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aib-detectives · 5 months ago

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Fragments Pt. 3

Yeah yeah, it's been awhile. I know, the whole you guys suck... stick to a schedule etc. Honestly? We've had a few holidays and a few stupid days where nothing worked right. Fragments part 3 is now here, and there may be some art like substances to follow soon.

“There’s a reason I do it out on my ranch, far from others, with regular safety checks when I’m doing it by my-” He struggled a moment, then shrugged. “By my assistant, Aasima. It’s also why I have other experts check and double check my work.” He wasn’t so arrogant as to think himself incapable of error after all.

“Right…” Catherine had been lucky to survive her encounter with flying too close to the sun. She hoped Tyrus would be as well. “Well, not everyone has that privilege, unfortunately. But at least you do.” AIB facilities weren’t adequately shielded against many types of magic. Tyrus was right to be out away from people and with visitors heavily discouraged, except for a single person to ensure he was still alive and uninjured.

“I consider myself very lucky to have it.” He whispered, just loud enough to be heard. “Extremely lucky.” The cost to have that luck had been painfully high, but it was worth it when he had a breakthrough on a spell.

“So, where does this suicidal plan leave myself and James, given Molly, Maria, and Xiaolian are setting up the trap?” Catherine observed, changing the subject. There was no use talking about who had what or could do what. They needed to take care of this problem before it became too big to handle.

“Only mostly suicidal.” He corrected with a wide smile. “And I’m not sure. The tracking spell is divination based and needs maps of the area. James could probably do that from the office, if he wants to be part of it, and relay the information to us. If you have alternatives, I’d love to hear them. I’d prefer not being bait, but I’m not sure how else to lure it to where we need.”

Him being bait was half joking, when it came down to, and really only if none of them could think of a better alternative.

“Let me see if I understand this…you’re asking that James, an Arithmancer, run the divination?” That made no sense whatsoever to Catherine. “And you want the Herblore human setting the trap with the two spacetime experts.” She couldn’t tell why he wanted to do it this way. None of the skill sets seemed to match. “Now I need you to explain to me your logic here, because I don’t follow.”

Tyrus brow furrowed, and he bit his bottom lip, trying to think of how to put it.

“I…I mean, no one is locked to just one type of magic?” He suggested, now very unsure. “James can’t be there physically, so I thought a more distant position may be, I don’t know. Helpful? So he could get at least a bit of a sense of revenge.” That was a normal thing to want, after all.

Catherine groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Not everyone specializes in half a dozen dead languages, three types of magic, and blows up magical circles for fun at their ranch.” The best most specialists and even wardens were going to get was one pre-dominant speciality, with a good working knowledge in other areas. “And have you asked James if he’s comfortable with any of this? From what I can see, that creature is giving him nightmares still.”

Thinking for a moment, Catherine twisted a silver ring on her right hand around with her thumb. It wasn’t a wedding band, but it also wouldn’t be coming off soon.

“Look, not everyone on the team here can or will perform magic to the variety and degree you can. Divination isn’t related to arithmancy. We’d either need someone who specializes in it, or a magic next door to it.”

“Seven types of magic.” Tyrus corrected, just the edge of arrogance in his voice. “With full certification of mastery by the mage’s guild. And only…four?” He paused and looked up, clearly doing a mental count. “Yes. Four dead languages.” Not six. Still, it was a bit much, and he could admit that. “And no, I didn’t ask. I’m not the best at social situations. All of that studying didn’t really leave time for social skills.” He ran a hand over his head and tugged on his braid, catching one of his many necklaces as he did so. “We can come up with something else. Planning out tactics like this, for multiple people, isn’t something I ever learned.”

“Okay, seven.” Catherine's tone was terse, though only just so little enough it could be missed. “Not everyone multi-classes unless they’re taking a specialist’s career track, you do realize.” Most people could do basic magics, but absolutely only ever used one sort of magic with any regularity. MCU officers were forced to learn more than just one, if only a few spells as needed for their work. “As for social situations…well, I guess we’ll have to be miserable together while we figure it out.” She suggested.

