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It's a quiet evening in the Winter Hollow. Is anyone around? It's difficult to know. But it's not snowy, at least, though it's cooler in the Hollow than it is in Philly proper.
Lux looks...... nervous. Really fucking nervous. They slip into the Hollow with Asbolus, giving a quick look around, then glances towards the Hunterheart. "Uh... I can Light-Shy, and sneak in and see if she's there?" they whisper.
"Sounds like a plan." Asbolus nodded, making an 'after you' motion. "I'll keep an eye out."
Lux nods--then will activate Light-Shy and creep over to Robin's cottage to see if they can peer inside... Or listen at the door for any signs of someone inside, if there's no windows.
As far as Lux can see, there's no one inside. It's ... just quiet. Which is ominous, maybe, but there doesn't appear to be anyone around.
Lux scurries over towards Asbolus and tugs at his sleeve, then steps back to the door of the cottage. Trying the door, and will pull out some lockpicks to try to pick the lock if it doesn't open.
Asbolus meandered over towards the cabin after the tug, looking rather nonchalant as he did so.
It takes a few seconds of fiddling with, but the door pops open, and the hinge creaks as the door swings free.
Lux nudges the door open to peeek inside. If the coast is clear they slip in, waiting for Asbolus, then closes the door. "I'm mostly going to be following your lead, here... Not the best at finding things," they murmur.
"Between the two of us I imagine we'll find something..." He quietly replied, taking a look about the cabin to see what had changed since his last visit and determine where to start.
The inside of the cabin is... it had been crowded before, overwhelmed by papers, but now it seems a bit of a mess. Either Robin's gotten really rushed recently, stopped keeping up on her papers, or someone's already been in here and tossed the place gently once. Stacks of folders, boxes of files...
Lux blinks, looking around slowly. "What the fuck...?"
There's still a sense of order in the midst of all this chaos. Either someone was in here tossing the place gently or the owner was looking for something particular. The fact that the bed is the only surface uncovered tends to imply that it was the owner, looking for something in particular, though a paranoid mind might question whether that was deliberately done.
Acute senses of smell pick up only one scent in the house, however, at least until the daring duo start leaving their scent everywhere.
Boxes pulled out from underneath the bed bring their dust to bear on the entire room -- labels on the boxes mark them as 2004, 2005, 2006... and there's a folder pulled out from July 2005. Further search for that folder finds it stuffed underneath the bed. Inside those folders? Letters. So many letters. Robin apparently compulsively collects her correspondence, and whatever's in this folder matters enough in the current moment that she -- within the last two days, from the looks of things -- rummaged through her entire cottage trying to figure out where she put the folder or its contents, only to find it filed in a box under her bed... and stuff that folder under her mattress.
"This seems... weird, right?" Lux murmurs, looking through the letters. "Do you think we should take them, or take pictures of the letters and put them back?"
"Rather." He looked through the letters as well, committing the contents to memory as he did so. "Photos wouldn't be a bad idea for backup purposes. I'll straighten things back up while you do that."
Lux nods, pulling out their smartphone, and will go through and snap photographs of all the letters, if possible.
Going through the letters one at a time, there's a lot of stuff that's not that interesting -- literally, the woman seems to save everything, compulsively -- though Lux does come across a couple of letters signed 'MZ,' the initials of the much-mourned Winter Sovereign whose death is the reason the Crown landed on Marjorie's head. And then there's this one:
R:
I understand -- and I'm sorry that you feel as you do. Let me assure you as I did when we last spoke that I agree that your work is for the long-term good of the city, and I won't stand in your way. I don't understand why you felt the need to do what you did -- I've never lied to you, and I'm not even in a position to stand in your way anyway.
But you've done it, so here we are. I owe you, and I told you the truth, so I let you do what you felt you needed to, but we're not friends anymore.
M.
Lux frowns down at the letter, then snaps a picture of it before passing it to Asbolus. "Think this might be from Marjorie?"
That one gets a longer look-over, along with a nod as he handed it back. "Possibly. See if you find any others in the same handwriting to compare."
Lux nods, and will shuffle through them to search for any handwriting to compare it to.
Asbolus, meanwhile, shall be resetting the room to how it looked when they came in as best as he can, unless called over to look at the letters once again.
There's a second letter from earlier that month, when Lux goes through again, which simply reads:
Lunch after the planning meeting?
M.
It's short, but enough to compare handwriting.
"Just this one that I see," Lux says. "I'll finish taking pictures, then we can read through them all once we're away from here." Once they've taken pictures of all the papers, they hand them off to Asbolus to put back where they should be, letting him try to cover their tracks. After they check their phone to double check that the pictures came out okay.
There are weird little artifacts in the corners of the pictures, but that's probably just because electronics and the Hedge don't play nice together. The letters are legible in every way that matters.
Satisfied, they tuck the phone away. "Think there's anything else here, or should we bail?"
"I think we've found enough for the moment. The files I saw before aren't here, which is notable in its own way...namely, in figuring out who she gave them to after the season's end to 'finish the work'."
Lux nods. "Let's get out of here, then." They head for the door, opening it to peek out. They'll make sure the door is locked behind them.
After giving the room one last check to make sure their own passage through the space was covered as best as he could Asbolus moved to follow.
Just as they come out of the cottage, there's the subtle sound of another door closing, somewhere across the way. Other than that? The Winter Hollow stays quiet.
That would appear to be Lumi's door.
Lux frowns, then slips off towards the Hollow's exit.
Asbolus spared the cabin in question a look as the sound echoed, mulling briefly before tapping Lux on the shoulder and holding up a finger to ask them to wait. He then went still himself, ears perked for any other sounds of movement.
Lux will pause and wait!
There's no sounds of motion for a little while, and then just as they might be about to move on? The curtain's drawn back. Lumi stares at both of them for a second, then makes a little 'get the fuck out of here' gesture with one hand, her face as blank as it always is.
Lux blinks, then gives Asbolus a glance and hurries to the hedge gate.
As they waited Lux likely noticed that Asbolus' posture had shifted somewhat, taking on the air of being ready to bound off after something at a moment's notice. When Lumi emerged he blinked in surprise, giving her a brief nod before following Lux to the hollow gate.
Lux huffs out a breath once they're through the gate, rubbing a hand over their face. "Let's... get these to a laptop. Then we can go through them more thoroughly? She must have hid all these for a reason..."
"One must imagine..." He sounded distracted for a moment before he shook his head as though to clear it, letting out a slow breath. "Do you have one? I don't currently."
"Yeah, I got one. Let's hit up a cafe or something..." They glance around, then head off down the street.
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