Welcome to the modernized world of Hyrule, in a world where heroes are no more. This story can also be found on AO3.

NothingFancy and I have been working on this story for a while now (thanks to me and my wild ideas). I am struggling with Obscurum, and due to personal reasons... I just wanted to try a whack at something new and out of my comfort zone. I have some chapters that I've written so I am a bit ahead of the game. Although I will never promise an update schedule, I will try to be active in updating (:

All criticism is welcome. Both negative and positive reviews, suggestions, etc. are respected and looked forward to. How else can I improve?! (:

Forewarning: This chapter contains a scene that depicts death/gore.

ONE - PITCH

Recommendation: Silhouette by Aquilo

Autumn wind brushes against tendrils of obsidian, caresses bleached, swollen skin, blankets over milked eyes. Crisp, hostile wind that scatters leafy skeletons and immerses the alleyway in a deafening cacophony of whispers. October skies burn overhead, the setting sun painting the narrow walls and grimey concrete in dark burgundies and vibrant crimsons. The red light is kept on a leash, fingers of sunlight being drawn back as the day settles into night.

Light that had been witness to the crime was long gone, nearly three hours ago. Artificial lamps and blinding flashes from cameras look upon the death of naked, twenty-eight year old Runa Lara. A pool of blackened blood, dark and rich from age, is caked underneath the corpse in splatters. Its skin is blistered, a sheen of decay painted over paper-white flesh. The corpse's eyes are rolled back, the whites staring silently to the left wall, and its joints are forced every which way. Fingers are jaggedly pointing in every direction, arms pointing unnaturally underneath, and the legs are jutted out, folded in convolution atop one another. A picturesque jack-in-the-box accentuated by rigor mortis, discovered by a thirty-three year old homeless man, Giovanni Fargroun. He had drunkenly stumbled across it when searching for food in a dumpster somewhere near the mouth of the alley.

"I smell it before I seen it… bein' on the streets as long as me, you don' forge' a smell like death, y'know?"

The scent is a marauder, guised underneath the grandiose city of Faron's smog, stealing the onslaught of cool, fresh night air and suffocating its victims in a cloud of acidic vomit. Except the stench was something beyond that of death. It was something beyond that of rancid meat, a ways above odorous feces, a hop and a skip past moth balls, rotten eggs, and cabbage. The stench gave the unsettling feeling that there was more than just one, single body lying in the alleyway that was between Malo Mart, Alisha's Intimacies, and the abandoned Faro-Deli.

"What do you make of this, Link?" Came a leathery voice. Blue eyes remained on the body, gaze unreadable as he stared at the corpse's open mouth. He looked stoic, but the hardness in his jaw and the sharpness of his brow ridge said otherwise. "Link?" The mouth of the victim had been pulled open, perhaps by the corpse's own hands. The skin, along with signs of blistering decay, was littered in thick, long scratches as if the corpse had been tormented with an insufferable, untameable itch. Of course, the nails spoke for themselves. Cuticles were ripped, tattered from overuse, and were layered in blood.

"Investigator Link!"

Blue eyes blinked and his gaze flew to his Chief who stood on the other side of the stiff corpse. Chief Bo looked on, beady eyes steadily narrowing as he took in the youthful investigator's black toboggan, straw blond strands peeking out from the lip of the material in a display of defiance, and radiant sky-eyes that nearly glowed against cloudy skin. The Chief's gaze wandered down, dark eyes skimming over the etched words in the work-issued sweater, Inv L. Geroy.

The black sweater itself, thick and heavy, was clearly far too big for Link Geroy. It bundled him up, surely, but the hem almost brushed against his khaki-covered knees and bunched up in three folds around his waist. He'd likely been stuck with it, considering how few sweaters the department carried. Forced to choose a sweater that was either too small or too large.

The Chief cleared his throat, "what do you make of this?"

Link stared for a moment longer which only made the Chief heave a sigh, one that ricocheted against the concrete. The blond-headed investigator's gaze fell to his small notepad in hand. Graphite scribbles enveloped the small pages, notating his findings, suspicions, and facts in small, all-cap letters. "Judging from the body's decomposition, the smell, and the stage of rigor mortis, it appears she's been dead for well over seventy-two hours. No possible weapons were found in the premises." He paused and leafed through the notepad, "and there does not appear to be any foul play, from what I-"

"Are there any CCTVs nearby?"

