Chapter Text
The Cat’s Tail didn’t usually have this many birds around.
Big black cranes, little white pigeons, exotic Natlan birds with fiery plumes. I was sitting up at the bar, and looking around I could see birds every which way, having a little midnight rendezvous or drowning their sorrows. On stage was a waif of a girl with a voice like sin. She was crooning some sad song about hope and sorrow—I couldn’t make out half the words over the din of conversation, but it fit the scene well enough.
The room was hazy, a kinda purple mist making it hard to see too clearly. Too many violet licorice smokers, I guess.
I swung around and faced the bar.
“So,” said Oz, “what’ll it be?”
I crooked an eyebrow. “Oz? You’re... the bartender?”
“Who else would it be?”
Fair point. “Whiskey neat. On the rocks.”
Oz slid the drink across the counter, and I took a sip. Bracing. Tasted like whatever the hell whiskey tasted like—
—which was, um—
—oh.
“Dream sequence, huh?” I said, cradling my glass like it was a precious gold idol. “Trip into the dark recesses of my soul? That’s not really the right fit for my genre.”
(“Beautiful dreams...” crooned the girl onstage, “ain’t never surrendered...”)
“Take it up with your subconscious,” Oz said. “You got knocked out, remember?”
Ah, shit, I had, hadn’t I? It all came flooding back to me. Benny. Razor. Lyra scamming Margaret out of a bracelet, for a little pocket change.
No. Not just that. I’d jumped the gun, I realised. Yeah, the bluff play had worked, but there was a whole procedural detective trail I hadn’t gone down.
I’d never checked the damn crime scene. Traces of scattered pearls—because surely the bracelet would’ve snapped if someone had ripped it off of Lyra’s wrist? She’d gone to Blanche, waved the bracelet in her face as an alibi, and then... the hand-off must have happened right there and then.
Aha. Grocery bag. That was it! Razor and Di had both mentioned the smells of vegetables. Did that line up with what Lyra had bought? Or had she swapped one sack of produce for another, in the middle of the market plaza, dropping the bracelet into it first? A hand-off performed to perfection with those virtuoso, lyre-strumming fingers of hers?
(“Night never ends...” the singer went on, “not til that last tab’s been tendered...”)
“Shit,” I said. “I could’ve done this properly. By the book. Get the sales records from Blanche, and I bet you I could’ve done the whole thing by deduction, nice and proper, no gods damned hunches needed.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You have no idea how the hand-off happened, maybe that would’ve been a dead end, too,” Oz replied. “It’s easy to second guess how you played your cards once you’ve seen the whole table.”
“Shut your trap. You’re not even the real Oz.”
“What? Because I’m a figment of your subconscious? Frankly, I’m offended, Fi.” Oz gave me an exasperated look.
“It’s just... ugh.”
I took another gulp of whiskey. Yup, that was some real whiskey tasting whiskey alright.
“I’m never gonna be the kind of detective Amy really wanted me to be.”
Oz nodded, but he didn’t say anything.
“I know, I know,” I said, “I should play to my strengths, all of that... but that’s what got me caught. And...” I sighed. “Serves me right. That’s not what Amy would’ve wanted.” I drained my glass. “You remember her, she hated that nobody understood things that made perfect sense to her. I owe her... I dunno, a little comprehensibility, don’t you think?”
Oz said nothing, just poured me another glass.
“Shit, Oz,” I said. “You ever feel bad about it? Amy dying?”
“I was always just the dagger, Fi. You were the one wielding me.” Oz shrugged. “Besides, she’s still around, in a sense, right?”
“Depends which sense you mean,” I said.
“Amy never stopped dreaming, did she?” Oz said, motioning to the side.
I followed his gesture to where the girl onstage was still singing mournfully. (“Oh... would that we weary debtors... were finally free...”) She wasn’t a half bad singer, either. Funny, now that I thought about it, she looked a lot like—
—oh.
Ohhhh.
