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Fending him off...

[Near sighs.]

Of course he hasn't gone about it the right way. It would be impossible for him to. Their very nature means the two of them are going to clash in one way or another.

And they both lack subtlety.

[Myr, also, sighs.]

True enough.

Is there a solution? One, I hope, that doesn't involve locking them in rooms very far away from each other.

You could try asking the man yourself. He is, after all, still a human being.

A confused and hurt individual, who's arrived here with someone else's luggage already dumped on top of them. Even if that someone wore their face, they might as well have been a different person.

They won't be bonding, which solves most of your problem right off the bat.

[Grunt.

He hates being called on his own lack of empathy after he's worked very hard to discard it.]

A human being I've found very difficult to talk to on his own terms in the past. And I can't tell him what he wants to hear if Linden won't have it shared.

Nor, I think, would he believe much of it if I could. [Which is all rank ingratitude for the solution he's been offered, really.] Is...there some way to talk to him that makes him more likely to listen?

[Near is the last person who should be calling anyone out on their lack of empathy, but Mello is a special case. The fact that they're bonded now means he can feel justified in speaking up on his behalf.

He would also prefer not to deal with fallout on either end.]

Buy him lunch. Bring chocolate.

[In Myr's experience, there are few more reliable advocates for empathy for the unlovable than those, who despite all odds, cared for them.

It's one of the things he's done before, after all. And L had said Near and Mello were two halves of a whole...]

That easy? [Respectable, though. Myr was weak to offers of food himself.] ...I'll try, then. See if I can do better with him this time than last. He's older than he was then, isn't he?

Yes. He's older and he's experienced real defeat, unlike before. You may find him more mature.

[Near will not be held responsible for any trouble Myr might get himself into doing this. He's not Mello's keeper.]

Try not to lead with threats and you should be fine.

[Nor would Myr lay blame on anyone but himself if he screws it up this time.] I can manage that much, at least.

[Now for something completely different.]

How much of a risk is Light, in your estimation?

That's a complicated subject, isn't it?

[Myr has to know at least something about the man and who he really is, or he wouldn't be asking this way. Even if he doesn't, Near is far less concerned about keeping Lights secrets than Mello's.]

Mr. Yagami becomes a danger only with the proper motivation. He has no real power here outside of being a witch, and the town is on a small enough scale that the detective agency may be all he needs. The lack of permanent death and his bonds to both L and myself will make drastic actions on his part more difficult - but make no mistake. He will have no qualms with taking lives if that ever changes.

[Myr is, indeed, privileged to know a great deal more about the Kira case than anyone in Aefenglom outside L, his successors, and the man himself.

But he still didn't have enough pieces to wholly trust his own decision-making process.]

Pray that is enough for him, though I've my doubts. He's intelligent enough I'd suspect him to bore quickly of mundane fare--and we've ample example, [ha,] of the mayhem a single motivated Witch can cause.

[What mattered, of course, was the motivation. Myr can be heard drumming his fingers on something as he sorts through the very, very many questions he has to follow that with. But first:]

--It can be permanent. Death, that is. I'd reason to inquire about preventing resurrections.

[A semi-calculated offering. It's fortunate Light wasn't here for Morgana's execution, or the furor surrounding it...]

Do you think L--Linden at all compromised by their association? Leaving aside the Bond.

Absolutely.

[Answered without hesitation. L had been compromised when they had worked together originally. Light had surely used the fact that he had more knowledge about the Death Note to his advantage, but L had allowed him to get close in the first place. He was too fascinated by Light. Too willing to risk himself.]

Linden can't help but associate with Mr. Yagami at this point, but he remains vulnerable as long as he does. Fortunately he is a witch in a world where witches are common. He doesn't have an advantage in magical knowledge. He knows what anyone else knows.

[And speaking of knowledge...]

Now tell me what you learned about death here.

[Well, so: That's not far off what Myr had surmised. He'd left a little space for the idea that L was playing a deeper game than he could intuit from their Bond and conversations--his Witch is brilliant, and an accomplished liar--but his instincts had been right on this one: He knows lovesickness when he ~~sees~~ encounters it.

