time to take a few casual steps away from the door before Aveline comes down with a book already open in her hand, reading while walking. She doesn't notice where he came from. He offers a good morning. She returns it without looking up from the page, not even noting that Reinald was snooping.

During breakfast, Reinald compliments the house, Aveline admits that this mansion once belonged to her mother's side of the family, not her father's, as Reinald assumed. She says it with enough ease that he nearly lets it pass, but there's something in how she holds the book differently when she says it.

Her mother was fascinated by The Luminary, and studied it a great deal. She spent most of her life studying the culture and magic of the Luminary people who lived near the edges of the former Kingdom of Arnewynd, which was the name for the Sevenfold Commonwealth before The Throne War.

She was fascinated by their rituals, what they left behind, things the Therans never thought was worth investigating. She wasn't particularly well regarded for it, especially not by families from Arnewynd's Endure. She researched it anyway, and when she passed the work went largely with her.

The topic shifts for a while to Reinald's prostetic arm.

Reinald says the word Niðavellirian without quite intending to make it significant. Aveline's eyes widen for a fraction of a second before she smoothly talks over it and redirects back toward the arm with more questions — has he had it long? Reinald noticed her expression shift, but doesn't act on it now. He answers the question: He's had it for years now, based on Dwarven schematics with some gaps filled in.

Reinald tries, gently, to suggest that sometimes, buried things might be worth knowing. She says that's exactly what her mother thought, but that not many agreed. Reinald suggests that perhaps one day Aveline could continue her work, but Aveline proclaims that she's not as magically gifted as her mother was, but perhaps it could be something for her brother Luke. He's studying at the Velvetglade Consortium, a rare exception, as humans are not often invited to study there.

By the time the food is properly in front of them, they have switched topics.

Aveline lays out the plan. While it is forbidden for civilians to enter the interior works of The Southern Alluran Dam, she has legal standing. Some of the more modern materials used inside of the Dam have been provided by De Ragnaisse supply contracts, which give her grounds for an inspection. It won't hold under serious scrutiny, but it doesn't need to. It gets them inside for a while, and from there Reinald must handle things on his own.

Aveline needs three things from Reinald before tomorrow: travel arranged, a convincing cover story, and a layout of the dam. For the layout: Reinald could visit the city's archive, and Hoocrates' replacement may still have the key. Reinald already knows Siegbert has it.

Aveline asks about Brigitte. He describes her. Aveline sees the logic immediately — an inspection needs someone who looks like they could assess structural integrity with their hands, or... rather 'someone strong'. The division of roles arranges itself: Aveline is the overseer. Reinald handles logistics and the investigation itself, while Brigitte handles the physical side and whatever comes with that.

Reinald mentions that Brigitte doesn't know he's staying at the Ragnaisse mansion. Aveline says that's up to him, if he shares that with her. They agree to meet outside the city early tomorrow morning, at the Haven's Reach fountain. Reinald says goodbye to Aveline and Mathilda and steps outside. The morning is bright and the list of tasks in his head is organized. Röka hums something quietly, and Reinald heads into town.

Reinald heads to meet with Felix to collect the special outfit that he has requested. Felix's shop has four customers and Felix himself is losing an argument with a deerfolk woman about buttonwork on the customer's new dress. He clocks Reinald across the room and gestures — upstairs, package, don't make this worse...

Reinald heads upstairs and finds the package is on the desk. And in the corner of the window frame, sitting where the light catches it: a lily of the valley, the same flower as yesterday at the flower shop, funny coincidence... He looks at it. He takes the package and goes back downstairs. The customers are still there, and Felix is way too busy to explain the details to Reinald... He tells Felix he'll come back in the evening and leaves.

Siegbert is flipping the sign to Open when Reinald arrives. The key is produced before Reinald's question is even finished. The archive is near Crow's Pier. It contains historic ship records, civic documents, things that accumulate from time to time, and need somewhere to go. Siegbert offers to join Reinald at the archive if the search proves slow, in the tone of someone who considers dusty archives a reasonable way to spend an afternoon. Reinald accepts his offer and thanks him, taking the key with him, and heads back out.

This time, one of the checkpoint guards stops him on the way out. Random inspection. Reinald opens his bag without argument, shows what's in it. The guard notices the arm. Says something about tricksters under his breath...

