RP:J'accuse..!

Part of the The End's Not Near Arc

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc

Summary: Pilar rushes back to Frostmaw to inform Hildegarde and Reginae of the deeper, darker secrets regarding the witch persecutions in Larket. And who should have a hand in this grim business? None other than Muzo! Reginae refutes this evidence, stating Muzo was trustworthy and decent while Hildegarde heads off to Larket to confront the Queen and King about the incident.

Frostmaw Fort

The ride to Frostmaw seemed to take forever. Pilar was tired, and holding onto Emielle was harder than it should have been. But she had to tell them, had to warn them... Emielle was a few feet off the ground, preparing to land when Pilar leapt from her back. The vampire, wearing a damaged black dress, rushed into the fortress. She stopped at the first guard she saw, asking for Hildegarde's whereabouts. "It's urgent," she said. The guard pointed her towards the west wing, where Reginae was staying. Pilar thanked him and hurried along. She knocked on Reginae's door. Pounded on it really. "Are you in there? I have news and it's not good!" she called.

Reginae wasn't there, but she saw Pilar run past her on the way in her shifted form. A male rouge, not shirtless in Frostmaw's harsh conditions. He's wearing a mantle of black, thick fur and baggy pants. Two daggers on his belt, one on each hip and laced boots. His eyes follow the vampiress, watch her knock on the door before he tussles his black hair and frowns. She didn't -like- shifting in front of people. It was a little awkward. "Hold on -" he insisted, aware of the alarm in her eyes by being confronted by a stranger. Immediately he holds his hands up, don't shoot. "It's me," She said, using her voice through his mouth. She wants to change back but she's still not openly alive. His eyes flicker to the familiar azurite blue of Reginae's and her male's form holds his frown. "What's wrong? You look like you've been riding all night..."

Pilar whirled around, eyes wide. "Who--" She stopped. The voice, the eyes. Reginae. Pilar didn't relax, yet another sign something bad had happened. "I have been. I just came from Larket. Where's Hildegarde? She needs to hear this too." Pilar looked ill, almost. She sure felt it. Her stomach was twisted into knots.

"I don't know," Reginae's male form shrugged. "But I bet if we check the throne room, we can try to find her." His arms extend, offering Pilar to go ahead of her. She possessed the information; Reginae was just a tag along at this point. His hair is smoothed back again, a rough sigh in his throat. Whatever this was - whatever it meant. It stuck in her throat like molasses and refused to be swallowed. The bitter taste of change was in the air and she didn't like it. Not one bit. His long legs are enough to match Pilar’s stride as they advance on the throne room with hopes to find the Dragon Queen within.

Likely to everyone's surprise, Hildegarde was not in the throne room! Lisbeth is, however, and is quick to politely direct Pilar to the supply room and offer the male rogue a rather suspicious look. She doesn't much like the look of this guy. Should Pilar and the disguised Reginae toddle along to the supply room, they'll discover Hildegarde sitting on the stone bench with her short-sword in hand and draped across her lap, a whetstone being carefully - almost lovingly - pulled along the edge of the blade. The Silver, upon being disturbed, is swift to rise from her seat and point the tip of the blade to the floor and keep a firm grasp of the whetstone. "Pilar," she nodded her head, before looking to the rogue. The eyes seem familiar but... it would be unwise to assume without confirmation.

Pilar nodded to Hildegarde in turn, then made sure the door was shut. She gave the room a cursory glance, then said, "I've got some disturbing news. Reginae, you might want to sit down." There was your answer, Hildegarde. Assuming Reginae either did so or politely declined, Pilar would take a deep breath and sigh. "I... I don't know how to tell you guys this, but... Muzo has been torturing witches. Under Larket's watch."

