There are too many eyes.
She can feel them on her neck as soon as she steps out of the teleportation room. She doesn't like being recognizable, not even a little bit. It's much easier to go about her business when no one knows who she is.
"I need an outfit for undercover work." She realizes, pulling her hat low as someone raises their phone in her direction. The train station is just too crowded at this time in the morning for her to effectively duck away. She can't remember the last time she went clothes shopping. She usually has two identical pairs of clothes she wears, alternating day by day and washing whatever outfit she was wearing some time before she heads to bed. The only way to distinguish between the two sets is where the patches and stitch marks are from the various tears and holes they've suffered on the job.
The Detective doesn't know what sort of outfit she'd buy anyhow. Something cheap, of course, but perhaps something more practical. She's gotten used to her somewhat stereotypical detective's outfit, but she's under no illusions that it is the best-suited outfit for her job. She wears it because it's what she has.
Where would she even buy cheap clothes? She knows the local churches sometimes give away clothes and food for free to the needy, but she'd rather leave that for people who need it. With the pay she gets from working for Their Majesties she should be able to buy her own clothes now, right?
(She's not actually sure how much a 'good' wage is supposed to be, but she trusts Their Majesties wouldn't intentionally rip her off.)
That's a problem for after work though. For now, she needs-
"Excuse me."
She grips her watch tightly. Maybe if she keeps staring at the floor they won't talk to her? Should she jump? Should she drop to her knees and beg for them to ignore her? No, no, that would probably make a scene.
"Pardon."
The Detective takes a breath. She needs to be a professional. She-
"Detective Watson."
Her head snaps up in surprise, frantically casting around before landing on the speaker.
The lady is almost aggressively unassuming at first glance. She wears a very plain purple dress overtop a light blue shirt. The dress drops all the way to her ankles, mostly covering up simple black boots. Even her wide-brimmed violet hat somehow doesn't feel that out of place among the crowd coming to and from the teleportation chamber.
But as soon as the Detective looks beyond the clothes she starts to realize this lady is not quite as 'normal' as she might appear at first glance. For one, she doesn't have a tail but sports unusual, wisteria-colored hair that falls in a clean sheet down her back. The color could be dye, but there's a certain sleekness to some of her features, a ridge to her ears, the almost imperceptible gill lines on her neck that are characteristic of atlanteans that has the Detective suspecting she's a half-atlantean of some sort. Maybe not half human, but close.
"Find something captivating, Detective?" The woman asks. Her voice is soft; with a hint of a rumble or maybe a purr when she speaks softly. The Detective hadn't realized she'd leaned in- no the woman has leaned in to the point that their hats are touching. "Did you want a picture, perhaps?"
"I- uh- no, sorry, I just-" She stammers, taking a step back. The woman's eyes are closed, but just like any high-ranking cultist or Her Majesty themself, Ame swears she can feel the woman's gaze on her regardless, watching her flinch away. "I thought I heard someone calling me."
"That was me." The woman confirms. To the Detective's horror, she takes a step forward, closing their distance once again. "I could not pass up a chance to greet the detective that made such a stir yesterday."
The Detective swallows. Maybe she should jump. This is getting to be too much. "Uh… hi?"
"Hello." The woman whispers, and the Detective has to restrain a shudder from the way the woman's words tickle her ears. "I'd love to take you to lunch, but my schedule today is full. Another time, perhaps?"
"Okay!?" The Detective squeaks. She only started talking to this person less than two minutes ago! She doesn't know who this is, and now she's being asked to lunch!?
"Good." The woman says. She fishes a square of paper out of a pocket, brings it to her mouth, stares the Detective dead in the eye while kissing it, then presses it into the Detective's nervous hands. "I'll wait for your call, Detective. Good day."
The woman strides off towards the teleportation chamber leaving the Detective dazed, holding a paper with a purple mark on it, with a small group of people looking on in confusion. She practically stumbles out of the train station, forgetting her umbrella until she feels the cold splash of water on her neck, and quickly finds an alley to duck into.
As soon as she confirms she's out of sight she slumps against a dumpster, sits down, and brings her head down to rest on her knees. Her heart is racing in her chest in a way usually reserved for when Their Imperial Majesties are acting strangely familiar.
She takes a peek at the card she was given. There's a phone number there. It looks like a business card, but the name is mostly obscured by a purple lipstick mark. All she can make out is a "G" at the start of the first name and an "-ae" at the end of the surname.
"Is this a business card?" She thinks dumbly. "Was that… advertising?"
She can't find a business address anywhere, or an address at all. There's actually nothing on the card aside from the name and the number, and a quick google search doesn't turn up the number at all. She slots it into her contacts and makes a note under it to investigate more extensively later. Maybe she can dig something up if she goes diving through records or checks some databases.
With a slightly shaking hand, the Detective slips the card into her pocket. She doesn't know what she's going to do with that, normally she would ignore scam calls, but it's a bit harder when the lady made it sound like she'd be expecting a call.
Maybe if it's trying to sell her something and it takes a while she can tell Their Majesties she was 'talking with a friend' or 'meeting them for lunch' if that was a genuine offer and the lady plans to try to sell her something over a meal, and Their Majesties will count that as taking time off and Her Highness won't try to make her take a break again too soon.
(The Detective impulsively pulls the card back out, checking it over carefully for a tracker or a bug or something else. Maybe the lipstick mark is magic? A locator? Maybe she needs to check she's not being followed?)
