Chapter Text
A quick glance in the reflective glass of the windows that surrounded the ground floor of the New Midgard Police Precinct confirmed what Lyf already suspected, they were not ready for this. Sure, they were perfectly qualified, they'd spent four years in university having passed with flying colours and their interview had gone well, well enough to land them a job at least but still, they weren't ready. Their reflection stared back at them, wide purple eyes and blue skin, and their pure white hair braided carefully back out of their face. A package with their uniform had arrived a few days prior and the simple button-up shirt and slacks fit well but still felt too big somehow.
There was no use postponing it though, and Lyf had been standing just outside the door almost long enough to draw attention. They took a deep breath and pushed it open, letting it swing closed behind them as they entered the building and headed towards the front desk, where an older woman sat.
"Hey, sorry, my name is Lyfrassir Edda, today's my first day." The woman looked up and nodded.
"Ah yes, Police Recruit Edda." Lyf blinked, they hadn't considered their newfound title. "I have it here that Constable Forseti will be here shortly to take you through the basics of the precinct. You are a few minutes early." Glancing at their watch, Lyf blushed in embarrassment to see that they weren't meant to arrive for another thirty minutes. There was a row of chairs along the wall opposite the secretary's desk, so they sheepishly made their way over and sat down in one of them to wait for 'Constable Forseti'.
It wasn't long before a man stepped through the door opposite the one Lyf had entered through, his tight braids tied up in a bun at the back of his head. He scanned the room for a second before his eyes landed on Lyf, who tried their best to look a little more like they belonged there, despite what they felt.
"Lyfrassir Edda?" The man, whose badge read Constable V. Forseti, held out a hand to shake as Lyf nodded.
"Yeah, you can call me Lyf though, most people do." They took the hand, deeply aware of how little they had practiced shaking hands before this.
"Alright Lyf, I'm Vidar Forseti, I'm gonna show you around the place, get you used to how we work 'round here, it won't be too different from what you learnt in uni, just a few in jokes and a bit of office slang, then I'll get you set up for your initiation."
"Initiation?" Lyf was simultaneously curious and concerned.
"Ah, yeah." Vidar laughed. "I'll explain it more later. Nothing to worry about really, just trying to see if a fresh face can be the solution of our ongoing problem. No one's solved it yet but maybe you'll be the one."
"Alright." Lyf said in an attempt to seem confident. "Let's go."
There wasn't much to the precinct, mainly a maze of hallways and offices with the occasional break room scattered around. Constable Vidar took Lyf through the places they'd apparently be spending the most of their time, a lot of rooms with desks and paperwork, which Lyf didn't really mind, paperwork was the backbone of the force and someone had to do it. In one of the rooms, Vidar picked up a pile of three folders Lyf recognised as case files. They couldn't make out the names on the front but all three were thick, filled almost to bursting with various sheets of paper.
"What we call 'initiation' here" Vidar began "is interviewing these three prisoners. Trying to get something out of them." He handed the files over to Lyf. The top read Marius von Raum, the next Ivy Alexandria, and the last Raphaella la Cognizi.
Vidar beckoned for Lyf to follow as he continued talking. "These three arrived to Midgard eighty years ago, presumably to prey on the chaos the Ratatosk Express' disappearance caused. It took what organised force we had back then twenty years to capture them and, if you flip through to their photos-" Doing as they were told, Lyf opened 'Marius von Raum's folder to take a look at the photo clipped on top of all the paperwork. He certainly did not look over eighty years old but, even more surprisingly somehow, they also were certainly not Midgardian, with tan skin and dark brown hair, and the chart behind him indicated they were only five foot five. Lyf wasn't very tall for a Midgardian and they were still almost seven feet tall.
"- they have not seemed to age a day since we imprisoned them. Well, imprisoned may be the wrong word. They escape quite a bit, Stars, there's a chance they're not even in their cell right now, but they always come back, for reasons we've never been able to figure out." As he spoke, Vidar led Lyf through hallways they hadn't been to before, deeper into the building.
