undergrounds | Once you're lost in twillights's blue

Closed to Faolan: Night-time Walk
If he has meant to or not, Lancelot has found himself associating more and more with people like him.

People with abilities, or knowledge of them. People who know about witches and ghosts, fae and doorways. People who know these things exist not just in films and TV shows and books, but in the shadows around them.

Lancelot had never expected to be anything special, to be anything other than what he is. After all, what qualities does Lancelot have? He's a Community Officer, he loves his dog, he goes to work like anyone else and comes home and goes to bed. His life is hardly rife with excitement and adventure.

Or at least, it hadn't been.

He's thinking about this one evening, having belatedly realised he'll need to run back out to the shops to get a few things. He leaves Lily behind, not meaning to be long, and cuts up a few side roads to get to the supermarket before it closes.

That's when he hears the sound. It sounds like a dog distantly, he thinks, the clack-clack of a big dog's claws on pavement. He glances back idly, but ignores it, expecting someone was out walking their dog late.

Something makes his hackles rise, some sense telling him to run. Making his pulse pick up.

He starts to walk faster, and the animal does too.

That answers the question. Lancelot breaks into a run, and tries to remember the quickest route to somewhere with a gate he can close.

Open: A Day-time Investigation

Lancelot is bruised, a little jumpy, but he's alive -- and now he's somewhat determined to prove what was chasing him.

He's dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, sleeves pushed up as he re-walks the path from the night before with his Lily at his side. The fluffy white Samoyed may not be the world's best hunting dog, but she has a good sense of smell. Far better than his by any estimation. He frowns at the ground as he walks, looking for anything -- fur, blood, scraps of something from the fight. Anything that might help him work out what attacked him, if it was truly a werewolf. Anything that might help track such a thing, or that might tell him if it was alone.

Pausing at the sight of something he crouches down, frowning at a dark patch on the pavement and trying to replay the scenario in his head. Perhaps if he could get someone to run a trace -- would such a thing even work? Could the blood of a werewolf be traced? Would it match the human before they shifted? Would that even help? He lets out a sigh and reaches out to ruffle Lily as she sniffs at it. At the rate they were going, it was most definitely going to be a long day.

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Lancelot is not entirely sure the appropriate response to the flood of information Heiji gives him, in truth. He tilts his head, sill ruffling at Lily's fur.

"Which makes her much better at scent tracking than me," he answers eventually, and flashes the man a smile. "You like animals?"

Even if he does seem uneasy about Lily, it seems strange to know so much about dogs if he has no interest in them before.

Unless he just likes facts in general, he supposes.

Hmm. Did it count as liking animals if you were an animal?

"Some of 'em," said Heiji. Maybe not all of them. Cats were hilarious, and of course he loved chickens. Who didn't? Nice and crunchy, great with marinade...

"You have to train dogs for scent work, though, ain't ya? She do a lot of investigative work?"

"She's young, she's still learning. A food driven learning process, but one that's slowly getting there. Any practice helps, though. She's far from a real police dog, are you?"

Lily looks up as Lancelot's attention turns to her, swishes her tail questioning and moves to hide her face in his chest. Things are Not Right! She doesn't like it, but she will stay here if he will stay here.

"Maybe one day, though. Mmm?"

Well, Heiji could understand the importance of involving food. He still looked a bit as though he was expecting her to start barking at any moment, but her actions so far seemed encouraging...

"So what's her story? You said she was a rescue, yeah?"

"She is. Dumped by the side of a motorway. I suppose she was too much work for someone -- Samoyeds are good family dogs but they're still dogs. They need attention and exercise, a lot of grooming. White fur doesn't stay white long when she gets into things."

As if she would! She's much too good for that. Lancelot gently wrangles her to stop trying to nudge him away from Heiji, encourages her to sit with a gentle hand.

"You heard about the animal attack, then? Do you live around here?"

He squints at Heiji curiously. There's always a chance he did, that he might haven seen or heard something himself.

Heiji looked at Lily for a moment as he listened to Lancelot talk, with an expression that was a little hard to read. What he was thinking even he might be hard-pressed to describe. He fished around in his jacket pocket and pulled out a sandwich -- specifically, the ham portion of it, which he crouched down and held out to the dog.

Take the ham, dog.

"Nah, but sometimes I help out the cops look into cases. Not really animal attack cases, but word gets around. So what about you? You with the police?"

Her ears flick forward curiously, still wary of Heiji but curious despite herself. She's not sure she likes him, but she's hard-pressed to say no to a ham sandwich. She sniffs at the offering, straining her body forward without actually moving, then finally shifts a paw so she can move close enough to carefully take it. She shrinks back immediately, hides herself beside Lancelot and lays down to chew on her prize.

Lancelot drops a hand to continue scratching at her ruff, soothing her with an affectionate smile.

"I am, community officer with Richmond and Wandsworth. I saw the animal in question, oddly enough. Luckily Lily wasn't with me, I'm not sure it would have taken kindly to her."

Heiji put the remnants of the sandwich back in its bag. Maybe he could use them to feed some birds later; the only canine face he liked to have in his sandwiches was his own.

"It take a bite out of you?" This question was important, of course, because of what could happen should Lancelot have been bitten by a werewolf. Being a police officer and secret uncontrollable wolf creature would be a bit of a conflict of interest.

"A bite? No, no good lord no. I managed to lose it -- which is part of why I have Lily here with me. It was definitely injured last I saw it. She'd be far better at picking up a blood trail than I would."

Also far better at consuming ham sandwiches. She licks at her mouth and studies Heiji expectantly. You put the rest away. Why did you put it away? It doesn't matter if it's good for her or not, she'd eat it anyway. All food is there to be eating.

Hmm. After a moment's hesitation, Heiji opened the bag again and offered Lily the rest of the sandwich. How could he say no to such open gluttony?

"You got a plan for if you do find it? Wild animals can be pretty dangerous, but injured animals are ten times worse." And more often than not angry, which made all the difference.

Lily shuffles forward and gently takes the rest of the sandwich, ducks behind Lancelot again to eat it. He sighs at her, as if resigned to her begging every piece of food off strangers that they have, and runs a hand along her back as she settles down again. A plan?

"Half a plan, perhaps," he admits, then tilts his head in thought. "Perhaps more like a third. It's a work in progress."

Heiji gave Lancelot a look that was somewhere between skeptical and concerned. Facing a werewolf with only one-third of a plan sounded... sub-optimal.

But at least it wouldn't be the full moon tonight. In fact, he might not even find it at all -- in human form, at least, werewolves generally had the presence of mind to try and hide their curse.

"Well... good luck, I guess. Hope whatever it was ain't show its face around here for a while."

Once you're lost in twillights's blue

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