She carefully peers out of the alleyway. She doesn't see the woman anywhere. With a deep inhale, the Detective calms herself. Mission first, suspicious business(?) card later.
Twisting the knobs on her watch, she readies a jump. Might as well do it here, just so she doesn't get spotted any sooner.
She needs to jump back… around ten hours. Maybe a bit more? Better do a full day just to be safe. That will give her a 144 minute cooldown, or two and (almost) a half hours. Going back so far should give her more than enough time to wait it out though. From there she can follow her past self and Her Majesty from yesterday and watch the subsequent police investigation from outside, tracking any clergy members that try to leave between, during, or after those events.
The Detective squeezes the button, and allows the jolt of time travel to wash over her. If she wasn't used to this, she might almost think nothing has changed. Sure, the clouds are in slightly different positions, but the murmur of the crowd nearby is the same, and the temperature is too.
She takes a breath and composes herself; standing up straight. She can rest easy knowing no one knows who she is at the moment. That should make things much simpler in the short term.
Stepping out of the alleyway, she-
-freezes, as Her Majesty's closed eyes bore into her. She can see her past self anxiously glancing at the crowd, hand constantly flitting to her gun, as if expecting to get jumped at any moment. Somehow this action of Her Majesty's was entirely missed.
The Detective is released from Her Majesty's paralyzing gaze a moment later as the Empress nods and simply moves on, as if seeing duplicates of their detective is perfectly normal (which, the Detective guesses, it sort of is).
She has to wonder how many duplicates of herself Her Majesty has seen since she was employed but that the Detective herself hasn't acted out yet. She decides she'd rather not ask. She's worried what the answer would be.
Still, she can work with this. It gives her something easy to-
She pauses. Her watch isn't going to be recharged for two hours, and if her past self is going to the cathedral with Her Majesty now, she absolutely isn't going to be recharged by the time her past self finishes.
Right, so she needs to wait out the recharge and then jump back again so her watch is recharged before she can follow anybody from the cathedral. An amature mistake. This is why she needs to be more cautious and not rush her jumps. She was in too much of a rush to get away from that woman and let it shake her. She can't allow that again. She's supposed to be a professional.
Just because she can't jump doesn't mean she can't stake out the cathedral though. It wouldn't be safe to follow anyone without the safety net of her watch, but she can still make note of comings and goings to check on later.
The Detective nods. That's fine. That can work. She's going to take a more roundabout route though. She can't risk running into her past self and invalidating her, or Baelz forbid running into Her Majesty.
It's a relief to be able to walk down the road without anyone staring at her. She can mostly keep her head down, relying on the tactile paving to navigate across intersections in the general direction of the Cathedral.
Her sense of direction, thankfully, is quite reliable. She finds her way without too much trouble, though she quickly notices a problem with her plan.
See, the Cathedral is in the middle of a city. A relatively densely-packed city. While the cathedral does have a courtyard, it doesn't have much in the way of cover to hide behind long-term. The road across from the back is some sort of strip mall with only a few benches and singular planted trees nearby.
With a frown, the Detective does a quick circle of the strip mall. None of the stores look particularly useful. There's a salon, some sort of jewelry store, and a few other things that are just as useless to her. There's a dumpster out back, set off to the side of a small parking lot with a few cars in it. It's not one of those tall strip malls. It's one of the old ones; just tall enough to walk into and have a few small rooms in.
"Well, a building is still a building." Amelia thinks, tapping her fingers on her chin. "Not being tall can be useful. Made of brick. Maybe…"
She goes around back, finds an appropriate spot that isn't covered by security cameras (easily done, there's only one), takes several steps back, then dashes at the wall.
It's been a while since she did a vertical wall run, but it's not terribly difficult with the helpful friction provided by the bricks. With a forceful jump and a few secondary steps of her feet on the wall, taking advantage of her forward momentum to push away and up without actually moving away too much, she manages to get enough height to grab the metal rim of the roof and subsequently haul herself up.
Right, now she has a vantage point; and as any good detective knows: people seldom look up. She sits down half a meter away from the front edge of the roof, takes out a notebook, her phone (in case she needs to take pictures), and a pencil.
And then, she waits. It's something she's more than used to, this is far from her first stakeout, though if she'd known this is what she'd be getting up to today she would have brought more supplies.
Well, not that there's much more to bring. She doesn't have a sniper or a tent or camo gear or anything like that, though maybe that's a bit overkill for a stakeout.
After all, there are less conspicuous ways to get rid of someone if you need to.
She's happy for her hat, to help deal with the glare of the sun. Tomorrow, the present, may be rainy but today was sunny, if only lukewarm.
Time creeps along. She watches her past self creep up to the back wall, peek in the window, then swiftly pick the lock and slip inside. It takes maybe a minute at most. It sure felt like longer when she was doing it.
There's very few people that walk around the back of the cathedral. Amelia can't see the side-walk in front of the strip mall from her current position, but she only hears a few sets of footsteps pass by.
She times how long her past self was in there. It ends up being nearly half an hour, though based on her recollection most of that time was probably spent in the underground storage area.
The Detective takes care to write down her exact entry and exit times for the sake of record keeping. She nods slightly at the efficiency in which her past self gets Vaya out of the cathedral and down a side-alley.