Okay, I take back what I said: this was an acceptably noir dream sequence after all.
“You wanna explain why I’m seeing my dead ‘sister’?”
“Ask your subconscious.”
“Oz, you are my subconscious.”
“Fair, fair.” Oz pulled out a rag, started to wipe down the counter. “Fi, you and I both know you’ve got a knack for stories. Guessing the endings. Seeing the tropes in the air, having a gut feeling where they’ll land.”
“Yeah? And?”
“You really think all this hogwash about being seen, being understood, would’ve made her happy?”
(“...from those wretched fetters... of joyless decrees...”)
My fingers clenched the whiskey glass so tight it felt like it was about to break.
“A little respect for the dead,” I said, my voice barely level. “Amy always wanted to be understood.”
“Amy was always sad people didn’t get her, sure. But that wasn’t what drove her. This legibility and procedural detective work song and dance... you’re doing it to honour her, but it’s not what she’d have wished for you.”
(“I chambered atonement’s arrow in my gun...”)
“And just what do you think she wanted for me, huh?” I said. Maybe I was a little snippy in the delivery, but come on.
“Amy was always about the thrill of the story,” Oz reminded me. “Doesn’t matter whether it was armchair deduction or guns blazing action, it was always about the endless possibilities. If she couldn’t explain the story to someone afterwards, yeah, that was disappointing, but that didn’t make the story any less worthwhile.”
(“...like a night-watch angel, severed from the sun...”)
The fight went out of me at that.
“...I’ve gone and screwed this up,” I said, staring at my reflection in the whiskey. “Gotten myself killed chasing a hunch.”
(Sang the girl onstage: “And when all was said, and my beat was finally done... you asked me, was it worth it?, had I won?...”)
“This is a dream sequence, not the afterlife,” said Oz drily. “Let’s not catastrophise just yet. And don’t forget: your hunch was right.”
“Point,” I conceded. “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m more screwed than the cork on some vintage bubbly.”
“You’re a capable young woman. Good head on your shoulders. Did you already forget how this works?”
“How what works?”
“Amy’s big revelation. One of the last things she figured out before she gave up the ghost.”
Shit. Oz was right. No way could I ever forget that night.
I drained the rest of my glass, set it down.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
Amy had realised the truth of this world: no-one else gets to tell you how the story ends. Absolutely nobody.
And that realisation, for all the joy it brought her, may well have been the final nail in her coffin.
Oz didn’t sound so sure.
“You sure she’s really dead?” he asked.
I glared at Oz. “We really doing this again? Amy’s been dead a long time now.”
I gestured to the stage. It was empty now, the singer all gone and vanished in a haze of smoke. Still the birds around the bar sat, heads tilted like they were watching someone perform.
“See?” I said. “Amy’s gone.”
“Sure she is, Fi,” said Oz. “Sure she is.”
If he was about to feed me some malarkey about Amy always being here with me in my heart, we were done here. I was a hard-boiled detective. I didn’t have time for this fairy tale fantasy shit.
I stood, tossed a few Mora on the counter.
“Keep the change.”
“You underpaid,” said Oz, but I was already leaving the bar.
I came to with a killer headache.
Didn’t bother opening my eyes just yet, that’d only make things worse.
I took stock. I was sitting on something, a chair probably. Tied to it, maybe? That’d explain the pressure around my lower ribcage stopping me from sagging further forward.
Shoulders and biceps ached. My wrists were—I gave them the slightest wriggle—okay, yeah, bound together behind me. Ah, and that’d explain the weird pinching feeling at my armpits, that was my jacket bunching up.
Those assholes. Getting wrinkles out of a good suit took effort.
I reached out with my senses, felt for my Vision. It felt far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to tap into its power, but not too far. Same room or the next one over.
“Please, let us go, we don’t want any trouble...”
That’d be Benny to my left. A few footsteps shuffled around the room, somewhere in front of me.
As a seasoned private investigator, my instincts told me this situation was bad.
