[Select] A Path, Chosen
darthcourt10
Well worn.
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NotHimAgain
Okay then. You have not idea how tempting it is to call this something like... Jericho or something. Maybe, instead, let's go with...
A Path, Chosen
-----
Odd as it was to say, Olivia McKay actually held a certain respect for Shipgirls.
They were dangerous, of course. Any mystical being, even guardian deities such as them, were dangerous—history was full of fickle hearts and false promises. But they did the Duty where no human could as of yet, and Olivia had no doubt that they risked just as much in doing so. If nothing else, that commanded respect.
(As of yet, of course, still had effect, and it was not certain how things would turn out once humans stood on level ground with their oceanic assailants, so while the Duty had not brought her into conflict with Shipgirls Olivia was still trying to find a way to combat them)
Even if she did not, though, there was no way that she could turn someone with a search warrant out of the house without appearing the least bit suspicious. That meant that she would have to guide the errant searchers—and when one had a good enough handle on how minds, human or not, worked, the right words could have you calling left right and thinking it your own idea. Which, in turn, meant that she hoped the Shipgirls would stay in one place while she navigated the hallways of the massive compound that the McKay women called home.
Fortunately, they did.
"Mrs. McKay?" one of the girls looking around the sitting room snapped to attention from her examination of the decorations. Olivia frowned—while there was nothing wrong with looking, the odd artifact was mixed in here and there just in case they were needed. If the Shipgirls were able to sense their presence… well, she had acted the part of an eccentric collector before. She could do it again if she needed to.
"Indeed," she said gruffly (one of the perks of old age—she could speak exactly as she wanted, and no one would give a shit). "An' ye two?"
"My name is HMS Monarch," the speaker replied, nodding respectfully. "And this is my sister, Orion."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," the redhead added.
"Ah'm sure." Olivia's lip twisted. "Soo, this is all a wee bi' excitin' fer me. Wud either o' ye explain wha' this business abou' a search warran' is?"
Orion stepped up. "We recently received word of… allegations against your person, regarding a potential child abuse case."
What.
Was this Gil? Trying to escape the Duty? The girl's mind was so shattered, was it even possible? This could be problematic.
"Ah see. An' who was i' tha' brought this ta yer attention?"
"It was… your granddaughter, actually."
The little bitch. She would have to play this off.
"Gillian said tha'?" she laughed, shaking her head. "Tha's takin' things a bi' far, e'en fer her."
Orion and Monarch exchanged a look. "You mean," the later said as she tasted the idea, "that your granddaughter would… fabricate such a story. As a joke?"
"Likes a laugh, tha' one," Olivia nodded.
The Shipgirls exchanged another look. Monarch seemed to be digesting the thought, giving it its due thought. Orion, on the other hand, seemed to have spit it back out the moment it touched her tongue. She would be a somewhat harder sell.
"Be that as it may," the Shipgirl finally replied, "no matter the origin, or the object, such allegations must be taken seriously. And there is a preexisting civil case, which I am afraid does not look good for you."
Damn Richard's whore of a sister. After the incident with the House Elf, Anna had developed an inclination towards running away to her aunt's apartment in London. After the third time she actually got there (which the then eleven-year-old had accomplished by literally walking cross-country over a period of weeks if not months), Victoria Lester had gotten it into her head that something was wrong with the way her niece was being raised and taken it to court. The venture had been a failure for Olivia, but she'd learned the value of stacking the deck in her favor afterwards.
Anna hadn't been able to escape the Duty, of course, but she refused to give it its due place in her life. Look how that had ended for her.
"Right ye are, Ah s'pose," Olivia shrugged. "Well, in tha case, leh's nae be keepin' ye o'er long. Where d'ye wan' ta see first?" She paused. "By th' way… wouldnae this sort o' thing be fielded by th' constabulary?"
Orion blinked. "We were in the area, ma'am. Decided to help out."
"O' course, o' course. Noo, where tae first agin?"
-----
Orion reached down and flicked on the headlights.
"So," Monarch said, pressing her fingers to her forehead, "That… that was Olivia McKay. I didn't expect her to be so…"
Slimy, Orion finished mentally. "Unsettling?" she provided aloud.
"I… suppose that is a good word," Monarch nodded, her expression disturbed. Mentally running through excuses to get into the repair baths, Orion suspected—not that she hadn't run down a few herself. "Augusta told us her share of horror stories about the woman, but I honestly felt like she was exaggerating. No one can be that… that. Can they?"
The Longbottom matriarch's enraged rant the very moment "that McKay woman" was mentioned didn't exactly instill Orion with the thought of "horror stories," but maybe Monarch saw things differently.
"So you didn't believe a word out of her mouth either, did you?" she asked brightly.
"Why would I?"
Orion smiled humorlessly. Before she could open her mouth to respond, the faint jingle of her mobile phone began to ring through the car. Monarch glanced over, catching her eye, and reached down to take the device.
"Hello, this is HMS Monarch, answering HMS Orion's phone. Is something the matter?"