Reinald Vulperian & Brigitte Yrsdottir | Mid-Morning | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

Brigitte first makes a short stop to The Hideout, spotting that Branded is making another salad for their harefolk guests. She greets him, but backs out of talking to Wilt, Sloane or Beastie. Brigitte spots Reinald entering into the Cerulean Compass. Reinald arranges transportation and comes back out with a map and a receipt for Aveline.

Reinald tells her about the horses, the cover story, and the archive. Brigitte tells him that she'll come to the archive. Suddenly, two small dragonfolk are standing at an intersection arguing — one gold, one silver — with the volume of those who have each decided they are clearly correct and are waiting for the other one to realize it.

The gold kobold is furious about a pancake contest taking place today, and the silver kobold is furious about a bathhouse opening today. Brigitte steps between them. They redirect their complaint toward her. She tells them to talk to their bosses, and Brigitte agrees to talk to Laundro. Reinald watches this scene unfold, and reminds Brigitte that the bathhouse uses a lot of water — it could be worth investigating. Together they walk toward the Drunken Phoenix.

Inside, they find Laundro in his element: chef hat, some early test pancakes, all the kobolds wearing little chef hats, slicing fruit, preparing pancake mix and preparing the tables with focused intensity. Reinald, Brigitte and Laundro reach an understanding quickly — perhaps Laundro and Proxis, the owner of the bathhouse, could work together.

Ultimately, the pancake contest serves as an indirect promotion for Laundro's Laundromat after all. Laundro is willing to work together, but Proxis might not be so interested. They are directed toward the Lower Saltbreak, and convincing Proxis might also lead Reinald and Brigitte to more information surrounding the water.

On the way out, there is a sign-up sheet for the pancake contest. Reinald and Brigitte sign themselves up. It sounds kinda fun, and well... who would deny pancakes?

They go to find Proxis.

Reinald Vulperian & Brigitte Yrsdottir | Before Noon | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

The two travel to the Lower Saltbreak, another city district of Allura's Haven, north of Crow Streets. On the streets, they wander past a butcher and a young lady picking up a delivery. Inside they meet Proxis Goldclaw, a rose-gold scaled dragonfolk with two different colored eyes standing behind the desk with the composure of someone who has already dealt with enough today.

Reinald explains the kobold situation and the proposal. Proxis says they don't do quick money or laundry schemes. Brigitte says sticky fur from pancakes and warm waters are a natural pairing — it could be a great opportunity. It takes some time for Proxis to agree, but ultimately Proxis makes them a deal. At least ten customer visits, and she'll send an associate to the contest to confirm.

Suddenly, one of the kobolds wanders in, proclaiming "I've handled it, Boss!" Proxis instructs the kobolds to continue cleaning the bathhouse. Reinald and Brigitte ask what the kobold was talking about.

Proxis mentions, as a minor annoyance, that someone had tried to leave a plant at the front desk that morning. When Reinald asks why, and asks if it was a Lily of the Valley, Proxis writes off the whole thing as unimportant. Proxis unfortunately cannot give a detailed explanation of who dropped it off, as they weren't the one at the front desk at the time. Hooded, medium height, brownish fur with patches of grey, possibly masked.

Proxis didn't want anything to do with it, and mentioned that the plant smelled odd. A kobold named Nike had disposed of it. For now they don't push it, agree to Proxis' request and leave. Outside, Brigitte stops him, questioning him about the plant.

He tells her about the flower shop in Haven's Reach, the taufolk shopkeeper that has an odd glowing lily of the valley, the way he'd made it sound like something you didn't just come across. He tells her he saw one in Felix's window this morning. And now someone in a hood tried to leave one here, at a bathhouse that only opened today... Something's going on here...

Brigitte goes very still in the way she goes still when something has landed somewhere it wasn't supposed to. Her heart is already racing even thinking about the smell of the flower.

Reinald notices, but doesn't push it. He keeps talking and she lets him, because talking about something else is easier than explaining what the scent does to her and why she knows exactly which flower he means before he finishes describing it. Suddenly, a fish cart comes around the corner and they have to move, spotting the same young lady again.