She can't see around the front, so she doesn't know exactly when Her Majesty leaves, but it's fairly obvious anyhow. The takodachis were mostly hanging out in the upper spires of the cathedral, but when they all abruptly descend in a swarm it's not hard to guess why. They probably want to say their goodbyes, or maybe hellos. They didn't exactly come greet them when they arrived.
The next few minutes are fairly tame. The takodachis slowly return to the spires, and events lull for a few minutes. The takodachis settle, the wind gently sweeps over the Detective, and she catches a small trickle of people moving down the streets towards the train station. Following Her Majesty, probably. There's an underlying din that slowly grows more quiet the further away that trickle of people gets, but it's a very slight decrease. A city is never exactly quiet.
It takes around twenty more minutes before the Detective sees anything of note. Namely, she sees a priest poke their head out of the back door, and then promptly check the lock.
That's pretty telling in itself. Most priests, the Detective is willing to bet, would have no idea what to look for to determine if a lock has been tampered with…
…though it's at this point the Detective remembers she never re-locked the back door, so if the priest knows it was locked before, they absolutely know someone broke in. That's an error on her part.
Still, hopefully it will prompt a response she can exploit. Fruits of the poisonous tree are very much an American thing, but she will still have to be mindful of duress and such when finding evidence.
The Detective notes the timing of the priest's investigation down. May as well be thorough.
Her patience, over the course of two hours, is rewarded. Ten minutes after the priest, the Detective spots the old woman (she remembers the reports saying she was the Regional Cardinal) checking the back door as well. She even visibly casts a spell over the lock, which makes the Detective snort. The Cardinal better not be thinking someone needed magic to break in. That lock couldn't keep out anyone who mildly tried.
Most of the time the back door is not how people leave. Instead, Ame mostly ends up keeping tabs on the side exits, and she realizes quickly she's going to have to repeat this stakeout from the front. That's no big surprise in retrospect. This building is just too big to monitor from only one point.
Despite that, Ame records five priests leaving at various times and one entering. Four of them leave at regular shift-change points (as in, either on the hour or at a half hour), but one leaves at nine forty two; power-walking off the grounds and disappearing into one of the roads.
Well, that makes one person she's following later. At least one. She might follow the others just to be safe though. It never hurts to be thorough. It might take a few weeks to check all the possibilities, but if it speeds up this investigation for Her Majesty then the Detective will gladly do it.
As long as she only tails people Her Majesty probably won't mind not being notified, right? As long as there's no breaking and entering?
She hopes so, because she doesn't want to interrupt Her Majesty's important business just to ask if she can stalk people.
It's a relief to finally have her watch off cooldown. She feels vulnerable without it. Without her watch she can't run, so groveling and fighting are her only outs if something happens to her, and shooting almost got her in trouble this (well technically tomorrow) morning.
Still, with her watch, she can move forward. She packs up her notes, jumps from the roof and lands with a roll to minimize the impact, and jogs her way around the cathedral to the front. Finding a place to watch from is slightly more difficult from this direction, if only because the front yard of the cathedral is much larger than the back, but the Detective isn't deterred. She can see a hotel on the edge of the street, and she can make use of that. She knows an old…
…well, calling it a 'trick' is probably giving it too much credit, and it's not one trick, it's multiple. She knows a few ways to make use of a hotel.
The hotel is located along the main road going around the cathedral, which works just fine for the Detective. It's wedged in between a restaurant and a jewelry store, of which the restaurant is actually an add-on to the hotel. While the entrance is on the street, the parking is located around back which requires her to go down a street, but that's just as well. It gets her out of the sight of random passers-by on the main road.
Deciding to go with plan A, she checks both sides of the hotel until she finds the fire escape and quietly ascends, gently testing each door as she goes. Her hand is ready on her watch, prepared to jump back a few minutes in case she triggers an alarm to invalidate herself and stop it from happening.
None of the doors give way. Perhaps they only open from the inside or upon the triggering of a fire alarm. That's fine. She has other options.
She could try the windows to see if she could get inside that way, but the rooms might be occupied so she refrains. Instead, she climbs onto the uppermost railing of the fire escape, squats down (thank Baelz for her practiced balance) and leaps up to grab the rim of the roof and once again pull herself up. It's not her preferred method, she would rather have found an empty room to occupy, but the rooftop should work fine. It's a bit noisy with the air conditioning whirring nearby, but that's a small price to pay. She couldn't hear much of use from this high up anyhow.
Twisting the watch's dials, she jumps back two and a half hours and restarts her observation. The process is even less riveting the second time around. She takes a three minute break halfway through her observation to quickly scarf down her cheese sandwich (it's a bit squished, and the cheese is really starting to taste stale… maybe she should stop buying it in bulk, but it's cheaper that way!).
It's slightly more difficult to keep records when facing the front due to the increased volume of people coming and going. She has to pick out the priests among the occasional crowds of people, but frankly that's better than mindlessly staring at a cathedral hoping for something to happen.
While she could technically extend her stakeout longer than a few hours, she would prefer to segment things. A bit of watching, a bit of following and investigating, and if that doesn't turn anything up, repeat.
(She spots five more priests exiting from the front, and notes them all down. They exit in one big group, which is extremely suspicious.)
The Detective decides the large group takes priority. She sets her watch to ten minutes before the time she recorded them leaving (just before ten o'clock; around the same time as that lone priest she wanted to investigate from before, actually), takes a step to the left, and jumps back. She then nudges the shoulder of her past self, invalidating her and causing her to fizzle out of existence, before carefully slipping off the roof onto the fire escape and making her way down to street level once more.