Fi. Fi, is that you? You doing alright there?
Oh. Hey Oz. That the real you I was talking to before, during my impressionist dream sequence?
Your what?
My impressionist dream sequence.
Fi, I’m... not even dignifying that with an answer.
Fine, have it your way.
I still had a couple more questions before I sat up, though. Who’d knocked me out? How long had I been out for? Where’d they taken me?
Through our shared bond, Oz filled me in. Bunch of thieves: Treasure Hoarders, going by how they dressed. You were out for thirty, maybe forty minutes. They took both of you to a warehouse on the edge of town, you’re up on the first floor. I counted three entering the building, but I’ve no idea how many there are in all. But don’t panic. Help’s on the way, just hold tight.
Cool. You’re the best partner a bird like me could ask for, you know that, Oz?
Right back at you, Fi. Don’t do anything reckless, now.
Oz, I’m a hardboiled detective, I have to—
You really don’t.
I sat up straight in the chair, and opened my eyes.
“Nice digs,” I said. I blinked a few times until the room got the point and stopped spinning.
“Fischl! You’re awake!” said Benny.
“About time,” said another voice. “What the hell are we going to do with you two?”
The speaker was at the far of the room. His arms, thick and muscular arms, were crossed. He had a kind of sad look in his eyes, like someone who loves puppies but his job is kicking puppies off bridges all day.
What kind of half-assed simile is—
Shut it, Oz, I just woke up, I’m busy.
“So,” I said. My throat was hoarse, dry. “You’re the boss man, huh?”
“That I am,” he said gruffly.
His hips were lit up in shades of red and purple—my and Benny’s Visions, hooked onto his belt. Well. Inconvenient, but at least we knew where they were.
I ran my eyes around the rest of the room. Benny to my left, a window further past him. In front of me, Boss-man, and, standing between him and the door, some guy with tattoos and a five’o’clock shadow. Finally, to my right was a mean-looking fellow with a crossbow... that was pointed right at my chest.
“Well,” I said, “we don’t know nothing, so you may as well let us go.”
This whole tied up and interrogated in an abandoned warehouse thing was so aesthetic. Damn but this would be a good time to have a violet licorice in my mouth. I didn’t pout, though.
“You don’t know anything, huh?” said Boss-man. He took a few steps our way, stopped again, arms still crossed.
“Um, yep! Nothing at all!” said Benny.
Boss-man sighed. “Wish I could believe you. Really, I do. But Bluey downstairs—the fella who dragged you in? He heard Lyra spill the whole story to you.”
Five’o’clock Shadow frowned. “The bard sung? Shit, Boss, do we gotta...?”
Boss-man shook his head. “Blondie here got under her skin, but Lyra’s solid. She’ll keep quiet. She needs the money more than she needs her conscience clean. I’ll have some of the boys pay her a visit after, make sure we’re on the same page.”
“Blondie?” I said. “I put all this effort into my get-up and you go calling me by my hair colour?”
“Fi, don’t antagonise them,” said Benny quietly.
“You should listen to your friend, kid,” said Boss-man. “We’ve got reason enough as is to leave you two sleeping at the bottom of Cider Lake, if you get my drift.”
I got his drift. “I get your drift,” I said.
Five’o’clock Shadow looked a little horrified at this. “Boss, they’re kids,” he whispered.
“That they are,” sighed Boss-man. “But these kids got this close to blowing the whole damn operation open.”
“But... we can’t just... you know...”
“For an operation this lucrative, we do whatever the hell we need to.” Boss-man sighed, lighting up a cigar. “It’s a damn shame you brats ended up sticking your noses where they shouldn’t’ve been.”
‘Operation’, huh? Seemed Lyra wasn’t the only fish they had their hooks in.
“We... We can promise not to tell anyone,” Benny said. “You don’t have to do anything drastic... We won’t talk, really!”
“That so?” Boss-man leaned over him, puffing smoke into his face. “How do we know you’re not gonna change your minds in a couple of days and rat us out to the Knights?”