No doubt, the lack of social skills would cause friction in the team. It would be something for them all to watch out for, though this team didn’t need an ounce more friction than it already had. “I guess so? I’ll go see if I can’t adapt the searching spell at my desk. It shouldn’t be too hard, hopefully. I should be able to alter it enough to pinpoint a general radius on a map, and then a more specific one in person.” That way, James wouldn’t have to take part.

#writing #urban fantasy #female writers #arcane investigations #creative writing #writerscommunity #serialized fiction #serialized novel #vampires #this is fucked up #team fuck up anyone?#writblr

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aib-detectives · 5 months ago

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Editing is the bane of my existence...

googledocs you are getting awfully uppity for something that can’t differentiate between “its” and “it’s” correctly

#female writers #urban fantasy #writerscommunity #writing #creative writing #arcane investigations #writblr #short story #editing #ugh why #interesting spelling youve got there #did I write this drunk?

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aib-detectives · 5 months ago

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I think this is probably our crew's thoughts on their Council. I can almost garantee its posted in someone's cubical or the breakroom.

#urban fantasy #arcane investgations #fantasy writer #world building #cats #other stuff #writer things #writing thoughts #writer stuff #writblr

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aib-detectives · 5 months ago

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I feel like this is most of our first drafts...

i have a loose, codependent, and violently sexual relationship with the english language

#writing #english #writer things #how the fuck do you spell that again #first drafts

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aib-detectives · 6 months ago

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Fragments Pt. 2

We now return you to your regularly scheduled-ish postings. Tyrus has a lot to sort through.

Arcane Invesitations is written by @girlsbyte and @gigabytecat.

Any resemblance to other works of fiction, people living and/or dead, places etc is purely coincidental. Story starts after the jump

He had several books in his bag right now, and a good deal of packets of information from the librarian to take home and keep. He’d be dropping by his ranch, where he worked on his more volatile school work, to keep the books and pamphlets there, where his family almost never went.

Frowning, Catherine motioned for Tyrus to take a seat in the chair. She stood up to close the door behind him. “Well, from what I’ve heard, the Cahokia’s librarians aren’t wrong.” She said as she returned to her seat, and met his eyes again, worried.

“Are you okay, though? That’s a lot,” Catherine asked him. Adoption wasn’t uncommon in the Unseen. It was rare that kids were ever homeless, or without a family. If extended family didn’t take a child in, a friend of the parents often would, and if that didn’t happen, werewolf packs adored children and big families, and would happily take in complete strangers, regardless of age.

“I’ve never heard of them being wrong once.” Tyrus agreed and tugged on his braid again. “I’ll probably head to my ranch for a bit after this case to decompress some, but I can make it through the case… and I’m not okay, but I think I will be. It’s not like I didn’t know I was adopted of a sort, though. I just knew I was some sort of brown, and it’s not like I’d ever get to learn the specifics.”

Catherine grimaced, knowing that the Unseen wouldn’t let a child go to the vampire courts willingly, especially not to the couple that led one of the most influential courts in the New World. Tyrus sighed.

“I’m not going to look into it. If I look into things, it’s been made clear that my birth parents would pay the price.” The vampire courts were like that, and it was an open secret. But the council had needed to give the vampires concessions, in order to convince them to keep the secret as well. One of them was autonomy from many of the laws the Council was supposed to enforce.

The Sun Court was not known for being subtle or kind about its desires. Keeping the parents alive to hold them against Tyrus’ behavior wasn’t unexpected, though she wondered if they had been left alone when he had run far from his family.

“That’s disturbing and concerning.” She commented. “If you need to take time, I understand. I’m sure we’ll be able to function well enough. James should be back to 100% soon enough.” The team was still incredibly short handed, but Tyrus was there as a contractor. A member of the team would have to sign off on his work, anyway.

“After this case.” He said firmly. “I can hold it together that long. Besides, you’ll need some sort of bait, won’t you? Why not the man who matches the victim profile so closely? I’m an alcoholic and I know it, after all.” He was the best choice of the team members, and they both knew it. "I’m a functional alcoholic and can fake being a good deal drunker than I usually am. Dump some beer down my front as well, and even if I’ve only had a few sips, I’ll reek of more." He suggested. The team also didn’t have any other male team members that could dodge anything right now.

