sword store (hadley)

"You're a goofball," Solange said, laughing with her daemon at whatever she had said. As she held the bag in her hand from the errands they had run, her metal key found its way from her pocket to the door, her foot kicking in the door as she used her Eilemaiden to turn the knob.

"You are --" Anouk started to say as they walked in, but quickly stopped as the two of them noticed that the store was completely trashed.

"What the fuck?" Solange exclaimed, tossing her bag to the side. Shit was everywhere, all messed up -- nothing was in the right place, yet nothing was really destroyed. She cautiously started to pick things up and put them in their place. Was someone still here? If they were, she could kick their ass -- right?

Sol, please be careful, Anouk thought, sniffing the ground to try and find a familiar scent.

Apparently we should have been more careful, Solange said, rounding a corner slowly with a knife in her hand.

Hadley was on his way to visit his sister Solange in Dahlin. He wanted to warn her about some shady stuff going on in Deilig, since she might occasionally do business there. In an effort to investigate Kole's little underground "business," he had hired a clio to go check it out. The guy never came back, and about a week later his body was found floating in the Ramat River. Oops.

That's why I told you just to leave it alone! Nila had told him.

Nah, just gotta be more careful next time, Hadley rebuffed her.

He arrived and walked inside, only to be greeted by the sight of the store in completely disarray. "Oh shit," he muttered, immediately lighting up a ball of fire. "Sol!?" he called out, making his way through the mess of merchandise. If anything had happened to her...

Solange jumped as she heard the door open, quickly turning to see who it was, only to trip on something that was sticking up at an angle she hadn't expected.

"Ahh!" she yelped, quickly throwing everything that was in disarray under her anywhere that she could throw them to get them out of the way from her butt. She landed with a thump, Anouk jumping over the various weapons and junk to land next to her.

She looked blankly at her brother. How could she explain this? She didn't want him to worry, but he would know that she would never leave her store like this. She wasn't sure what to say, so she simply muttered, "...hi."

Hadley saw Solange appear safe and unharmed, only for her to immediately trip over the nearest object on the floor and fall. He probably would have laughed if it weren't for the complete mood whiplash of being worried about someone breaking in to kill his sister, only to see her wander out and fall on her ass. Relieved, he extinguished his fire and walked over, holding his hand out for her. "Hey. You okay?" he asked, somewhat amused.

After helping her up he looked around the store. "Sooo. What happened here?" he asked calmly. As long as Solange was okay there was no need for any immediate action, but if someone had in fact broken into her store and trashed it--which sure was what it looked like--he would, of course, be looking into some retribution against the hapless clio.

Solange smiled as her brother helped her up, using her prosthetic and Eilemaiden to make it a bit easier and more balanced. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She brushed herself off once she was up, Anouk running her body against her leg lovingly.

"Well..." she looked around, wondering exactly what course of action Hadley would take when the following words came out of her mouth, "I was just asking myself that same question." She stuck her hands on her hips, staying probably too calm about the whole thing.

"Honestly, I'm mostly just relieved that nothing is damaged...not a single thing."

Nothing damaged, hm? Weird. "Notice anything missing?" Hadley asked. Obviously Sol hadn't had time to clean up, let alone take any sort of inventory yet, but she may have noticed if something big or obvious had been stolen. Who had done this, and why? His mind went through a couple different scenarios; a random theft, a prank, a personal threat, or maybe something more sinister. For all he knew at this point, it could've been anything. Frustrating.

He walked around a bit, absent-mindedly picking a few things up here and there. He turned back to Sol to ask the question that was first and foremost on his mind. "Any thoughts on who did this?"

Solange sighed deeply, looking to the ground. "Look, Hadley, I didn't want to tell you this because I didn't want to freak you out, but I've had this itching feeling that someone's..." she paused, trying to word it. "It sounds stupid, though it sounds less stupid now that my store is trashed. But I've felt like someone's been following me."

She looked to see if Hadley was making eye contact with her -- she knew he'd go nuts on anyone who'd try to hurt her.

Hadley was looking Sol in the eye, being that that was the best way to tell whether or not someone was lying. It wasn't that Sol lied to him all the time or anything, but when it came to things like this the siblings tended to have...differences of opinion. Clio who hurt or threatened Sol tended to end up on the receiving end of a beating by some hired muscle. Hadley thought it was a fine way to look out for his sister, but she was never happy about it when she found out. Something about the law or morals or whatever.

But it looked to him like she was telling the truth. Surprising, really, given that she could probably guess how he was going to react. "Someone's following you...?" he repeated quietly, calmly. "Have you ever gotten a look at a face, or heard a name?"

If someone was stalking Sol they were going to regret it soon.

She shrugged, bending over to start picking stuff up and cleaning it. She looked to Hadley, motioning for him to do the same. "Help me out here, yeah?"

