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 Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 4:25 pm
Murders were nasty business.
It took a strong individual to deal with them. Looking at the dead bodies, searching for evidence or clues, tracking down the killers themselves. Such a line of work most certainly wasn't for the faint of heart. Til'lene was up for the challenge, though, and she enjoyed the work that she did as a member of the third-one wing. Not only did she find it interesting, but it kept her on her toes, she felt. Pelgalath enjoyed it, too, which helped. The brown had a penchant for such a line of work, given his inquisitive nature. He always had to know who, what, where, and when, so being a part of such a wing was a perfect fit for him.
Dragon and rider found themselves a little closer to home on this particular case. A couple of corpses had been found within High Reaches Hold, naked and covered in a variety of wounds: bruises, stab marks from a knife or some other sharp object, and another had a gruesome line ran across their throat. Without clothing, it would have been difficult to identify them, but luckily, they had a lead.
The Lord Holder, Tharandir, had reported some drudges missing a few days prior.
Well, this was certainly going to be an intriguing one.
A case, she knew, that she wouldn't be able to solve on her own or with just the members of her own wing. No -- such a case would require assistance, and it was for that reason that Til'lene had reached out to Wing Three-Two. The members of that wing, in particular, had sets of skills that would be vital to the solving of this murder. Namely the ability to slip easily undercover. Hopefully, with the two wings working together on this, they would be able to solve the mystery without much difficulty, and put a murderer away for a very long time.
Not wanting to cause too much of a ruckus, Til'lene and Pelgalath landed on the outskirts of town. Tharandir, she knew, was not particularly fond of dragonriders, so the further their dragons stay out from town, the better. After landing, the blond dismounted from her partner and gave him an affectionate pat on the leg. Now all they had to do was wait for the member of Three-Two to show up, and then they could get on with their work.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 4:50 pm
The skinny green rider arrived a few minutes later, ensconced in her etched riding leathers. M’ere was pretty - M’ere was always pretty when she wasn’t working - but she’d upped the makeup and everything else, a sort of secondary disguise. If whoever they were hunting saw her today, it would be as a flibbertigibbet of a green rider, not as the drudge she intended to be at daybreak tomorrow.
Tarazeth hit the ground with a thump, sending flurries of snow up around her. The dragon was, naturally, showing off (what else would Tarazeth do), and as her rider slid to the ground she settled down to preen herself.
“Hallo!” M’ere said cheerfully, shielding her eyes with a hand. Her hair - shaved in penance - was still growing back, a visible sign that she was either a recently graduated weyrling… or someone who had done something very stupid fairly recently.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 4:58 pm
'No need to try and look pretty.'
This came from Pelgalath, and the curt statement was obviously directed at the pretty green. The brown didn't seem particularly fazed or interested in the female's display, and instead was more focused on the pair of riders before them. It was quite a sight to see a rider with a such a freshly shaven head. Surely, she wasn't freshly graduated? No...somewhere, he recalled some sort of scandal or another, during the last Flight, if he was remembering correctly. Tarazeth's rider had to be involved, he suspected, though Pelgalath didn't press the notion.
"You must be M'ere," Til'lene said as the other rider shielded her eyes. Pausing, the brown rider allowed herself to study the younger woman, scanning her up and down before nodding her head in satisfaction. "I'm Til'lene, and I guess we'll be working together." She didn't even bother to ask about the hair, though she had probably done something rather foolish. That was water under the bridge, however. Til'lene didn't care, frankly. The two of them had a job to do.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 5:21 pm
your benefit?> Tarazeth enquired genially, peering out from beneath a wing that she had spread out to inspect.
“That’s me” M’ere said brightly, her other hand resting on thin hips (it pained her that she was utterly unable to put on weight - would it kill her body to just… expand? A little?). “I’ve seen you around. It’ll be a pleasure t’work with you. I’m going to be a bit of a useless dilettante today while you run me through stuff, visit the scene, all that, so don’t take it too much to heart. I don't want to be out too long or meet any of the people involved if we can avoid it though, that'd be awkward and you'd have to find someone new” People’d remember her for that, and not what she was going to be tomorrow.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 5:29 pm
'Uh-huh. If you say so.'
Most probably would have wanted to chat for a little while, to get to know one another and what not. Not M'ere, it seemed, and Til'lene could respect that. She was one of those who preferred to get straight to work, anyway. The less dawdling, the better, in her opinion. "Fair enough," she murmured, turning sharply on her heel. The wingrider then began to walk briskly to the scene of the crime.
"Follow me."
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 5:44 pm
M’ere hustled to keep up, her short legs making almost double time to keep up with Til’lene’s longer strides. She didn’t wear a sword on her hip today - or any visible weapons beyond a belt knife - but it was likely that she was well-armed nonetheless, in the grand tradition of Three-Two. She liked what she could hide, and her clothes were almost all cleverly adapted to allow her to do so.
“So what’s your theory?” she asked cheerfully, hands stuck in the pockets of her riding jacket. “I mean, you’ve got to have one, right? On the murders? I mean, if this is a serial killer, we're going to be looking at him making a jump up to somebody more important soon, right?”
Tarazeth said cheerfully, apparently meaning that to be the end of it as the gregarious green began to settle for a nap.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 5:57 pm
Mentally, Til'lene cursed. She wish that they had more to go on than what they did. Frankly, there was next to nothing in terms of clues and the like at the crime scene. As M'ere peppered her with questions and comments, all the murder investigator did was listen. Finally, she paused at a marked off area that had been cleared of people, and shook her head with an annoyed frown.
