Work Text:
Neve stomped into her office, throwing the door open with enough force to startle everyone inside. Or it would have been, had anyone else actually been there. Except for the wisps, of course, who remained entirely unbothered.
There it was, sitting in the middle of her desk. Her favorite quill. A quill that had been missing all day. Her desk was the first place she checked. And the fourth. And the sixteenth. And yet somehow there it was anyway, against all odds. A wisp floated happily nearby as she reached down to angrily scoop it up.
“Stop taking my things,” Neve growled at the wisp. It seems unperturbed by the implied threat, floating away as if it weighed nothing.
All the wisps looked the same, but Neve was fairly confident that this particular wisp had been hounding her all week. In fact, she was sure of it, even though she had no facts.
“Maybe Emmrich can help,” she grumbled under her breath as she tossed the quill in the top drawer of her desk, even though she knew the odds were it would be gone again later.
Neve burst into Emmrich’s quarters without knocking, earning her the attention she so desperately desired. It was unlike her to barge in unannounced, and Emmrich knew it.
“Neve, is aught amiss?” Emmrich asked, immediately turning away from what he was working on. “You look as a storm cloud ready to release.”
“It’s the wisps Emmrich,” Neve grumbled, inviting herself in and dropping into one of the plush chairs in the mage’s tower. “I can’t get any work done with them stealing my things every five minutes!”
“Hmm, I see,” Emmrich returned picking right up on her unvoiced plea for help. “And what sorts of objects are they… misappropriating?”
“My notes, my quills, even my journal once or twice,” she explained with an exasperated sigh. “Half the time I find them in the first place I looked.”
“I… see…” Emmrich repeated, his eyes subtly flicking upward, almost imperceptibly. But nothing escaped a detective’s notice. Neve whirled around to see a wisp hovering above the door. The wisp.
“That’s the one!” she snapped, pointing an accusatory finger at the tuft of luminous energy.
Emmrich’s curiosity was piqued. “You believe it to be the work of a singular wisp?”
“Don’t ask me why, but I just have a feeling,” Neve admitted with a nod. “This little guy won’t leave me alone.”
“Well then, as a detective would, let us consider the evidence,” Emmrich suggested as Manfred slowly crept up behind him. “You say your belongings go missing for long stretches of time, only to be returned to whence you began your search.”
“And the wisps won’t leave me alone when I am working,” Neve added, glaring at the spindly orb out of the corner of her eye as it dipped closer to her chair.
“Manfred, have you any thoughts?” Emmrich asked, turning to his skeletal companion. Manfred hissed thoughtfully, prompting a nod from the necromancer. “Indeed, I agree.”
“You agree with…?” Neve trailed off curiously. “Sorry, I still don’t speak skeleton.”
“Manfred agrees with your assessment that these hijinks are the work of a single wisp,” Emmrich explained with a warm smile. “We believe the wisp has observed that you enjoy solving mysteries, and wishes to recreate these feelings by hiding your belongings.”
“The case of the missing quill, huh?” Neve chuckled. “So it’s, what, trying to play with me or something? Like a dog?”
Emmrich and Manfred exchanged a glance. “Um. Well.”
Neve looked back and forth between the mage and the skeleton. As she saw the somewhat bashful look on Emmrich’s face, it suddenly clicked.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Neve balked. “It’s… it’s wooing me? Do spirits woo?”
“Typically, I would not expect a wisp to have the depth of consciousness to engage in…” Emmrich trailed off.
“…wooing.”
“Yes, wooing,” Emmrich repeated with a slight twitch of his lip. “This particular wisp seems a bit more advanced than its brethren.”
Neve glanced up at the spirit hovering now even closer. Never in a million years… “Okay, so how do I get it to stop?”
Emmrich and Manfred glanced at each other again. “You have tried simply… asking?”
With a loud sigh, Neve turned herself in the chair to look squarely at the wisp. “Could you… please… stop stealing my things? I have important work to do.”
The wisp made what she could only describe as a dejected noise.
“I can’t believe I’m reasoning with a wisp,” she muttered to herself. After clearing her throat, she turned back to the tiny spirit. “Could you please stop stealing my things so often? Once per day seems fair, I think.”
Neve couldn’t help but snicker at the delighted squeak the wisp made as it fluttered off.
“Well, detective, I daresay you’ve just solved your most interesting case, to date,” Emmrich told her with a hint of a smirk. “I’m happy we were able to provide our assistance.”
“You know, Emmrich, I think you’re enjoying this too much,” Neve returned with a wry smile. “Just for that, you’re taking mess duty for me tonight.”
Neve turned on her heel and exited the tower before Emmrich could object. She could just barely hear a drats as the door closed.