“I promise we won’t!” said Benny. “I mean, my luck’s really bad so I probably wouldn’t be able to anyway!”
“Oh! He’s the bad-luck kid. I knew I recognised him.” Five’o’clock Shadow sounded relieved. “See, Boss? I told you it wasn’t my fault he kept falling off the chair when I was tying him up.”
“Wait, that’s why my head hurts?” said Benny.
Boss-man exhaled, looking a little tired. Smoke went every which way.
The smoke was all up in my throat, now. I gagged.
“Barbatos above, show a lady a little courtesy and put that out, would ya?” I complained between coughs. “Or at least open a window.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Boss-man signalled Five’o’clock Shadow, who went opened the window just a crack, enough for a little fresh air to get in.
“Much obliged,” I said, nodding my head to him.
A P.I. always had to be civilised, after all.
Boss-man took a few steps back, and his hands fiddled with our Visions where they hung on his belt.
“I’m not seeing the alternative,” he said. “You kids figured out too much... Don’t think we’ve got much choice at this point.”
“There’s always a choice!” said Benny quickly.
“Keep us here a few days while you skip town?” I suggested.
“Ehh. We’ve got a good thing going here.”
I glanced to the side.
For hell’s sake, the perp with the crossbow hadn’t taken his eyes off me the whole time. Not cool.
We’ll make do, Fi.
I guess we’d have to. Alright, Oz, on my mark, spread your wings, and... you know the drill.
I returned my attention to Boss-man. “Okay, well,” I said, “you sure your ‘good thing’ ain’t about to run its course anyway? People know who we are. At least one Knight knows what we were investigating.”
“Shit,” said Five’o’clock Shadow, “they’ll put the pressure on Lyra. She’ll crack.”
“Then that’s another mess to clean up,” said Boss-man. He looked really tired. And you know what? Fair. If I had to kill three people in one night I’d be exhausted at the prospect, too.
“Your Vision heals, right?” I muttered to Bennett.
“Yeah...?” he whispered back. “Why?”
“If I get shot, try not to faint, okay, kid? You’ll need to pull the bolt out and heal me.”
“Shot?”
“Hey,” said Boss-man, “what do you two think you’re doing, whispering like that?”
“What do you care?” I said, all curt-like. “You’re all gonna kill us either way... Archons, can’t a P.I. get a little privacy with a pretty boy in her last moments?”
Boss-man smirked. “Big mouth. Maybe you should join our crew, princess.”
Princess? I laughed. Amy had been the little princess, all sugar and spice. But me? I was the gutter, I was the night; I was the dame left standing at the end of the fight.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll consider it.” I fluttered my eyelashes, jerked my head to crossbow-guy. “Will he be there?”
Crossbow-guy shot the boss a look, as if to say, Can you believe this shit?
...and that was as close to his eyes being off me as I was gonna get—
So. Cavalry, please?
As you wish, Fi.
Through the haze of cigar smoke came Oz, barrelling in through the barely-open window, banking hard and going straight for Boss-man’s waist.
The bandits didn’t have time to react. A second later Oz had our Visions, one in each talon. He bounced off of a wall, turned, and dived for me.
I threw myself sideways, chair and ropes and all, and gritted my teeth as—fuck, ow, Crossbow-guy recovered from the surprise and fired a bolt into me. Hit me in the arm and pierced through to my waist. Holy smokes that hurt. Missed the heart and lungs though, so that was something.
I landed sideways on the ground, right in front of a bewildered Five’o’clock Shadow.
“Twelve a.m. fever dream!” I cried, as Oz shoved the vision into my hands behind my back, and then I turned into—
Oh, shit. I completely forgot this part in the exposition.
I can turn into a bird, kinda.
Dammit! I should’ve established that in the first act, now it looks like I’m pulling solutions out of—
Not the time, Fi.
Right as ever, Oz.
