A tale of the dark past and lost memories (Private || Rackie and Arc || NSFW)

Luna kept following the track until she finally reached the river. Then she finally realized what she'd been doing. "Oh... Sorry. I've found a connection between the two crime scenes. Both had the same smell and it led me in this direction." The wolf witch finally explained. Then she returned to following the scent, hoping it would lead her somewhere.

Eliza shrugged. "I don't know. What counts as an after-party?" She asked and drank from her cup. "In our case, once we left a party, we would never return."

"I figured, just, I hope nobody gets a heart attack seeing you," Ana said, slowly stroking Luna's back as they walked along. The trail lead them along the riverbank, along to the nearest bridge.

"I don't know either," Yurio said, similarly shrugging.

"There's a probability they'll assume I'm a husky or something." Luna told Ana, as she continued to follow the trace. She really hoped it wouldn't lead them too far into the city.

"Angela returned late yesterday. Apparently... Raccoon... took her to Berlin for some reason." Eliza said. "Luna and Ana went... somewhere with his sister. Did you have any similar adventures?" She asked, seemingly out of curiosity.

"Luna, by my admittedly inexperienced estimation, you're about twice as big as one of those," Ana said, gesturing the estimated height of a husky somewhere below Luna's head.

"Think drinking age," Yurio said, tattling on the youngest Foster, believing fully that Eliza wouldn't really care. It's not like it Angela was above letting others know about everything, since Eliza knew so much. "We went home," he said, shrugging.

"Okay, fair, but consider this: weird things happen all around the world all the time. One day the moon suddenly turns into a black blob, another day an entire city gets eradicated by a single man, another day a plane crashes into the DWMA. Who's gonna care about an oversized dog? Especially when at this point everyone knows what a witch is." Luna said with her nose almost touching the ground, she probably wouldn't stop until the trail ended somewhere. Things like a wolf casually walking around Paris seemed trivial in comparison to all the crazy things that have happened for the past 20 or so years.

"Oh, right, the drinking age in Germany is 16. On the other hand, it's just beer... I remember doing more crazy things with Dalibor when we were about her age." Eliza said calmly and looked to the side as if she was thinking about something. After taking another sip from her cup she refilled it, then looked at Yurio. "Home, you say?" Eliza asked, smirking slightly at him. The atmosphere around her slightly changed - she seemed somewhat amused by Yurio's statement, despite not showing it directly at first. Eliza looked all over her daughter's body before looking back at Yurio. She covered her lips with her fingers and let out a very quiet giggle, which made Aurora blush all of the sudden. "Aurora really does remind me of myself when I was her age, actually." Elizabeth said.

"Also fair, but are most people in Paris used to seeing it over just knowing it happens?" Ana countered. Not that it really mattered, since they were doing what they had to and if anyone freaked out it would be their own problem in the end.

Yurio put his cup down on the table before letting his face promptly follow it, causing a little tea to jump above the rim of the cup but luckily enough not outside it. It was an entirely innocent thing to say, it could have even meant that they went their separate ways, but no. She knew exactly what button to push to destroy any and all composure he had managed to gather.

"I don't know, people in Death City definitely are." Luna said. She had no way of knowing for sure what people from outside of Death City were used to since it was her first (technically, probably the third) time traveling outside Death City. "Besides, if people start freaking out, I'll just transform into my human form."

"Oh dear! Are you okay?" Elizabeth asked him, reaching out to gently shake his shoulder. There was this kind of a weird innocently-mischievous smirk present on her face as she did that.  
Meanwhile, Aurora covered her face with her hand and let out a barely audible groan. It seemed like not only her mother embarrassed her and Yurio but she also destroyed her attempts to make Yurio less scared of her. All that in one simple move

"People in Death City live within driving distance of the reaper himself," Ana said, shrugging. Though Luna was right. Ana herself definitely wouldn't find it massively weird to see a massive canine walking down the street, that much was true enough.

Yurio slowly lifted his head, showing the slightly red patch right on the front of his forehead. "I'd say that your intuition is scary, but the conclusion isn't as difficult to reach as the first time you did this..." Yurio spoke, while gradually turning his face away from Eliza, finding that not hiding himself was an intensely difficult task. He felt like he'd be read like a book if he didn't...

"Fair, but right now some people here live within walking distance of a kishin egg hideout" Luna said as she looked up at Ana for a moment. "This trace just goes on and on..." She complained.