They head back to the Drunken Phoenix with the news. The tavern is now packed as the Pancake Contest is about to begin! Reinald tells Laundro that Proxis agreed, if they send ten people to the bathhouse. Laundro agrees to that as well.

They find seats, talking to some of the other participants.

The Pancake Contest | Noon | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

Reinald meets up with Reggie and Humble once more, while also meeting Grasha, Sir Everhard and others. Reinald tries to hold up his end of the bargain by mentioning the opening of the bathhouse today.

Meanwhile, Brigitte spots the bearfolk from a few days prior there awkwardly as well — he doesn't even dare to look at her. Brigitte meets the two wolffolk friends of Fen'ryk who have also decided to participate; the armored one stares her down but doesn't say anything, while the red-furred one appreciates the suggestion. She gets a maybe from other participants, while Reinald gets an enthusiastic yes from the unusual Sir Everhard, who asks if they do massages, to which Reinald has no answer.

Sonya appears at some point, having decided to come for the entertainment rather than the competition. She positions herself where she can cheer everyone on. Then the first plates arrive.

The contest begins!

The first round is easy. Everyone gets their pancakes down, there's a smattering of applause, Laundro's make-shift kitchen is moving at a pace that suggests he has been thinking about this since last year's contest ended. The whole building smells like warm butter and escalating commitment.

Reggie slaps Reinald on the back mid-swallow in round two. Douglas does the same to Brigitte, who doesn't flinch, which deflates him visibly.

Round three, Reinald looks up from his plate and delivers a joke about a pancake who walked into a temple and told the cleric that he knew they were holy because they were full of holes.

Reggie inhales syrup, Humble almost spits out his pancake, and two others at the far end start laughing before they've finished chewing. Sir Everhard stares at Reinald across the table and says nothing, which is somehow more alarming than if he had said something.

By round five the field has thinned considerably. Rink had a brief and optimistic run before his second pancake ended it. Several others have quietly removed themselves. Sir Everhard is still going with the focused efficiency of a man who has decided to treat this like a military exercise.

Beastie is still going on something that isn't strategy, exactly, but is working anyway. Brigitte is still going. Reinald is somehow still going, though the relationship between his ambition and his stomach is becoming complicated.

Sonya leans in from the side of the table.

Come on. Both of you!

At some point, Sloane puts her fork down with quiet dignity. The bearfolk from across the table also has had enough, and excuses themselves from the table. Beastie looks at his plate, looks up, looks back at his plate, and just... keeps eating, which is the most alarming thing Reinald has seen all day.

Round six. Reinald casts Prestidigitation under the table, subtly with Röka's assistance, no visible indication — and the two wolffolk contestants' pancakes become aggressively, eye-wateringly spicy. The reaction is immediate. They're out.

In the later rounds, Brigitte reaches the point where she almost can't keep going, and she starts to mush her pancakes. Reggie and Douglas are long gone by this point. The head assessor, who had been smoking between rounds in a way that constituted a genuine hazard to the people adjacent to him, unfortunately also couldn't continue any further.

During the final round... Three left. Beastie, Sir Everhard and against all odds... Reinald.

Sir Everhard gets his last pancake most of the way down before something in him registers a formal objection. He places his fork across the plate in the manner of a man surrendering with full honors and exhales slowly through the helmet. Beastie tips sideways off his chair. He is fine. He is simply done.

But... Reinald finishes his pancake.

A kobold with the clipboard looks up at the room, then back down at his list, as if confirming what he's seeing is real. The winner, he announces, is the small foxfolk!?

The room reacts. Bertus and Marisse clap loudly. Sonya makes a noise audible from the street. Sir Everhard reaches across the table and delivers a congratulatory blow to Reinald's back that moves him several inches forward. Reinald accepts all of this while sitting very still, because sitting very still is currently the only viable option.

He is guided to stand on a chair for a speech. Reinald thanks everyone and then recommends, to anyone who has gotten syrup in their fur, that Allura's Bathhouse is open today and the facilities and amenities are highly recommended. He sits back down before the chair becomes a problem. Röka says nothing. But there is a quality to the silence that Reinald recognizes as impressed, which he decides to enjoy while it lasts...

