thenearshore | (no subject)

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Who: Dana Scully and you!
When: June 3
Where: Around the Far Shore
What: Investigation attempts going all pear-shaped with a sideline of bird rescue
Warnings: None anticipated

A

[The Heavens are raucous with birdsong. Just when the stupid fireworks stopped keeping her up, the magpies and skylarks started.

Scully is heading along a bucolic cobblestone path lined with gorgeously blooming early-summer flowers breaking into the occasional sneeze (she blames the azaleas) with an extra-large cardboard coffee cup in one hand and the expression of a woman who is seriously going to shoot the first person who says something stupid in her earshot.

No kidding.

Right between the eyes.

She's heading towards Amaterasu's temple. Sure, she hasn't been since the morning after, and sure, the whole place had already been trodden over in the kind of way that would make grown crime scene technicians weep in the rescue attempts, but it's worth going over the area again, she thinks. "It just started by the front door"... all right, yes, magic is an actual possibility that she has to accept, but outside of that, there must be --

An outburst of twittering and squawking doesn't distract her until it's joined by two human voices shouting and she takes a sharp left towards all of the noise. It looks like there's a flock of swallows tucked into a beautiful, multicolored paper net that's tangled in all of their wings and at least half of their feet, trying to escape in all directions while the papercrafting shinki who have been working on it shout in horror.]

Calm down, we can get them out! -- Just --

[-- how do you handle something like this anyway --]

-- just start from one side and lift it up!

B

[She's lurking along the side of Amaterasu's temple grounds. The smell of smoke still seems to linger on the air here, even with all the cleanup that's been done, but Scully can't find anything useful here along the shrubbery. The ground is trampled. There's no scent of accelerant, no marks of equipment....

This is almost certainly a futile waste of time, and what's worse, she even knows it.

She's still bent over poking at the dirt in a nice pantsuit and businesslike pumps, very intently.

This looks just a little suspicious.]

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[While Shun had just as much trouble with the fireworks recently, birds are a lot easier for him to deal with, and he's actually kind of enjoying the sudden upsurge in the bird population. Not that he'd actually admit that to anyone, being how he is, but he has been taking the occasional moment out to feed some of them.

But right now, he's on a small patrol, and as such, the sudden outburst of squawking and shouting draws his attention quickly. When he gets close enough to see what it is that's actually going on, though, he lets out a harsh sigh before stepping forward, his attention mainly on the birds and clearly more interested in helping them than saving the papercraft.]

That's what happens when you make a paper net outside when the Heavens are full of birds. With an oversight that stupid, I'm surprised any of this festival preparation gets done. [The ones sorting out the formal clothing had seemed diligent, at least, but Shun can't imagine any way this particular situation wasn't going to end badly.]

You'd think they'd keep it inside in case of rain.

[The two papercrafting shinki start complaining in overlapping outrage about the amount of space they'd had inside, and how they'd just moved it out this morning to stretch it properly, and then the birds roosted when they'd only walked away for a few minutes....

Scully waves them to silence, and steps forward. The swallows panic and the net surges as birds inside try to explode out in several different directions. She stops, and looks a little bewildered.]

Are you good with birds?

[Help.]

It started at the entrance.

[Hey, Scully, did you know that Chikusa was lurking about? Well, you do now.]

[Still... She's by far not the only one who's been investigating this. While Chikusa doesn't have anything against someone trying to do a high ranking figure of the Heavens in, he still wants to be kept in the loop. So... Here he is.]

[Scully starts so violently that she smacks her head directly into an overhanging bush, and stumbles back a step, sputtering and pulling a handful of crumpled leaves out of her hair.]

I heard.

[What she didn't hear: Chikusa sneaking up on her.

That's a twig. She removes it from her hair, too.]

But someone has to have started it, which means they had to get here somehow.

[She waves along the edge of the building.] I'm looking for any signs that they came in this way.

[Shun turns his attention from Scully to the papercrafting shinki with an equally dry, unimpressed air, though the shinki get most of it given what, to him, is flagrant excuse-making.]

It's not like there aren't enough temples around here that one of them wouldn't have a room large enough to fit this kind of thing into.

[At that point, though, the birds start panicking from Scully's movement, and Shun sighs a little in annoyance again. At her question, Shun takes his own step forward, but his motions are much slower and more calculated, barely making a sound against the grass.]

That won't mean much in this situation, because we can't calm them down. But I know how to handle them, at least.

[Scully blows out a breath, watching Shun's much more careful approach, and after a moment replicates it with exaggerated caution. The birds are still fluttering, but they don't spook again, and she tosses him a glance.]

Do we want to pull the net back all at once? Or will that hurt the ones who are tangled in it?

[She can handle dogs! Birds are not her thing.]

You might want to try to be a bit more inconspicuous if you don't want people to find out you're snooping around here.

[Though, the same can be said for Lavi.

He carefully steps around the bushes, glancing at it.]

It might be better if we can manage to look inside.

If you're trying to be inconspicuous, you could do this at night. I'm not.

[Come on, she could do a better job if she were trying! At least, she's fairly sure.

She raises her eyebrows at his suggestion, glancing over towards the temple.]

I suppose we could.

[It's only been a few days, and she can still see smoke and soot streaks outside some of the windows. There might be some hints about the perpetrator's identity nearer to the temple. On the other hand, the closer to the actual building they are, the more likely everything is to have been thoroughly trampled.]

It's harder to see things at night.

[Things definitely can be hidden in the moonlit shadows than the ones in the day.

He leans his head backwards though, looking over at the temple and eying it.]

They said the fire started at the entrance, right? Couldn't hurt to check.

... Fine. Why not?

