Botching it in Bromley (Territory Claim)

[bellbound]

They've done their research. They know where the fae in Bromley are hiding out, their movements, their numbers. As far as intelligence gathering goes, it's not a bad effort. They have a plan too. This at least is an improvement over some past witches that Mogget could mention, though in his opinion the plan is rather crude. Samantha could get a lot more resistance than she bargained for.

Which, it turns out, is exactly the case. Of course, Mogget is the one on the ground with the other witches, trying to control a situation that swiftly spirals out of control. Samantha is nowhere to be seen; she gets others to do her dirty work.

He's not looking forward to telling her what went wrong.

[ooc: Planning post here, individual threads for each day below! Feel free to make your own subthreads and let me know if you have any questions!]

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[bellbound]

No child sacrifice going on here. Mogget can't see anything, but he can sense something nonetheless, ears twitching. He needs a better vantage point. He crawls under a parked car, disappearing from view, and emerges from the other side as a white crow, leaping into the air with strongly beating wings.

His crow eyes are keener in daylight than his cat eyes. He circles the area once, then drops down into a nearby tree right above Eames' head. He's pinpointed the source but seeing what hides behind them may not be so easy.

The crow caws, once, twice, thrice. Whatever's down there, maybe if he gets its attention it might reveal itself. (And then he'll be ready to fly away.)

[falsify]

The crow does give him some pause, stopping more out of instinct than any consideration for the noise, but beyond that he thinks little of it. Maybe if he looked up and saw the white bird he might consider a certain fae who had a penchant for pale forms, but as it happens he mostly chalks it up to birds being noisy creatures.

Still, something does feel off, even if it's just the magic in the air. In fact it's almost certainly just the magic in the air making him paranoid, he decides, but he still thumbs the safety off the gun as he keeps moving down the street.

[bellbound]

Still nothing, but the presence he can sense is moving. Mogget takes off, gliding through the air directly above the pavement and as he swoops down he suddenly gets close enough for the glamour to unmask itself – or rather to unmask the man-shaped Unseelie fae whose magical signature Mogget already knows quite well.

Eames.

He banks up with a panicked flap right in front of the Unseelie and is forced to make an ungainly landing in the gutter of a nearby rooftop. The crow hops up and shakes its wings in annoyance, but Mogget's first concern is now to take off and get out of sight since if Eames hadn't spotted him before he probably has now and he's almost sure he glimpsed a weapon in the Unseelie's hands. Mogget's not here for a fight, and definitely not against such a formidable opponent.

[falsify]

That's, well. That's a little less common behaviour with birds, and this time it keeps Eames' attention, glancing up at the gutter where a bird seems to be having one hell of a time. Even before he fully registers the white feathers, it's a sight that strikes Eames as being amusing, but when he does it's not a huge deductive leap to guess who that bird is and he laughs.

In fact, he helpfully drops the glamour so Mogget can be fully aware he's being laughed at.

[bellbound]

He's got dirty rain water on his feathers and he definitely does not appreciate being laughed at. It's slightly better than being shot at, but not by much. The crow turns a baleful eye on Eames, hopping over to the top of a drainpipe where he'll be ready to take off if he needs to.

He doesn't say anything, just in case there's a very small chance that Eames hasn't recognised him. His job is to watch and he'll do that while he still can.

[falsify]

Yeah, that's definitely not a normal bird. Crows don't know how to convey that level of contempt.

"Mogget, was it?" It's a shot in the dark, but the fae has shown a preference for albino forms and it's hardly as if this is a strange place for him to be. "It's rude to follow people, you know."

[bellbound]

Ah. Busted. He scratches a wing with his claw. Around his leg is a red ring with the tiniest of silver bells attached to it. It makes a soft peal as he scratches that's surprisingly deep, and tinged with magic, the sort that binds unruly fae.

"It's also rude to laugh at the misfortune of others," the crow replies, "but I doubt that would ever stop you."

[falsify]

"Consider it karma," Eames says with little in the way of apology in his tone of voice. He stands there looking up at the bird with his arms folded and a light frown on his face, noting the noise but he doesn't know a whole lot about binding himself, but he'll file it away to ask someone about later.

Considering the current climate, Eames should probably spend some time really getting to know that aspect of witch magic.

In the meantime, he glances in the direction he was headed originally and then back to Mogget. "Don't suppose you fancy telling me how to undo this spell of theirs, do you?"

[bellbound]

Mogget is familiar with karma. He doesn't much like it.

He cocks his head at Eames. "Even if I did, I couldn't. Why don't you run? It'll be safer for you. Cross the boundary and you can return to the Other Realm at your leisure."

It's not even far.

[falsify]

"And then what? Stay there and hide? Cower?" He practically sneers, "hope she doesn't find my name and shackle me to her like you?"

[bellbound]

"All of the above." Running away is a sensible option in Mogget's view. But he can see that this one is too hotheaded to take it. "But I can see you don't intend to listen."

And unlike the witches, he doesn't have the ability to compel obedience from other fae.

[falsify]

In most situations, Eames isn't adverse to a tactical retreat. He's a much bigger fan of staying alive than he is having an uninjured ego, but in this case it's more than that. He has a responsibility, and moreover this is an insult he refuses to stand for.

"Surely you should be encouraging me to stay, make some other unwise decision," he raises an eyebrow, curious. "My death or my capture would be a decent win for your mistress."

[bellbound]

The crow ruffles its feathers. "I hardly need to when you've made that decision yourself. Carry on, then. I've no doubt we'll meet again soon."

It seems like Eames is going in the same direction and Mogget's presence hasn't put him off. So it's high time he reported that back to the witches. So thinking, the crow takes flight, circling around to search for the nearest witch. They can't be too far.