#mikail ic

[goddesstrolls]

Also, have you found all the candy bags Glas hid in your office yet? :)

"Well, I thought I did, but then I found one taped to the underside of a leaf on my monstera, so now I have my doubts."

"There's only so many places to hide them, and yet..."

[bastsoldtrollblog]

> Case file in hand, you stride up to Glasya’s office.

> The Investigations branch and, by extension, the Archives office have been moved to a less damaged part of the building. You know you’ve been holed up in your new office for the last few perigees- Recovering, providing support and direction for those still around, overseeing your little part of Gaia as it’s put back together.

> You walk with a limp still. Magic got you back on your feet quicker, but there’s still a long road to full recovery.

> You knock in a little rhythm on Glas’ door.

@raitrolling​

[goddesstrolls-archive]

> Well...Isn’t this a pickle.

> You’ve been here on the side of the highway for, what, two hours now? You don’t expect someone to stop any time soon, either. You lean on the side of a black van, a growing piles of cigarette butts at your feet and a sign- Black sharpie on white cardboard- Reading ‘NEED GAS’.

> Not a lot of trolls drive. Mostly truckers and bikers. However, your van is up the hill from a footpath leading along a river. It’s a nice view, and there’s a decent amount of trolls out and about, so you’ve switched the sign over to the side that faces the path.

> Aaaannnd now you wait.

[goddesstrolls]

>> Scratch the back of your neck as you stand on the roof of Gaia's headquarters, mulling over your little pet project.

>> In the nights since you got a few tips about the presence of a potential demon prince, you've been doing some digging. And you did turn up a few things- Or at least, some slight confirmation: One of the tomes you read had a list of some of the demon princes of the Abyss by title, with one being the "Vanished Prince".

>> Nothing else, though- No name, or other titles to search for. You could have stumbled over the Vanished Prince's other titles and deeds without realizing the correlation, for all you know. There's still more information to root through, but you're reaching the ends of Gaia's limited resources on the Underworld. You don't feel comfortable just letting it rest at that, but you might have to if you don't get a break soon.

[bastsoldtrollblog]

> Okay...

> You should probably at least...Try to figure this out. It’s been a few nights, things have settled- Uh, sorta. Glasya...Doesn’t seem to be taking your silence well. They’re not completely avoiding you, but things are definitely a little awkward. They’re acting out a bit.

> It’s their night off, and you’ve also taken the night off (which will probably unnerve your coworkers, because you simply do not take nights off). You spent a whole fifteen minutes figuring out how to word this text.

MA: Hey. Sorry to bother you on your night off. It’s not work-related, promise. MA: Are you hive? There was something I wanted to talk with you about.

> You figure it won’t be hard to figure out what that something is, so they can decline if they want.

@raitrolling​

[bastsoldtrollblog]

> Whatever you were doing, you freeze for a second, and then clutch at your right eye. You shudder in a panic, something is wrong, something is very wrong, but you don’t know if you can stop it--

> You scream as your eyeball bursts like a squeezed grape, blood gushing through your fingers while you sink to your knees.

> ...It seems the gift you were given has been rescinded.

[bastsoldtrollblog]

Mikail braced his forearms on the railing, head bowed as he looked at his gloved hands half knit together.

The hell. Had he just broken Glasya’s heart? He had no fucking clue. That entire exchange was largely unsubstantial, not so much a confession as just dancing around the subject on both their parts. He was so terrified of hurting them- Of putting them in the same situation he was in with Akalei- Of half killing them with embarrassment like he just fucking had- That it stalled the words in his throat. They still stuck, somehow, like a bitter pill. The cigarette smoke just washed over it, and burned.

Mikail, you idiot. You got in over your head and you panicked.

He grit his teeth with a groan, pressing his palm into his forehead. He was overthinking this! He’d spent way too long overthinking this that he’d circled around to not thinking it through, somehow.

He’d give it a bit more time. Maybe nurse it with some booze. And god, he’d hope he just hadn’t fucked it all up.

The way things seemed to be going for him? He probably had.

[bastsoldtrollblog]

Mikail: Read Another Report.

Mikail slid a folded paper off the slowly thinning stack of urgent paperwork on his desk. The date read yesterday evening.

He chewed a candy stick, rolling in between his molars, and then paused to rub his temple. It was early, those few silent and still hours before dawn. His eyes felt sore, and a headache loomed.

Yet, he felt restless. As he often did these nights. Sleep wouldn’t find him easily, not til he’d had some alcohol. He’d avoid that fate for a little while longer.

He unfolded the paper and skimmed the top. A witness statement? How did that make it onto his desk, much less among the urgent paperwork?

Mikail paused to rub the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. Yeah, that headache was really beginning to settle. Maybe this was his sign to stop.

He slid the statement aside as he straightened his back in the first motions to get up, making half a mental note to send the statement off to the logging office so it could be reunited with it’s case file.

Rubbing his temple and eye wearily with his palm, he took his leave of the office for the night.

--

The statement sat on his desk for a few more nights. He spent most of his time out of his office, chasing things around Headquarters for two of those nights. After that, reading paperwork was refreshing.

The name on the statement caught his eye, finally. He looked at it again and, recalled that it was in the urgent pile. The name of the troll who wrote it explained everything. Probably just Glasya teasing, he could hear it now; “You don’t think my report is urgent? Lame” or something to that effect.

He began to skim it. By (9), he had begun to slow, captured by the details from Glasya’s perspective. His brow knit in concern and, mild confusion as to how this was still a witness statement. He read (9), and then again, before moving on. As he read through (10), (11), and (12), the crease in his brow deepened.

Then he read (13). And he read it again, slowly.

He sat up in his seat and sighed, leaning his head back against the chair and rubbing at the bridge of his nose wearily. Still, a smirk crept onto his lips. What a harebrained idea. To think he’d nearly forwarded it to one of the logging staff, who would’ve read this. What a fucking hare-brained idea, Glasya.

Mikail read through the rest, and laughed quietly again to himself at the last line.

How the fuck was he supposed to respond to this? He wondered if they wanted him to respond at all. It was just- Just a letter. A vent.

Well, the cat was out of the bag, now. This was damn near a confession, wasn’t it?

Grinning to himself, he got to his feet, folded up the ‘statement’ again, and headed out to the Archival office.