It's not hard to position herself on the sidewalk and simply fall in behind the priests when they come out of the cathedral and track them by keeping her eyes low while staying close enough to follow the hems of their robes at a distance of half a dozen meters.
Following a group of five priests with such distinct outfits sounds like it would be easy. One would think they should stand out, and one would be correct.
That's what makes it all the more peculiar when the Detective follows them around a corner into an alley and they're just gone. The alley isn't that short, and she doesn't see a door within range, and she didn't hear enough noise to imply they started running…
She keeps walking. Eyes down, ears open. Her boots scuff the concrete, creating an inconspicuous noise to use for echolocation.
The Detective's brows instantly furrow. She finishes her walk through the alley, doesn't see them anywhere on the other end… and promptly turns around, sets her watch to twenty minutes in the past, and presses it.
Ignoring the startled gasp of a woman nearby, the Detective straightens her coat, and marches down the alleyway again. She heard something off last time, and she has twenty minutes before her past self and the people she was pursuing show up.
She stops near the other end of the alley way, stands straight, and clicks her tongue to make sure she didn't hear wrong.
The same response greets her ears. The alley behind her… which then widens on one side into a room directly to her left. If she looks to her left, she sees a wall not a meter away. If she reaches out her hand, she can feel the wall as well, yet when she clicks her tongue her ears insist the wall is further back.
She exits the alley again, this time to check which building the incongruous wall is a part of.
It seems to be some sort of bookstore. A closed bookstore, mind you. The door is locked with the usual 'We are Closed' sign hung up on it, and the windows are shuttered. It seems a bit odd they'd be closed at this time of day, much less not have any hours showing anywhere, but in the grand scheme of things it's rather inconspicuous. It's a two-story building with upper windows, and only two faces open to the alley or street. The back and right side are fused into other buildings.
While the street isn't exactly busy, there is a consistent stream of people coming down it, which means the Detective can't exactly try to pick the lock without attracting attention.
"Maybe I could break the window?" She considers, eyeing the store. "Get up on a roof, throw a rock or take a shot, sneak in later? No, that would attract too much attention…"
Well, at least there's an easy solution for this: come back at night. As much as she's not looking forward to a long cooldown on her watch again, that's probably a good idea. And as long as she's quick and doesn't leave any tracks, Her Majesty probably won't mind not being told about it, right? After all, this store has a fake wall, so it's not like she's breaking into a public residence or store. It's a suspicious residence or store. As long as she keeps the Imperial reputation in mind, Her Majesty will be okay with it, right?
Yeah, that sounds right. As long as she doesn't bring shame to the imperial family, it should be fine.
With a resigned sigh, she steps into the alley again, adjusts her watch back twelve hours (that will give her a cooldown of an hour and twenty minutes), and makes a jump.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, her surroundings are very dark now. It's around nine at night, after all.
Still, when she pokes her head out into the main road (well, not the main road, but the main road the 'bookstore' is on) she can't see anyone, so it is time to break out the lockpicks once more.
…which is what she would say, if the lock wasn't an electronic door handle lock. There's not even a keyhole, just a number pad built into the door. She feels it over for potential screws she can take out, but the design is at least well-considered enough to prevent that.
Next, she tests the windows. They might not have keyholes, but there's always a chance she can force them open. She spends five minutes or so testing it, using a thin metal knife from her lockpicking kit to slide between the window and its frame and feel around for locking mechanisms.
She comes across one relatively quickly along the bottom of the bottom of the window. It's thin, certainly no proper deadbolt, If it's plastic, then maybe…
Taking a stance to put force onto her knife, the Detective starts sawing. It's stiff and awkward, but she quickly falls into a workable rhythm. Back, forth, back, forth. She can't hear scraping metal, so she assumes this is working.
It takes nearly ten minutes of mindless sawing, but eventually her efforts are rewarded with a quiet 'snap' and she can leverage her knife to push up on window until there's enough space to get her hands under it and force it the rest of the way open.
She waits for a moment after doing so. No alarm? Or maybe a silent alarm? She'll have to keep an ear out for any police cars. Still, she's not about to argue with a successful break-in, so she carefully climbs through the window and shuts it behind her.
With the lights off and the curtains closed she can't actually see anything, so for the second time in as many days the Detective finds herself relying on her echolocation… which tells her this is a perfectly normal bookstore that doesn't have one wall leading out to the alley? What? That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't line up with what she heard in the alley.
Her hearing is on a hair-trigger, but all she can hear is the faint whistle of wind and the distant rumble of a car somewhere else in the city as she weaves around the bookshelves towards the staircase she can hear in the back behind the counter. She carefully feels around the counter to find a clean section, then vaults it in one smooth motion.
She takes the stairs slowly, listening for any sign that there's someone upstairs who might have heard her. The stairs are uncomfortably steep, though thankfully they don't creak all that much, and she reaches the second floor without issue. There's a door at the top of the stairs, which is a bit odd… and it's also locked. Curious.
Just a tumbler lock by the feel of it though. She can pick that, even blind as she is. Lockpicking is more by feel than sight anyhow.
"One pin, two, three…" She counts. She has her ear pressed to the door, just in case there's someone inside who starts moving. "...four… c'mon…"
Click.