Link flipped the notepad closed as he gravely shook his head, "it seems we're never that lucky, are we? Why can't Faron save up and budget in a better CCTV system like Lanayru," the Chief scowled. Such a sour expression drew his eyes deeper into their sockets, making his already beady eyes appear even smaller. Almost on the verge of nonexistence. "What about the witness? Giovanni, wasn't it?"

Link grimaced which only deepened the Chief's scowl, hiding his eyes from view. Giovanni Fargroun, a drunk meth head, treated jail like a motel and the officers like taxis. Link, himself, had the unfortunate pleasure of arresting him on numerous occasions; thirteen public intoxications, two DUIs, and one possession of a firearm felony. Giovanni's last arrest had been due to burglary, and the arrest had not been by Link's hands.

After a pregnant silence the Chief got his reply, "yes, I interviewed him. I don't suspect he is connected to this, it's not his MO [method of operation] in the slightest." Link blanched at the memory of witnessing Giovanni's statement and cursed his sensitivity to smells. Giovanni had likely bathed in sewage, rolled in dog shit, and made snow angels in a pond of wet, molded cat food before he'd gone out to venture in alleyway dumpsters to stumble upon dead bodies. It was a miracle Link had been able to pay any attention to the man, having found a sick fascination with the cloud of flies that constantly gravitated to Giovanni's head.

"So what're you speculating?"

The small notepad flipped open again. "Twenty-eight year old Runa Lara has had several charges of prostitution and two recent counts of drug possession as well as a capias [order for arrest] for a failure to appear. I know she's delved into more than just Marijuana and Cocaine so I would not be surprised if she ODed [overdosed] on some new opioid."

Link gradually settled into a crouch, tucked the notepad in his back pocket, and peered inside the corpse's gaping mouth. "Then there's this substance," his voice fell an octave as he inclined his head toward the Chief, but his gaze never lifted from the torn lips and wide open mouth, "it's too dark to be blood." He gestured to the torn lips, bringing the Chief's attention to the smears of a black ichor. The smearing looked to have been caused by the victim's hands, and with careful movement, Link picked up the victim's hand by the wrist with a gloved hand. It was difficult at first, to lift the thin hand up from the pool of dried blood and even harder to position the wrist up thanks to the progression of rigor mortis. With a definite snap the wrist turned and the still hand was pulled upward, palm up to display a hand layered in black.

"Oh Nayru, I think I'm going to be sick." Came a distant squeak behind him. Link only leaned back on his heels, glanced over his shoulder. Pipit Dovin, his partner and friend from the Academy looked almost as pale as the corpse. His auburn hair was pushed to one side, his stout frame obscured by the department issued coat. No matter how many cases he'd dealt with, Pipit had never quite gotten control over his weak stomach.

"Pip, has her family been contacted?" Chief asked.

Pipit took a moment to recover himself. He averted his gaze, swallowed, and minutely shook his head. "No, but the nearby pub, the bartender stated they'd seen Lara yesterday." Link bolted upright at that, the corpse's hand smacking the concrete with a resounding splat.

The news of another witness wasn't entirely surprising, Pipit had a knack for getting statements in just a few short hours. Granted most of the statements were witnesses claiming they'd seen a glimpse of the victim; a glimpse that was 9/10 false or misconstrued. However, the possibility, with the body being as decayed as it was, was insane. Unlikely. Impossible.

"I'm having IT pull their camera footage so we can verify the statement. I know, it's hard to believe, but the bartender described Lara to a T. Says she frequents."

Despite the oddity, the Chief took it in stride, "Well, let's bag her up and haul her off for autopsy, oh but you'd better swab that black ichor, Link. I don't think it's been added to evidence. Any suspects?"

At the order, Link trotted off to the cluster of police cruisers and medic vans that barricaded the alley and obscured the view of the crime scene from the curious nightowls of Faron. His cruiser was idling in the middle of the incessant yet rhythmic emergency lights, the blues and reds smothering him in swaths, right next to the Chief's SUV. It had taken him a moment to fish through the mess that was his trunk, looking through every nook and cranny for the medical kit and evidence bag. It wasn't until Pipit had appeared at his side that he'd found them nestled in-between his lockbox and backup bulletproof vest.

