undergrounds | A Spring Tradition [Lambeth raid]

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A Spring Tradition [Lambeth raid]

The Unsuspecting
Early morning

At dawn, most people are still asleep, nestled soundly in their beds. Some might be stirring, but all is quiet. What is about to come? Has no warning. Except, if one's extremely perceptive, an influx of the feel of magic in the air.

Still, that could merely be the fault of the changing of the seasons, as the Seelie Court begins to grow in power.

The Surprise
Late morning

At precisely 11:11, something in the air shifts. The fae who had walked in -- that she cannot make a door still aggravates Lagertha extremely -- have changed their purpose. They are no longer merely idling around.

Instead, their magic is used to force open doors or windows.

The news will later report a rash of break ins, with jewellery and pieces of art going missing. Expensive, especially unique things (be they magical or not) are the prize. Cash? Matters little. Three children, left unattended for too long, also vanish.

The Aftermath
Early evening

Circle Daybreak made a fine show, Lagertha will give them that. She let those who opposed her see her as she is, not as she pretends to be. 'Lacy Brook' is still uncompromised.

And it is Lacy who sits at a coffee shop in Lambeth, listening to the news report. The angry police, the 'distraught' parents making a plea for the return of their children.

You shouldn't have been passed out drunk when your son was crying, she thinks as she listens to one single mother weep and wail. That boy? Is far better off under her care in the Other Realm. And she fully intends on keeping him.

"What is the world coming to?" she murmurs as the news story ends.

To her credit, she manages not to look or sound pleased with herself when she says it.

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[ Pick a point in his hunting, earlier or later or after! ]

Lancelot can sense something is happening. His senses are on high alert, and magic is everywhere. Fae magic.

He's sharp enough to know that, but tracing it is trickier. He can feel it, and try to follow it, but the flashes he gets aren't wildly helpful. Things breaking, children crying. When everything is slowly becoming saturated with it Lancelot finds it hard to pick at one thread.

Nevertheless, he will find them. He'll find them and make them turn around.

--

He's calm enough at first, calm enough to be organised and steady, but that wears.

When he walks past a building, gets the sense of something -- a child crying, he thinks? -- his hackles go up and he starts to lose patience. Money, jewellery, everything else. Things don't bother Lancelot. The fae shouldn't take it, but it can eventually be replaced.

So help him, if the fae are taking children again though -- then he'll really lose his cool. Lancelot stops to close his eyes, pinch the bridge of his tries to focus. There's nothing else for the moment, though, and he makes the mistake of starting to move before he opens his eyes -- nearly slamming into someone going by.

--

He was right, he was right. There's at least one child missing and he's sure it can't be a coincidence. He finds the place they were last seen and stands outside, phone in his hand as he tries to focus on picking something up. Come on, he thinks, give me something.

If he can be sure, if he can be totally sure about this then he's sending an alert out. Lancelot knows that fae won't necessarily hurt a child, but they are fickle enough creatures that he doesn't trust them with one. He's not exactly about to give a parent of the year award to the ones who raised him then dumped him, after all. He frowns hard at the building, probably looking particularly strange in the process as he tries to concentrate.

This skill would be a lot more useful if he could dictate what he picked up and when.

(Equally, it would probably be more useful to him if he tried to actually read up on how these things work. Time, though, isn't something he has infinite amounts of.)

"Do you think that it will give you what you want if you frown at it any harder, sir?" Childermass asks, nodding to the phone in the other man's hand as he steps forward from around the side of the building. He'd been hoping to pick up a trace of where they might have taken the boy. Even if he could not have followed, perhaps they might have left something. Thus far however he's finding himself sorely lacking in anything in the way of evidence one way or another.

He recognizes Lancelot, vaguely. A Guardian, he knows him to be. A man from Daybreak, but not a witch. Metahuman ally, if he recalls correctly. Sylvia seems to be fond of him, but not overly so. It's Childermass' job to keep track of such details, but Lancelot hadn't particularly stood out in his researches thus far. Still. Reporting to him might not be a bad idea. Especially considering how the rest of them seemed to be otherwise preoccupied in Bromley, for that matter.

He startles slightly at the sound of the voice, turns around to frown slightly at Childermass instead. In truth, he is not entirely sure who the man is. Only that he often seems to be lurking about Gilbert Norrell, which is not something to particularly recommend him.

"Concentrating," he offers instead, and slips away his phone into his pocket. "Sending out an alert. The fae took at least one child in all the fuss, I'm hoping to get more eyes looking."

Childermass nods grimly, casting a glance out down the street before back at the other man. "It's a nasty business they deal in," he comments. "The stealing of children. I can't imagine what she wants that boy for, though with all of the looting and taking that's been going on in the area today, I suppose that it was only a matter of time."

He turns to look at the man beside him, sizing him up. A Guardian, and... A member of the Police, if he's not mistaken. "I imagine that you're eager to get him back then, Officer Dulac," he says, making it clear that he knows exactly who he's talking about, even if Lancelot has no idea of who he is himself. "Would it please you then to know you are talking to a witness?"

Would it please him? An odd sort of question, but he focuses more on Childermass now.

