18 weeks old...
Reiss was playing with Myra in the garden when Lunet appeared. While to every outside eye the elven woman looked calm and collected, Reiss caught a twitch in Lunet's jaw as she gazed around at the modest splendor of the palace grounds.
"I didn't expect to see you today, Lune," Reiss chuckled, rising away from her baby. Myra was trying to snag her fingers at a bright blue butterfly and having no luck. The creature, seeming to be aware that it couldn't be bested by an infant, kept landing just beyond her reach and once upon her head. That caused those vibrant green eyes to twist back and forth around the grass searching for her new friend.
"Reiss, I..." Lunet paced back and forth on her feet, a nervous stamping to her toe as she hammered out what almost sounded like an erratic code. "You busy?"
"Baby," she tipped her head down to her daughter, "but nothing else. We were going to meet two days from now to go over cases." Reiss tried to trail whatever was going on. Her friend only came up to the palace district when it was absolutely necessary. Some of it was due to an elf sticking out like a sore thumb, and some no doubt due to the sting of her ex. That was not a happy breakup; Lace Harding thinking that long distance could work, and her friend insisting it didn't have a chance. Lunet could be a stubborn pain in the ass about some things.
"Right," Lunet nodded her head, then nodded it a few more times, "right, I know. I only, Reiss, you have to come with me."
"Okay," she smiled. Myra cooed, a quick string of babble breaking from her as her tiny hands swept across the butterfly before it skittered back to the air. That was all she needed having won her game. Hefting her baby up off her butt into her arms, Reiss focused back on Lunet.
"Okay?" Lunet blinked. "You can just go whenever, wherever you like?"
"I ain't trapped in some tower like a maiden forced to spin gold, Lune. I'll leave a note for Alistair but it's not a problem. Myra here would love to see any and everything." She twisted her baby around, letting the girl giggle at her friend.
While Reiss expected smiles around this age, she hadn't anticipated how much her baby laughed. It seemed if Myra wasn't crying, or staring at something in surprise, she was laughing. More than a few people would pat Reiss on the shoulder and sigh about how damn much she was like her father.
Getting the wiggly baby safely locked in her arms, Reiss asked, "Where are we going, anyway?"
"To the agency," Lunet twisted her foot up and down before seeming to realize she was tapping out a harsh cadence.
"What for?" Reiss asked. "Don't tell me, Sylaise got into the ceiling and ripped apart all the insulation?" Lunet shook her head. "Jorel's been sleeping in the closet again? We knew his relationship with Qimat wouldn't last long, but Maker it shouldn't be this..."
"Just!" Lunet interrupted her, before her cheeks flashed deep red and her eyes darted around the garden, "come with me. I'll show you. It's something you got to see for yourself."
"All right, but you know you're acting really weird and creepy right now," Reiss said. "I'll have to get Myra's things, write a note to Alistair..."
"You said that already," Lunet muttered, her eyes trailing the few people milling around in the warm early spring air. She seemed to be sizing them all up as if they were about to attack.
Tipping her cheek down to her daughter, Reiss whispered, "You ready to go for a little trip? What are you staring at, Myra?" The baby's eyes honed on a flash of ebony wings perched upon the garden wall. Reiss watched the crow not hoping back and forth while waiting to pounce on food but staring intently towards them with its yellow eye. Great, more portent signs. Why not start raining while at it?
"Rat," Lunet whined, tugging her out of her fog. "Let's get going."
"Fine, right. I need to get Myra's hat and coat..." While walking back into the palace, Reiss listed off the piles of things she'd have to cram into a tiny bag just to leave the place for a few hours. Behind her the crow took to flight, its dark feathers scattering to the ground.
"See why I brought you," Lunet whispered, her eyes boring into the shattered glass. It crunched beneath Reiss' boot like brittle bones bleached in the sun. She shouldn't be pacing over it, not while holding her baby, but she couldn't stop. Crack, the same sound the brick made when it struck their window. Pop, the wind whistling in through the giant hole. Shatter, what she was going to do to whoever did this to her life.
Reiss hadn't said a word when they turned the corner to reveal the Solver Agency. The door was pried open by a crowbar, barely hanging on its shattered hinges the way a broken jaw would. Their window was shattered from an obvious hunk of rock stolen off a retainer wall down by the riverfront, the reddish hue evident, as the culprit was left to rot where it landed inside. More rocks, smaller ones, smashed into their sign until the name was almost unreadable. And in giant red letters painted over the front of the building were the words "Knife-Eared Whore".