Orion listened as she "hmm'ed" and "I see'd" her way through the conversation, thanked the caller, and hung up.
"The coroner?"
"He just arrived at Scotland Yard," her sister confirmed. "Apparently they told him that they want to consult him about a serial killer case."
Even without Mrs. McKay's behavior, shuffling them around the house as quickly as possible, pretending that maybe, just maybe, she was hiding something else in another room, and (very interesting in Orion's eyes) doing her damnedest to ensure that they stayed away from a specific section of the cellar floor, it was hard not to give stock to Gillian McKay's story. And with access to the legal files, Olivia herself was just one of several avenues of investigation.
Orion found the expression "more than one way to skin a cat" vulgar, but she could not deny that it fit the situation perfectly.
-----
It had not hit Olivia until after she had seen the two Shipgirls out the front door that there were other paths of investigation that they could take. She cursed herself for not having seen it sooner.
Despite being in fairly good shape, walking up and down the house had still taken the entire afternoon. She was sitting in the armchair in the sitting room, taking a moment to consider the best course of action.
Legally, she was fucked. The question was whether to take it to court and fight it out, or take the girl and go to ground.
The one would allow her a fighting chance to keep her freedom.
The other would definitely allow her to keep the fight going and have the latest McKay ready for training in a semi-timely manner.
She knew where the girl was, of course. Even with her mobile damaged or lost, the implanted tracker had placed her in one of the London safe houses her mother had set up and she had ordered maintained. Going in and getting her—while not simple, by any means—was doable.
The one had a non-zero chance that she would lose access to the girl before she could bear a daughter.
The other… given the presence of Shipgirls in the manor, there was a non-zero chance that she would have to fight them.
Olivia McKay was not generally one to make such choices. The Duty had to be carried out, and All or Nothing gambits like this had a way of playing out poorly. But even as she seethed at it, she more than aware of her situation—there was no choice but to take one or the other.
"Ma'am?"
Olivia closed her eyes, breathed out, then slowly opened them.
"Higgins."
The butler was silent, awaiting her command.
"Prepare some o' th' men. We'll be flyin' intae London a' half past." The problem of the Shipgirls… it didn't hurt to test a theory. "An' prepare th' Cockspur Arrow fer use."
An All or Nothing Choice. Even if things didn't pan out, there was nothing but to meet the consequences head on.
-----
And there that is. Maybe, next week, I'll finally be able to do something with Faraway Harbor. Though I am having fun with the Dana snippets...
Well what do you think, sirs?
Okay then. You have not idea how tempting it is to call this something like... Jericho or something. Maybe, instead, let's go with...
A Path, Chosen
-----
Odd as it was to say, Olivia McKay actually held a certain respect for Shipgirls.
They were dangerous, of course. Any mystical being, even guardian deities such as them, were dangerous—history was full of fickle hearts and false promises. But they did the Duty where no human could as of yet, and Olivia had no doubt that they risked just as much in doing so. If nothing else, that commanded respect.
(As of yet, of course, still had effect, and it was not certain how things would turn out once humans stood on level ground with their oceanic assailants, so while the Duty had not brought her into conflict with Shipgirls Olivia was still trying to find a way to combat them)
Even if she did not, though, there was no way that she could turn someone with a search warrant out of the house without appearing the least bit suspicious. That meant that she would have to guide the errant searchers—and when one had a good enough handle on how minds, human or not, worked, the right words could have you calling left right and thinking it your own idea. Which, in turn, meant that she hoped the Shipgirls would stay in one place while she navigated the hallways of the massive compound that the McKay women called home.
Fortunately, they did.
"Mrs. McKay?" one of the girls looking around the sitting room snapped to attention from her examination of the decorations. Olivia frowned—while there was nothing wrong with looking, the odd artifact was mixed in here and there just in case they were needed. If the Shipgirls were able to sense their presence… well, she had acted the part of an eccentric collector before. She could do it again if she needed to.
"Indeed," she said gruffly (one of the perks of old age—she could speak exactly as she wanted, and no one would give a shit). "An' ye two?"
"My name is HMS Monarch," the speaker replied, nodding respectfully. "And this is my sister, Orion."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," the redhead added.
"Ah'm sure." Olivia's lip twisted. "Soo, this is all a wee bi' excitin' fer me. Wud either o' ye explain wha' this business abou' a search warran' is?"
Orion stepped up. "We recently received word of… allegations against your person, regarding a potential child abuse case."
What.
Was this Gil? Trying to escape the Duty? The girl's mind was so shattered, was it even possible? This could be problematic.
"Ah see. An' who was i' tha' brought this ta yer attention?"
"It was… your granddaughter, actually."
The little bitch. She would have to play this off.
"Gillian said tha'?" she laughed, shaking her head. "Tha's takin' things a bi' far, e'en fer her."
Orion and Monarch exchanged a look. "You mean," the later said as she tasted the idea, "that your granddaughter would… fabricate such a story. As a joke?"