"Yes, of course. If you have seen anything at all to help then please, tell me. The first day or so of a disappearance is the most critical, especially in situations like this. If we are to have any hope of finding he child or pressuring the fae into returning it we need to move quickly."

Childermass nods. He had expected such a response from the other man, but had asked to hear it in his own words. "Near as I was able to see, there was but one participant in this act," he notes, glancing sideways at the other man. "A woman. Fae woman. She did not appear to act unkind towards the boy, if that should make a difference at all."

He pauses a beat, before admitting, "Perhaps I may have been able to stop her, but I admit, not knowing if there were others who may have been lying in wait, it would have been a risk. One such that I was not willing to take. To wind up with both of us dead would have helped no one."

"Even if she is kind to the child that does not mean no damage is done. The fae have their own customs and behaviour, different to ours, and they age differently. They can tire of children before they are grown."

Flicking through on his phone for something to make notes he glances up at Childermass again.

"Can you describe her? The fae you saw."

Childermass shrugs slightly, knowing how it will sound but then again, are not all fae odd in appearance to some extent? Especially when all of their glamour is dropped and they are in their truest, least human form?

"A Shieldmaiden," he replies. "She appeared like a warrior queen. If I had any guess, I'd say that she's old. But I do not think that any of the nobles themselves would be sneaking into this realm and plucking children from their homes." He gives another shrug, before he offers simpler details. "She was blonde, average height. But from the looks of her I would not care to face her one on one, to be true."

Blonde, average height, appearance of some sort of fighter. Lancelot makes idle notes of Childermass' description, trying to think if he can remember any who fits such a mental image as he frowns at his phone.

"Was the child unharmed when she left with them? Did they seem willing to go, or was the child unconscious at the time?"

All important questions, as they will influence how easy it is to coax the child back.

Ah, such a noble heart this man has. Childermass shifts to lean against the building behind him. He's been on his feet all day, and it wears on a man, regardless of whether that is the norm or not.

"She walked away with him," he responds. "How she got him to come with her, your guess is as good as mine. Some children need little coaxing in such matters at all. He did not appear to be harmed, however, no. Whatever her purposes, or your opinions about such a person, she did not seem to treat him unfairly. For a person who was effectively removing a child from their own home, of course." He offers another little shrug.

"Harm does not need to be intentional to be done," Lancelot points out, frowning up at Childermass thoughtfully. "However content the child may be, harm is being done in removing them from their home. Taking them to another culture. Changing their perception of the world without even meaning to."

Lancelot knows well enough the fae who took him may have, from their perspective, been rescuing him. Yet it has still ended up with patches of his life missing, and that is damage in and of itself.

"Mmm," Childermass tones, which could be a confirmation of the other man's words, or it could be a simple acknowledgment that he said them. It's hard to tell with him, really. He leans back against the side of the building where he stands, taking in the other man and the conviction with which he's made such a statement. It suggests that this is personal, although for what reason Childermass cannot say for certain. Not yet, anyway.

"Perhaps so," Childermass replies after a moment. "Although is not such an experience also defined as learning?" He raises an eyebrow. "And if knowledge were harm, there would be far more stupid people in the world, I think. Or far more damaged, for that." He shrugs again. "It is all in the matter of one's perception. Of course, you being a Guardian yourself," he says, revealing he knows exactly who it is that he is talking to, "I have no doubt what perception it is that you have on the matter. Sir."

Lancelot's brow furrows slowly at Childermass' words, less at the revelation that the man knows who he is (he hasn't kept quiet that he's a Guardian, after all, he thinks he's reasonably well recognised by now) and more at the suggestion inherit in what Childermass says. That he has some preconceived ideas based wholly on his affiliation.

He presses his lips into a thin, unhappy line.

"The fact that something is being learnt is not separate from harm being done," he says finally. "Nor is it the same thing, If you are content to leave a human child in the hands of the fae that is your prerogative, but I intend to see the chid returned to its family."

Childermass raises a careful brow at the other man's words. It's clear that he obviously feels some sort of personal connection to this child and returning him to his human family, although he wonders how much he even knows about where it is that he's come from. Where it is that he's so insistent on returning him to.

"And the fact that a place is considered to be one's home, that certain people are blood kin, that does not mean that it is the best place for a child to be raised," he points out. "But I am not content to do anything. I am merely stating a fact."

He studies Childermass with obvious wariness, but gives a single nod finally. Lancelot is not someone who rises easily to an argument and he isn't about to start now.

"Then you will help?" he prompts. With the child. With tracking down what happened, getting it back. Anything he can. Lancelot is only one person, and he's not one hundred percent sure this is exactly the right situation to call Faolan in on. Not considering what he's up to.

Childermass gives a moment's pause. Will he help with the child? Well as far as he's concerned it isn't strictly necessary. But he's here anyway, and the other man may be a lot of things but he's a Guardian besides them. Refusing to aid a Guardian, no matter how soft that person might seem, could come back to bite him later on. And not just him, but Norrell as well.

So Childermass inclines his head slightly after giving the question the consideration that he should, before responding. "If you should require it... I am here."

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A Spring Tradition [Lambeth raid]

Surprise & Aftermath onward, OTA!

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