#rajelle

Said to have hailed from a prestigious town called Heartopia, Raj arrives as a new addition to the village by courtesy of co-founder Falkin.

For Rajah to connect the dots in his Boy-gets-coerced-by-sorcerer-into-becoming-hostage case, he needed a sorcerer, but barring that, he needed information that the internet could not provide. Magic, anyway, did not like to be held in the confines of technology--which included the internet. It was weird how many Wiki entries were there one day and gone the next. 

The Swynlake library he found had a decent magic section, which made sense for a magic-friendly town-- but it was all rather recent stuff, and mostly there was an abundance on fairies. Nothing at all about spells. He figured there might be a rule somewhere about selling spellbooks-- and honestly, he knew that sorcerers created their own, it was a massive part of being a sorcerer-- so he was shit out of luck on that one. You had to special order that stuff. 

Which meant, he figured, an independent book store might give him more answers. 

Raj was not a big reader-- unless it was for work. So he’d not yet gone into Chapter Three. He passed it on his runs, saw it while walking to and from the gym, and knew that Belle--who was still more or less his client on this case--worked there. Today would be the first time he’d ventured inside. It would be the first time he’d been in a bookstore, probably, since his uni days. 

The bell chimed as he entered. He took a few slow steps in, glancing around at the rows and rows, and knew he’d be instantly lost in this paper jungle. He was in dire need of assistance. 

He approached the counter and yes--none other than Miss Belle Beauton herself was sitting there. 

When he arrived at Belle Beauton’s house, there was no door. 

Seriously. 

It had been a few days since Miss Beauton had come to the station, holding back tears, and in that time they’d filed the papers to open her case and started poking around Yubaba’s inn, which is where she’d pointed. He had recalled in those few moments Copper had let him stay in the office (before he’d been rudely pushed out), that Belle had mentioned a ‘fight’ had occurred before the dragon (which was why he was here) had swept away her one friend. If she’d reported more than that, Copper left out the details in the paper work. He hadn’t mentioned any serious damage like what Raj walked up to. 

The door wasn’t exactly...off the hinges-- it was just more like... blown-apart. In scraps and sharpnel. He wondered for a second where to really knock on the thing. The chunk of wood surviving at the top of the “door?” The chunk of wood at the bottom? The strip of wood clinging near the frame? 

It wasn’t the only damage. The front yard was scorched, the walkway torn up. The porch step had been smashed. Raj picked through all these details in amazement. trying to delicate step around the damage as if he were walking on his tippy toes. He felt ridiculously bad about being here now especially. Clearly the woman had some pretty big concerns on her plate. 

But he was here--of his own accord. He mentioned he was gonna see Belle to his partner ‘course, in an off-hand manner, but this was unofficial. He was off-duty and in his civvies, with his badge tucked in his back pocket. Now he gently pushed at the door, hinges creaking awkwardly, then decided it was best to knock against the frame itself. He rapped a few times, cleared his throat and called in.