Reginae's male form lofted his brow at the Silver before puckering his lips to blow her a kiss. When Pilar speaks, in rushed tones, he stands nearby, arms crossed. Why exactly is she supposed to be sitting down? Her brow knits in confusion and waits for this bombshell. It doesn't hit her right away. Reginae trusted Pilar to the ends of the earth but Muzo was her other half. He'd never betray them like that. She's the first to speak up, arms extended in disbelief as if holding to fighters apart in a boxing match. "Now hold on, I'm not saying I don't believe you but I don't believe he'd do that without being...tricked somehow. Muzo isn't some rogue scientist. He has standards and ethics!"

Hildegarde didn't actually know much about Muzo, so this news about him conducting illegal and horrific experiments on the witches of Larket is not exactly shocking news to her. But it is nonetheless disturbing. The Silver lapsed into silence, listening as Reginae's disguised form began to protest the idea under the basis that Muzo was a scientist and thus had a strict standard of morally acceptable ethics. Although Hildegarde has little experience with scientists and the like, her understanding of them is that they usually like to test the boundaries of all laws and natural rules in order to find something new and groundbreaking. "I am not saying I do not believe, but what evidence do we have to support this?" Obviously, Hildegarde is thinking along the lines of: without evidence, there's nothing to prove.

Pilar looked at Reginae sadly. She knew too well what it was like to be in denial of someone you loved doing unspeakable things. And Hildegarde brought up a good point. Pilar sighed heavily. "All the evidence is in his chamber, and I don't know if we can get at it... Or if it'll have been scrubbed clean. All I can tell you right now is what happened." Pilar hoped they at least would trust her word. "After the protest at the camp, where several witches were shot and killed, guards were seen gathering the corpses and bringing them towards the fort. It's been months and the bodies haven't been returned. So, I decided to try and investigate. I disguised myself as a witch and pretended to have been murdered in front of a pair of guards. They took me to a chamber hidden underneath the royal gardens. It stank of rot and there were about half a dozen bodies in bags piled along the wall. And, there was a woman, chained to a table, with her chest opened so you could see her insides. And she was alive. There was a machine feeding her some kind of potion. I was angry, and Muzo called for guards, and then some other man showed up, and... Gods, it all went to hell."

Reginae crosses her arms, trying to not be biased to this information but wanting to protect herself if it's true. Like her arms are armor, and will filter out her words before they cut a gash through her heart. Muzo...could he? Last time they'd talked, he'd told her he'd run into some trouble with his work for the Larketian crown. That he couldn't tell her what he was working on. Not even her! The secret keeper! Her brow knits together with concern, pondering thoughtfully. "Was there any kind of confrontation with him?" She asks, wondering if he'd fought or if he'd shuffled back to let the guards deal with it. Wondering if he's investing or he was just embarrassed. He had a tendency to be secretive with most of his experiments. She thought it was because most people didn't understand what he was actually -doing- and he lost patience explaining. Had she ever seen him angry or lose patience with anyone? She can't recall. He was so quiet and docile. How could he be involved in something so gruesome. Then she remembers the homunculus...and the male's hand moves to clinch his temples, eyes closed and sighing. "I can't believe this...." She whispers.

Hildegarde had recently been rather irritated with Pilar in regards to the witches of Larket, not enough to deny her or to tell her off but it was a slow bubbling kind of irritation that she did her best to keep well beneath the surface. As Pilar points out that any evidence that was there has likely been destroyed at this point, the Silver emits an irritated exhale. It wasn't Pilar's fault, no. But it meant there wouldn't be much they could do. "Who was this other man, do you know?" Information was key at this stage. "Here," she said, turning away to try and find some kind of sheeted pad and pencil for Pilar. Dropping the whetstone in exchange for the pad, she extends it out for Pilar to take, "Write down everything you can remember. Descriptions of people, what was going on, anything and everything. Even if you think it isn't particularly relevant, put it down. Odd smells, colours, anything. Write it down." As Reginae struggles to believe Muzo could do such a thing, Hildegarde cannot speak for his character and does not attempt to. "I take it you know Muzo quite well then?" she asked, realising after the question had been posed that this might have been a bit insensitive of her. "Pilar, do you have an update regarding the Eyrie mission?"