For a few short seconds, I shared Oz’s form. With the ropes no longer able to hold me, we flew, dropping Bennett’s vision into his hands and then zigzagging our way to Crossbow-guy. He shot, missed, and then I was on him.
Turning human again, I fell out of the air onto Crossbow-guy, knocking him over with all my scrawny dame weight. We landed, him on his back, me straddling him, and I hit him in the nose with my good arm, knocking him out cold. I pulled the crossbow out of his slackened grip.
Boss-man lobbed a crate in my direction—still on the ground, I deflected it with my legs—then charged me, cudgel in hand, regret and rage warring in his eyes.
So I shot him in the knee.
He went down fast, like one of Margaret’s cats falling down a well that I get paid double to go rescue.
With that problem taken care of, I turned my attention to Five’o’clock Shadow, who had been trying unsuccessfully to stop Benny burning his way out of his bindings. The two of them now stood a few feet apart, fists up, like gods-damned boxers in a ring. Pfft. Adorable.
Oz zapped him from behind, and Benny took the opportunity to hit Five’o’clock Shadow in the belly with a flaming punch. He staggered but didn’t go down.
I tried to get up, stumbled, then remembered there was a bolt in my side. Ow. I was starting to see stars, now that I thought about it. That wasn’t good.
I angled the crossbow in Five’o’clock Shadow’s direction, seeing if I could get a clear shot, but the dizziness was getting to me...
The door burst open. On reflex I swung the crossbow that way instead— ah, never mind.
Her silhouette framed in moonlight, Rosie strode over to Five’o’clock Shadow and grabbed him in a sleeper hold while his back was turned.
“Lights out,” she muttered, ignoring his attempts to claw at her face. She glanced Benny’s way. “Bernard—you, stop struggling—Bernard, where’s Fissure?”
“She’s over there... oh my gods, Fi! Fi!”
Yeah, yeah, I was bleeding out, so what? The cavalry was here, Benny could heal me... Unconsciousness was a siren’s call and I let myself drift into its murky embrace: it had been a long night and I was due a date with darkness.
She means she blacked out.
Yeah that’s what... that’s what I...
...
“You’re all idiots.”
“You’re all heroes,” beamed Grandmaster Varka of the Knights of Favonius, ignoring his deputy’s sigh. “Three civilians taking down a dozen Treasure Hoarders! And all alive!”
“You’re all idiots,” repeated Master Jean, the aforementioned deputy. “You kids could have reported this all to the proper authorities.”
“We would have,” protested Benny. “They kidnapped us before we could.”
Master Jean stared at him for a few seconds then pinched the bridge of her nose. “Of course they did,” she muttered, “of course they did.”
We were on the ground floor of the warehouse. Around us, a bunch of Knights, led by my secret informant Kaeya, were arresting and restraining the remainder of the thugs.
“Don’t be so hard on the boy,” said Grandmaster Varka, clapping Benny on the shoulder. “It’s not his fault if fortune doggedly refuses to smile on him. Young man, young lady, I will be penning a commendation to Cyrus myself! And...” He turned to Rosie, who was sitting on a nearby crate, filing her nails (so cool). “You, you’re the one who called for the Knights?”
“Yeah. Oz—that’s Felicia’s bird familiar—found me on a late night stroll, told me these kids here were in trouble. So I came by, found all these goons...”
“The poor woman had to act in self defence,” remarked Kaeya from across the warehouse.
“Yes,” said Rosie, “self defence, that. I self defended against eight of them, and your eyepatch captain arrived and helped me self defend some more. Then I found the kids, freed them, and Fishearl was shot so we got to first aid and that’s when you found us.”
“Remarkable!” said Grandmaster Varka, applauding. “Simply remarkable!”
“And you came alone?” said Master Jean. “Sir Kaeya wasn’t with you when you entered?”
“Nah,” said Rosie. She glared in his direction. “Asshole showed up late.”