“I want you to tell me the moment you can’t, because we don’t need that.” Catherine said. It would add fuel to whatever fire had been lit under Klein to assemble this fucked up team. Government politics at its finest, as usual.

“And yes, we need bait, but I never would have suggested you.” She then lied. Tyrus fit the profile perfectly, and no one else on the team did at all. Bringing in a straight up civilian would have been a terrible idea. Tyrus came with the complication of the Sun Court breathing down their necks if anything went wrong, but that wasn’t something Catherine hadn’t faced before. “Also, isn’t that suicidal? I’ve known you to lack impulse control, but this is a bit much.”

At that, Tyrus grinned widely, clearly pleased with himself. "I’ve thought about that. There’s this spell used to keep anyone from touching you." His parents had used it on him as a child when he misbehaved in their eyes. "I thought I could have, say, a one foot distance on it, to account for feather length. It’s a pretty rare spell, and it takes a chunk of power for it, but I’ve got the power easily."

He didn’t address the suicidal comment.

"I’ll be about as safe as I can be as bait." He declared.

Catherine sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This was looking like Huntsville all over again. “Of course you know a spell.” She grumbled, half under her breath. "Just don’t go off on your own half-baked again, please?" Huntsville had been a bit of a disaster for everyone involved. Necromancers with child victims always were.

"I know a lot of spells. All that education has to be good for something, after all." Tyrus was more than a little over-educated, and had been the youngest qualifier for the title of Mage in recorded history. He would absolutely preen like a peacock if that was brought up, too. He had busted his ass to get the qualifications. "Besides, if I don’t know a spell, creating one isn’t overly difficult, though, given the stakes, I would prefer to avoid it here."

Catherine frowned darkly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to those stakes,” she said bluntly. High stakes cases were not something either of them wanted to be as intimately familiar with as they were. But this had been one since the beginning, given they had lost an entire team to the creature, even as short staffed as they were now. “Because creating magic out of whole cloth is dangerous business.”

No one needed to risk themselves like that. They often never came back.

#female writers #urban fantasy #writerscommunity #writing #creative writing #arcane investigations #writblr #disabled writers #serialized fiction #serialized novel #serialization

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aib-detectives · 6 months ago

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No post today. Last night was not what we all had hoped for, and so many of us are now reeling with the fact that what little hope we might have dared to have has now been dashed.

We need time to grieve, process, and think.

Look for a post next week ya'll. Be kind and be safe. ~ Gigabyte

#female writers #writerscommunity #writing #creative writing #writblr #election 2024

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aib-detectives · 6 months ago

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No, really? 🤣

the true cycle of life

#writing #writer life #writers on tumblr #women writers

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aib-detectives · 6 months ago

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Fragments pt. 1

Getting deeper into things now. Tyrus has issues, and these issues are trying desperately to compound one on top of the other. My co-author and I have tried to do as much research as we can about experiences etc for a POC character, but our funds/access is limited at the moment. Feedback is appreciated, but if you can't be an adult about it, you'll be blocked. Trigger warnings for substance abuse, abuse, and adoption. Story begins after the jump

Tyrus scanned the notebook where he had written his notes from the library as he navigated through the MCU cubicles to Catherine’s office without paying too much attention to the route or the fact that her door was closed. With a thunk, he ran into it head first and rubbed his forehead, looking up in dismay.

He shook off the fog from focusing on his notes and knocked on the door. The library had been stressful, but that was fine. He would process all of that later. Either way, Catherine was probably not in a meeting yet, so he wanted to get this out of the way. The team had thought it’d take more time, but circumstances had changed and he had to report that as well.

A faint voice called through the door.

“Come in.”

Catherine was at her desk, paperwork in front of her a computer monitor casting a slight glow on her face. She was clearly still getting spun up and trying to get something resembling actual work done. The team hadn’t exactly been leaving her alone either, having each taken the time to come hassle her.