Reinald & Brigitte | Afternoon | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

With their stomachs full of pancakes, Brigitte and Reinald leave the Drunken Phoenix for the archives, hoping to find schematics for the Southern Alluran Dam. The archive sits at the end of Crow's Pier in a building that looks like it was built for a purpose no one can quite remember. The key fits, but the door doesn't open. Something is blocking it from inside.

Brigitte and Reinald try to smash the door open. They take a run at it together and the door gives way. The place is dusty, disorganized and someone without a key has been here... Someone propped the door closed from the inside. Brigitte finds the window upstairs: broken at the latch. She leans out, able to see all of Crow's Beach and Crow's Street. She also spots a large hordeling wandering towards the archive.

Siegbert arrives. He takes one look at the door and asks Reinald to explain. Between the three of them, the archive produces what they came for. The dam's book is old and faded until Siegbert picks up the pencil, starting to sketch over the pages, so he can see through the fading to what was written. A layout emerges. Three levels. The purification room on the second floor, marked restricted. That's what they're looking for.

Brigitte and Reinald inform Siegbert about the archive being locked from the inside. Siegbert wonders how, because whoever locked the building from the inside had no way out otherwise. Brigitte shows him the broken window. Siegbert dusts the window ledge with some powder from Reinald's tinkering tools. A paw print appears. Not human, not foxfolk, not wolffolk, not hare, not bear, not deer. Something between categories. Too big for a foxfolk. Too small for a wolffolk, according to Siegbert.

Brigitte and Reinald exchange a look. Reinald wonders how all of this is connected, but for now they don't say more than that with Siegbert present. They lock up, deciding not to share the information regarding the building with the authorities, and Siegbert takes the key back.

They walk Siegbert back towards Crow's Pier, saying goodbye for now. Brigitte and Reinald agree to split up for now, and meet each other early morning to head towards The Alluran Dam.

Brigitte Yrsdottir | Afternoon | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

The hideout smells like yesterday's bread and someone else's decisions. Branded is at the bar, glasses fixed and back on, cleaning them thoroughly. Brigitte remembers that Rhazeth is something of a tinkerer after all. She spots one of Vesper's lackeys sitting in the corner, sharpening their claws, not particularly paying attention to anyone.

Coldrock's behind the bar, she doesn't even address Brigitte directly. Sonya is trying to convince Wilt to join the others in a visit to the new bathhouse, but Wilt isn't in a particularly good mood, mentioning that he doesn't want to go out while the sun is out. After some back and forth, Wilt reluctantly agrees.

Brigitte wonders where Gurak is. She asks Coldrock, who coldly responds that he wandered in earlier with Vesper. Coldrock angrily stares at the harefolk in the corner, but then looks back to Brigitte. He's probably required to help the harefolk, and so she approaches the harefolk. The harefolk leads her back to the guest rooms without saying anything.

When Brigitte wanders into the guest room, it smells off... Fungal, not strong but persistent. Several large crates against the wall. Vesper was talking to Gurak in a language she doesn't speak. The second harefolk against the far wall. Brigitte's eyes immediately fall on Gurak's neck: the collar is still there.

"Ah, pet... Do you want something?"

She asks for a moment alone with Gurak, but Vesper smugly says that she can say whatever she desires to Gurak even with her in the room.

"You don't have any secrets from me, do you Gurak...?"

Gurak does not answer, and looks away.

When Brigitte insists, Vesper relents, more out of spite than anything else.

"Well... Sure.... He's after all 'The Big Bro...'

Vesper points him out the door and Gurak listens to her demand. Brigitte follows Gurak further into the hallway, trying to make sure that the harefolk don't hear their conversation, but she cannot be sure. He looks exhausted. Brigitte asks Gurak what's going on. Gurak says that it's better not to ask.

Brigitte asks Gurak if she can take over for him, as she feels incredibly guilty, but Gurak refuses. Gurak tells her that he agreed to it, but Brigitte can sense in his voice that it's not entirely by choice. "It was either you or me, Brigitte."

When Brigitte pushes with more questions, Gurak doesn't answer. He tries to change the subject back to the missing mayor. He tells her without being asked: it was either him or her. He'd made the calculation. He is not performing anything.

She tells him she'll take the collar, and reaches over to him. He doesn't resist and lets her unbuckle the collar and put it on herself. It was fitted for Gurak's wider neck, so it sits differently on her; she tightens it on purpose, and he looks at her with an expression that has no words in it. She tries to say she'll take his place entirely, but he stops her.