“Really, Sir Jean, as if I would recruit civilians as combatants in a rescue operation,” tutted Kaeya. He came to join us, taking a seat near Varka and Jean. “When I got the tip from Oz, I certainly made sure to follow due procedure! I found Braun and Schmidt on night patrol—who can, of course, corroborate my report—and we came here to inspect the scene. We arrived just in time to hear Sister Rosaria here screaming for help. So, of course, protocol dictated we go in. There was a fight in progress and we helped subdue the Treasure Hoarders.”
Grandmaster Varka beamed. “Our Cavalry Captain, here in the nick of time!”
Master Jean eyed Rosie skeptically. “You were screaming for help?”
“Yeah,” said Rosie, “like a little girl.”
“And this was before or after you took out a warehouse full of Treasure Hoarders yourself?”
“I dunno. Before? They were so scary, I couldn’t help but scream.”
“Right. And you’re... a Sister with the Church? Who exactly are you?”
“Me? I’m just an ordinary person. I do what I gotta do.”
(Rosie was so cool, I cannot stress how cool a customer she was.)
“Jean,” said Grandmaster Varka, “let’s not chew out the civilians. I think they did a remarkable job, here.”
“Sir, I hope I don’t sound too curt, here, but: you were already on the scene. You didn’t need me here. You pulled me out of bed at two in the morning to file the paperwork on a dozen arrests and I could’ve done that later.”
“I summoned you here so you could see how resourceful Mondstadt’s citizens can be when they work together.” Varka sighed fondly. “Isn’t it inspiring?”
Master Jean grimaced and turned to me. “And you. Miss Amy, right?”
“Fischl,” I replied automatically. “Amy’s the sister I buried. Metaphorically.”
“Oh, right—my sincere apologies, Miss Fischl, I wasn’t thinking straight, it’s two in... ahem. In any case, Miss Fischl, Kaeya’s report says you were shot while... trying to escape?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“If you knew Rosaria and Kaeya were on their way, why would you put yourself at risk like that?”
I shrugged—which hurt, but not even in an excruciating way any more. My arm and waist were definitely still sore, but Benny and Rosie had done a good job: it felt seventy percent better.
Meeting Master Jean’s gaze, I said, “Fate deals you whatever cards you’ve got, but even if the hand’s a wash it’s still your call to play it. Nobody ever won big walking away from the table, and that’s just as true for blackjack as it is poker. Ultimately you gotta choose between being the player or being the stakes. And no offense to Rosie or Kaeya here, but”—I smiled apologetically—“it’s one thing to have bridge partners and another thing to trust someone’s skill when you’re the ante on the table. Not everyone’s softness has bled out into the gutter, and while that softness is the most valuable commodity of all in the shadow of Mondstadt’s walls, it’s still a liability when the stakes are high, don’t you reckon?”
“...I’m sorry,” said Master Jean, “what?”
“My partner Fi means she wanted to avoid a hostage situation,” said Oz.
“So you dramatically got yourself shot instead?”
“Yeah,” I said, “guess I did. If I’m gonna be a victorious protagonist, I gotta demonstrate my own agency, you know?”
“Varka, sir,” said Master Jean, burying her face in her hands, “you owe me overtime pay and so much coffee for this.”
“You do overtime?” said Rosie, blinking. “Hadn’t figured you for a doormat.”
Razor was waiting outside the warehouse. Apparently Kaeya had spoken to Varka, pulled some strings, and got the paperwork expedited on his release.
I was glad. Razor didn’t seem like the kind of kid who liked being stuck in a cage. Most kids didn’t, come to think of it.
“Razor!” Benny exclaimed, then, remembering people might be trying to sleep, he repeated it in a lower voice: “Razor, I’m so glad you’re okay!”
The two of them ran up to each other and embraced for a long moment, smiling and wiping their eyes and smiling some more.
Kaeya and Rosie walked past me, the latter’s heels clacking on the cobblestones.
“Fischl,” Kaeya said, nodding his head. “Excellent work as always, but...” He made a pained expression. “...maybe try not to put yourself in harm’s way next time.”