Success. She twists the knob and slowly opens the door. She clicks her tongue, and blinks rapidly at what she hears.
A large room… of which one side opens up into an alley. The false wall leads into the upper room. Must be a short-range portal. That's not the hardest thing to do from what she's aware, as the actual spell supposedly isn't horribly complicated, but it's not cheap in terms of magic. Folding space like that takes significant effort, even at a relatively short range.
But that's mostly her parroting what she's read online. She'd be better off confirming what she's read with Her Majesty, but she'd rather not bother them with something so basic and trivial.
Regardless, she's on the inside of the force wall now, so it's time to look around. She fishes her flashlight out and flicks it on. The light blinds her for a moment, but her eyes adjust quickly.
The room that is illuminated before her eyes. It's extremely simple, with a number of boxes and containers against the opposite wall from the fake one, a few cots, a table with some chairs, and a shelf (holding a few sets of cards, some books, and a few other games as well as some weapon-cleaning kits and ritual components).
She really wishes she had a camera at times like this, even a cheap disposable one. At the very least she can take some time to check out the boxes and make a list of what she finds. That might be helpful to give to the police along with her tip.
With a sigh and a stretch, the Detective gets to work.
It's a tedious, if familiar process at this point. By the light of her flashlight she digs through the boxes, meticulously cataloging everything she finds from knives to drugs to firearms to various wands and other spell containers.
The most concerning find is probably the crate full of C-4 sitting innocuously in the corner. Forget the magic items trade, this is full-on arms smuggling.
She'll have to let the police know. Her Majesty too. Possibly even Her Highness. Most of these weapons are legally purchasable some way or another, but some of them are just straight-up military equipment.
Her special request instincts are telling her to take some of the C-4, but she holds herself back. She shouldn't need any, probably. Her Majesty probably wouldn't appreciate her getting into a situation that required explosives to resolve. Still, at least she knows where to find some if she needs it. You never know when you might need some explosives.
It takes over an hour for her to compile a list of all the items, and that's without picking up some of the really heavy items to see if there's anything underneath. She resists the urge to confiscate some of the items for her own use. She won't be going back in time to make it so her confiscations never happened this time. This isn't a special request.
After all, normally she could make use of whatever she needed to in order to gather her information, and then simply go back in time and invalidate her past self so none of that ever happened. Even when she needs to 'resolve' things herself she can simply return what she doesn't use after the request is over (sometimes that results in some strange or inconvenient invalidations of items, but it's usually manageable), but this is not one of those cases.
"Maybe just one grenade?" She asks herself, hands twitching towards the box she knows contains them. "No, no. You don't need it. Her Majesty didn't give you permission to blow anything up."
She debates what she should do at this point. She has a record of everything she could see in here, but maybe she should jump ahead to when the group of cultists step in? That might be dangerous with her watch on cooldown though… so she could jump a little bit before they step in to let her watch cool down? Who knows what she might hear by spying?
"But would Her Majesty approve? I would have to tell them about it. They might not like it." The Detective frets. "Spying probably counts as an 'intrusive measure' right?"
She doesn't have any cameras or listening devices she can use either. She just has to let this one go.
With great reluctance she moves down the stairwell again and exits through the window. She then turns her watch back about an hour and makes a jump, and wastes no time invalidating her past self before she can break the window lock.
She can at least go follow that other suspicious cultist. She'll have to wait out yet another watch cooldown (how much time has she spent awake at this point? Eight hours maybe? It's certainly past lunch time), but it might be worth it. More information is never a bad thing.
Yes. Her Majesty would probably appreciate that, right? She doesn't want Her Majesty to think she's resting on her laurels and not doing everything she can to progress the investigation. She still needs this investigation to be as thorough as possible. She doesn't want to disappoint them, especially not after the embarrassment of Bubba accidentally calling them last night.
It's not a long walk back to the cathedral, thankfully, but Ame is mindful she has another cooldown to wait out. Any time she turns a corner and her watch is ready she makes an hour jump forward, giving her small intervals of six minutes for the cooldowns.
Still, it takes far less time to get to the side of the cathedral than it does to finish all her necessary cooldowns and get to her desired time. She resigns herself to a half-hour wait, leaning against a wall near a crosswalk, watching the takodachis dance around the tower's spires.
(She wonders if Bubba would prefer to stay at the castle where he can float around wherever he wants rather than being stuck in her tiny house. They probably feed him better at the castle anyways.)
Maybe she should make one of those cat walls, just to give Bubba some things to do. Maybe he'd like some shelves to sit on, and maybe she should get some different snacks for him, and maybe some hats. Some takos like hats, or rings, or random jewelry or items. She needs to find out if Bubba likes anything.
(She should already know that, shouldn't she? She's been a bad owner for Bubba…)
Would Bubba like sightseeing? Is that a thing takodachis do? Is that why he wanted to come with her today? What sort of games can takos play, now that she thinks of it? Do they even like to play? Or maybe they only play because they know their humans are needy?
She's so distracted thinking about Bubba that she nearly misses her target walking by. It's only through the luck of the priest walking right by her that she's reminded she actually has a job to do.
Embarrassed, she quickly falls in behind the priest. Any proper professional wouldn't have gotten so easily distracted. Professionals never get distracted. She hasn't even been working for that long yet.
Baelz, how are people supposed to focus when they have pets? How do they not think about them all the time?
"Focus."
