Logs:The Murder Visits

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Content Warning

Telepathy, images of murder.

Cast

Little Fox, Mei Lee, Leta Abbott, Zoya

Setting

The Firebirds Penthouse

Log

Zoya's penthouse is right where Fox left it, but now the balconies (plural) have considerably more furniture on them, and one of the balconies has been painted with concentric red rings. That balcony is the one that has a wardrobe under the overhang in front of the sliding door. There are lights on inside the penthouse, and furniture inside too, so it's quite likely Zoya is home. Especially since she told Fox that she was going to be.

When Fox was about to leave with Mei, Leta texted too, so now Zoya gets a SURPRISE VISITOR along with Mei and Fox. A veritable murder of crows comes flapping up. One of them, at least, is extremely adroit at being a crow! You know, she's been one many times before, and this is not a new experience -- what's new is that she's part of an actual factual murder.

The sound that Fox makes when she spots the target is a sharp, repetitive sound -- the crow equivalent of laughter -- as she swoops down to land. Fortunately for everyone, having a Matter Adept do the shapeshifting means that nobody comes back to being human naked. You get to bring your clothes (and your bag) with you. That makes Fox's crow-back white, of course, as her backpack changes the color of her feathers.

Mei got the hang of the crow thing pretty quick, because instincts are useful. First, though, she studied the magic, so that she had a better idea of how she might do it herself in the near future. Then, off on adventure!

She follows Fox just a few flaps behind, soaring around with nervousness about the height that subsides quickly enough. When she spots the target too, she makes a similar crow laughter sound and follows Fox in for a landing, where she presumably turns back to herself once all three of them are safe on the ground.

Leta has never been a bird before - unless we're talking slang terms, in which case she's been a bird for a while. Leta does not like being a literal bird, however - and though she was totally into experiencing this new thing, she'll probably be taking a Lift home, as the novelty of being part of a murder - rather than helping to solve them - seems to have worn off with altitude.

She makes a panicked skraawwww noise, following Fox and Mei off towards the balcony, and stumbling when she lands. Not at all graceful. Which makes sense. She's not exactly graceful as a human, in her defense.

Just a few seconds after birds turn into people on her balcony Zoya appears inside the penthouse, crosses the livingroom to the sliding door, and pulls it open. How did she know? She's a tech geek. She has things set up to alert her if there are people on the balcony. "I think you picked up an extra," she says with a smile. "You didn't tell me Abbott was coming, but I'm pleased to see her. Hi Mei! Hi Abbott! Come on in, everyone. I haven't had time to cook with all the work being done here, but I ordered pizzas for the work crews and there's a bunch of leftovers if anyone is hungry."

There's a short pause.

"You know, I'm going to miss when you showed up naked, Fox."

The penthouse, is should be noted to those who haven't been there before, is the entire 48th floor of the building, overlooking Rittenhouse Square.

She hop hop hop hops toward Zoya, and then once everyone's got enough space between them that they're not going to crash into each other (and everyone's landed, that's a crucial thing), Fox releases the spell, her body melding upward into her usual form, that tiny, grubby little creature in jean shorts and a tank top. "She texted me right when I was about to do the shapeshift, so I said, you come too! It'll be fun!" And then she gasps and claps her hands. "Pizza!"

Pelmeni are her favorite, but she does love pizza.

Zoya's last little comment makes Fox turn bright red, and she giggles, flinging her arms around Zoya's neck and greeting her with a kiss. "Just for you, I'll show up naked sometime soon," the little Thyrsus assures.

Suddenly Mei is a human again! "That..." she says in a subdued tone with a glance back toward the edge, where she was just soaring hundreds of feet over the city. She turns back to look at Fox, then at the other mages. "Was..." and then a wide smile cracks and she lifts her hands in the air. "SO FUCKING COOL."

Leta makes an odd noise, when she shifts back into her human form that's part rushing adrenaline, part stomach-turning nausea. She turns back to the group, smoothing out her skirt, and adjusting the strap of her laptop bag so she can hold it closer.

"I think I'll... not do that again. Leta Abbott was not built to fly, and Gravity is one area where I think I'm content to follow the rules." To her credit, she does not throw up - even if it looks like she wants to. "Zoya," there's a very proper little nod. "Nice to see you again so soon."(edited)

"It's quite an experience isn't it Mei? Go help yourself, everyone, it's in the fridge!" Zoya says of pizza, but then it's she, and not the pizza, who gets Fox's affection first. That kiss is returned eagerly, arms around Fox's waist. "I definitely wouldn't complain about that," she says before giving Fox's bottom a smack before addressing Leta. "I have to say I'd be far more comfortable flying Fox Air if I knew enough Forces to ignore gravity should something go wrong. I get it, Abbott! Let's go sit in the kitchen. Anyone want a drink? At least I'm stocked up on liquor, or getting there. We should have plenty of options."