She turned from him, hanging up a sword. "I don't know who it is -- honestly I thought I was just going crazy. It's just...instinct I guess. But I can take care of myself, Hadley. Don't do anything wreckless."

She looked over her shoulder, giving him a side-eye, suggesting "seriously, don't."

Hadley complied with her request to help clean, kneeling over and starting to clear off the floor. "I know you can take care of yourself," he said. It was true, too. Sol was tough. It was just that...some clio just needed to be taught a lesson, you know? And this guy, whoever he was, definitely needed to. He grinned at her. "And I never do anything recklessly."

Nila snorted. Yeah, right.

What? It's true. That's why I send other people to do the reckless stuff. If he was really such a reckless person, it would have been his body floating in Ramat River, not the guy he had hired to go to Deilig. Which reminded him...

"By the way, do you have any business in Deilig in the near future?" he asked all casually.

"Ha!" Solange laughed. Hadley casually wandered through life practically looking for things to destroy. Clio were no exception, especially if an excuse was handed to him. "Just please be careful."

She thought for a second about his question.

"I'm not sure, why do you need something? You can't find somebody to run errands for you this time?" she joked, a few weapons finding their way off the floor and onto the walls as she started getting crafty and using her Eilemaiden to clean up (why hadn't she done that before?). The handle of a small knife poked Hadley in the back as she joked with him.

Sol wrote:"Just please be careful."

"I should be saying that to you," Hadley muttered. She was the one with the stalker breaking into her store that she lived above, not him. Besides, he was always careful.

Sol wrote:"I'm not sure, why do you need something? You can't find somebody to run errands for you this time?"

Hadley reached behind him and grabbed the handle of the knife that was telekinetically poking at him. Even though he knew Sol had total control over it, he still didn't need random sharp things floating around behind him. "Ha, no," he replied. What was wrong with him sending other people to do his errands? Errands were boring and he could just pay someone else to do them. "I was just wondering because, well, there's some sketchy stuff going on there right now."

"Well," she started, taking a look around her shop. "Apparently some sketchy stuff is going on right under my apartment too."

She chuckled, lifting another wave of weapons from the floor with her Eilemaiden and placing them in the correct spots. She took just a second to appreciate all the work that she (and Hadley's hired welders) had done to create these masterpieces. Dusting off her clothes one last time, she stuck her hands on her hips again, taking a look at her now clean store. She couldn't believe it'd gotten broken into and messed with. How rude...and slightly scary. She had joked about it, but in all seriousness -- this was kind of a big deal.

"What kind of things, though?" she asked, suddenly curious about the level of seriousness outside of her rummaged-around store.

Hadley had sort of stopped helping clean the store as Sol was able to do it much more efficiently with her eilemaiden. He watched as the last weapons found their ways back to their proper places.

Sol wrote:"Apparently some sketchy stuff is going on right under my apartment too."

"True," Hadley agreed. He was gonna get to the bottom of that, though.

Sol wrote:"What kind of things, though?"

"Weeelllll..." Hadley said thoughtfully, wondering just how much he should tell Sol. Obviously he wasn't gonna mention the now-dead guy he had sent to investigate, but she could know the rest. "There've been some disappearances. Foul play, you know. People turning up dead."

He spoke casually, as if describing the weather. None of the crimes in Deilig really bothered him much, in fact he found the whole thing pretty fascinating, but he wanted to make sure Sol was aware of any potential danger there.

"Oh," she said as she looked at Hadley, startled. She knew bad stuff happened around Amelia, but it was a little different having her brother in her shop telling her not to go someplace because of this stuff.

"Okay...well thanks. I'm surprised you're not out there yourself causing trouble." She tried to make it into a joke -- the two of them worked really well as siblings, but that didn't stop her from constantly picking on him. She'd give her life for Hadley, but that didn't mean she'd EVER stop picking on him.

"Trouble? Who, me?" Hadley asked with an innocent smile. To be honest, he had actually considered getting out there and doing some investigating himself. He had just wanted to send someone else first to assess the situation, but look how that turned out. Maybe next time he'd send someone a bit more experienced at spying, and then if that went well, he'd go himself. He was pretty sure whoever had killed his spy might hesitate a bit more with an overloridian, you know, since people would actually notice if something happened to him. Or he could just incinerate them if need be.

"But yeah, I just thought you should know," he continued. "And hey, if you find out anything about the person who broke in, please let me know. I promise I won't do anything reckless, but you know I can always help get the guy arrested."

And if the arresting officers just happened to rough the guy up a little, well, who was Hadley to stop them?

"Well thanks," she said, knowing that if she did find out who it was and told her brother, that person would not get off easily. Arrested or not, something on their body would likely be broken.

"So are you staying a while? Or do you have big Overloridian things to tend to?" she joked. "I could get you something to drink?"

"I probably should go," Hadley said, after thinking it over for a second. He had to meet with some guy about some thing. Boring stuff, but he supposed it had to be done. The two said their goodbyes and then they parted ways.