Eliza smirked and put a leg on a leg, as she kept looking at them. "I've always been good at observing and deducing." She said, before drinking from her cup.
"Yeah, but it's embarrassing to us... It's like no matter what we did, you'd always know..." Aurora explained, still red on her cheeks.
Elizabeth smiled, this time in a more, genuine and friendly way. "I'm your mother, it's my job to make you embarrassed." She said, half-joking.

"I guess. Not that most people would know about it," Ana said. "Bear with it a little longer. Once it leads us somewhere, you'll need to be in your human form anyway." 

"You've got weird hobbies," Yurio said, sighing. He picked his cup back up and started sipping at it, apparently no longer eager to converse for the moment.

"Yeah, I guess I have no choice but to keep following the smell..." Luna said as she put her nose to the ground again.

"You'll understand if you become a parent yourself." Elizabeth said, before giving him a slight smirk. "Or maybe the question should be... when?" She said one last joke, before emptying her cup.

"It'll work out. Hopefully that'll be three eggs gone by the end of this," Ana said.

"Uuugh..." Yurio groaned at Eliza's messing with the two of them, slowly sinking into his seat.

"Yeah, we'll also be three souls closer to our goal." Luna said, picking up the pace slightly. "It'll be one less thing to worry about, for the citizens of Paris." She added.

Eliza giggled at Yurio's reaction. "He is so much fun to tease" She told Aurora.
"Isn't that abuse of power as his boss and the mother of his girlfriend?" Aurora replied and placed a hand on Yurio's shoulder. Despite trying to keep her composure, her face was all red.

"Three less things to worry about," Ana corrected, keeping pace with Luna. 

"It's not fun for us!" Yurio protested at the treatment Eliza was giving the two of them, gesturing to himself and Aurora. He then huffed into his almost-empty cup and pouted behind the rim.

"The kishin egg threat is something I consider to be just one thing. The others are things mostly caused by humans themselves." Luna replied, but the tone of her response was colder than her usual way of speaking. It was more similar to the way she'd been speaking when she got affected by her magic for the first time. She stopped for a moment and shook her head violently. "Ugh... Sorry, it's getting to my head." Luna said normally as she looked up at Ana. "My point is, humanity has many things to worry about. Kishin eggs are on the list of those things." She explained with a calm tone.

Eliza tilted her head to her side. "Would you like me to stop then?" She asked, smiling politely at Yurio. At that point, she wasn't showing any signs of her intention, so Aurora couldn't really tell if she was still messing with them.

"Ah, yeah, but, I just mean that there are three eggs," Ana said, holding up three fingers. At the magic slowly taking hold of Luna, she thought for a moment while stroking her fur, when a thought came into her head. She grasped a fistful of fur, hoping that it wasn't the wrong thing to do. She seemed to enjoy that sort of thing before, so Ana figured maybe it'd bring her back around a little.

"Please?" Yurio said, pleading not only in words but with his expression.

In response to that, Luna let out a quiet dog-like whimper and looked up at Ana. "What was that for?" She asked, in a whiny voice. It seemed like outside of their private fun times, she was actually less than happy to be treated harshly. Or perhaps the feeling of having her full pulled was lest pleasant than she assumed it'd be.

Eliza was silent for a moment as if she was contemplating something. She wasn't looking at them, rather, she was staring at a nearby wall. "Well, then." She finally said, staring at Yurio with a serious look. "What can I do, as your girlfriend's mother, to make you like me more?" Elizabeth asked, then, after a moment, smiled slightly at him.

"Ah, uhm..." Ana tried to think of an excuse that wouldn't sound too stupid, but between feeling really bad and also like kind of an idiot, she took a while. "I thought something sudden like that might stop the magic a bit but, like I'm not sure why I thought it would... Sorry. Won't do it again, even if it did do anything..."

The straight up question was a little surprising, but if she was asking seriously he wasn't going to keep an answer from her. "Just don't let me know what you know. Oh, and look a little less like you're reading me like a book if you can? Though that's not as important. All that being said, I think you're still about a billion times easier to get along with than my brother's potential in-law."

Luna let out a chuckle and then shook her head amused. "Nah, it's okay." She said in response to Ana's apology. "It... didn't help much, I guess. It was just slightly unpleasant. Who'd have thought my fur can be so delicate" She explained, just to assure Ana that everything was all fine. "Actually, I feel more concentrated on keeping myself in check right now. I guess it did help" Luna said after a pause.