"Rhazeth hadn't expected them to be back already." Gurak tells her. Something clicks for Brigitte. She's been here for a year, but never met these harefolk. Something like this has happened before. Before she joined Rhazeth's family.

"It's not the first time..."

He says that she should focus on the mayor and keep "that foxfolk" (implying Reinald) out of their business. Gurak questions Brigitte if that's wise, but Brigitte tells him that the best way to figure out if he's a spy is to work together with him. Gurak says that he'll trust her judgement for now. Vesper shouts through the hallway, demanding Gurak to return.

Brigitte tries another attempt to convince Gurak to switch places with her, but he refuses.

"No, I can't let that happen. Not again."

Gurak turns around and wanders back to the guest room. Brigitte on purpose wanders past the guest room to make sure that Vesper spots her with the collar. When Vesper spots it, she comments.

"Ah! Such a good pet. Off you go now, none of your business..."

As Brigitte leaves the hallway, she sees something glow in one of the crates through one of the holes on the side of the crates. Through it, just for a moment, something glowed... Not light exactly. She doesn't mention it to anyone.

... .... ...

She goes back to the common room and sits alone. Wilt looks at her from across the room, his eyes settle on the collar but he doesn't say anything. Brigitte realizes that it's possible that the others know about what is happening here.

The collar is not comfortable, but Brigitte keeps it on. Her nightmare only affirming to herself that she's wearing it because of what happened... She hears The Beast Within comment that she's degrading herself, and degrading themselves.

Reinald Vulperian | Afternoon | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

He is on his way to meet with Felix again when he spots Aveline on Crow Street. Aveline is on the steps of a small Tinkerer's shop next to the Knightly Endeavors, one hand raised to knock again when she hears him approach. She turns around. She looks like someone who has been standing here long enough to start worrying.

Stanley never showed up for their business meeting, she says.

Stanley is a dwarven tinkerer with a small shop here on Crow Street. It wasn't doing well, so he was the one who asked for the meeting, because the shop wasn't breaking even and he wanted to discuss options for the De Ragnaisse to invest in his business. She'd waited two hours for him to arrive. She'd thought perhaps he was sick, or running late. There would be no way that he would have forgotten — not something this important to him.

Reinald looks up at the windows of the shop. Then at the alleyway running along the side of the building. He asks if she's tried the rear door. Aveline says that she hasn't. She knows immediately what he's implying, and she's worried enough to justify doing it.

The alley connects through to a narrow passage between buildings. The back door has a lock that takes Reinald about as long to open as it takes Aveline to register that he's doing it, and then they're inside. The lower floor seems undisturbed. The small kitchen has the particular stillness of a room that seems as if it hasn't been used in a day or two — not disordered, just empty in a way that has settled.

They go upstairs, Aveline casts a small light spell from her bracelet. Stanley's bedroom looks like the conclusion of something that went badly and fast. The mattress torn open. The bedding in two separate locations. Scratches on the walls at a height that doesn't match a dwarf making them. There's a line of dried blood from the bed that stops near the stairs.

Aveline is looking at the scratches. She says Stanley couldn't have made those. Reinald agrees. He didn't. Reinald thinks out loud: whoever kidnapped him must have been the ones with the claws. The blood stops because the bleeding stopped, or because they were trying to be careful. Stanley is a dwarf — not small, not easy, not someone you move without effort. This was not a quick or clean thing; it must've been unplanned.

The workshop downstairs is a different world entirely — benches clean, tools sorted, everything in its place with the care of someone who took their work seriously. Except for a broken vial on the ground. White powder drifting from it across the floorboards.

Aveline and Reinald both know what it is before he says it. The Good Stuff. Reinald and Aveline theorize on how things might've gone down. Maybe someone drugged him? A dwarf's natural resistance to that sort of thing would buy him time. Enough time to make the bedroom look the way it does. They leave it where it is for now...

Reinald raises the question of reporting it. Aveline says of course that they have to report it.