"So, I heard that it's going to be someone's birthday soon. When were you going to tell me?" Link looked up to stare at his partner, his face having digressed to a blankslate. "What? Birthdays are important and should be celebrated!"

He shoved the medical kit onto Pipit's chest and said, "who told you?"

"Oh, come on, Link! You are always like this when special holidays come around."

"Birthdays aren't holidays."

"But they're just as important."

"You said that already." Link slammed the trunk lid shut with a definite thud. "It's not like twenty-seven is anything to get excited for." That earned him a roll of the eyes, but he'd turned his back to Pipit at this point and had begun his short trek back to the crime scene with his partner hot on his heels.

It should have been unnerving to casually talk about birthdays when there was a dead woman taking up the majority of their night, but distractions, jokes and off-topic talks were what kept them sane.

"Why do you get so pissy around your birthday? I mean, you do know that Malon intends on throwing you a surprise party… right? Yeah, I know, not really a surprise now, but with the way you're acting, I figured a warning would be nice." It only earned him a sigh from Link who had fallen back into a crouch before the body. Despite his weak stomach, Pipit joined him at his side but kept his eyes averted as Link snapped open the pearly-white medical kit.

He'd pulled out two cotton swabs and two thin, glass vials before Pipit continued. "Does Malon know you get all pissy when your birthday is mentioned?" That rewarded him a steady stare and an evolving frown. "Have you even told her your birthday is coming up?"

"She wrote it down on our calendar. She's known, and yes, she does know how much I 'enjoy' birthdays."

"Yet she still insists, how sweet."

"It's a pain."

"What kind of pole did you stick up your ass?"

"Stop sign this time. Honestly, I don't enjoy birthdays in the slightest. There's nothing to look forward to, you're one day closer to death, and holidays and celebrations are better off with… well, a family, aren't they?"

Pipit stood as soon as Link sealed off the evidence bag that contained two capped vials. "Farore, usually Groose is like this, what's up with you? You sure do get pessimistic. And you're still being anal about having a family? Man, isn't Malon living with you? She's like your wife by now."

"It's not the same, Pip. Regardless, you wouldn't understand."

Recommendation: The Lonely Road by Adrian Von Ziegler

After the collection and assessment of evidence and the mounds of paperwork, Link shut off the ignition of his cruiser and sunk back into the driver's seat. It was roughly four in the morning and by the look of the single lit up window at his flat, Malon had stayed up to wait for him. He stared at the soft glow that peeked out from white blinds through his living room window until the interior of the car grew cold.

Only then did he open the car door and battle the cold autumn night. The crisp embrace of icy winds chilled him through his sweater as he headed up the stairs. He paused only once to take a long, steady inhale of the cold, tasting the promise of winter, before exhaling and fishing in his side pockets for his house key.

As per usual, Malon was discovered sprawled out on the couch with Netfly accompanying her snores with sounds of cheesy romances. She was snuggled underneath three thick quilts, her long red hair fanned out to one side. He turned to slip off his boots quietly by the door before shutting off the small heater by the coffee table. It silenced with an obnoxious click that always did the trick in rousing her.

Dark cerulean eyes fluttered open and a melodic smile brushed across her lips as soon as she set her gaze on Link. "How long were you awake?" Malon's smile persisted as she sat up at his question. She briefly looked to the silver clock above the kitchen peninsula, registering the late hour, before looking back at him and extending a hand. He gradually, almost tenderly, caught her hand in his and she pulled him toward her until his knees hit the edge of the couch. "Not long. Till about ten, I think."

She shuffled on the couch until she'd moved her legs from underneath the quilts to rest on either side of Link's legs. There she peered up at him with her everlasting smile and caught the gaze of fatigue underneath his eyes, the shadow of bitterness on his jaw, and the tightness of unease on his brow. Her hand tightened on his own, fingers intertwined. "Rough day?"

"I thought it would never end. Had to deal with a dead body." Her smile flickered at the sound of his voice. It's weighed down with exhaustion, dried out by stress and accented by something that she can't quite define. Realistically, his voice and mannerisms were plagued by fatigue the moment he'd enrolled into the Academy, but lately, recently, she'd noticed a slight change in him. It was faint, almost nonexistent, but she'd noticed it.

"Everything okay?"