[Her expression is initially dubious, but she relaxes into a wry half-smile, shrugging. Why not indeed. It doesn't look like there's anyone at home, or, if they are, they're not out and about at the entrance right now, which as far as Scully is concerned means they probably won't mind.

She straightens up, squaring her shoulders as her heels sink just a little into the damp soil of the yard.]

So, what are you here looking for today?

Anything that may seem out of the ordinary.

[Lavi gives her the chance to go first.

Wouldn't be very kind of him to leave a lady behind, would it?

He doesn't waste too long, though, to start heading to the entrance of the temple.]

What about you?

Seeing if there's any evidence left after half of the Heavens ran through the crime scene trying to save Amaterasu and her shinki.

[Scully doesn't complain at him letting her start across the yard towards the front door first; she's perfectly willing to do that, glancing back over her shoulder as he follows.]

So far I'm not finding much.

Whoever did this, they seemed to have been pretty thorough.

[Lavi places his hands behind his head, looking a bit bored but don't believe that facade.

He's actually quite attentive as they head to the front door, taking in everything that may stand out.]

It seemed as if they focused on the front entrance and spread it from there.

Apparently. [Scully crouches to examine the lintel of the front door, where sinuous scorch marks still mar the wood.]

Starting the fire at the front door... to me, that says that they were trying to block escape.

Viktor liked the birds. They didn't annoy him in any way whatsoever, and he figured he must have really adored animals in life since lots of shinki and their gods had seemed to be a little tired of the mass of them by now.

But he was concerned. While he hadn't been one of the crafters of the net, he'd been enjoying watching them work, and was quick to try to help when he saw the poor birds getting stuck!

"I tried that, I think we might need to remove it from each of them individually!"

Especially the ones with their feet stuck. They seemed to be having the most trouble, after all!

Hmm, it's not really a far-fetched idea. If they were after Amaterasu, they would've done what they can to prevent her from leaving.

[ Suspicious is right. But Yuuko knows better than to throw accusations around left and right. Everyone has a reason for being anywhere, after all and she's concluded that this woman is a little too professional looking to be a pyromaniac.

But she did come out to do her own form of investigation: namely figuratively sniffing around for any trace of magic in the area.

Though she'll just silently stand behind Scully a moment before finally uttering a hum of thought. ]

If you're trying to investigate the scene of our most recent pyromaniac attack, I doubt there's anything left to find in the ash.

"I think you might be right." The panicked birds were getting themselves more and more ensnared in the net, and Scully hastily set her coffee down and headed for the nearest edge. "Can you help me?" What had he said his name was when they spoke at the beach-- "Victor, isn't it?"

She knelt down next to the net, reaching out to pick up the nearest edge. The bird closest to it fluttered for freedom, and wound up hanging upside down, talons snared in the netting and wings flapping with panic.

[Arsonists can look professional too, but Scully appreciates the correct assumption... that is, after she's done startling violently back up to her full height and swinging around. She should've come here with someone else, so that she doesn't wind up snuck up on quite so often just because she's paying attention to the scene--]

Do you live here?

[She doesn't recognize the other woman, but she has the same coolly knowing expression that Scully's noticed on quite a few of the older gods. Frankly, it annoys her, but she supposes she can't argue too much when it's true that they do know more than a brand-new shinki.

She sighs.]

... You're probably right, but I didn't want to go without checking.

But they didn't attack her directly.

[She did wind up trapped in the burning temple, and many of her shinki were injured by the flames... but it wasn't a fatal attack. Scully chews on her bottom lip, circling around the entrance to check the ground on the other side. It's churned with too many footsteps to be of any use.]

So, are they afraid of her, or was this not meant to be fatal?

[Lavi presses his lips, thinking.

He hasn't really stuck around the temple long enough to properly examine what's been going on, but he has heard some rather interesting things about it.]

It could've been used to spread fear rather than to directly attack her. [A tilt of the head.] But bringing up the idea that they're scared of her is a good question.

She's supposed to be the strongest goddess... right?

[It could've been about spreading fear, or it could have been something else. Scully stares at the burned wood, her eyes focused somewhere far away. It's strange that no one was killed. Not any of the shinki, and not even Amaterasu. And now she's reaching out to try and build rapport with the new gods, who'd showed up in force to help save her when her life was at risk....

Slowly, she begins to lay out the theory aloud, her tone uncertain.]

... does it really spread fear, though? This almost feels staged. No one was killed, even though the fire was set in the middle of the night. It was set at the front door to make it difficult for her to escape on her own, but even though we were all sent out to different parts of the world today, the fire didn't happen until after we were back and ready to help.

[A pause.

He hadn't thought about it that way before.

It makes his eyebrows furrow, taking in the front entrance. He carefully reaches out, a thumb brushing against some of the scorch marks that remained. His eye unfocused, yet he's still taking in everything as it sweeps over the front entrance of the temple.]

What do you suggest it may be then? [He shifts, glancing at her.] If not fear, then are you suggesting that whoever's doing this is trying to build some kind of rapport between Amaterasu and the rest of us?

[To strengthen the Heavens by unifying them or something else?]

[Ever since the fire, Barry's taken it upon himself to patrol the grounds of Amaterasu's temple on a daily basis. Or at least the perimeter, anyway. That's all the farther her shinki will let him go. Still, when he sees someone lurking around looking suspicious, he naturally jumps to the worst possible conclusion.]

Came back to the scene of the crime, huh? One fire not enough for ya?

[At least Scully doesn’t have to worry about Chikusa laughing at her. The teenager stays quiet, just blinking slowly as she cleans herself up. She’s not wrong- someone had to start it. He doubts horrific accidents of this level just start up at the most powerful goddess’ home…. Especially when those flyers are taken into consideration.]

If a fire started up out of nowhere… Then it’s possible that the person arrived out of nowhere as well.

[That is to say- teleportation.]

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