“I’ll... consider it,” I said equivocally.
Rosie smirked. “It’s fine. She can take care of herself.”
“Interesting word choice,” said Kaeya. “Me, personally? I would not describe a kid getting shot and nearly killed as ‘fine’.”
“It’s a free country,” Rosie replied.
“Well, Sister. Shall we go break the bad news to Margaret?”
“Ehh.” Rosie wrinkled her nose. “Seems more up your alley than mine.”
“Pardon me: shall we go break the bad news to Margaret over a glass of red?”
“Oh. Hmm. Maybe we should.”
With a wink and a nonchalant nod, Kaeya and Rosie disappeared into the shadows of the streets.
Perhaps I ought to do the same.
I took one last drag on my violet licorice, then stomped it out under the heel of my derby. Master Jean gave me a nasty look but I paid her no mind. I strode off down the lane, the beginnings of a smile on my face.
Time to go.
“I was not... scared,” Razor was saying. “No enemies in that place, very safe.”
“Well... I was scared,” said Benny. “If it wasn’t for...”
Then he spotted me ambling off.
“Hey, wait! Fischl! Or, um... Fi?” he said. “You’re going?”
“Something like that,” I said noncommittally.
Disappearing into the night, with no thank-yous or sentimental speeches, wasn’t a requirement for a hardboiled heroine, but it helped hammer in the whole nonchalant ‘this is just what life is like for those of us who slink through the shadowy parts of town’ theme.
“Wait up!”
He seemed insistent, so I did.
Benny came up and hugged me. I returned the gesture, looking anywhere but at that laced plunge neckline of his. I was a gods-damned professional, after all.
“At least let us treat you to a thank-you meal or something!” he said, as he let go.
I shook my head. “Maybe some other day.”
“I...” Benny trailed off. “Yeah... okay.”
He looked so sad.
“I do literally mean another day,” I told him. “I’ve got an appointment with a bed that I’m running late for.”
(Note to self: find a better way of phrasing a— dammit, “hit the hay”, that’d have worked.)
“Oh! Oh yeah!” Benny’s eyes lit up. “Okay, then, well... see you around, Fi!”
And that was that. Benny chatted with Razor about a sleepover or something, and I wandered off.
Somewhere in the sky above, Oz circled, ever the reliable partner.
Archons be damned, but it had been a night. The highs and lows of humanity, all crammed into one hell of an escapade. I doubted I’d be forgetting this case anytime soon.
See, it’s like I said: the streets of Mondstadt can be a nasty place. There’s no doubt about that.
But sometimes... sometimes amidst all that muck and grime, there’s a nugget of... of diamond-shaped gold that—
Fi.
Aren’t you forgetting something?
Was I?
The case was closed, the boys had been reunited, and now I had two pretty gents who owed me a favor. Not much more a hard-boiled detective could ask for.
The plotline with your ‘stepsister’ Amy, I mean. The mystery of how she ‘died’?
Oh, that.
Ehh. Nevermind that.
You see, if there was one thing this job had taught me, it was that dwelling on the past didn’t get you anywhere. Everyone’s got a skeleton or two in their closet, a girl they couldn’t save. But you had to keep going, keep your chin up, eyes forward, crossbow loaded, or else someday there’d be an arrow with your name on it, and let’s just say it wouldn’t be a birthday gift. The city didn’t hold still for the past, not in any way that mattered, and so neither could I.
Yeah, some days I missed Amy like hell... but, so what? I was my own person. I had a job to do, folks to investigate, a next fix of adrenaline and adventure to chase. And as tonight had proven, I was a gods-damned good P.I. when I wasn’t caught up in mourning.
Mondstadt was my beat. I’d keep walking its streets. And that was all that mattered.
And who knows? Maybe one day my old folks and I could put up a little tombstone for her. Visit her grave every year, leave some... flowers for Princess Amy, heh heh.
Rest in peace, kid.
Thank the gods you grew out of your mermaid phase.