Everyone appeared to be managing their respective duties right now, and Catherine was taking this as an opportunity to get caught up as much as she could on the general situation in Dallas. James was doing what he could to help everyone adjust, in between resting as much as they could let him get away with, given the Council had insisted he return to work. Molly, Maria, and Xiaolian were working on a new ward schematic to trap La Lechuza. And Tyrus had just gotten back from his trip to find more information.

“I’m back, and with everything, we need to do the tracking spell.” He smiled at her, visibly pleased, though his smile was a small one, as if uncertain if it was even meant to be on his face. “I should have any information we need on this creature now.” He added.

The biggest thing they needed was a way to track the monster and a way to defeat it. They were still going over the information they already had, the victim’s locations, and what they could find to pinpoint a hunting ground, at least. So far, it seemed like most of them were downtown, at least, according to the map James had made up with his team, but fresh eyes were always welcome on these things.

“Oh? That didn’t take long,” Catherine observed, glancing at the clock on her desk. At this morning’s briefing, they had discussed that today was the day that Tyrus was going access to the Cahokia library, and Lily, her friend who had agreed to introduce him to the librarians, hadn’t thought they’d get much farther than asking for access today. Cahokia was very strict with who was and wasn't allowed to access it, holding a good deal of knowledge that had been lost to the mundanes over time, about tribal culture.

“A tracking spell will be helpful…and it might give Molly and Xialian something to do besides fight,” Tyrus said. There was a great deal of animosity between the two spacetime experts, and it wasn’t something anyone wanted a front-row seat to. Thankfully, the two had kept the arguing out of meetings, but anytime the two needed to work one-on-one, it quickly devolved into a shouting match.

“Ah.” Tyrus then stammered as he tried to think of the best way to put it. “It turns out I’m eligible for permanent access, including to parts of the closed archives.” He played with his braid as he spoke and shifted slightly where he stood, unsure how to handle the situation.

“But…you said you weren’t eligible?” Catherine asked, the confusion was obvious in her voice. The team had just needed access to the library, not this. They didn’t need yet another complicated thing to get dropped in their laps like whatever this was. “I mean, that’s good, right? Having access?” She asked again. Most of them had assumed Tyrus was some sort of Arabic, Middle Eastern, or Southeast Asian heritage. He and Molly had similar skin tones, though not the same, and she was from the fae equivalent of Southeast Asian. That didn’t equate to permanent access to Cahokia, though. Access to the permanent archives was only open to those whose tribal relation could be verified, and no one knew exactly how Cahokia did that. It was a closely guarded secret, but it had never failed.

Tyrus met her eyes with a weak smile, clearly shaken. “It’s good. I just…didn’t think I was eligible. Apparently my birth parents were Odawa, according to their device.” He answered.

#creative writing #writerscommunity #urban fantasy #female writers #writblr #arcane investigations #writing #novel writing #fantasy novel #fantasy writer #women writers #original writing #writer #original story #original character #original work

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aib-detectives · 6 months ago

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Mismatched and Mad

A bit of world lore, a bit of history on two characters. No they don't like eachother at this point, in fact they'd probably love to beat the ever loving shit out of one another right now. But they have a murderous owl to find. Also, yes there's quite a bit of racism/classism/isms alluded to here between Molly and Xiaolian. They've both got :sparkles: Trauma :sparkles: in spades to work through. No, that does not excuse their behavior either. ~ Gigabyte

---------------------- This is a work of fiction. Any relation to actual people, places, living/dead/fictional and events is purely coincidental.

________________________

The team dispersed, James to get more rest, Tyrus to choose a desk, Catherine to contact her friend, and Maria to stock up on some goodies she now had access to as a specialist. She had set it with a certain sort of manic glee that deeply worried James, who decided he also needed to contact her former supervisor. Specialists did tend to lean towards the unhinged side of things and James wanted at least some forewarning as to her tics before she decided to knock them all into a coma.

Molly and Xiaolian, meanwhile, were working on the ward scheme. Rather, Molly’s rough sketch altered with Xiaolian’s suggestions. She tapped her pencil to her lip and looked over the schematic. “I doubt she’ll be able to fly with her wings pinned like we’re planning, but we probably want to make this more of a dome than a cylinder.” She said, and adjusted the northwest quadrant of the ward.

