#bdrpchess

@professorofcrimeratigan

There was something that Zira needed.

There was always something Zira needed. Anyone who knew her, knew this. She had spent so much of her life waiting for the next thing that she needed. Looking towards the next thing she needed. It almost felt impossible, at this point, to look past all of this to the point where she would have completed her mission. How would she spend her time once Swynlake was plunged into chaos? That was a question to be answered another day.

Today, Zira needed something.

Only one person in her acquaintance could help her achieve it. Her children, while capable, she did not want to put in harm’s way. 

Instead, she went directly to the source.

Going through the history department, she had emailed Ratigan and set up a meeting. There had been almost radio silence since their first encounter, but Zira trusted that he was smart enough to accept.

And so he did.

Zira made her way into PrideU’s building, know the hallways better than most. Once, she had haunted them as a human. Once, she had haunted them as a mother and a wife. 

The clack of her high heels echoed along the stone corridor as she approached Professor Ratigan’s office. She knocked on the door, which was hanging ajar, and then stepped in, closing the door behind her. 

“Mr. Ratigan, it is a pleasure to see you,” she said with a polite smile. She held out a plant towards him. “I thought it may brighten up your office.” 

@vitani-blackwell

Someone was trying to stop her.

It did not take a genius to assume it was the noble king himself. That would be the obvious answer. And it wouldn’t surprise her if he had already gathered a cult following to do his bidding. It was not so different from Zira’s own little band of informants and servants. Their blind loyalty would lead to their undoing, she was sure, so she was unconcerned.

Especially because she had an advantage: Zira had been alive, here in Swynlake, when the spell to break the charter had been written. Which meant she knew what much of it would mean. 

It was Mohatu, whose bones were first interred in the mausoleum that now sat in the center of the sprawling Swynlake courtyard. Not her daughter’s. She had died before the charter had formed. Before Swynlake had formed. Zira knew that it was Mohatu who died first, because she had killed him. 

So nice of him to leave his bones in such an obvious location. Right on top of a hill, in a beautiful white marble building. 

The whole thing was laughably easy. Compelling the deacon to make himself scarce in the middle of the night. The moon was high in the sky, painting everything in cool, blue light.

Zira stood with her hip cocked, a sledgehammer on her shoulder. She smirked as she looked up at the engravement in the mausoleum’s pediment.

L Y O N S

VIRTUTE ET FIDELITATE