She'd asked the question before when she'd first noticed it, the evolved mannerisms and the quiet signs. He would usually reply with a smile, distracting her with a kiss on the crown and a murmur of her alias, Mal, with adoration. However, the smile that took shape on his face was brittle.

"More or less, but…" his gaze averted her own to look at the clock face near the kitchen, "the dreams, they're getting worse. And today I thought I was still dreaming. The crime scene, the body, was exactly as I'd dreamt." Concern was thick on his throat as he finally relented his bitter realization. He'd only shared a few dreams, nightmares, that kept him up most nights. More often than not, he'd claim they were a blur and couldn't recall them as soon as he'd awoken from one. It was undoubtedly a lie, she'd learned that quickly. After a dream that left him sweating and struggling with phantoms, he'd always, without fail, stay wide-awake the rest of the night.

"It could be deja vu, that's a common thing for dreams. Our lives become so mundane that we end up dreaming-"

"Every detail." Link stated grimly as his gaze bore into hers. For a brief moment she caught a swirl of emotion within his blue eyes, fear or hesitancy, but then he closed his eyes and pulled away. She followed after him as he made a beeline to the kitchen. The desire to comfort him was strong, something akin to an itch, but she kept a distance as he began pilfering through one of the cupboards above the oven.

The kitchen itself was small, roughly fifteen feet long and ten feet wide, with white-faced, cherry-wood topped counters that took up three feet along two walls. Most of the counter space was taken up by the large sink, toaster oven, a vase of fake flowers, and the finicky oven that had surely seen better days. The only true space, untouched by appliances, was the peninsula. It was the border between the kitchen and the living room, and it stood tall next to a cherrywood pillar that connected from the floor to the wall at its corner. Above it was a beam of identical color where two lights-they hadn't worked in over two months-hung.

Malon tipped against the peninsula with crossed arms as Link pulled out a green bottle with Glenfiddich plastered over it and a square tumbler. He'd joined her on the opposite side of the peninsula within four even strides, and settled the bottle and glass between them. Blessed with a sensitive stomach, Malon wasn't much of a drinker. Despite this, once Link had poured two fingers' worth of scotch, he offered it to her with a flick of his eyes.
"I'm good. It looks like you may need it more than I." She grimaced at her choice of words. "But today, was the victim murdered or-"
Link clutched the tumbler closely, tipped it to his lips only to draw it back at her question, "Overdose most likely." He drew out a sip, knocking most of the smooth scotch down in one gulp. "There was no visible sign of foul play, but…" his eyes settled over the sliver of leftover Glenfiddich before lying the tumbler back on the counter.

"But?"

He caught her gaze and poured two more fingers of Glenfiddich. "The body's decomposition doesn't match up with a witness's statement." His second sip was much more gingerly than the last. The second time offered him a bit of warmth and a honeyed smoothness, he could taste it as easily as he'd felt the promise of winter outside. It only lasted for the briefest of moments, and as soon as it wilted he took yet another sip.

Malon shifted and propped her chin up with both hands. Although he hadn't disclosed any other information, she'd connected the dots. The victim's rate of decomp must have not reflected the timeline the witness had given. "The body was taken to Valoo, right? I'm sure the autopsy will be able to tell you something, maybe give a reason as to why the decomp was so progressive… if the witness is a reliable source."

Valoo was where Malon worked as a pediatrician. It was the closest hospital on their side of Faron's city, and it was the closest hospital within a twenty mile radius of the Runa Lara's body.

Link downed the rest of the scotch before giving a short nod. It's all he gave as he took the bottle and tumbler from the peninsula. Placing the tumbler next to the sink and the bottle back above the oven, he'd met Malon across the peninsula again. Gently grasping both of her wrists, his thumbs circling her palms, he'd said, "It's an ongoing case for the moment, so I'll leave it at that. Besides, it's four in the morning."

"But are you okay?" She asked him quietly then as she leaned further until her forehead brushed against the bangs that stuck out from his beanie. Her eyes leveled with his, staring intently as she read each and every raw emotion that danced within the blue depths.

"I'm fine, just tired." It was a lie, and she'd regrettably expected it. Then he added, most likely because of her arched eyebrow, "look, I haven't slept for almost twenty-four hours. I was probably sleep walking or so tired that I was mixing some dream up with today."

"Link, don't feed me that bullshit." The curse halted his rhythmic caress of her palms. "You do this all the time. You can't just tell me something that's clearly bothering or hurting you and then pretend that it's not that big of a deal with some lousy excuse. Now, I'll ask again, are you okay?"