“Do you think we’ll need to yank her from the sky with it? Longer wards like that are tricky…” They had to start all over if they needed that. Having a ward reach up like that, then snap down, was a pretty advanced technique and not one her basic bunny trap could be modified for.

"You just need her to fly into it." Xiaolian replied, looking at Molly with annoyance and confusion. "The ward is supposed to do the rest of the work for you." She added, wondering how this woman had even reached Specialist and then reminded herself of the dearth of experts in spacetime magic.

"It's supposed to be a trap, right? Think of it like a spiderweb. She flies into it and it tells us so that we can come in like a spider after a fly and nullify her." Xiaolian explained. It really wasn't that hard. What would be hardest would be adjusting the trap.

“True, but I was thinking if she preferred dive-bombing her victims like owls do, then it may be best to have it extend enough to grab her before she’s in reach of whoever she’s going after. If she’s dive bombing, then there's a narrower area near the ground area for her to run into, so it may need to extend up higher, for the safety of her target. I may need to watch a few videos of owls dive-bombing, though, to see the preferred trajectory. Different periods probably prefer different angles of approach, and I’m not sure if it’d be species wide, or individual.” Molly suggested, thinking it might actually be better to have the ward be tall enough to snatch her from the sky and pin her down.

“Though that does assume she’s more instinct driven and we don’t have confirmation of that yet.” She tapped the pencil to her lip again and sketched a quick ward schematic that could reach a solid thirty feet up, “If I fiddle with the ward definitions on this one, I should be able to get it to contract once something enters into it. I’d have to set a lower limit on the size of the trap to make sure we didn’t catch wildlife, but it’s doable.”

Xiaolian sighed in irritation, "She's not an actual owl.. she's a creature from striking deals she shouldn't." There was no good way to explain this. Xiaolian knew that the creature they were after was a product of a planar rift or incursion, nothing else. A decent enough ward, and a good cleansing would fix that.

"Watching videos of an actual owl are not going to help against a fucking magic harpies. It's a waste of time." She pointed out. Wasting time on videos and nature documentaries was going to be their own downfall if they let themselves go down that path. "Warden Price and the ,"Prince" gave us the sizing, just make the trap match that. So it's not hard."

Molly just rolled her eyes, unimpressed with the idea of it all. “I don’t know if you realize, but trapping something that flies differs completely from trapping something that walks.” Molly pointed out, she knew her field very well, and wasn’t about to let anyone make her feel like she didn’t.

“And I just need to know the size of the ward needed to trap her, and to know that, I have to take into account how she gets around.” She explained. “Besides, she has an owl’s body and a woman’s face, and from what Tyrus said earlier. And depending on the deal she made, she may have more owl instincts than human when in that form. Knowing how she strikes from the sky could change the ward configuration entirely. Or do you think someone with a fifteen foot wingspan walks?”

Xiaolian just scoffed, "Fuck no. But I don't think it's going to have owl instincts. Does an owl go after small children and drunk men? No."

The two spacetime specialists were clearly getting off on a bad footing when left alone together. It wasn't just a difference of opinion, either. Neither one could nor even wanted to respect the other's skill level or expertise. They both considered the other backwards and uneducated about the wards and trap they'd been asked to construct. "And trapping something that flies is why I said just make it so she flies into it. Just put a tasty bit of bait at the other end. Most things are greedy enough to fall for that." She maintained. Xiaolian knew what to do, but clearly Molly refused to listen to anyone but herself. "Besides, your southeast node is three degrees short." Xiaolian pointed out.

Molly bit back her first three snarled responses. “A mid-air like that is possible, of course, but it can’t be pre-placed. I’d have to cast it. Her hunting patterns have not been thoroughly examined to identify a dependable bait, aside from intoxicated men or men with loose morals. And who knows what she’d count as loose morals, or how we’d find someone that she’d pick as bait. And my southeast node isn’t three degrees short. It’s placed there so I can pull the target to the ground.”