Following the single priest isn't too difficult. It helps that they're not particularly observant. Just keeping her gaze not directly at head height is mostly enough to avoid suspicion. Eye-contact is a powerful thing to take advantage of. People rely on it so much to discern the attention of others.
The priest seems to be in no rush. They weave through the crowd at a languid pace, before taking a left five streets down and entering into a residential area. The Detective trails them all the way back to a small house, which they enter using a key. So presumably this is their house.
Calmly, the Detective walks up to the house, moves around the side, climbs the fence to the backyard, and then twists her watch back five minutes and makes a jump. She then quickly checks the backyard, finding nothing particularly of note. A gazebo, some chairs, a table, a compact playground for a child, very simple. A quick glance through the back windows reveals nothing unusual either. The inside of the house is utterly unremarkable.
She waits around the front for the priest to enter their home, then quickly moves around to where she came from and peeks over the edge of the fence to invalidate her past who is just turning towards the driveway.
Good. Now there's no chance of the priest hearing her vault the fence. She quickly gets back into position and presses her ear to the back door, listening intently.
She can hear him putting something down, walking around a moment, and then a gradual thudding noise as stairs are climbed.
The Detective frowns. Her hearing is good, but not that good. She can't hear through a door and up through a floor.
Still, that's something she can remedy. She can't break into the house because that would absolutely be an 'intrusive' action, but she can get up higher. She has the gazebo to work with.
Unfortunately the top of the gazebo is cloth, but at the very least she has the support poles to climb. It's hardly the trickiest thing she's ever done. It takes a bit of careful shimmying and weight distribution, but she manages to get herself on top of the gazebo.
That's not enough to let her press an ear to the upper wall though. Maybe if she could get on the roof she could listen down?
This would be so much easier if she was just allowed to get inside the house, but that would be intrusive, and she doesn't want Her Majesty to be disappointed with her. She needs to prove her competence after the disaster she'd been so far. What sort of employee needs a full-week stress break only a few months or so into their employment? Or completely fumbles their methodology? Or can't even look their employer in the eye without panicking?
She needs this to be a success. Yesterday went okay, but she fumbled it right at the end by accidentally cutting Her Majesty's visit short and being a poor representative for the Empire to its people, not to mention gathering unnecessary public attention because she couldn't keep her calm or remain inconspicuous.
The Detective needs a reason for Their Imperial Highnesses to keep her around. She can't rely on their patience and tolerance forever. She needs to give them results.
Yes, sure, maybe the bookstore is a solid bit of evidence, but she'd be a failure if didn't investigate every possible avenue… that Her Majesty will allow her to investigate, anyways. Her Majesty knows best. If they say not to intrude, she won't intrude. They must have a reason for it.
Maybe she can get herself to a windowsill? Though she'd have to do it quietly. She's not sure if Her Majesty would tolerate that though. Using part of the house like that might count as 'intrusive'.
If she steps away now, perhaps Her Majesty will forgive her failure as exercising excessive restraint. That feels unsatisfying, but perhaps it's prudent?
(But then she's not delivering them results! Does she have to choose then? Results or restraint? She can either show she's capable, or show she can listen, not both.)
Her throat feels tight. What is she supposed to do? Both of her options are horrible. She supposes it comes down to if she'd prefer to be seen as an underperformer or someone who can't learn their lesson.
When push comes to shove though… one of those options is disappointing, the other is grounds for being fired. With great reluctance, she drops off the gazebo and slinks out of the backyard back onto the street.
Maybe it's time to go back to the palace before she finds another way to disappoint Her Majesty. At least she can see Bubba again.
This, of course, entails one last jump back to the time she originally came from. The 'present', such as it is, and a nervous walk back to the train station where she hopes she isn't recognized too much. She keeps her head down and her hat pulled over her eyes while navigating back to the train station, and quickly weaves through the crowd to get in line to teleport back.
She can't get in that dark chamber soon enough. For once, seeing the palace interior is a relief rather than anxiety-inducing; at least until she remembers that she's going to have to disappoint Her Majesty with her report.
At least she won't be delivering the report in person, Her Majesty is occupied after all, so she can avoid their inevitable polite smile while telling her she did a 'good job' when they both know she could have done more.
The first thing she does is swing by the church part of the palace to collect Bubba. She wasn't gone for particularly long from his perspective, so she refrains from cuddling him too much. She doesn't want to seem weirdly needy.
Bubba poutily settles on her shoulder (right, he was unhappy at being left behind...), but accepts some conciliatory headpats. He even starts huffing when she takes her hand away, practically forcing her into giving him more pats, and then scritches. Eventually he pushes himself into the crook of her neck, still pouting, but oddly affectionate despite that.
He maintains that attitude all the way back to her office, and protests any attempt to be dislodged. Eventually she resigns herself to working with her tako on her shoulder while she copies down the notes she took onto the computer, and then makes a proper report out of what she learned afterwards.
There's something calming about writing the report, even knowing it's going to underwhelm Her Majesty. Perhaps it's Bubba's little chirps and huffs near her ear or the way he occasionally nuzzles into her neck, or the feeling of his tentacles adjusting on her collar, or his flaps occasionally flicking the underside of her jaw.
When lunch time hits, she obligingly feeds Bubba his crackers while explaining to him that she'd already eaten while out investigating. Bubba does not like this information, but only pouts mildly. She pacifies him with more crackers, and reluctantly eats the last cracker which he keeps trying to feed her.