Link loosened his hold on her wrists, his eyes narrowing a fraction for the breath of a second. He quickly came to the realization that he shouldn't have mentioned it, what he'd encountered today. It wasn't because of her outburst as that was common and understandable. No, now she'd worry over him incessantly. More so than she usually did. It wasn't all bad having a concerned girlfriend, but Malon typically made herself sick with worry. That and she had a knack for not letting things go, especially when he was involved. It was why he often didn't share his nightmares or problems. Besides, she had too much on her plate as it was, and Link didn't want to keep adding to it. However, that was becoming immensely difficult thanks to the Faron City Police.

"It's just a dream, Mal." Using his nickname for her with a smile as an added bonus was definitely a dirty tactic. Yet saying her nickname, the name that only he was allowed to call her by, helped ease his mind. He used it to help quell his distress from her vigilant gaze. It seemed to do the trick as she reluctantly took his hands in hers before nodding.

"All right, just… just know that I'm here when you need me, yeah?"

"As I am for you. Now, shall we go to bed, preferably before five?"

Recommendation: Emerge Part 1 by Ruelle

A flash of brilliant light struck against complete darkness, coated the void of black with scenery of a field. Dead grass spread on for miles, ended at the curve of a faroff hill dotted with the backdrop of some massive, stone structure. The light had flashed too suddenly, showered the realm with the tree-less field before slipping back into solid black. When it came again, accompanied with a deafened boom, the world swept into a field of blood and black ichor.

He steadily looked down then, the light suspended somewhere overhead in a sea of clouds, and gasped at his blood-caked hands. All but his nails dripped with blood, his cuticles covered in a thick layer of black ichor that looked all too familiar. He stared at them, twisted his hands around so that he could see the back of them only to freeze on the spot. A white mark, shaped like a triangle inaugurated by three smaller triangles, pulsed on the back of his left hand.

Then a movement, somewhere before him, drew his attention from the foreign mark. Suspended light withered away and he strained against the darkness until another flash of light battled the gloom. Only this time, the bloodied fields were obscured by death. Naked carcasses strewn about, formed a sea of paper skin, snowy eyes, and silent mouths. The flesh white and cracked, seemingly thin underneath the withering light, and painted in the same red that colored the dead grass.
"Link."
His name is whispered beneath him, the voice instantly familiar as it fills him with gut-wrenching dread. Heavy, hollow, fear, he looked again at his hands only to find that they are wrapped tightly around a body. He clutched it close to his chest, the crook of his left arm cradling the ginger crown. Its cerulean eyes grow distant. Colors ebbing away as the body's cold seeped through his clothes, consumed him.

"M-Malon. Malon!" His voice hoarse and quiet despite the fear that clawed up his spine. He shook her, her head lolled in his grasp, and then the last sign of life wilted away.

Just like that, gone.

"No-no-no-no, Malon. Malon, wake up. Wake up, dammit!" His fingers pawed and trembled at her arms, her face, her hair. "Please, goddess, why. Not again." He's rocking now, ragged voice cracked underneath the pressure of emotion.

No, not again. He couldn't lose another, not like this.

The flash of light punctured anew, and this time it remains. Within an instant it devoured the scenery and stripped Malon away from his arms. He falls forward, bloodstained fists splashed into crystal clear water. The water was hard to perceive against the whiteness until it licked away the blood on his hands and knees.
Here, in this world of white and clear waters, he wept. His voice raw, grief-stricken, as it reverberated against eternity. Nothing but her name on his lips. He would have remained there, bent down into the water on hands and knees until his skin swelled, but then the placid water rippled ahead. It forced his gaze upward into the face of death guised in the form of a towering skeleton.

The sudden intrusion drew him to lurch, flail backwards as quickly as his shaking limbs allowed, but the skeleton pursued. Garbed in broken armor dressed in rust and vines, it's only visible eye glowed a brilliant red against a shroud of black.
Wake up, Link.

The voice grated across his mind, pierced his soul, and froze him to the spot. The armored skeleton advanced until it was but a foot away from him. Only then does his breath catch as his gaze fell to the weathered blade within its left hand.

Wake up.

That crude blade, sullied by time, pressed against his neck.