"Well," Reiss flexed her jaw, "I'm impressed they knew knife begins with a k."
"Reiss..." Lunet reached over as if she was afraid her friend and fellow investigator was going to fall to her knees in agony. She shook it off and yanked on the broken door.
A growl greeted her, which she answered by turning back to Lunet and asking, "I assume Muse was with you overnight?" At his name, the dog fell out of attack mode and wiggled his stump of a tail. It was enough to catch Myra's attention, the baby clapping her hands and trying to reach down to the doggie.
There was glass everywhere, glittering tears reflecting Denerim's dingy sunlight while Muse sat perfect still in a desert Lunet must have cleared away for him. They did more than smash up the window and the sign. Tables were ransacked, desks tipped up against the walls. It looked as if a bronto ran through doing its best to break everything it could.
"You doing okay?" Lunet asked.
Reiss ignored her as she walked through the destruction of three years of her life. Three years of sleepless nights, blood and sweat spent for the sake of helping, of saving the assholes who did this. As she stepped past the broken desk where Jorel and Kurt would argue, around Lunet's that they'd gouged more "Knife-Ear Whore's" into, Reiss took a breath to steady herself. It was only one, but she needed it before walking into her office.
The sword was gone, every case file they'd ever solved splattered against the wall as the thieves slid them off. Her work was smashed by what was probably blunt objects and... A sting struck her throat as she noticed the vase that held all of Alistair's flowers was shattered. A few bits of porcelain remained in place, the blue and white pattern crying out for vengeance.
It was a disaster. Everything they ever owned, everything that they created, everything that proved they were useful to this world destroyed, carved with filthy epithets, then shattered to finish them off.
Lunet dug her toe against the support pillar beside Reiss' office. At least they couldn't manage to break that thing or there'd be nothing to save. "Reiss," she whispered, her eyes staring down at the ground.
"Their first mistake was in taking the sword. That's easily traced, not many deal in gilded weaponry especially one bearing the Theirin crest. Did they get into my apartment?"
"No," Lunet shook her head, her dark eyes fading into the shadows of the unlit office. "Seems they weren't smart enough to figure that out."
"Good," Reiss nodded, one less problem for her to solve. "The others...?"
"Are all at home. I sent 'em back cause..." She stared up at Reiss and tears glistened in her eyes.
"Lune!" Reiss had been with her through raids, long nights, starving ends of the month, even longer days, a rotten breakup, and she'd never seen her friend cry. She reached over, wrapping a hand around her shoulders.
"It's over," Lunet gasped. "Everything is... This, there is no way to come back from this. We tried, we failed."
"Bullshit."
"Wha...?" Lunet began to sponge off her nose, then shook her head in shock. "I ain't bullshitting you. This is, for fuck's sake, look at this! The only bright light in all this fuckery is they didn't set fire to the place. Maybe you can sell it back for a measly price, but it's over, Rat. Shit, it's amazing it lasted as long as it did."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Reiss snarled, turning on her friend all the rage boiling inside her heart from what those shems did to her. "We've come back from worse, far worse. Do you have any fucking idea the things I've done to survive? To carry on? There's a roof, there are walls. Lune," She grabbed onto her friend's hand and lifted them together in a victory pose, "we're damn good at what we do, and they Maker damn know it. We will come back."
Lunet smiled at her enthusiasm when Myra's chubby hands suddenly darted over to grab onto her coat's collar. At the baby, she sighed, "Rat, don't go talking all high and mighty. You got your ticket out of here. And it's a good one, a real good one. You plus baby in the palace. Maker take me, but even the man involved is a good one too."
"Myra may be my daughter, but this is my life," Reiss hugged her baby tight, taking her away from latching onto Lunet's lapels. She paced back and forth staring at the abuse heaped upon her world, "And I'll be fucked if I'm going to let a damn gang of piss-legged shems steal it from me!"
"You're mad, but you're scary when you're mad," Lunet's head hung down as she seemed to be weighing how much this wasn't going to work. Reiss was prepared to give her every argument for why they belonged here clinging to her tongue, when her friend's head lifted, "A'right. What do we do first?"
"Get everyone back here fast. We'll need all hands on deck to get this place operational, which is happening tonight. The Solvers is reopening before the sun sets," Reiss swore to the Maker and upon every beat of her heart. She grasped her friend's hand again and Lunet snickered.
At that moment Myra began to cry. Right, it was nearing her nap time. "And get a crib on the way back here. It's gonna be a long day for us all."