It's a vastly more horrible manifestation than most cases, but then, L's always finding ways to be exceptional.

(~~He murdered me.~~)]

Right, [Myr sighs.] That's as I thought. Simply leaves us to guard his flanks, doesn't it?

[So the better he arms Near to do that...]

Resurrection requires a reasonably intact body to work. Someone who's been cremated or completely dismembered can't be brought back. Likewise, the longer the delay between the death and the attempt, the more likely the spell is to bring its subject back twisted beyond recognition. The Coven mislikes waiting longer than a day to resurrect someone; the healer I spoke to said they'd not even attempt it after a few days had passed.

Nor that they'd bring back anyone who died naturally. That's more custom than a magical constraint, from my understanding; they've a healthy respect for the end of a natural life.

[A thoughtful pause.]

You've very little magic in your world, Linden's told me. Most people assume there's none at all.

Thank you for that bit of knowledge. It's negligence on my part that I wasn't aware of all that. No doubt Mr. Yagami already is.

[Which ups the stakes of their relationship some. If Light thought the death would be permanent and he wanted it bad enough, he would absolutely risk the backlash through their bond to carry it out. He might even find a way to lessen it first.]

If he ever begins looking for a reason to break off his bond with L or myself, be heavily suspicious immediately. Even if it seems legitimate. Even if Linden seems to be the instigator.

[Especially if the latter is the case.]

There is very little magic in our world that I know of. All of it I've seen has been related to Shinigami. If anything else exists it has kept hidden quite thoroughly.

You're welcome. And it seems safest we assume so.

[He then hisses between his teeth at what follows. Even if Linden seems to be the instigator.]

He's that accomplished a manipulator? [It followed. Light presented such an appealing face in all his interactions with Myr.] --I'd hope we get that much warning. If he learns, himself, how to annul Bonds--or avails himself of the various means for suppressing one...

[They'd have seconds, maybe, to realize what was going on.]

...I am going to see if Linden can bind a teleport spell into something for me. One that would bring me to his location, when used. At the very least if I know he's been killed I can prevent it being made permanent.

[Or die trying. But at least he'd have tried.]

Mm. That's--good, actually. That's as well. I understand you've fiction that talks about it, but if he's never lived with it, there's certain to be things he won't think of that will give us all an edge.

Kira managed to take charge of his own investigation, leading the rest on a wild goose chase for years after L's death, which he also managed because he left a certain amount of reasonable doubt in regards to his guilt. He is incredibly manipulative and highly untrustworthy, yes.

[They are both fortunate and unfortunate to have the magic they have available here. In this situation it's all a matter of who gets the most creative with it. Who bends the rules just enough.]

That's a promising start. As for the fiction of our world... it varies as much as anyone's imagination can vary, with little basis in reality. I'm not sure how many fantasy novels someone like Yagami might have read growing up, but that's all he would have known. Stories.

[Myr is silent a long, long moment at this explanation--slotting pieces into place.

He is a man who loves in stories. He is a man who thinks in stories, weaving narrative into and out of everything. Handed another thread of L's life--and death--he cannot resist his own impulses to see where it leads.

A great deal more makes sense now. Light is clearly no more than mortal, clearly not a demon, but even on Thedas there were men who could pass for them, unpossessed.

Oh, amatus. Of course you would.]

We've at least the solace that he hasn't any of his prior connections here--and you who know him from home know him in every detail.

[Just, unfortunately, L was far too close to that detail to keep the larger picture in mind.]

Good. That's not complete protection--I've been led to understand there's a world like yours out there where my home is a story--but I'd think the odds slim that he'd read Aefenglom's story in particular, if it were even written down. Too many books out there for any one man.

[And that's just Myr's own experience with a printing-press culture. ~~Imagine telling him about Amazon.~~]

Was he caught, in the end? [Surely even the blind mechanism that ordered L's world could manage that piece of justice, couldn't it?]

He was.

[Near doesn't boast about it. He doesn't act as though this should be a given. Myr isn't like Mello, someone invested who wanted to know every detail - who wanted to know his actions hadn't been in vain.

