Work Text:
The screen flickers to life on a room.
Official and clean, coloured in various shades of teal and purple. An insignia is printed on the wall behind the figure in focus, one easily recognised as being the ancient sigil of the legislacerators.
The figure in focus is a troll-woman garbed in a long-sleeved teal bodysuit accompanied by an oddly cut scarlet red vest that when combined with a solid black band around her waist depicted a recognizable blood-clan symbol. She’s seated before the screen, eyes hidden by a sharp pair of scarlet-tinted glasses, black hair framing her sharp, pointed face in distinctively shaped sharp strands. Two horns sit upon her head, pointing skyward and diagonally away from the centre of her skull.
One of her hands, garbed again in her long scarlet red gloves, retreats from the top of the screen to clasp the other resting on the surface between the troll and the recording device; brown and wooden it can logically be contextualized as a desk by the presence of a file and a number of writing implements laid out on top of it.
“Personal Investigation Notes of Neophyte Redglare. Night One of Investigation #228; the case of the Gold-blood found deceased by the river in Sector 13 Area 4.”
Redglare is composed as she speaks, voice contained and bland as she recounts facts to the recording device set up in front of her.
“The victim was discovered in the hour approaching the Moons’ apex. Found fully clothed but missing identification tags as to her level, designation and identity. Initial investigation of the meatsack showed a number of lesions and a large amount of bruising around the organ cavity.”
She paused, turned her head downwards and flipped through the file laid out in front of her.
Her face remains focused on the papers when she starts to speak again.
“Initial on-site investigation currently has C.O.C. as blunt force trauma to the organ cavity leading to the rupturing of the inhalation sacs.”
She lifted her face back to the recording device, hands moving to clasp each other on the open file laid out on the desk.
“Signs of a struggle at the site observed, noted and recorded. No reports of a disturbance heard in the earlier hours of the night by those around the area the meatsack was discovered. Further questioning of those in the area will be carried out. No evidence or clues as to the identity of the culprit were found at the site. Further investigation needed. Current hypothesis as to the culprit’s identity is the of another Lowblood.”
She unclasped her hands, one of them reaching forward towards the recording device before the scene ends in a sudden black screen and snow.
The next scene starts after a minute of static.
The screen opens to the same scenery as the previously, the walls are the same colour, the insignia remains, but the desk has a notable increase of files, loose papers, writing instruments and photographs strewn about it making it look much more cluttered than previously.
Redglare is there again, sitting in front of the recording device.
She appears more frazzled, not as put together as she had previously, and tenser in the set of her shoulders, the pinch of her brow and the twist of her mouth.
“Personal Investigation Notes of Neophyte Redglare.”
She sounds as tense as she appears, voice more clipped and stiff, formal and contained, almost unnatural in how lacking in emotion it is.
“Night Two of Investigation #228; the case of the Gold-blood found in Sector 13 Area 4. Further investigation of the meatsack confirmed prior theorized C.O.C; collapsed inhalation sacs as a result of blunt force trauma to the organ cavity. Identifaction was located further down the bank of the river the meatsack was found near and the Gold-blood has been identified as one Mocrom Warnob, rank C, psionic. Investigation into Warnob lead to the discovery of contact points in the form of a Moirail (Bronze-blood) and a Matesprit (Purple-blood).”
She takes a deep breath and holds it a moment before continuing.
“Moirail was able to be contacted and questioned regarding the victim. Matesprit was not. Moirail informs that—”
She cuts herself off.
Takes another deep breath before starting to speak again.
“Moirail informs that Matesprit had not always been kind to the victim; often taking advantage of their higher blood caste than the victim’s own in a variety of ways. Further investigation into this lead will be looked into but primary hypothesis as to the identity of the culprit remains another Lowblood.”
She leans forward again and the recording cuts off, screen going dark immediately.
The transition between scenes is longer this time. The static is louder, more drawn out and jarring to the ears.
The screen turns back onto the setting of the previous two recordings.
Redglare sits in front of the recording devices once again, glasses missing from her face which is buried in the palm of her hand, elbow resting on the surface of the desk whilst the hand that had turned on the recording device dropped onto the wooden surface of the desk, clenched into a loose fist.
She takes a deep, shuddering breath and speaks, voice clipped and full of barely contained emotion.
“Personal Investigation Notes of Neophyte Redglare. Night Three of Investigation #228; the case of the Gold-blood found in Sector 13 Area 4. Investigation has been ordered to cease by superiors. No more time, effort or resources is to go into the matter. The victim’s meatsack will be disposed of before dawn. The perpetrator behind the culling is unimportant within the context of the victim’s identity and the suspected identity of the perpetrator.”
She stops speaking and the recording lapses into silence for a number of minutes.
She shifts, rubbing at her brow with her palm before her hand falls to the surface of the desk, her other hand relaxing from the fist it had previously been clenched in.
She looked away from the recording device, away from the notes, files and photographs still strewn about her desk in a messy, chaotic order.
A furrow is clearly visible on her face as her gloved fingers tap on a singular loose piece of paper, the writing on it unseen by the recording device.
“Official Investigation has been terminated.”
She reaches forward and turns off the recording.
The screen cuts to black and static once more.
The wait is longer still than previously before the screen bursts into life one final time.
The scenery is completely different than all the other recordings before.
No longer is it the detached, clean and orderly office of the prior entries. Now it was darker, walls of plain dark colouring and without anything to indicate it as being a place of official work or standing.
There’s a cane at the side of the screen, resting against the back wall. Splashes of vivid purple are just able to be made out where the white head, carved in the shape of a dragon’s skull, meets the rest of the cane.
Redglare is sitting before the recording device once again.
She’s missing her teal blue and scarlet red legislacerators’s uniform and is instead garbed in a pair of dark, what looks to be coon-ready pants and a set of plain rumblesphere bindings.
Her head is turned towards the ceiling above her, spine leaning heavily against the back of the chair she’s sprawled in, hands splayed out and hanging limply at her sides after turning the recording device on once again.
She takes a deep breath and releases it in a single, heavy sound, head lifting until she could look at the recording device, hair messy and eyes tired with noticeable dark bruises lying underneath them.
“Personal Investigation Notes of Neophyte Redglare.”
Her voice is tired, completely drained of energy. But there’s an undercurrent of satisfaction to it.
“Night Six of Investigation #228; the case of Mocrom Warnob who was found by the river in Sector 13 Area 4 after a disagreement with her matesprit turned deadly. Culprit has been identified, apprehended and Justice delivered for the victim. The Investigation is now closed.”
She reaches forward and the recording cuts out once more into stillness and static before that too ends, leaving an empty blank screen with nothing else to share.