Elizabeth was silent for a moment as if she was mentally going through his words again. "Hm, I suppose it's doable." She finally said, smirking at them both. "All I need to do is play blind and dumb." Eliza concluded, shrugging. From the tone of her voice, they could probably tell that she was half-joking about that part. "Anyway, you keep making sure Aurora is a happy girl and everything's gonna be great between us."

"Oh. Well. That's good, then, but I won't do it again," Ana said, now back to stroking Luna's fur as they went along, careful to be as gentle as possible even with that. A while after coming off of the bridge and to the other side of the river, the scent would quite suddenly take a turn into another alley, before stopping just as suddenly above a manhole cover.

"That's what I hope to do," Yurio agreed with the condition and gave Eliza a smile, finally.

When Luna reached the end of the main part of their trail, she transformed and stood over the cover, with her hands on the hips, staring down at the metal disc. "Into the severs we go, I guess..." Luna commented, sounding less than happy at the thought of hunting their targets in such a place. After letting out a sigh, she started mumbling both her magical mantra and a spell incantation. "Physical enhancement: strength" Was the first spell, at the first glance, didn't change anything. Apart from creating a barely noticeable red aura around Luna's body. "Energy manipulation: create object" As Luna used the second spell she shot blue light out of her hand. The light started morphing into a somewhat long rod-like object which ended with a hook. "Are you ready?" Luna asked calmly, almost emotionless, as she pointed her magically-crafted hook at the manhole cover.


Aurora let out a sigh of relief when the tense atmosphere between Yurio and her mother died down a bit. Maybe now that Eliza promised not to tease them anymore, her boyfriend would finally stop being so scared of her.
"Have you ever thought of introducing Yurio to your grandparents?" Eliza suddenly asked her daughter.
"Uhm, no, not really?" Aurora replied and turned to look at Yurio. "Would you like to meet them?" She asked

While half-watching Luna use her magic to enhance herself and create what amounted to a crow-bar, she made sure to look around in case of ambush, considering that they were likely nearing the hiding place of the eggs they were on the hunt for. She did think, though, that perhaps using her magic so early wasn't the best idea; she didn't mind if Luna used her weapon form as a lever, though it was too late to say so now. "As ready as I'll ever be to go sewer diving," Ana said.

"I wouldn't mind it," he said, though he tilted his head in a questioning manner. He couldn't think of a purpose of going out of his way to do so, beyond doing it for the sake of it; he figured it'd happen eventually, anyway.

"Well, you have this advantage of being able to stay in your weapon form." Luna responded before using her crowbar to lift the cover and push it aside. The magically-created tool did its job and soon disappeared and the way it did almost looked as if the witch sucked it inside her hand. "Do you think the sewers and the catacombs are somehow connected?" Luna asked as she looked into the manhole. To her being in the latter sounded better than being in the former.

"Oooh!" Aurora suddenly realized that there was more to her mother's suggestion. She snapped her fingers. "Right. So, my dad's parents live in a small town in Czechia and my mom's parents live in the outskirts of Glasgow so..." Aurora said.
"So, it seems I've just suggested you two could go on a short vacation for a few days. Who knows, maybe you'll run into some adventures?" Elizabeth interrupted to explain her reasoning.

"I guess I do, huh," Ana agreed, looking down into the hole. "I hear there are lots of places you can enter the catacombs from, that you wouldn't expect. Hell, the manhole might go right in without a trip to stink-town, but I can't see," Ana spoke while she tilted her body this way and that to try and get a look into the murk. "Well then. No reason to delay," Ana said, finally, shrugging, as she turned around to get a foothold on the ladder within the entrance, slowly stepping into the hole.

"Glasgow..." Yurio said, squinting his eyes and tilting his head as he tried to think of the place. "That's in... Scotland, isn't it?" He figured it out eventually, then tilted his head the other way looking at Eliza, questioning. "You're Scottish?"

"Don't you think it's a little too dangerous for you to go in first?" Luna asked, tilting her head to the side. Then she scratched her head and closed her eyes, realizing something. "I hope you're not planning to catch any nice views from that ladder." She said. Although, the length of her robe would certainly make peeping a little bit more difficult. A moment later, Luna followed Ana and started descending into the darkness.

"Yes, partially. Don't expect me to start speaking Scottish though." Eliza said, using a heavy English accent. A smirk appeared on her face afterward as she looked Yurio in the eyes. "However, ken that ah kin speak it." She added, this time with a Scottish accent.
Aurora looked at her mother surprised. Her jaw dropped. She had never heard her mother speak like that. "Wha..." In response to her reaction, Elizabeth only giggled quietly.