After she gets the inventory complete it's a simple matter to quickly write up the report. That's routine at this point. After entering the last keystroke and sending it off to Her Majesty, she takes a few minutes to give Bubba some more attention. He might have been feeling neglected lately; that would explain why he's been acting up so much.
It's nice to temporarily forget her worries while she plays with Bubba. Despite his earlier pouting, he is more than willing to let her play with his tentacles or gently bounce him from hand to hand like a balloon. He even starts doing lazy flips and twists in the air with each bounce, as if this is some sort of dance.
She almost fumbles him when there's a knock at her door, though she manages to catch him before he can fall (wait, he can float, maybe she overreacted) and clutch him to her chest before hastily standing up from her chair and opening her door.
"Detective." The familiar, deep voice of Her Highness greets her. Their posture is impeccable as always with their arms folded behind their back keeping themselves straight, and their eyes slightly looking down their nose at her, though they are creased at the sides in the faintest of smiles.
The Detective hastily bows and stammers out. "Y-Your Highness, hello."
Bubba squeaks out a "Wah!", though it's slightly muffled by the way her bow accidentally squishes him against her chest. She hastily straightens up to let him float away. It's probably not a good look to be suffocating a takodachi in front of royalty.
"C-Come in." The Detective says, then instantly winces. 'Come in'? She shouldn't be telling the queen what to do. She could have at least said please. What if Her Highness has something to do? What if she's wasting their time?
Her Highness steps inside without complaint, and the Detective hastily closes the door behind them. What is she supposed to do now!? She didn't plan to see Her Highness today! She has nothing to say, but she can't back out now, right!? Why did she do this to herself!?
Her Highness doesn't sit, which means that the Detective can't either, because she shouldn't sit when- "Detective."
"Y-Yes?"
"You can sit."
She sits. Somehow, that doesn't help, because now she has Her Highness looming over her even more.
"How has work been so far, Detective?" Her Highness asks, leaning against the wall. Their posture changes to something more casual; relaxed, almost. She's not worthy of the queen's decorum.
Right. Of course. Small talk. She failed to start the conversation like she should have, so Her Highness started it for her. She needs to stop making the queen deal with her inadequacies. "F-Fine, Your Highness. I had a moderately successful outing to Edinburg. A follow-up from yesterday."
"I see." Her Highness hums. "Hopefully more entertaining than what I was getting up to."
She's not sure she'd consider multiple hours of sitting around doing basically nothing 'entertaining', but she doesn't want to imply she doesn't enjoy working for them. "Y-Yes Your Highness."
…
…
"Well?" Her Highness tilts her head, now obviously smirking. "Tell me how it went."
"Ah- uh-" The Detective stammers. Is this some way of asking for a report? She wasn't prepared to give it vocally, but she can't disappoint Her Highness! She forces herself to start speaking. "I had a swift meeting with Her Majesty where I was brought abreast of the results of our investigation yesterday, after which I checked the reports she had given me and made my way to Edinburgh through the teleportation pads for some follow-up."
"What kind?"
"I wished to ensure that none of the priests attempted to flee or otherwise escape following our visit." She states.
"Ahh, Ina thought you might want to do something like that." Her Highness nods. It's no surprise to hear Her Majesty had predicted her next move. She must be absolutely predictable to them. "So what happened?"
"I first had to determine which priests needed to be followed, so I undertook a short stakeout of the cathedral for a few hours."
Her Highness raises an eyebrow. "A short stakeout of a few hours?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"...right, continue."
"I identified two groups of people- a singular priest and a group of five- who raised my suspicion, both by leaving at peculiar times and leaving in a large group. I intend to go back another time to ensure the rest of the day has no oddities."
"That's… completely overkill, Detective." Her Highness says with an amused smile. "But go on."
"I followed the group of five first." The Detective explains. "They didn't go too far. Just to an alley next to a bookstore a few blocks away. Except, when I turned into the alley, they were gone, but I could hear something off. The echo of the surroundings didn't match what I was seeing. I could hear a larger space off to one side, where the bookstore was."
Her Highness nods, listening thoughtfully.
"So I had to figure out what was going on." The Detective continues. "The store was closed so I could not simply enter, and it was early in the day so I couldn't just pick the lock."
Her Highness doesn't say anything and her brow is furrowed now, but she gestures for the Detective to continue.
"So I made a jump back to before midnight so on one would be around, and found a way in by cutting the window lock. The ground floor was just a bookstore, but after picking the lock to the second floor I found the other side of that fake wall as well as a collection of various weapons including firearms and explosives, drugs, and various other illegal substances. I took inventory, then made my way out."
Her Highness' expression is almost blank. Surprised, perhaps? Is that… a good thing? Is Her Highness surprised at her competence?
Perhaps that's why she speaks with a bit more energy than usual when she continues to explain. Maybe this is going to be better than she thought! This could be her chance to impress Her Highness for once!
"The other singular priest I followed back to a house they had in the northeastern residential area." She says, trying to keep calm and gripping one hand with the other in her lap. She hopes her expression isn't too obviously eager. "I made my way into their backyard without incident, but could not conduct a more thorough investigation as Her Majesty said I shouldn't do anything 'intrusive' without consulting one of you first."
"Indeed." Her Highness has turned her expression to something neutral. "Is that all, Detective?"
"I could go into more specifics, if you wish." The Detective offers hesitantly. "But that's all included in the report I sent to Her Majesty."