Pilar took the pad and paper and began to write, starting with her story. She paused when Reginae asked about a confrontation. She looked troubled. "There was. He lunged at us, but the woman, she..." Pilar looked at Reginae, eyes brimming with guilt. "She knocked over a tub of... I don't know, but it burned him badly. I tried to help, but the guards..." She looked back at the paper, then continued to write. To Hildegarde, she said, "The other man called himself the Larketian Royal Botanist. I don't remember his name. I don't think he even said it. But he took the woman. I don't know where they went, or if they got out..." She kept writing. Every detail she could remember. The smell of rotting corpses coming from bags along the wall, the serum keeping the the woman alive, the mysterious man's electromancy. Some things were harder to remember, despite how it had only happened a short time ago. "I don't have any new information about the mission, no, but I'm going to send word to Odhranos immediately. We have to get them out."

Reginae, for the first time in the presence of Hildegarde or Pilar scuffs roughly. The Larketian Royal Botanist. "Callum," She adds, naming the man who had claimed such a title to her before. It couldn't be true. "Muzo's my partner." She explains to Hildegarde, which might only hurt her disbelief in his actions. Two years...and she didn't know this was possible. Surely no one wants to believe someone close to them is capable of such a thing. Then Pilar admits that he's been burned and her male form's shoulders tense. If she finds him, and his face is burned like Pilar's mentioned...how would she be able to refuse this reality? She draws in a heavy breath, trying to compose her emotional response with logic but she struggles. She believes Pilar but she wants to believe in a different circumstance. In something they don't know to fill in the gap of 'why'. Composure shivers through her and her emotions win out. "If you're right, he'll need to be brought in for questioning for that cause. His testimony would be enough evidence to oppose the Larketian Crown on the grounds of...torture, kidnapping..." She reasons, an excuse to go find him and confront him. She might be the only one who could get close enough to him to find out the truth. He certainly wouldn't be polite to Pilar or Hildegarde right now. 'He lunged at us.' She shakes her head, displacing the slicked back jet black hair. "With your agreement." Azurite eyes fix on Hildegarde. They were allies after all, and it could be the beginning of a conflict with Larket if she captured their scientist. She couldn't look at Pilar. It wasn't her fault but her heart would break at this information and she couldn't afford it. She had to stay determined. "Thank you Pilar, for letting us know." She added, grimly.

Hildegarde nodded upon hearing the name 'Callum'. It wasn't a name she knew, but one that she took note of. "Pilar, ready my steed," by that she meant the dire reindeer some of the men had come to affectionately call 'Slasher' under some strange Yule time song and folklore. "I want you to ready my steed, inform Lisbeth of my intent to go and tell her to ready the Queensguard. You will then speak to Mistral and elevate the mission we spoke of to a full Eyrie priority mission," meaning that it was no longer a secret mission that they must hide for the sake of politics. When Reginae speaks to Hildegarde about agreement and questioning Muzo, the Silver looks to her and says: "I ride for Larket. I mean to speak to Josleen and Macon, I mean to make justice in this world and have those who are accountable answer for their crimes." Whether that be Muzo - if he acted alone - or the crown itself. Justice would come to Larket like a winter storm.

Pilar finished writing her account and put the pad and pen down. To Reginae, she said, "You're welcome... I just... I'm sorry." She shook her head, then looked to Hildegarde. Even as she felt glad the Queen was finally taking action... She knew this would be hard. Not just politically, but personally. She even began to feel guilty for being angry with Hildegarde at all. "Right away, Hilde." She hesitated, then said, "I'm sorry. For... For all of this. For how I acted, for... I'm just sorry." She said a quick goodbye to Reginae, then turned to carry out Hildegarde's orders.