L had lost his life to this case, as Mello had, as had so many others. It isn't suiting that he then leap to take the credit for it.]

Fortunately he isn't aware of that either.

What did him in? [A failure Light doesn't know of meant a weakness he couldn't adequately guard.

Myr has hunches, but also knows better than to trust them. Not with someone like this.]

His own hubris.

[Not completely, but Near likes the dry way that rolls off his tongue.]

With the combined efforts of myself, my team, and Mello.

[Especially Mello. Perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder, whatever heart Near might be considered to have, but the more years pass the more credit he's willing to give his rival for Light's defeat.]

[Snort. Score one for Myr's own intuition.

(And there's another reason to treat Mello with more charity. He'll keep it in mind.)]

I'd a suspicion hubris played a role. How did you do it?

There are too many details to go into it all right now. It involved months of tracking him and his accomplices.

[One slip-up on either side would have ended it, and he'd come close to being on the losing end.]

If he had not been certain of his victory we might not have been able to pull it off. Kira won't make a move unless he either has plans upon plans in place, or he's completely lost his composure.

[Which typically won't happen unless his plans have already fallen through, but it could be more of a possibility here on account of all the potential extenuating circumstances.]

Which makes him liable to be more erratic here than at home, I imagine, given his place of relative unimportance as one Mirrorbound Witch among many.

When he gets bored, or impatient, [and here Myr is shifting around his assessment of the man; this is definitely a when, now,] is he more likely to try and suborn Parliament and the guard, or try recreating the magic he had back home?

[And then, suddenly and viciously and under his breath,] Andraste's pyre, all he'd have to do is become a Somniari.

[Did Talam even have those? He makes a note to talk to the Dreamers about it. Or someone close to them.

Like L was, and like Light might be if he learned a few things about Mirrorbound and their dreams.]

That I can't say. This is a small town. There isn't as much corruption regularly visible among the populace. The focus is smaller. He could turn his efforts upon actual dangers to the people here that don't exist back in our world. He could make a decent person of himself.

[This is an entirely different scenario, and as much as he dislikes Kira he doesn't see him immediately trying to set himself up as a god here, especially without the anonymity he had before.]

But his sense of justice is tainted, and knowing what he's capable of becoming it wouldn't be a good idea to get complacent.

Small? [is Myr's quiet, bewildered echo; he's momentarily distracted from the topic at hand by that idea. Aefenglom's larger even than Hasmal; to someone raised in a Circle with mere hundreds of inhabitants, either city was immense.

He'd had the vague impression people were much more densely packed in L's world, but this really brings the notion home.

Well--regardless. He gives an audible shake of his head, antler-charms jingling, to dismiss the thought.]

He could, [he continues, regaining composure and the thread of his thoughts. His tone is...grudging, but he'll accept the point.] Certainly men have repented of worse than he's done and gone on to better lives.

[But as Near says, Kira's sense of justice doesn't seem conducive to repentance, does it?] Though, as you say, it's possible to allow him that much grace without being blind, [hah,] to what he's done and will do.

[Then, sighing,] Linden might be a great help in, [and unsaid: and has strong incentives to,] that process but I worry he's more fond of his nemesis as-is.

[Mild way of putting it, but Myr's not going to voice L's self-conception of being Light's jailer and well-deserved punishment. That felt too much like reifying an obscenity.]

[Given that Kira operated on a country-wide scale at the very least, this one city was very small in comparison, yes. Perhaps it hadn't been the best choice of words, but the idea was there.]

Linden, like all of us, was very isolated as part of our career path. [He doesn't say chosen career path, though perhaps any of them could have easily opted out of it by not putting in their all and not becoming a successor to the name. So he must have wanted the job all along.] By choice, mostly. And there were very few to challenge us mentally.

Kira was a challenge to him. Now that he's experienced that challenge, other goals will seem less meaningful. So yes, I would say that he's fond of him in that way, which is a problem.

[He could compare L and Light to himself and Mello, but he won't. Mello's murder record is far smaller, for one thing.]

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