"Well, I mean, I'm going to learn Forces next, I think, partially because I want to be able to text message while I'm transformed, which means I have to be able to text message using my brain meats." The kiss is enthusiastic, and the smack on his butt makes Fox laugh aloud. "I will definitely do that, then," she answers, and squeezes around Zoya's neck before letting go. Then she pads over to Mei to kiss her cheek, grinning at her enthusiastic response to flying, and offers a hand down to Leta, to help her up. "You've had the experience. There's nothing in the Fox Rules that says you have to do something twice."

"I would like something to drink! Leta doesn't drink alcohol, though, I don't think. Do we have soda? We have News, Zoya. Maybe Vasha will come by later, too." If, you know, DadHoc finishes up the scene they're running.

"Here I was thinking I needed to shore up my own skills with Forces, and then we do that and I'm not so sure any more," Mei says with a laugh. "I could learn to fly instead." She goes over to peer over the edge of the balcony and then quickly moves back from the edge. "Nope. Definitely a lot scarier when I don't have wings. Those instincts sure help." She heads for the door. "Pizza and drinks sounds great to me. Do you have pineapple pizza?"

Leta takes the offered hand, letting Fox help her up. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did it - it is an interesting experience to have - but." She makes another little noise as she's pulled upright. "I do not like heights." Like maybe she fell off of something really tall at some point. Huh, wonder how that happened.

She follows Fox inside - giving their hand a little squeeze before letting it go - and then unslings the bag from her shoulder. She quirks an eyebrow at Fox when Mei mentions pizza. "I would love pineapple pizza actuall." Beat. "... and I already gave Zoya the news about our trip - or at least the barebones version of it, anyway."

"Yeah, if it's the thing with the Seer that you wanted to tell me about, Abbott filled me in," Zoya explains with a smile and wink Abbott's way. "If you think I need more detail, though, let me know! Anything I can do to help? I'm not the investigator that some of us Guardians are, at least not that way, but anything that involves making Seers sad, or dead, is good in my book." It sounds personal, because it is. She leads the way to the kitchen as she talks. "There are some things that aren't alcoholic in the fridge too. Soft drinks. I think a couple of Red Bulls? Some sports drinks, juice."

Once Leta is on her feet, Fox pads after Zoya into the kitchen -- the place is really obscenely well-appointed, but Fox doesn't look any more out of place in this place than he does anywhere else. "Yeah, that's basically it. I'm not sure what details Anthelion gave you already, but we should probably talk details. Vasha is taking this -- really hard. For Reasons. And I don't think he wants to be in charge of this, or anything." Which is, of course, a big change from the way that Vasily used to be, but Fox says it like it's a Very Normal Fact. "So probably what we need to do is ... figure out how we're going to handle this that doesn't default to assuming Vasha is in charge."

Okay, she's trying to say that like it's normal, but it's definitely weird. Vasha has been In Charge of stuff like this in Fox's world for a long time, and now he's not and that's weird and Fox is not used to pretending. "I want ... something. I don't know. Pick for me, Zoya."

Mei didn't really realize the scale of the apartment until they came inside and she discovered that it just kind of goes forever, and isn't just one section of the floor. "Holy shit," she says, stopping for a second. "And here I've been worrying about making rent on my tiny studio." She stops inside the door and takes her shoes off, because you don't wear shoes inside. That's just weird. And gross. "Someone want to fill me in on what happened?" she asks as they all parade to the kitchen, where she starts raiding pizza boxes looking for what she wants. And finds it! Pineapple! She puts the box on the counter and gestures Leta over before getting herself a slice. "I think I'll have whatever. If you're making a drink, just make it two."

"There was a Proximus that was murdered in Doylestown, like I said. I have some of his belongings -- I brought the phone and some of the more damning papers with me when I knew we'd be gathering -- but what I found in his things, and while viewing his last moments with postcognition, lead me to believe that he was planning on fucking us anyway." Beat. "Or worse, possibly acting as a mole."

Leta kicks off her heels by the door, and pads over to the fridge. She grabs a Redbull and a Gatorade, cracking open the energy drink and taking a sip. "Granted I was tripping balls on cactus at the time, but. His killer was almost assuredly a Seer, physically nondescript in just about every way, and he managed to set a trap for us that involved both Time and Spirit magic." Beat. "So. Details."