"Cell?" Lyf asked. "Don't you mean cells? Seeing as there's three of them." Vidar laughed and shook his head.
"No, we tried to keep them separate back in the day but they'd always find their way into one another's cells, even with a guard watching them constantly, so eventually we just gave up and gave the three of them one large cell so we'd stop having to deal with moving them back."
"I guess that makes sense." Lyf shrugged. "Anything else I should know about them?" Flicking through the folders, Lyf found that the majority of the paper was various incident reports accumulated over eighty years, along with the transcripts of the other 'initiation' interviews that all seemed to have yielded very little.
"We really don't know much about these three. Von Raum will occasionally pull out a violin from Stars know where and play something, he's the most outgoing of the bunch. Alexandria is very quiet, she reads a lot, though again, it's unclear where he gets the books. She's also remarkably good at maths, he can do calculations in a split second. La Cognizi is very enthusiastic about science, though her knowledge of anatomy is sometimes quite concerning. They should be right in here." Luckily, or unluckily, for Lyf, the room Vidar was pushing the door open to did seem to be occupied. The sound of talking drifted through the cracks of the door, which went quiet as soon as the occupants noticed the door opening.
"Ah, Constable Forseti!" One of the voices called out in greeting. Vidar only sighed.
"Von Raum, Alexandria, la Cognizi. I would like to introduce you to Lyfrassir Edda." The door swung open fully, revealing the interior. Inside was a rather cushy cell, with three reasonably sized beds, one on each wall but the one that held the door. There was a small table in the middle, empty save for a pile of books, one of which was being flicked through by someone Lyf recognised from her file as Ivy Alexandria, judging from his very not-Midgardian round, fluffy ears on the top of her head. Lyf had no clue how such a variety of titles had been authorised to be brought in, though judging by what they'd already heard of these prisoners, they doubted the three of them cared much about 'authorisation'. While Alexandria looked to be deeply engrossed in whatever he was reading, the other two, Marius von Raum and Raphaella la Cognizi were looking curiously at the two newcomers to the room.
"Oh, another new recruit?" La Cognizi asked, tilting her head as if to get a better view of Lyf, her strange mechanical wings fluttering softly behind her.
"Mm." Von Raum hummed in intrigued agreement. "It's been a while since there's been a new face around here." They were clearly the one who had called out to Lyf's companion initially. "Lyfrassir, did Vidar over here introduce you as? Marius von Raum, at your service." He held out a hand to shake, a metal hand, that Lyf hesitantly took, only a little bit worried at the possibility of some kind of trick stored in the plates.
"At my service? Then surely you wouldn't mind answering some of my questions then?" The mask of false confidence was beginning to slip but Lyf was desperate to hold onto it as long as possible.
Von Raum laughed and turned to their companions. "I like this one." La Cognizi sighed.
"The last time you said that about a new recruit Marius, was the time they were actually a conspiracy theorist who'd heard about us and was convinced that by drinking our blood they would 'ascend'."
"Which has been proven doesn't work." Alexandria said without looking up from her book, clearly having been listening more than Lyf had first assumed. "I am seventy percent sure Dr. Carmilla never 'ascended'."
Noting down the name 'Doctor Carmilla' in their head for later, Lyf looked around for some kind of chair they could sit in as they attempted to 'interview' the prisoners.
"There's a folding chair we store in the cupboard outside and to your left." Vidar said, noticing Lyf's plight and directing them to where they could find the chair in question. "I'll leave you too it then, we've found it's best if it's only the person that's new to them in the room, best of luck."
With that, Lyf found themself alone with the prisoners. Unsure of what to say, they opened up the files in an attempt to find some semblance of information they could use to start a conversation. Beyond behaviour notes and many, many incident reports, there was frustratingly little to go off, and the time they had left before the fact they weren't talking became weird was rapidly dwindling.
"Uh-" They cleared their throat, not that they needed to get the prisoner's attention, both von Raum and la Cognizi were already looking at them and they were sure Alexandria was listening. "So we know... very little about you. Is... there any reason for the reluctance?" Von Raum shrugged.
"It's funny seeing you all get all frustrated trying to figure us out."