But the question is when. He points out that she was seen knocking on the door in broad daylight, that she has an obvious connection to Stanley, and that the new forty-eight hour hold for questioning would end their plans for the Southern Dam before they've started. She looks at him with the expression of someone who finds this reasoning sound and distasteful in equal measure. Aveline agrees with Reinald not to report it immediately, but the moment Aveline returns from the Southern Dam, she's reporting him missing. They lock the back door on the way out.

On their way back to Crow's Street, Aveline thinks that there's a chance someone spotted them. She tells him one of the upper windows across the alley had a curtain move at the wrong moment. He says there's nothing to be done about it now. They walk to visit Felix's shop together.

At some point Aveline asks what he found at the archive, and he tells her about the map they acquired. He also tells her about the blocked door, and the plank wedged from the inside. The broken window on the upper floor and the paw print that didn't match anything either of them could name precisely — too big for a foxfolk, too small for a wolffolk, something that lives in the in-between.

She asks if he has any idea who. He tells her about the sewers and the carved caves below the city. The figure in the mask. The language he didn't recognize. The way it had been made very clear, even in a brief interaction, that there were others nearby who would not have been welcoming. He says he thinks they live down there. He says he thinks they've been down there for a long time.

She's quiet for a moment. Then he mentions that someone in a hood — masked, medium height, grey-brownish fur — had been going around the city today delivering a particular flower. Tried to leave one at the bathhouse. Left one at Felix's door this morning. He says it looked like a Lily of the Valley.

Aveline stops walking. She says that was her mother's favorite flower. He tells her this one even glows in the dark! She turns to look at him, something shifts in her expression — not alarm exactly, but the particular discomfort of someone who has just recognized something they weren't expecting to find here, on a street, in this conversation. She says that's not a Lily of the Valley... but possibly a Biǫlumýnna. He looks at her, confused.

She says her mother spent more than twenty years researching the Luminary who lived through this region before The Throne War. That one of her most significant areas of study was a flower that grows underground that carries its own light because it has never had another source. The Luminary called it Biǫlumýnna. Her mother never found one in person — they were not thought to exist above ground at all. Reinald says someone is bringing them up to the surface then...

She doesn't answer that immediately. They walk in silence for a moment, both of them turning it over, and neither of them says out loud what they are both thinking...

Reinald Vulperian | Afternoon | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

Felix is sitting in a chair with his legs spread and his eyes closed when they walk in. He opens one eye. "Urgh, more customers."

He says it the way he says things he is not actually upset about. Then he sees it's Aveline and Reinald and he straightens up slightly. Reinald and Aveline tell him they need disguises for tomorrow. Something that reads as infrastructure workers — practical, unremarkable.

Felix says Reinald's already covered then, but that he'll probably have two jumpsuits somewhere in the back. He gets up without further discussion, and disappears into the back. He returns with two jumpsuits and drops them on the counter.

When Reinald asks what he means, Felix asks if he's already put on the outfit he picked up. When Reinald says he hadn't, Felix points him to the changing booth.

Reinald decides to put on the all black pants, shirt and jacket, and thinks to himself: Well that's a little too dark... and suddenly the outfit changes to all white! Reinald realizes that the outfit's appearance can change based on his thoughts. Reinald then wanders out of the clothing booth with a matching jumpsuit.

Aveline asks Felix about the special clothing, wondering if it's "Melanithorne's," which Felix confirms it indeed is. Then he looks at Reinald and says that he wants that special outfit back when all of this is done. Reinald says he has his word. Felix says good, because it's a prototype and he only has one like it.

Felix mentions along the way that a large woman came to ask about Katrien. Reinald describes Brigitte — tall, blonde, something growing from one arm, not someone you'd easily mistake for someone else. Felix's expression shifts.

He says the large woman tried to threaten him earlier. He delivers this with the professional grievance of someone who considers his shop a place of business and did not appreciate the intrusion. Aveline looks at Reinald. Reinald looks awkwardly away. Aveline says that she's sure they all want the same thing, more or less. Reinald apologizes to Felix for causing the situation.

Then Reinald asks about the flower.

Felix blinks. He says with some residual pleasure at the memory that he found it outside his door this morning. White bells, very pretty. He thought he had a secret admirer. He put it in the window upstairs because the flowers were drooping and he thought they needed sunlight.