... and then she grabs a piece of pizza and takes a big bite. "Oh, and I'm sorry if Vasha thought I was trying to foist leadership on him. I was just trying to make a joke."(edited)

"You know I'm not much of the take-charge sort, but I'm sure we can figure out something," Zoya answers as they all get to the kitchen and she goes the freezer to get out the vodka. Mei does have a point about the shoes, but that's why Zoya is in her sock feet. "I don't know anything close to enough to take charge of this situation regardless, so it would have to be one of you if an individual is doing it." She opens the fridge and takes out cranberry juice. "Cosmo?" she asks Mei. "That's what I'm making for me and Fox. That legal stuff is still hanging over you like a sword of damocles, isn't it Mei? If you need help making rent or paying bills, let me know. No strings attached, I'll take care of it until you figure things out." She stops what she's doing to blink a couple of times at Leta. "You have his phone? Why didn't you lead with that? I can probably break into it and get all his data. Into his email. Do you think you could draw the Seer? Or stick an image of him in my head?"

"She bought this place," Fox offers to Mei. They don't take off her shoes because he isn't wearing any shoes, which may be gross, but it's at least a different kind of gross. She shucks off her backpack and settles down at the table. "I didn't see him. I did see what he did to a poor little spirit. It made me sad. I think he's being Vasha's friend now. The spirit. Vasha is calling him 'Oontz Oontz,' which isn't really his name." She swings a foot absently. "I think we can all work on it together. I'm not very good at being in charge. I forget things."

"Sure, cosmo sounds good," Mei says with a laugh. "I'm usually more of a cider girl, but I love me a fruity drink sometimes." She leans against a counter with her pizza and huffs a sigh. "It took me a while to get over feeling like I wasn't supposed to like or order them. Fucking societal gender perceptions." She takes a bite of her pizza and cocks her head to look at Zoya, then swallows pizza to ask, "are you serious? I'd feel kind of weird taking money from someone I just met, but beggars can't be choosers and it would have strings attached if I asked my family for help. Strings that wouldn't stop reminding me of it forever."

"I... did lead with that. This is me leading with it," she blinks slowly at Zoya, producing the phone from her laptop bag - along with a stack of papers. "... and I don't drink, but thank you for the offer. I appreciate it regardless."

There's a sympathetic nod at Mei, though. Leta relates to the struggle. "I cannot draw the man I saw, no, but I could absolutely project his image - actually, the entire crime - into your heads. If you want me to - and you also consent to having me inside your head." The pauses to take a bite of pizza, and then continues with her mouth full: "... and I suppose I can bark orders if no one else is willing to."(edited)

Zoya makes cocktails for those who are drinking them, a total of three, so she doesn't seem to have been making one for Leta anyway. She seems to be fine with Leta helping herself to other drinks. "If I wasn't serious I wouldn't have said it. The money doesn't really mean anything to me. It's a tool to be used. I might as well use it for good." As she's pouring into martini glasses she asks, "Vasha has a spirit? Like a familiar? That's new and unexpected." She offers drinks to Mei and Fox and then takes the phone. "I'll dig into it later," she says as she's putting it on the counter. "Do I want the whole crime in my head? Will it help? I'm mostly curious what he looks like in case I know him. I have a history with the Seers. Primarily stemming from the fact that my dad is one."

"I don't like your mom," Fox says absently toward Mei, as though this is a conversation the pair have had more than once. More than twice, even. "I have never met her, and I don't like her." Not that Fox ever talks about their family of origin. It's like she just sprang into being one day in Saint Petersburg and nothing before that matters at all.

Exactly like that.

"Yeah, he does now," she explains regarding Vasha and the spirit. "He felt very sad when he realized that the Seer had abused this poor spirit who just wanted to come to the rave, and now I think he feels ... responsible." Reaching for a piece of pizza, Fox fills her mouth with it rather than commenting on Zoya's parentage, which doesn't seem to surprise her. Because, you know, it doesn't.

"I love my mom, but I don't like her," Mei says in agreement. She takes the offered drink and leans against the counter to drink a cosmo and eat cold pineapple pizza. "It was just a spirit that wanted to go to a rave? That's... really pretty terrible, honestly. I feel sad for it, and I wasn't even there."

"I'm not sure if it'll help," Leta shrugs. She doesn't have much to say on the subject of parents. "Though you would be able to see more than just his face. His methods. Any identifying belongings he had at the time - cuff links, jewelry, ring. Mannerisms. Voice." She takes another bite of pizza, washing it down with Redbull before cracking open the blue Gatorade as well. These flavors do not mix with one another - let alone with pineapple pizza - but for some reason Leta does not care.(edited)

"Sure, hit me with it," Zoya says after Leta explains. "Then I can go dig into that phone and see what sense I can make of it." She takes a deep drink of her cosmopolitan and then laughs. "That does sound like Vasha," she tells Fox. "He would do that, wouldn't he?"