"Unfortunately, there's not much to go on here at the crime scene," she admitted, motioning to the pair of corpses that had been covered with white sheets. M'ere better have a strong stomach, she thought, as she pulled away the coverings to reveal the bodies. What had happened to the pair, two female drudges, had been a brutal affair. "There are no witnesses, no weapons, nothing," she said with a bit of a huff. The lack of things to go on had clearly thrown the dragonrider for a loop. How on earth were they going to solve this?
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 6:11 pm
“That’s nasty” M’ere commented with a deep breath out, crouching down beside one of them, drawing her scarf up over her nose to avoid the smell where bowels had been opened. “Shards, almost looks like healers work. I saw that once, after they cut my aunt open after a baby that was probably going to kill her either way. She died, but the baby lived”
As a little girl, she would have much preferred that her aunt had survived, rather then having a mewling infant and his wet nurse and her uncle thrust upon them all at once, and no one with any patience for little Mevarare.
“D’you reckon they did all that after they were dead? I can’t imagine anyone holding still for it t’be that precise"
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 7:10 pm
While M'ere covered her mouth to avoid the smell, Til'lene didn't seem to be as bothered. She was used to such things, horrendous sights and scents alike. This crime scene was no different from countless others she had witnessed over the years. What was different, however, as her peer had commented, was the skill with which the bodies were carved into. It did look as if a healer had done it themselves, or some sort of butcher, at the very least.
"The disembowelment was done after the individuals were already dead," she noted, pointing at how fresh those wounds were in comparison to the other ones on the body. The bruises on one of the corpses were already a dark purple, and the slashes on the neck already had darker blood that had dried in some places or coagulated in others. "Those wounds are much fresher, compared to the others."
As she said this, Til couldn't help but frown and scowl some in distaste. "Whoever the killer is, they are still out there, and possibly in a position with easy access to lots of people, be they a healer, butcher, or the like. There is no doubt in my mind that the perpetrator is a craftsman. Though who, where, and why they have done this...is beyond me, at the moment."
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:17 pm
The younger rider stood up, shoving hands into pockets as she took a step back, nose still wrinkling with the stench. She hated that carrion smell, though it was better then the one around fires - that just made her uncomfortably hungry.
“Poor bovines” she said, her lips drawn tight. “D’we know much about them yet?” It was usually the lover, the brother, the father, someone the dead knew. In the case of drudges, a master - or even a pimp. Most drudges didn’t get anything but the bare necessities, and with few skills...
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:27 pm
"They were Lord Tharandir's drudges, if you can believe it," she told M'ere, slipping her own hands into the pockets of her pants as well. "He had reported them missing two days ago, and he hadn't heard or seen them since. Well, now here they are." She didn't like where this was going; she didn't like this one bit.
Granted, she didn't really believe the Lord Holder would do something to murder someone, let alone individuals as insignificant as drudges. What reason would he have? And even so, the Lord was no murderer. He may have had a distaste for riders, but that was about all.
Yet if the Lord Holder wasn't the culprit, who could it have been. A pimp of some sort could have explained it. Perhaps the drudges had one on the side, aside from their main job, but she couldn't know for sure. No -- this investigation would call for more than just hunting for clues. It was going to call for undercover work, and that was where M'ere came in.
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:47 pm
“Excuse me a second” M’ere said, covering her mouth, and then walked very quickly to turn up her breakfast in a bush. This wasn’t even mostly feigned, because those women, what had been done to them -
She stood there for a second, trembling, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She hated the taste of that sort of weakness (never mind what had just come out), but it would say a lot more about the flitterby girl she was pretending to be then clamping down hard on her nausea would.
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:59 pm
'And this is why she is in three-two, as opposed to three-one, as we are. She clearly doesn't have the stomach for it.'
Til'lene decided it was best not to relay her dragon's words to the nauseated green rider. Instead, she just walked over to her side, untied a wineskin from her belt, and held it out to her. The wingrider always made it a point to carry a skin full of water with her at all times. They especially came in handy in times like M'ere was experiencing.
'Everyone goes through it, Pel,' the woman commented back. 'You know I'd be lying if I said it never happened to me.'
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 1:11 pm
“Thanks” M’ere took the skin gratefully, removing the bung and taking a gulp of water to wash the sour taste away. She swirled it around her mouth and then spat, handing it back. The green rider had been in her fair share of fights - though her size and strength (or rather, lack of) meant that she avoided them where at all possible. “I’ll be fine. Ugh”
It occurred to her a moment later that she had her own skin. Well, never mind.
“People really are bastards”
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 3:29 pm
"They are," she replied dryly, a bit surprised that she actually agreed with such a statement. For the most part, Til'lene was good at talking with people, but sometimes, well... There were just certain individuals that were just something else entirely, and thus difficult to deal with or awkward to be around. Whoever committed this crime, she figured, had to be someone like that. Regular people didn't just butcher others so wantonly. It took a special someone to do things that were truly that heinous.
After M'ere took a drink from her skin, Til'lene took the bottle back after stopping it back up so the water didn't leak. She then attached it to her belt and covered up the bodies, motioning for the other girl to follow her back to their dragons. The undercover rider had probably seen more than enough of the bodies, she knew, and thus Til wanted her to get back in familiar territory as soon as she could. It'd provide a little relief, at least.
"So I'm thinking you'll go undercover at the Lord Holder's and see if you can find any clues or leads. After a couple of days, we can meet up again, discuss your findings, and then potentially catch us a murderer. Sound good?" It seemed decent enough in her head, at least. She just hoped they could find clues as to whoever was responsible. This might not bode well for High Reaches Hold if they didn't. Who knew what the killer was capable of doing next, after all.
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