Link, he managed a ragged inhale as it cut against his skin, wake up.

Link scrambled against the twist of blankets as he leapt up from his pillow. A veil of temporary darkness clouded his vision, and he nearly shouted obscenities when a cool hand grasped his sweat covered arm. "Link!" Her voice drew a pained gasp. Images of her lifeless body crowded him and pulled the breath from his lungs.

"Link, it's okay. Just a dream, it's okay." The veil of black drifted away at her words, and he found himself staring straight into sea colored irises. Malon repeated the assurances until Link's breath calmed, until his eyes no longer looked so lost, so distant. Then they sat there amongst the blankets until Link's sweat cooled. Yet she never once removed her hand from his arm, fingers wrapped gently around his bicep.

She waited in silence, battled between questioning him or waiting for him to speak, until she caught Link's eyes flickering to the clock on her side of the bed. She did the same, catching the red glow in a glance-6:22am. Then his gaze met hers in a suffocating stare. His sky eyes were flayed open, riddled with horrors in tandem with haunting fear that she couldn't interpret. A fear that she couldn't define. The intensity drew her to look away and cautiously relinquish her hold on his arm.

As soon as she did, he escaped. Without a word he slipped out from beneath the tangled covers and vanished into the bathroom. He'd done it so many times before that she'd stopped asking him to stay and talk to her. I've got to get ready for work, but she knew better. It was a cop out, a way to disguise whatever demons he battled with at night.

It's just a dream, Mal, but she knew better.

Faron City Police Department's musty headquarters was boxy and the very epitome of obsolete. All but one desktop computer was a clunky monstrosity with an obnoxiously buzzing monitor and a warbling tower. There were six desks in total, aligned two in a row, in the center of the prefecture's police station. Only two were accompanied by a printer, both of which sang with a voice from The Grudge and encountered a paper jam with every fifth page. The latest computer, the only one in the station that didn't warble louder than its user's thoughts, was located in the cramped and cluttered office of the Criminal Investigations Divisions. It was placed on one of the five desks, the one that was offset to the room's centre. All other desks aligned the walls, the desk chairs in close proximity of one another. There was only a slip of a space for one file cabinet that held the past six months of CID cases, and it sat close to the office door, making it almost impossible to open the door to its full reach.

Pipit looked like a cautionary light today, having worn a yellow turtleneck with a black "FCPD" yellow print ball cap. It made him incredibly easy to find, small office or not. Link found his partner at the station's latest computer. Stacks of files and a handful of coffee mugs posted on either side of the computer crowded Pipit as he click-clacked away. Due to the rarity of recent technology-albeit a Windows 7 operating system was rather old, but not as old as Windows XP-the computer was often used for video scrubbing and intel gathering. The other computers in the department couldn't withstand the demand from most of the up to date DVR software let alone the current version of internet browsers.

Link's cohort perked up as soon as he'd walked up to the back of the desk chair. "Hey, did you get my text?" Was all he'd asked before plucking up what Link hoped was his coffee mug amidst the other five that rested beside him.

Link shed his jacket and slotted himself between a stack of files and the desk chair, peering over the man's shoulder at the screen. "Yeah, we're over the Lara case." He caught Pipit's grimace out of his peripherals. Apparently Pipit had grabbed the wrong coffee mug.
"Right-o. Chief suspects it's an OD [overdose], but he assigned us the wonderful task of checking back up with that bar that Lara frequented, Ghoma Pub." Pipit logged out of the desktop as he spoke, "And the bartender, the witness, is-" he'd swiveled in the seat, nearly smacked Link with the back of the chair, and abruptly stopped. "Man, you look like death. You okay?"

The attempt of a good natured laugh that followed was dry and nervous. "Never been better. So when does Ghoma open?" Link averted his eyes as his partner rose. Pipit rolled up a yellow sleeve to reveal a silver faced, Timex with brown leathered straps. Every time he saw it, Link couldn't help but grin. Pipit had always been terrible with keeping up and managing time, and so Link had given him the Timex to both commemorate their first year as partners and to help him with his time issues. With a jolt he realized that'd been four years ago.

"We're meeting him at 10, here. He should be bringing a copy of the camera recordings too. Chief also wants us to check into the businesses in that area again, but Malo Mart's store owner has refused cooperation. Besides that, most of them will be opening this morning around 11 or so."

