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Perhaps that should be your plan of attack, then. I'll help secure the premises in the short-term, but for the long-term, your own inventions might outdo anything that I would come up with.

What I had been about to say is, some wards are even powerful enough to disrupt the Jagan Eye. But then I realized that I would need to explain what the Jagan Eye is, to begin with.

[He's likely right, especially given the thieves of choice are raptors. Quick, yes, deadly, most certainly, but nothing a short sharp shock oughtn't take care of. Rosalind scrawls a note to herself and then writes:]

And what, precisely, is the Jagan Eye?

An implant, of sorts. A third eye, surgically implanted into the center of the forehead, which eventually grows to become a part of its user in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Having it implanted affords its user a vast array of psychic powers — telepathy, telekinesis, mind control, extraordinary mental shielding and resistance. And, pertinent to the discussion, remote viewing and tracking — clairvoyance, of sorts.

It's extraordinarily powerful. But there are wards capable of disrupting it.

Sorry, do you have one?

No, but I know someone who does.

...The human boy in true love with the demon girl, whose twin brother didn't approve of the match? The brother has the Jagan. As far as I know, he sought it specifically to be able to keep tabs on his sister from afar.

Taking "disapproval" to an entirely new level.

How would a ward disrupt such a thing?

His concerns aren't entirely unfounded. She has certain capabilities that make her extraordinarily valuable to unscrupulous humans, should they happen to get their hands on her.

And: by behaving like a jamming signal. Searching for a unique energy signature could be rendered fruitless if that signature is concealed behind a barrier wall of disruptive wards.

Capabilities such as what?

And what would happen if he tried to pass by the wards? Would they repel him, or simply act like a distortion signal to a bat: that is, he'd grow disoriented and unable to focus any of his abilities?

She cries priceless gems — the sort that, sold on the black market, could make a given human extraordinarily rich extraordinarily quickly. Being aware of this, she was reluctant to cry for any reason. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her captors resorted to some particularly ugly forms of coercion in their attempts to force her tears.

He would be repelled, burned, shocked, or some mixture of the three. A painful discovery, no matter the outcome.

There was a fairy story I was told, once, when I was a child. It had a girl who was kind, and so was blessed with a gift like that: the ability to produce priceless gems whenever she spoke. It being a fairy story, it all ended in marriage and true love, but I'd always thought it would be an awful curse.

[There's a difference, she notices. If, he'd said a moment ago. If some unscrupulous humans should get their hands on her; now it's when.

No wonder her brother had gotten such a surgery.]

Did her captors use such wards against him?

Edited 2017-02-15 03:03 (UTC)

Woe betide her if she happened to talk in her sleep, I should think.

In a sense. Their wards served a dual purpose — making it difficult for anyone on the outside to find her, and making it impossible for her to escape the confinement they'd put her in.

They certainly used them against her. I saw the burns firsthand.

I assume she was rescued?

I'll give you three guesses who was sent after her, as a matter of fact.

[It's difficult to think of Urameshi doing such a thing, frankly. It isn't that she doubts his moral character so much as his physical ability: he looks like any other teenager, and how on earth could any teenager do such a thing?

But he had. And he'd defeated the Adh Seid-- he'd vaporized it, in fact. So clearly there's far more to Urameshi than meets the eye.]

As if I've ever needed three. Though I'd be interested in hearing the specifics of that tale.

As stories go, that one is fairly straightforward, actually. It's what we were doing immediately before we were both plucked up and brought here.

[Ah. Hmmm.]

It's also why I was...I suppose you might say a bit resigned, when Yusuke arrived here about a month after I did. I'd thought that he was here to collect me for violating my parole, and consequently wasn't precisely sure what ratio of "friend" to "detective" I was facing.

Well. I'm glad it turned out for the best (although I think even if he had come here as detective, it would have soon evolved into purely friend: it isn't as if he could somehow take you back or arrest you).

Do you imagine

[--? Imagine what? But there's nothing else written, and Rosalind doesn't add anything, not for a long minute. Then, suddenly and frantically:]

i need you to come down to the emporium right now please

Rosalind??

[That's the message that she gets sent during the space of that long minute, when only half a sentence arrives and then the rest of it is conspicuously blank.

Where is she? Where had she been? Bouquets, she'd been at her house — no, the ojigi is there, it would attack if something had got in, but then what could —

...Oh.

Oh, she's at the Emporium, and he's buzzing with all his nerves alight, winding back down from the beginnings of a heart attack.]

Are you in danger?

no
but i need you to come RIGHT NOW

[She's being stupid, she knows, but she doesn't dare take her eyes off the item that's caught her attention. She doesn't dare move an inch, though she knows it's overwhelmingly likely the item won't vanish.]

[Don't scare me like that again, he almost writes, but deletes it halfway through and scrubs a hand over his face, taking a steadying breath even as he gives Parappa instructions how to manage the shop and then heads off to find his coat.]

I'm coming. Please tell me you're all right. I understand it's urgent.

Tell me you're all right, Rosalind.

yes
im all right
im all right i promise you i'm entirely unharmed/span>

I'm on my way. Expect me shortly.

[z o o m]

[She'll feel a touch guilty later for worrying him, but she hasn't room for such thoughts now. Rosalind drops the watch into her pocket and promptly forgets Kurama, too busy focusing on what's in front of her. Her fingers slide across the cover of a notebook (1890, part I), and she bites her bottom lip. She's flipped through them, of course, searching page after page with desperate scrutiny, hardly able to believe it's truly what she thinks it is. But no, it's all truly there: notebook after notebook filled with her handwriting, years of correspondence all hers for the taking.

All she needs is a friend's help, and they'll be hers.

She stands stock still in the Emporium, blue eyes wide, head bent as she reads line after line. Which one was this? 1890, yes, June 6th, the evening of their nineteenth birthday: Rosie, I feel most remiss in not giving you a gift today, but--]

[He's quite the sight when he ultimately comes through the door, mostly on the part of his hair — it's tousled and windswept, gone in all directions, and though he's far from out of breath, it's still immediately apparent that he's literally run the entire way from the flower shop to the Emporium, and the first time he's stopped is when he appears in the doorway and braces his hands on either side of the frame to look around for her.]

Rosalind?

Here.

[It takes her a long few seconds to tear her eyes away from the notebook. Rosalind takes a step back, and then another. Now a slight bit of guilt curls in her stomach, but she doesn't move to him. She won't leave those notebooks.]

Kurama--

...There's something of yours in here.

[It's not so hard to guess, really. Tonika had been this way, too, about her music player technology, hadn't she? Not wanting to leave it, desperate for assistance. He'd built her a battery and it had enabled her to take her prized possession free, and she'd never had to leave it.

Rosalind is acting the same way, now. The difference is, when it's Rosalind, he's got slightly more of a breadth of knowledge to draw on about what that certain something might be — and in his estimation, the only thing that's likely to have provoked a reaction like this is probably something to do with Robert.

So.

Watch yourself, he reminds himself, as he walks over to her. Check your words. Don't be careless or needlessly cruel. Be careful, because likely this is something raw to her, something involving Robert, something that needs particular consideration and care.]

Do you need help meeting the price for it?

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