Chapter Text
When you watch your entire world get basically eaten by an eldritch rainbow monster, it makes sense that it would take you a while to get adjusted back into life. Unfortunately (former) Inspector 2nd Class Lyfrassir Edda has no self-care skills.
“This is good. It will be good for me,” they tell themself as they step out of their room in the small boarding house they’ve been staying in, ready for their first day of work, only three weeks after the Bifrost incident. They know that everyone they once knew would tell them to take more time, to get fully adjusted to a new planet before they go straight into a taxing job, but all of those people are dead, and Lyf needs to do something to keep their mind off that fact. So off to work they go.
The planet Lyf ended up on after desperately fleeing from the Bifrost is called Iala. It’s a relatively small, unheard of world, very similar to Midgard in technology. It’s a planet for refugees, where people escaping from wars or other such destruction can go to start over. Its citizens are a chaotic mixture of everything from everywhere, so Lyf doesn’t stand out.
Lyfrassir Edda is annoyingly short (at least in their opinion), with pale, almost snow-white skin and long silver-white hair that is currently pulled back in a braid. Their eyes are an almost impossibly light blue, and their ears are pointed. Their face (and the rest of their body, although the ones on their face are the most visible) is ornamented with natural, eye-catching patterns in the same color as their eyes. At the moment they are dressed in the uniform of Iala’s police force, which includes a blindingly white button-down shirt, heavy boots, and (Lyf’s favorite part) a long navy blue coat that billows behind them slightly as they walk.
Joining the police force was really the only thing Lyf could do once they had settled. It’s something familiar, some part of their life before that they can at least try to get back. Hopefully it will help distract them from the gaping jaws and rainbow horrors that haunt their dreams and most of their waking hours.
Hopefully.
Marius Von Raum is not sulking. He is not brooding, he is not moping, he is not pouting. None of the above. He’s just… having a couple of off days. That’s a thing that people have, right? He thinks so.
Honestly, he should be happy. The new album is finally finished, and it’s a really good one. But… it was harder to make than Marius had expected. Hearing Lyf, but without it actually being Lyf. Sometimes he really hates Jonny’s talent.
He doesn’t even know why it hurts. He didn’t even know Lyf. Did he? They had come to see him, Raph, and Ivy many times throughout the last couple years of their imprisonment, and, well, Marius had developed a bit of a thing for them. But it’s just a crush, and he should be long over it by now. He is over it. Lyf is definitely not the reason that he is currently passed out on the floor of the bridge, after drinking himself half to death the night before.
“Marius.” a foot digs itself into his side. Marius groans and rolls over. The foot pushes harder. “Marius.”
“Fuck off,” Marius mumbles, rolling over again and attempting to bite the persistent foot, despite being only half awake. He promptly gets a boot to the face.
“Don’t fucking eat my toes.”
“Payback for that time you ate my finger,” Marius flops onto his back and glares up at Jonny, who looks thoroughly unimpressed. “Your finger was delicious.”
“Ew.”
“Shut up Tim, this isn’t about you.”
Marius looks past Jonny and spots Tim, lying flat on his back on the floor and idly flipping a pistol up into the air. He pauses to flip Jonny off, and the first mate responds by shooting him.
Marius sighs. “Well, now I’m awake.” He sits up slowly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “What do you want?”
“Why the fuck were you sleeping on the floor?” Jonny folds his arms and stares daggers at Marius as though accusing him of some horrid crime (not like Jonny would ever be anything but thrilled by the very idea of crime, but still).
“I’m fine,” Marius tells him dismissively.
“Not what I asked.”
“It’s what you meant.” Jonny scowls, but doesn’t actually argue. “So? Answer me, Von Raum.”
Marius flinches at the use of his name in that way, with that tone. It’s too familiar. “If you must know, I was thinking about Lyf,” he admits. Jonny raises an eyebrow. “The cop?”
Marius glares at him. “Yeah, the cop.”
“Why?”
Marius isn’t quite sure how to answer that. “Because… I miss them, I guess?”
“Why the fuck would you miss them? You barely knew them.”
“I know that,” Marius snaps. “But I… I liked them. I liked them a lot.” Jonny makes a face at that, but is thankfully stopped from saying anything by a loud groan of “ow” from the floor behind him, indicating that Tim has regenerated.
“Welcome back, bitch,” Jonny calls to him. Tim shoots him a glare. “I’ll get you back for that.”
“You can try.”
“I will succeed.”
“Not if I succeed first.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
Jonny grins. “You’ll see.”
Marius sighs, getting to his feet and leaving them to it. “What’s up with him?” he hears Tim whisper to Jonny as he walks away.
“Oh, Mare’s having feelings,” Jonny explains. Tim grimaces. “Poor fucker.”
Marius exits the bridge to find Ashes sitting against the wall, the Toy Soldier and Drumbot Brian sitting across from them, a card game set up between the three of them.
“Wanna join?” Ashes asks. Marius shakes his head. “Maybe later. I’m probably gonna go see what Nas is up to.”
“Probably not a good idea right now,” Brian pipes up. “She and Aurora are, uh, doing their thing.”
“Ah.” Marius looks around helplessly. He needs something to do, so he won’t keep thinking about Lyfrassir. Suddenly an idea comes to him. “We’re on a planet now, right?”
“Yeah,” Ashes replies nonchalantly, studying their cards carefully. “Brian knows what it’s called.”
“Iala,” Brian supplies. Marius nods. “Excellent. And… Drumbot, are you on Boring Mode today?”
Brian grins. “Nope.”
“Even better,” Marius rubs his hands together gleefully, looking between the three others with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “So who wants to go commit some crimes?”
All in all, it is a relatively boring first week at the Iala Police Department. Nothing truly interesting happens, which is good in general, but not very good for Lyf, who is desperate for something huge and distracting. Paperwork, as it turns out, is neither huge nor distracting.
There’s a line of cells along the wall of the room where Lyf is working, for the less dangerous criminals who only need to be held for a day or so. Lyf hates them, because every time they walk into the room they expect to be greeted enthusiastically by the sound of their name, accompanied by violins. Instead there’s nothing, and Lyf has no idea why that bothers them so much. It’s not that they miss Marius Von Raum, far from it. It’s just… another reminder that things are different now, and that they can never go back to who they used to be.
One week after starting their new job, and Lyf is almost ready to quit it. They have half a mind to walk into the captain’s office right this second and hand in their resignation. But as they approach their desk, coffee in hand, they freeze. One of the cells is occupied. And Lyf could swear that it’s… Lyf almost drops their coffee, letting out a startled yelp. The prisoners in the cell look up, and one of them is… one of them is…
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Lyf hisses. “Von Raum????”