Leta fetches the trusty iron rod from her laptop bag at Zoya's express permission. She makes a few subtle gestures with her free hand, whispers a few words of High Speech, and then the air around Leta seems to swim and distort nauseatingly. There's a burst of a color - something unearthly that the mind does not recognize - as the spell is cast, and the telepathic link is established between the group.

An image begins to play in each participant's mind:

You can very clearly see the events running back like a movie with the Rewind button jammed down. The victim was in this room, surrounded by other employees, staff, and then suddenly, as if compelled by some strange force, they all left. Every single one, until he was alone, and then another person entered, a man with a face-in-the-crowd visage and don't-look-at-me clothes, though smart and well-kempt.

Their conversation was brief, and then Don't-Look-At-Me had his hand around the now-dead man's throat, dragging him around from the other side of the table and threatening him. But due to the volume of the music, the exact words aren't audible. Only growing sounds of frustration, and then fear, and then a final, snapping moment of rage, the flare of a powerful nimbus, a pop like the sound barrier being broken, and the victim hit the floor.

There's a pause in the vision, and then:

It winds back again, replays, the audio distorted, deepened, weirdly warped, but the sounds in the background duller; whatever magic Leta used to view the events is apparently a very intelligent audio separator.

Don't Look At Me: "You bold, bold, arrogant, duplicitous bastard."

[Some of the audio still garbled.]

Don't Look At Me: "Where is it? Did you really think you could possibly get away with this? You eat our crumbs, you do our bidding. You do not steal from us."

[Garbled.]

Dead man: "Go to hell."

Fortunately, because Leta went the extra mile when casting this spell, these are the only memories of the events that are shared with the group.

Fox hasn't seen this before -- only heard the details from Leta and Vasha -- and so she just sits very still, holding her pizza so hard in her hand that she squishes it. Squiiiiish. She sits very very still, and looks a little nauseous. "So ends a universe," she comments quietly, and lets out a soft puff of breath.

After getting things dumped into her mind Mei frowns. "That's. Not pleasant," she says. She salutes Zoya with her drink when the other Obrimos goes to start working and then continues with the conversation. "So... I think this is my first actual magical investigation, and not just psychic one. Should be interesting."

(Okay, I'm going now. Thanks everyone. Sorry to have to bail!)

"Well," Leta begins, offers Zoya a wave as she leaves. She currently has a slice of pizza in her mouth. Talking with her mouth full of food? What a fucking gremlin. "If you want to continue investigation as a career, I highly recommend investing some brainpower and energy towards studying Time. It's how I was able to generate this memory - and how I was able to manipulate it. Clean up the audio. Enhance the small details - like the cufflinks and the ring." Beat. "It's extremely useful - even if you're high - though, significantly more if you aren't." She turns her attention to Fox. "... that was a lot, are you okay?"(edited)

Having a mental link to Fox is a little like being on rollercoaster of free-association, and not always in the best way. Fox sits there, holding their squished piece of pizza, and their brain pingpongs off of the memory of drawing in water through the root structures of an azalea and the shape of a hand-hewn piece of granite matching the curve of Zoya's butt as she walks away. "I'm -- certainly something," the Thyrsus finally answers. "That was an experience."

"I used to be able to do psychometry on objects," Mei says from where she's leaning on the counter. "Look back at their history. It's one of the tricks that I lost when I Awakened, which is kind of an interesting trade-off. I used to be able to do telepathic links like you just did, too. Set up webs, where everyone could talk to each other. For now I'm enjoying not having to worry about those things. Not accidentally picking things up from people, or touching something and accidentally seeing someone get murdered with it. I'm pretty sure I'll miss those talents soon enough."

Fortunately (by design. Thanks Reach!) nobody has to see what the inside of Anthelion's head is like - nor the things that a forensic anthropologist might associate with murders and crime scenes. There's just static-y white noise from her end of the link - like a dead radio station... and then the spell ends. "The good news," she clears her throat. "Is that you aren't forced to experience those things. On this side of Awakening, you'll only see them when you choose to - and there's no need to miss your abilities. You can relearn them - or something similar to them - in time."