Link swallowed a sigh as he maneuvered out from between the desk and chair. "Then we've got three hours to look through the statements you'd procured, the notes I'd taken, and the crime scene pictures." Three hours was relatively time-constraining, but when it came to the Lara case… it was just a tad overkill. "What about the autopsy report?"

They moved to the adjacent desk as Pipit said, "last I heard, they were still trying to get an identification on that black substance."

Link took a moment to follow, the news of the autopsy taking a moment to sink in… because that… that sounded strange. Granted, Lara was considered an OD victim. The demand to get autopsy results from Valoo were not as high for ODs. Still, the hospital was often helpful and reliable, supplying the necessary information for any and all cases that the FCPD encountered in a matter of hours. "Do they have a cause of death or a potential drug at least?" his partner gave a shake of the head, no.

Of course, that wasn't the only strange thing about Lara's case. As soon as 10 o'clock passed and the owner of Ghoma arrived with a disc in hand, things just got weirder. It was one hour into scrubbing the bar's video recordings from two days ago when Link and Pipit came across the sight of Runa Lara waltzing into Ghoma at approximately 10pm. She was garbed in a dress that - even over a low-resolution recording - looked grotesquely skin tight and much too shiny, even with the dimness of the bar. Just as Ghoma's owner had said, she'd gotten two drinks within three hours. No one confronted her, and she stayed at the bar counter until 1am when she got up to leave.

As Pipit sped the video up, perhaps hoping to see her return in disarray or catch someone following after her, Link's gaze lowered to the timestamp on the video. "This can't be right... are we sure the camera has the right date and time?"

Pipit nodded, "Here's where I entered the day we discovered the body, look, it's the right time."

Link's fingers dug into the palm of his hand in an attempt to keep a cold shiver at bay. But much to his dismay, it failed. He just couldn't shake this gut feeling that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Song Recommendation: Can't Stop Me Now by Oh The Larceny

Morning light, dressed in ribbons of gold and burgundy, struggled through the thick, tinted glass that overlooked the city of Lanayru. Its light crowded by the artificial bulbs overhead that aligned the walls all along a spacious office. The office itself was colored in a myriad of slate maroon shelves, and tanned, off-white walls. Against each portion of wall sat a short, glass covered shelf that held remnants of history. Artifacts from a time long forgotten, each individually sealed under glass and illuminated in a white glow from the bulbs underneath the casing.

Close to the backdrop of the soft, red skies and the bustling city, towered a large, black L-shaped desk. Its desktop was relatively tidy except for the laptop dock, the slate gray briefcase, and the tanned man that leaned against it.

The man's voice was deafeningly cold, "I don't want excuses, Fado." Yet his eyes were even colder, piercing like an Antarctic iceberg, accented by an intensity that only drew the blond-haired man before him to shudder all the more. That steady gaze drilled through the man's very soul as he fought against the burning urge to fall to his knees and beg.

He looked upon his boss with limitless anxiety, hands wringing themselves subconsciously, "But I-I only-"

"Honestly, did you think I wouldn't notice a shipment missing here, a storage container missing there?"

"Mr. Dragmire, please I-"

"I let it go for a while, your disloyalty." Dragmire lazily flipped open his suit jacket, revealing the metal piece strapped snugly to his ribs, "after all, there's nothing as exhilarating as catching prey in the act, but then you got greedier. Thought you could whisk away the Kakariko-Goron trade route from underneath me."

"What?" Fado blanched, "I, that wasn't-" he stopped again as the man with the steel gaze withdrew the firearm from its holster. Fado paled as the gun barrel effortlessly levelled up toward his forehead.

"You should know by now, I take betrayals very seriously." Fado closed his eyes and audibly gulped. He tried to steady himself, anchor himself down on the heavy thump of his heart beat. The sound of the hammer cocking back brought forth a whimper. Dragmire rolled his eyes, and pulled the trigger. Blood twinkled in the morning light, and he watched stoically as the traitorous man fell to the ground.

Dragmire sighed and turned to pick up his office phone, "Milly, clean this up."

"Of course, sir." Was the reply. He set the phone back down, and moved around his desk to the glass wall. He stood there overlooking the city, and as he felt the warmth of the sun on his face, his face split into a smile. He was that much closer. He could smell it, although that was possibly the gunpowder in the air.

So, what'cha thinkin'?