"Likes a laugh, tha' one," Olivia nodded.
The Shipgirls exchanged another look. Monarch seemed to be digesting the thought, giving it its due thought. Orion, on the other hand, seemed to have spit it back out the moment it touched her tongue. She would be a somewhat harder sell.
"Be that as it may," the Shipgirl finally replied, "no matter the origin, or the object, such allegations must be taken seriously. And there is a preexisting civil case, which I am afraid does not look good for you."
Damn Richard's whore of a sister. After the incident with the House Elf, Anna had developed an inclination towards running away to her aunt's apartment in London. After the third time she actually got there (which the then eleven-year-old had accomplished by literally walking cross-country over a period of weeks if not months), Victoria Lester had gotten it into her head that something was wrong with the way her niece was being raised and taken it to court. The venture had been a failure for Olivia, but she'd learned the value of stacking the deck in her favor afterwards.
Anna hadn't been able to escape the Duty, of course, but she refused to give it its due place in her life. Look how that had ended for her.
"Right ye are, Ah s'pose," Olivia shrugged. "Well, in tha case, leh's nae be keepin' ye o'er long. Where d'ye wan' ta see first?" She paused. "By th' way… wouldnae this sort o' thing be fielded by th' constabulary?"
Orion blinked. "We were in the area, ma'am. Decided to help out."
"O' course, o' course. Noo, where tae first agin?"
-----
Orion reached down and flicked on the headlights.
"So," Monarch said, pressing her fingers to her forehead, "That… that was Olivia McKay. I didn't expect her to be so…"
Slimy, Orion finished mentally. "Unsettling?" she provided aloud.
"I… suppose that is a good word," Monarch nodded, her expression disturbed. Mentally running through excuses to get into the repair baths, Orion suspected—not that she hadn't run down a few herself. "Augusta told us her share of horror stories about the woman, but I honestly felt like she was exaggerating. No one can be that… that. Can they?"
The Longbottom matriarch's enraged rant the very moment "that McKay woman" was mentioned didn't exactly instill Orion with the thought of "horror stories," but maybe Monarch saw things differently.
"So you didn't believe a word out of her mouth either, did you?" she asked brightly.
"Why would I?"
Orion smiled humorlessly. Before she could open her mouth to respond, the faint jingle of her mobile phone began to ring through the car. Monarch glanced over, catching her eye, and reached down to take the device.
"Hello, this is HMS Monarch, answering HMS Orion's phone. Is something the matter?"
Orion listened as she "hmm'ed" and "I see'd" her way through the conversation, thanked the caller, and hung up.
"The coroner?"
"He just arrived at Scotland Yard," her sister confirmed. "Apparently they told him that they want to consult him about a serial killer case."
Even without Mrs. McKay's behavior, shuffling them around the house as quickly as possible, pretending that maybe, just maybe, she was hiding something else in another room, and (very interesting in Orion's eyes) doing her damnedest to ensure that they stayed away from a specific section of the cellar floor, it was hard not to give stock to Gillian McKay's story. And with access to the legal files, Olivia herself was just one of several avenues of investigation.
Orion found the expression "more than one way to skin a cat" vulgar, but she could not deny that it fit the situation perfectly.
-----
It had not hit Olivia until after she had seen the two Shipgirls out the front door that there were other paths of investigation that they could take. She cursed herself for not having seen it sooner.
Despite being in fairly good shape, walking up and down the house had still taken the entire afternoon. She was sitting in the armchair in the sitting room, taking a moment to consider the best course of action.
Legally, she was fucked. The question was whether to take it to court and fight it out, or take the girl and go to ground.
The one would allow her a fighting chance to keep her freedom.
The other would definitely allow her to keep the fight going and have the latest McKay ready for training in a semi-timely manner.
She knew where the girl was, of course. Even with her mobile damaged or lost, the implanted tracker had placed her in one of the London safe houses her mother had set up and she had ordered maintained. Going in and getting her—while not simple, by any means—was doable.
The one had a non-zero chance that she would lose access to the girl before she could bear a daughter.
The other… given the presence of Shipgirls in the manor, there was a non-zero chance that she would have to fight them.
Olivia McKay was not generally one to make such choices. The Duty had to be carried out, and All or Nothing gambits like this had a way of playing out poorly. But even as she seethed at it, she more than aware of her situation—there was no choice but to take one or the other.
"Ma'am?"
Olivia closed her eyes, breathed out, then slowly opened them.
"Higgins."
The butler was silent, awaiting her command.
"Prepare some o' th' men. We'll be flyin' intae London a' half past." The problem of the Shipgirls… it didn't hurt to test a theory. "An' prepare th' Cockspur Arrow fer use."
An All or Nothing Choice. Even if things didn't pan out, there was nothing but to meet the consequences head on.
-----
And there that is. Maybe, next week, I'll finally be able to do something with Faraway Harbor. Though I am having fun with the Dana snippets...
Well what do you think, sirs?