There's a pause. She doesn't even shove more food into her mouth - how polite! Hell, she almost sounds empathetic! "It was an experience - and now that you've seen it, you don't have to experience it again unless you would like to."(edited)

Little Fox puts her pizza in her teeth, gets down from her chair, and walks away from the table to a corner. While she's in the process of walking away from the table, she melts downward, going from 'person' to 'fox', and by the time she gets to the corner, she's dragging that half-piece of pizza in her teeth. The fox curls up in the corner and continues chewing its way through the pizza, one paw holding the slice in place. Apparently what Fox wants to do right now is eat pizza and not talk or think about what she just saw.

Mei finishes her pizza and wipes her hands on her jeans, because she's a tidy person but she's not a saint. "I probably will with time," she admits. "It's hard to decide what things I might want to learn next, at any given moment. Everything sounds so fascinating." She watches Fox go lay down to eat in the corner and lets out a soft laugh. "Yeah, I know that feeling." She finishes her cosmo too. "I kind of want to go explore the rest of this place. Do you think Zoya would mind? I don't think she would." She's not asking either of them in particular.

Leta isn't entirely sure what to do about that. She isn't fluent in What Fox Needs yet, so instead she just hovers awkwardly at the counter and continues to fill her mouth the abominable mixture of Pineapple, Pepperoni, Redbull, and Gatorade. "I imagine she wouldn't have left us alone in her home - or given us free run of her refrigerator and liquor cabinet - if she minded," Leta offers after swallowing. "... but I don't really know her, so." There's a shrug.(edited)

She takes a couple more bites of her pizza, then abandons said pizza in the corner. (She might come back to it later, or she might forget.) The little fox gets up, and wanders toward the door leading off in one direction from the kitchen, and makes a sharp gekkering sound, stepping out of the door, then stepping back in, wide green-gold eyes blinking slowly.

"I don't know her either, but I'm pretty good at reading people, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't mind." Mei turns to start following Fox. "I also think Fox is telling us that it's okay, or that he's going to show us around. What's wrong, Fox? Did Timmy fall down the well again?"

Leta snorts at the joke, and - still holding onto her drink - abandons her pizza as well. Clearly Anthelion works on a similar principle to Fox. It'll be there when she's back - or it won't. Oh well. Now it's follow time! "You weren't kidding when you said the place was fancy, were you?"

The small vulpine sticks her tongue out at Mei. Pthbt. And then there's a sharp gekkering sound. Well, it's not like I can count on you lot to remember to speak with beasts when I'm like this, she grumbles a little bit, and then wanders off down the hallway. It's a big place, the entire top floor of the building, and the hallway has bedrooms on either side -- bedrooms, or offices, or whatever they choose to make things into. And down at the far end? A massive bathroom.

There's a flare of magic as Mei casts a spell and then she says, "it didn't seem like you wanted to talk, and I didn't want it to feel like I was trying to force it. I can understand you now. What the heck does Zoya do for a living?"

"Hmmmm." Leta might sound unimpressed at the moment, but honestly that - combined with a the lack of snarky comments - is just what impressed sounds like when it's translated from Leta. "I imagine, given how quickly she yoinked the dead guy's phone out of my hands, that she must do something in tech." Beat. "That makes big money, right?"

She follows Mei, casting Universal Language but I'm not going to fuck with the spell-caster thingy since this is all fluff now. Fox is a language, right? If not, fuck it! I'm not at my book at the moment, so. Nyeh.

"Zoya got lots of money from being the child of people who had lots of money." Do foxes have a word for 'trust fund'? In reality, what Fox says probably translates in vulpine to 'Her parents had the best hunting ground so she has the best hunting ground,' but it translates to 'she inherited a lot of money.' "Now her hunting ground is for people liking the way she looks when she makes how she looks into forever." Which is to say, when it filters through Universal Translator and so on, 'Zoya makes money from social media.'

She hops up onto the edge of the giant-ass bathtub and walks along the edge of it on her little black feet. "I just needed to be a fox. Sometimes that's easier than being a people." All of this is vulpine gekkering, mind you. "We have a salt-water pool, too."

"Oh," Mei says like that's kind of disappointing to her. Maybe it is. "I guess that explains it. Wait, there's a pool. When can I move in? Wait, you don't mean this bath tub, do you? Because it's almost big enough to be a pool, but it's not a pool."

There's another little impressed hmmm from Anthelion. "That makes sense, I suppose. She is quite attractive, but I'm going to consider this a point for me, because Social Media Influencer is definitely still Tech-related."

... then, unfortunately, before she can comment on the pool -- which she obviously wants to jump into -- her cellphone rings. Brrrrink! "Fuck," she grumbles - fishing for the ringing device. "That's work - I need to take this."