Work Text:
9:48 Dragon - Molioris / Bloomingtide
Leaning against a building column, Neve lit an elfroot cigarette and watched Ayda, a few steps away, entertain a group of children. Ayda had a deck of cards in hand that she shuffled fast enough for that to be the main trick if she had wanted it to be. A few of the children gasped.
Ayda held the deck out, the cards fanned as she offered one of the children a chance to pick a card. He showed it to his friends, then returned it to the middle of the deck. Ayda shuffled them again and pulled the top card, lifting it to show the kids. They all giggled and laughed, shouting that the card was wrong. Ayda cocked her hip to the side as she tapped a finger to her chin in fake thought. Pretending to figure out what went wrong, she misdirected their attention to one side for a few seconds.
Bringing the focus back to the child who picked the card, she reached out and ran her hand behind his ear. As if out of nowhere, Ayda flipped the card into her hand and showed the kid. The group went silent, staring at the correct card in awe before cheering. Neve tilted her head, wondering how Ayda had known which card to pull aside. Surely the deck wasn't stacked with the same cards; she had shown them the wrong one to begin with.
Exceptionally entertained, the kids ran off, and Ayda turned to Neve, grinning as she put the deck away. Neve offered her some of the rolled elfroot, which Ayda gladly accepted.
"Good with kids," said Neve. "Not something I expected to add to your dossier."
"Eh, they find me entertaining. Also. My dossier? You have a whole profile going on me now?" Ayda handed the elfroot back.
"Well, it seems Mae wants us working together more, and I like to know who I'm working with, but you're a hard shell to crack."
"Are you complaining about the chase, Detective Gallus?"
She smirked. "Me? Never. Now, how long have you known card tricks like that?"
"Oh, Maker, hm," Ayda mumbled, counting. "Started learning when I was around ten years old, so… twenty… two years now."
"You know it for entertainment or something more?"
"Used to be for fun, then it became a means of extra coin."
An eyebrow raised, her curiosity deepened. How could she never put a thumb down on Ayda Mercar? "Did you use it for actual tricks or only use the sleight of hand part of it all?"
"Are you suggesting I used to be a thief?"
"Perhaps."
"Yeah, well," Ayda leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms as she took in the market with Neve. "Here and there, when the purse got tight. Never felt like the right thing to do because it wasn't, but desperate times, desperate measures."
Neve hummed. "Entertainer and thief, now turned Shadow Dragon, but still part-time entertainer of children."
"Eh. There's a bit more amazement in their eyes when you pull off a trick. They're not run down by life yet, so they find fascination in the little things still." Ayda's eyebrows furrowed before she shook her head. "A lot of questions about me today. What about you? Did you have to rummage the streets of Minrathous?"
"Hardly, but I grew up here. Dock Town is my home. I've always had my eyes on it."
"Oh? You've always been a detective, then? Solving the case of the missing serving fork when you were five and who tracked mud into the home at ten?"
Neve chuckled. "Something like that. I've always found people fascinating. Watching what we do, examining why we do it. Motives and trails. Some puzzles are small, like helping a little girl find her lost dog. Others are bigger: crimes on Magisters gone rogue, folks paying demons out of desperation… there's always a reason. Always a story. Always an invisible web that's woven. And my job is to make it seen and to make sense of it all."
Ayda was quiet, nodding slowly and deliberately as she thought through whatever she wanted to say next. Without a word, she grabbed Neve's forearm and pulled her away to a cleared alleyway, a classic Minrathous spot for sharing private information. They stood close, shoulders leaning against the wall so they could watch each other's backs.
"To figure out a murder," said Ayda. "That's why I disappear to Ventus on occasion."
Neve raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"My parents. Well, my mother and my thetos pateras." Adoptive father. Ayda raised her hand to her chest. Neve assumed it was where her tucked away necklace ended. "I've been trying to figure out who sent the killer and why."
"For how long?"
"Eighteen years."
"Kaffas.”
”You know when you’ve invested so much into something for so long that it becomes an obsession?”
”It eats at you. A hunger never sated.”
Ayda hummed in agreement as her fingers plucked at her shirt's fabric. "Mae keeps getting leads every now and then, but each one leads to a dead end or more questions. And of course, Altan is no help. He either stays behind or comes with and causes more problems than I need or want. But it's like something out there wants me to figure it out, even after all these years, but it never wants to fully give."
Neve could feel the air of defeat coming off of Ayda. "I'm sorry that happened."
"Yeah, me too. Sometimes I feel like if I had been there, I could have saved them. I could have done something."
"You likely would have ended up murdered with them."
Ayda huffed. "I killed the person hired. They made the mistake of staying behind."
"Well." Neve crossed her arms. She did the math in her head. Learning card tricks at ten, twenty-two years ago. Ayda was thirty-two, the same age as her. So, if she had been following this trail for eighteen years, that meant her parents were murdered when she and Altan were fourteen. "Give me the information you have. All the case files, everything. I'll help you."
"I wasn't telling you to ask for help or charity."
"It's not charity, but it is a friend helping a friend."
Ayda raised an eyebrow. "Oh, we're friends now? Not just coworkers?"
"Don't let it go to your head." She rolled her eyes but smirked when she saw the gratitude in Ayda's eyes. "Come on. We have that dinner with Dorian and Mae at the Swan, then we can chat on this later."
Ayda pushed off the wall and waited for Neve to join her as they walked casually down the bustling streets. "Thank you. I owe you for your help."
"You owe me nothing," said Neve. "Consider it on the house."
"I don't take handouts. At least let me make you coffee a few times? Good coffee. Not whatever watered-down swill you make at the hideout."
She considered the offer only briefly. "Deal."