Now it was Xiaolian's turn to roll her eyes at Molly's response. "It can be pre-placed and triggered by specific conditions." It wasn't hard, but it was certainly a more aggressive school of thought. One that maybe the other didn't know, which she briefly considered as a possibility. Not everyone was going to have had the same amount or type of training she had had. "And the node is too short. The target should fall to the ground once hit by the ward. Make it work for you, not against you," Xiaolian said, pulling out a red marker and marking the ratios and constants on the whiteboard the three had commandeered to write out the schematic. "If we move this node, and maybe add in a sub.." she thought aloud. The biggest question was would the trap hold long enough, not would it work?

Molly considered the school of thought for a moment. “A vertical ward maybe?” She could cast and hold that, but still. She found another marker and made a few changes herself as the 42nd degree point and the 33rd. “That should pull her to the ground if she goes through the ward. And…” She tapped her lip with the marker, then made a few marks in the innermost circle. “That would give a full body bind. Though we may not need to pull her to the ground if we use the full body bind.” That would keep her down, regardless. Most people would find it very difficult to even stand up when they couldn’t move more than their feet.

An equation flew across the board as Molly worked her way through some trigonometry, then placed a few more symbols and markers at different angles. She stepped back and looked the ward over, then nodded. “That should do it. I’m still concerned about how we’re going to get her to trigger the ward, though. We could anchor it to an object and place several over likely hunting ground, but specifying the ward so it just gets her and not someone or something else can be tricky. I really need some sort of symbolism for La Lechuza that would allow me to target her specifically. Either that or more information on her so I can narrow in the parameters.” It’d make the ward more complicated, but it was perfectly doable.

"I'm more concerned if this is going to hold," Xiaolian said bluntly. It looked too complicated and too difficult to produce. Like something that looked great on paper, but didn't work in practicality or under real world pressures. "Because frankly, that is a lot of points on the ward to exploit." She pointed out. They did not need a possibly injured and angry creature going after them, especially not one that was out for blood. "And that full body bind needs… help." Xiaolian added, circling the part of the equation that she was talking about. "We're holding a… creature, possibly very angry, not a human, werewolf, or vampire." This was irritating without being able to use the proper terms or right equations. Everything was backwards.

Molly shook her head. “Human base, with an infernal component.” She said and tapped the marker and the two components she was talking about.

“Not a creature at all. This component will cover the transformational nature of the magic she’s using.” Molly pointed to what she was talking about. “She’s…” Molly searched for the English word. Decades in this stupid country and she still struggled.

“A shape changer? Shape shifter? But still a base human, ultimately. The biggest changes to her” Molly was getting more flustered now, and forgetting her English, frustrated as hell. “Mothú, her…” Molly groaned. “Fucking English. To her magical markers, shape? Would be the additional infernal energy and that she can change shape.”

“So we need a large body bind, but one for a human should still be sufficient on a magical scale.”

Xiaolian just stared at Molly, but didn't say anything. This was going to be a hell assignment, and there was nothing she could do about it. One of her teammates barely spoke English. It sounded like, she seriously wondered what sort of language barrier she was going to be facing to even communicate. Xiaolian knew she didn't have the patience to learn a whole new language, and sincerely hoped she hadn't been thrown from the frying pan to the fire. "That's transfiguration, conjuring, and a little bit of spacetime to allow the infernal to exist here. You didn't add anything to that." She pointed out, flipping the board over. Taking a different colored marker, she sketched out the bulk of Molly's equation again, but this time condensed and with an emergency escape should the ward catch one of the team instead of its intended. "You're a Sargeant, yes? Why didn't you add any emergency clauses?" Xiaolian asked once she was finished. "You know this isn't a guarantee." She scolded. "I get we're all expendable to you, but I'd like to live to go home and not get killed by some shape shifting owl witch."

Molly snorted. “You’re not going to get caught in my ward.” She said dryly. “And there’s no need to account for conjuring or spacetime. She already made a deal, and so the energy is on this plane. Nor is she conjuring anything. Transfiguration, yeah, but that’s what this clause is for. And this is aimed at humans, which means there’s two possible who it could even catch on this team. Tyrus and Maria. It’s a limited area ward. We station them so they can’t walk into it.” Seriously, she knew what she was doing. This was literally her specialty. “If you’re worried, we’ll grab lay officers and get them to help test. No one here is expendable, and I didn’t even hint that.”