"There is also a sixty five percent chance you will not believe much of our past." Alexandria piped up, face still not moving from his book.
"I wouldn't believe most of the stuff in your file if some random person on the street told it to me. 'Hey did you know the government has been holding three people hostage for sixty years, they're not Midgardian or from anywhere else in the system and they haven't aged a day since they arrived.' That just sounds crazy. But here you are."
"Here we are indeed." Laughed von Raum. "What do you think guys, reckon we should tell them a little something?" La Cognizi seemed to ponder the prospect for a moment.
"Ivy." She said, turning to Alexandria, who glanced up. "Do you think they have anything to do with-"
"What Brian told us about before we left? Eighty percent. I'd need further information to determine how exactly they're involved but yes."
"Then I think it would be useful, yes." La Cognizi nodded, then leant over to whisper something in Alexandria's ear, which the other laughed at, glancing at von Raum as she did.
Lyf, tired of being talked about as if they weren't sitting in the room, interrupted the conversation. "What are you talking about? Who's Brian?"
"Ah, DrumBot Brian." Von Raum stood dramatically. "Our pilot and part-time oracle."
"Wait- there are more of you?" Lyf silently cursed themself for not bringing a pen and paper to write this all down.
"Not on Midgard." La Cognizi clarified. "I'm not entirely sure what they are currently up to, but they dropped us of here."
"How many of you are there? Are they all immortal? Are you immortal or just far longer-lived than Midgardians?"
"Nine, ten if you're counting Aurora, yes, and yes." Alexandria answered without hesitating, the way his brain processed information was fascinating.
"Aurora?"
"Our starship." The way von Raum said it made it was clear he was referencing something Lyf didn't know for the amusement of their fellow prisoners.
"So there are nine of you, on a ship that maybe counts as a tenth person-"
"Because she's sentient!" La Cognizi helpfully informed.
"Because she's sentient. Of course." Lyf sighed. Learning more about these prisoners seemed to make them even more confusing. "And you're all immortal. How old are you?"
All three of the prisoners shrugged, which Lyf took to mean either they were all so old they couldn't remember, or they just weren't going to give Lyf that information. Either way, all the information Lyf had been given in such a short amount of time was swirling around in their head, and they needed to write it down somewhere before they started thinking the ship was named Brian.
"Well, this has been very... enlightening." Lyf stood up and folded up their chair, holding it behind their back as they addressed the prisoners. "I should probably get back to- my other things. Thank you for being so helpful."
"No problem!" Von Raum beamed. "Come again sometime!"
"I- I might, maybe, yeah." With that, Lyf was out of the door, the prisoners waving behind them. On the other side of the door, a few steps down the hallway, was Constable Vidar, who'd been flicking over some paperwork as he'd waited for Lyf to be finished.
"You're finished? That was quick, and you made it out in one piece, excellent. Did you find anything out from those three?"
"Uh, they are immortal, not just really long lived, they're part of a larger crew, nine people but only the three of them are on Midgard, the rest of the crew is also immortal, one of them is named 'DrumBot Brian' and they can apparently see the future somehow and the ship they're on is called Aurora and she's sentient." Lyf tried their best to recall every detail they could of the very confusing conversation they'd just had. When they finished, they looked up at Vidar, who was staring at them, mouth agape.
"That is far more than anyone has been able to get out of them... ever. How did you get it out of them?" Vidar asked, astonished. Lyf shrugged.
"I just asked them questions and they answered me."
"Von Raum did say he liked you but that could mean anything. Nevertheless, I'm going to talk to one of my superiors about getting you put more permanently on this case, if you have a chance at getting anything more out of them, it'll be worth losing the paperwork you would have been doing instead."
"I- you're assigning me to them, permanently?" Lyf wasn't sure how they felt about this information, the prisoners had been interesting, sure, and they'd gotten a decent amount of information out of them, but surely there was someone far more qualified for the task than a day-one recruit. They weren't about to question the decisions of a higher-up so they didn't protest.
"You'll be seeing a lot more of them, I'm sure of it."