"Otherwise that's all?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Right." Her Highness closes their eyes, inhales, and removes their hat. They pinch the bridge of their nose while setting their hat down. "Detective, let me start by saying your… enthusiasm… is appreciated. Truely. Your devotion to the job is never in question."
She watches Her Highness anxiously. Their red eyes find hers, but they don't look amused anymore. They're not angry, they look more…
"However, quite frankly, you are out of line Detective." Her Highness says bluntly, and the Detective finally finds the term to describe their expression: disappointment. "What you did is far beyond 'intrusive' already. While such matters were acceptable yesterday, you were explicitly told not to use such measures today, but did so anyhow."
Her throat feels dry and tight, and the faintest bit of eagerness that had kindled in her heart is snuffed out in an instant with the weight of failure; and not only failure, but the knowledge that she overstepped, again, even when she was trying not to. "I-I-I didn't-"
Her Highness holds up a hand for silence, and her voice strangles itself in her throat. "Now, I understand you had the best of intentions, but as an Imperial employee you must exercise some measure of common sense and try not to get 'creative' with the interpretation of our orders. Ina trusted you to moderate yourself, and you clearly did not. Ignoring the stalking for a moment, breaking into a building without a warrant, or at least telling us, in and of itself is unacceptable."
Something cold curls in her stomach. Of course. How could she ever have assumed she would be a functional employee for Their Imperial Majesties? They've given her so many chances, and yet with the first little bit of self-direction they gave her she completely squandered it by fundamentally misunderstanding what she was being allowed to do. She was very clearly told to ask, and she failed to do that out of a simple desire not to waste their time.
She drops her gaze to the floor; her fingers white-knuckled as they grip each other. A failure. An unacceptable failure. Worse than mere incompetence, she actively disobeyed orders.
"Where, exactly, did this spring from Detective?" Her Highness asks. It's almost worse that they've dropped the stern tone in favor of something softer. She failed utterly and miserably and they're still trying to make some excuse for her. They're still trying to pretend she can improve, and that she will somehow magically be a capable employee if they can just talk things over. "Did you see some fault with Ina's conditions? Was it mere impulse? Do you not trust us to make reasonable restrictions?"
Each word feels like a hammer driving in the nail that is the understanding that she doesn't have a reason at all. It wasn't her seeing a problem or disagreeing, it wasn't an impulse issue. It was sheer, overwhelming, incompetence and stupidity.
"Speak, Detective."
"I-I didn't see any issue at the time, Y-Your Highness." She stammers. She hates the way her voice wavers. Bubba makes a concerned whining noise from the side, and she can feel him settle on her shoulder. "I figured that 'intrusive' measures was the invasion of the privacy of targets without tangible evidence for criminality, like the lone priest. They didn't pull a disappearing act next to a bookstore with incongruous walls."
"Yes, and yet you still invaded their privacy."
The Detective cringes. "I did?"
"Detective, you intruded into their backyard."
"...is that intrusive?"
"Yes, Detective. A backyard is private property." Her Highness says with obvious disbelief in their voice. "You're being serious, aren't you?"
She curls in on herself. "...yes."
"Detective…"
The pity in their voice is painful. If she could leave right now, she would.
Her Highness exhales. "Well, at the very least you weren't being disobedient. That is appreciated, Detective, even if you grossly misunderstood the specifics. However… please understand that this level of misunderstanding is not something we can affoard on a regular basis. Such simple commands should not be misconstrued to such a level. In the future, perhaps we should have you explain what you think the boundaries of your assignment are to us, so we can correct any mistakes. Does that sounds reasonable, Detective?"
Reasonable? That sounds like another chance, which is far more than she's ever deserved. She's failed again and again, and Her Highness keeps handing her second chances like a parent to their incredibly stupid child. She feels less and less like an employee and more like a charity case, knowing that she cannot possibly be giving more to Their Imperial Majesties than she takes. "Y-Yes, Highness. Thank you, Your Highness. I am unworthy."
"Don't." Her Highness's voice snaps like a whip. "I don't want to hear you say that again; am I understood?"
"Yes, Your Highness. Sorry, Your Highness." Another misstep. She can't even apologize properly.
"Good." Her Highness says. "I'm sure Ina will want to talk to you tomorrow. I'll let her know what we talked about."
Oh Baelz. She's going to have to face Her Majesty's disappointment as well… "A-As you wish, Your Highness."
She can hear the sigh that exits through their nose. Their voice sounds oddly subdued as the continue. "I'll make sure the police get the important parts of your report as well, Detective. You still did good work."
All the Detective can do is nod. Anything more feels greedy. She has not earned even this much praise. It's a miracle they still trust her words in any capacity when she's shown such a flagrant misunderstanding of theirs.
"Try not to worry too much, Detective." Her Highness says. She can hear the doorknob being turned. "Ina won't be mad with you. You tried your best."
"They'll be disappointed, which is so much worse." The Detective thinks, swallowing a thick lump in their throat. Bubba whines in her ear again.
"Take the rest of the day off. You've done enough today."
"I've done enough damage. They can't risk me messing up anything else."
"And please, Detective… never be afraid to call." Her Highness whispers, parroting what Her Majesty said earlier.
The door clicks shut, and the Detective curls up in her seat, tears finally allowed to push out of her eyes and dribble down her cheek while Bubba's plaintive whines ring in her ears.