While this may have been Molly's speciality, it was also to a degree Xiaolian's as well. The two couldn't reach a consensus about how to construct the wards, and they'd been going back and forth for a good few minutes now. Neither wanted to give an inch to the other, afraid they'd take a mile. "Either it's human or it's not. Make up your mind, Bronson. Because it sounds to me like you don't even know how to categorize things." Xiaolian said. "And besides, what makes you so convinced that you only have two human teammates? The Council picked at random and humans make up a fair bulk in our world." She continued. Xiaolian didn't trust Molly's schematic, having had no experience with the other's wards or so called 'bunny traps'. They weren't trapping a rabbit, and they definitely weren't trapping a human being either. "This is ridiculous. I could be doing other things. Instead, I'm stuck here." Xiaolian grumbled, tossing a marker onto the nearby table.

“You and I both know that neither of us is human.” She said quietly. “Catherine’s hair is the white you get when more magic than a human can handle is channeled through you. James’ glamor kept slipping every time his pain flared when he moved. Everyone knows the youngest prince of the Sun Court is human, and his parents are waiting on some sort of timing to be right for a ritual before turning him. As for Maria? She specializes in two fields that are human heavy, and that most non-humans tend to look down on because they need large amounts of magic to do amazing things.” She huffed and flipped the board back over to her original schematic. “But go do something else then. I’ll finish the ward myself.”

"Oh, so you do pay attention to more than just doodling. Consider me amazed." Xiaolian said sarcastically. But Molly was right, there were only two humans on the team, really. Everyone else was something else, not that they were going to admit to as such, given the heavy prejudices the unseen could often face outside of their own communities. "James has several broken ribs, and a broken leg. I don't know anything about the Sun Court, Hong Kong, remember? And there's nothing wrong with Herblore, it's actually quite useful." She pointed out. Neither, however, was entirely sure what to make of someone who had survived the sheer amount of magical energy that Catherine had. Normal people in their world didn't come back from that being able to walk, talk, and function at the level necessary to work with AIB, never mind as a warden. "And I will neither confirm nor deny your suspicions about my humanity to you. Now don't be such a bitch about the schematic and maybe actually listen to me when I point out issues."

“You’ve been a bitch to me since you first opened your mouth,” Molly said, not able to hold back at this point. “I didn’t say a damn thing about there being anything wrong with Herblore, and the doodling helps me stay focused. And you don’t have to confirm a damn thing about your humanity to me, Guardian, because you and I both know I recognize what you were from the beginning.”

Xiaolian regarded Molly with a blank expression while the other went on their brief rant about the other's behavior. "What the hell are you even on about, Bronson?" She asked, wondering if Molly needed to be examined and have her fitness for duty questioned. Because the statement had been posed as almost an accusation, which was both alarming and jarring. "Are you okay? Because that is a really fucking weird thing to say." Xiaolian stated, frowning. Of course Molly was right, but she was also going to deny it. Given that really the only groups that knew about the Guardians were the Ratatoskr, and having one find you was practically a death sentence. Maybe she should have fought back against this desire to loan her out to Dallas, but it had seemed safer to just go with it all.

“Please don’t deny it.” Molly said, annoyed already. “The Ratatoskr guild tattoo that I’ve had since I was a little kid reacts to the presence of the dragon tattoo a full-fledged Guardian has.” She sighed and turned her attention back to the ward schematic. “I knew you were a Guardian before I even entered the room.”

She made a few more edits to the ward schematic, and considered it, pushing Xiaolian even existing out of her mind. For now, she would much rather it just be here and on the ward. “Just go do whatever it was you were going to do.” Molly didn’t care anymore. Dallas couldn’t hold her if she didn’t let it after all, and she knew Emile would be just fine with her getting the hell out of this job and going independent. Ward masters made good money, after all.