Aveline and Reinald share a worried look. Reinald tells him it's probably not from a secret admirer and that it's not just a simple Lily of the Valley. Felix asks if he needs to throw it out. Aveline says no — not that — but perhaps he could move it somewhere away from himself.

Felix asks if he should move it into the shed behind his house. Aveline and Reinald agree and Felix goes to retrieve the flower from upstairs. He goes out to the shed with it.

He returns a minute later, and Aveline and Reinald hear him say:

"Oh wow!"

When he returns, he mentions that the flower glows in the dark. Felix asks if he should be concerned. Reinald tells him just to leave it in the shed and not eat it. Felix says he wasn't going to eat it, but he looks like he's reconsidering the admirer theory one last time and then letting it go. Aveline and Reinald say their goodbyes for now and leave the shop.

Outside, Reinald tells her about the flower shop yesterday. The shopkeeper had shown him a lily of the valley sitting on the corner of the display. Glowing faintly even in the daylight. He'd been very pleased with it. Reinald had thought it was a curiosity and hadn't given it much thought.

The shop is closed by the time they get there. Reinald knocks anyway. No response. He tries again. The lights inside stay low and nothing moves. The sign has been turned to Closed. Reinald cups his hands against the glass and looks through. The counter is empty. The flower is gone. He tells Aveline where it was earlier. She looks for herself, then steps back.

Someone left one at Felix's door this morning. Someone tried to leave one at the bathhouse and was turned away. What's going on here? Aveline says they should come back later. Reinald agrees. He makes a note of it in the part of his head where he keeps things that need following up and files it next to everything else that has accumulated today, which is quite a lot.

They walk the rest of the way to the mansion in the early evening quiet. Reinald also tells Aveline about the pancake contest, and that he won, and that Sir Everhard lost by exactly one pancake, and that he won't be looking at pancakes for the next month.

Aveline mentions that she's going to see if she can find something about that flower in her mother's gallery. She mentions that she can't read Luminary. When Reinald asks if her mother could, she explains that she didn't translate the original texts, worried about the Ragnarthane's meddling. So whatever her mother left behind is there, in the gallery, and largely inaccessible to her.

She says that her mother believed the Luminary who lived in this region before The Throne War had deep roots here. Not just culturally. Literally. She says her mother traced back the Luminary and even the Ragnar family tree back to a place called Rúnvalla. But the Ragnarthane had been in direct conflict with the Luminary population. The Ragnaisse were a side branch of the Ragnarthane who didn't agree with the Ragnarthane's side of the conflict.

The Ragnarthane wanted the knowledge. Her mother eventually stopped translating altogether and kept everything in the original Luminary — harder to take, harder to use without knowing what you have. The Ragnarthane spies were persistent enough that it became necessary.

She says they still come, sometimes, under the guise of keeping an eye on things. That's part of why Henry barely leaves his room — he doesn't know who to trust beyond her father, and the not knowing has made the walls feel safer than the streets. Her father insisted on keeping Henry here rather than sending him back to Arnewynd's Endure.

Lucien went through all that trouble because he reminded him of his wife, Aveline's mother. The same fear, the same walls closing in. Aveline says she's going to see if she can find anything useful tonight. She doesn't sound hopeful about it. Reinald says goodnight. She goes down the hallway, and he hears the key, and the door, and then nothing.

He goes upstairs. The bed has six pillows. He is, tonight, genuinely grateful for all of them...

Brigitte Yrsdottir | Before Sunset | 22nd of Leaffall 248 A.T.C

Back at the hideout, Sonya was still rallying people to join her at the new bathhouse. Sloane and Beastie eventually declined but Wilt pulls a hood over his head and reluctantly comes along. Branded looks uncertain in the way he looks uncertain about most social propositions but comes anyway, and the four of them head out into the evening.

They are almost at the Lower Saltbreak when shouting breaks out from the direction of the Seahorse's Catch — glass breaking, something heavy hitting the floor. Brigitte tells Wilt to go ahead with Sonya, while Branded and Brigitte turn toward the noise.

At the outdoor seating of the fish restaurant, five visiting adventurers start fighting with the blank, feral energy of something that isn't a tavern brawl. One of them looks up at Brigitte with glowing eyes and a look that has nothing behind it where a person usually is. She doesn't have time to finish the thought before the adventurer comes rushing towards her...