milliways_bar | (no subject)

(Millitimed to before Teja's re-entrance)

Yrael spent all of last night and much of today in the woods, searching for what clues he could find. There are a number of scents, some familiar, some not. There are no remaining footprints, due to the drifting snow and his own actions at the scene of the crime. But there are scents.

Just nothing he can do right at this moment. Which is giving him time to slow down and think. And feel.

He doesn't want to. It aches, the loss. He has never had a friend taken away from him in this manner. Some have left the bar for good, yes, but it was of their own choice. Teja... he was taken. Yrael doesn't do well with this foreign kind of pain.

He's currently in one of the high-backed chairs by the fireplace, gazing unseeing at the flames. He has forgotten that he still wears his new, finely tailored suit. It is rather worse for wear, still stained with dried blood and dirt from the night before.

A half-full bottle of Atlantean sits on the table at his elbow.

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"To have Teja back, Charlie uninjured, and the murderer hanged to death by his own entrails," he says.

Hanged after having his eyes burnt out and tongue torn off and... well, let's just say Yrael is keeping a list.

"...Yeah, that'd be the obvious," Axel points out.

"I know that," Yrael says, roughly.

"But I can think of nothing else."

Axel looks away, staring at the fire a moment, uncertain what to say or do.

He doesn't like this.

Nor does Yrael.

"I will wait until I see those whose scents I found, and then I will question them, to see if I can determine with certainty who did it."

"Would a telepath help? Or clairvoyant?"

Hey, this is Milliways, right?

"A Remembrancer would help, certainly, but Lirael has wisely left the bar, months upon months ago."

"The only telepath I know is not here right now."

"Too bad."

Axel leans back, staring at the ceiling, and thinking.

"I... just have to be patient."

He was once good at it.

Axel flashes a brief grin at him.

"Could go find someone to tear up while you wait," he points out. "Activity will make time fly."

That gets a glimmer of interest.

"Who do you suggest?"

"Well, if you're feeling hungry, maybe one of those Charter Mages," Axel suggests.

"I am not hungry," Yrael says, shaking his head. "And the Old Kingdom needs its Charter Mages."

"Well, then, pick a world," Axel says, with an expansive gesture. "I'm sure we can find someone who offends enough."

"Got a world with big things that give as good as they get?" Or at least try to?

"...Have I ever taken you to The End?"

"I... don't believe so?"

The mun can't find record of it in her notifs, if he has.

Neither can this one, so...

Axel grins wide.

"Come on then," he says, rolling to his feet.

Casting a final glance about the bar as he stands, just in case, and finding no one he needs to question, Yrael follows Axel.

Axel opens the portal to the dark paths, and leads the way in.

The trip is amazingly short - just a few steps, and then they're walking out onto sparkling rainbow-coloured sand, in a world that's... Different from other worlds.

"The Heartless here are some of the strongest of them," Axel explains.