"Right.." Xiaolian replied slowly. She was cooked, she was burned big time. Once the Guild found out, it was only a matter of time before they came looking for her, her family, and anyone else in the community. The very thought of it made her nauseous, that this next wave of attacks on her community would be her fault. "Well -," she started to say and thought better of it. It was very clear that she was going to be stuck with Molly unless she could convince Catherine to let her go back to Hong Kong. And even then, it would just be counting days until she was found. Xiaolian knew the violence that came next. It always did once someone was found, and there was no stopping it. "I just need three days." Xiaolian said after a moment. That didn't change anything for her, but it might for others.

“What? Three days? Unless we can pinpoint this thing’s hunting ground, it’s going to take more than three days.” She said, very confused now. She put the marker down and turned to face Xiaolian, thoroughly confused. “I haven’t even had a chance to look at the evidence and history of attacks yet. Obviously something got narrowed down or the entire previous team wouldn’t have been attacked, but we haven’t even gone over that yet.”

Now it was Xiaolian's turn to think through the right way to say the right words. "A whole different country should have solved this whole problem." She said carefully. The Ratatoskr guild had made every attempt to wipe the Guardians out a long time ago, and every so often liked to reinforce the fact that they were indeed the superior race of spacetime mages. Never mind the fact that the two had come into being almost separate, and eventually agreed to work with one another towards common goals.

"But.. now that you do.. I know that the guild has certain ideals it likes to very strongly reinforce." Xiaolian hesitated. Whatever moron in the Council decided it would be a good idea to put two spacetime specialists on the same team needed their head examined. Xiaolian had been perfectly happy without knowing of Molly's existence and Molly her's.

Molly’s brow furrowed. “I- Yes, it does.” She admitted quietly. “But… we’re supposed to show respect to Guardians. The guild wants us to tell them if we’ve seen one, so they can try to re-open relations, but. But we’re supposed to respect you all.”

She didn’t understand what was going on at all. “You’re scared of something, I can tell that much.” She just didn’t know why. The guild wasn’t exactly a good organization, but no one would hurt a Guardian. “So I won’t tell anyone I met you. I know the Guild does a lot of things that aren’t…” She shrugged, not knowing how to say it.

“My family doesn’t…we slip around what the guild wants as much as possible. They’ve been doing it since before they were given me to train. But I won’t tell them either. It’s not like I actually like the guild. There’s just no way to leave it. I’m lucky enough that Xander rebelled against the rules enough to know my birth family, and lucky enough, my family isn’t going to report me for having a non-Ratatoskr wife.”

Xiaolian pressed her lips together in a hard line, biting back every thought she ever had about Molly since the morning began. Maybe she had been stupid for trying to hide, but in her defense no one had known about the damn tattoos the Ratatoskr had. It felt like yet another slap in the face after everything the Guild had done. They'd also stolen something that felt like it was supposed to belong to her people and her people alone.

"When you go home tonight, you ask your family what the Guild did." She said flatly. "Because the Guild is not interested in relations." Xiaolian added, spitting the last word as if it were something terrible to even have in her mouth. She just hoped and prayed to a silent Heaven that this had just been a narrow escape. Molly was too naïve to really even think about anything less than kindly about the Guild. "Now, if you don't mind, I think I've already been told to go do other things." She decided before turning around to leave. Xiaolian had more than enough information on how Molly wanted to draw the warding schematic, that she could work out the nullification and purification just fine. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had to do things this way, given it was often common for consults to not provide the whole picture and leave her to deduce the entire thing herself.

Molly hesitated and reached out. The guild…they weren't the best. But surely?

She thought about how Pwyll hadn't seen his family since he was a few years old, how he hadn't even been old enough to be assigned a master when they found him. She thought of how lucky she felt, of being married to a human, of knowing her own birth family and how other groups didn't have trackers tattooed into their members, didn't…well.

Molly had been told the kids were removed willingly from their parents. But her own didn't like to talk about it. She had been told a child with strong spacetime magic was too difficult to raise without having your own.

Yet, it had been a rather strong reaction...

The guild wasn’t good, not really. She had a lot of conversations about Emile, and her wife was very honest when Molly said something that shouldn’t have been the case, that her guild was wrong for doing to her.

Maybe the guild was even worse than she thought.

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