Occams Razor

Since returning from the battle in the wild woods on behalf of the Dusk King, Billy has not really been spending that much time in the forests near Whisper Hill. One might even say he has been avoiding them. For today, he has chosen a cold but clear morning to linger by the lake's edge.

He finds a spot by the boathouse, and walks a quick perimeter around it. Taking out a pen and his pad, he begins taking notes, walking a distinct path four times. It leads from a hammock tied between the trees, along the shore, turns, then into the boat house. He remains there for a solid minute, looking around, before walking back out to the shore. Once there, he stares out into the water, pulling out a pair of binoculars to scan the lake itself. After he does this, he heads back over to the hammock and repeats the process.

On the fourth time, he gives a heavy sigh, letting the binoculars drop and get caught by the lanyard on his neck. He crouches down, still staring out at the water, and picks up a stone from the lake's edge. With a flick of his wrist he launches it out into the air over the water, watching it fall to the surface of the lake and vanish with an echoing plunk.

A rustle in the woods and then a plunk of something by Billy's feet. A coin. A penny, even. Alice stepped up from where she had settled on a stump, pushing herself to her feet on her good arm. The arm in the sling was kept cradled inside her sweatshirt.

"For your thoughts," she clarified, shaking her head. She pushed some hair out of her face as the bitter fall wind played against her cheeks.

Glancing down at the penny as it lands, there is a touch of the sardonic to the grin on Billy's scar-lined face.

"Don't you know I'm a PI, Alice?" he offers with the edge of a smirk. "My thoughts aren't exactly cheap."

Still, he picks up the penny and holds it out to the woman for her to retrieve it.

"Mostly, I'm trying to spot good mooring points for boats, especially ones that can be used at night," Billy offers simply. "I... can't really go into detail, but there's a reason to check. That, and the... eyeball things came from the water. I just have this... really bad feeling in my gut that there's something out there..."

Billy turns back to the water, narrowing his gaze with a tired expression.

"Looking at me, like a face behind a mirror, with its breath clouding the other side of the glass."

He laughs, once, after a moment, and reaches up his hand not holding the penny to scratch at the thick scar on his temple.

"Probably just my imagination getting to me, though."

"You say to the broken doll," Alice said with an audible smirk. Her face smoothed though, and she exhaled and walked up beside him, retaking the penny and shoving it in her pocket. She kicked a stone out over the lake and then looked over at him.

"I heard you had a rough Saturday night. What're those words? Do you want to talk about it?"

The laugh that comes at the question is easy and confident, and Billy breaks eye contact with a rueful shake of his head.

"Only as rough as everyone else," he says. "The walk wasn't as hard on me as most. I'm used to hiking all over these woods, though I wish I knew I was heading to fight before I left the diner. I only had my pistol on me with five bullets. Not a way to handle a fight."

Billy crouches down to snatch up another rock, and throws this one with a harder snap. It flies a good arc through the air before hitting the water with a larger sploosh than the last one. He glances aside at Alice.

"You seemed to be having a good time with the fight, though. Getting a kick out of making something immortal hurt and bleed?"

Alice winces, a hand going to her temple. She made a slightly strangled noise of pain and her breathing comes shaky. Her eyes squeeze shut and she inhale and exhales and inhales and exhales, focusing on her breathing. Her lips move but no sound comes out. It takes her a solid minute to compose herself.

"That's about what I thought," she croaked, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a flask to take a drink. "Motherfucker..." a shuddering gasp.

"Hard to believe it, I know, but I wasn't actually there for the big kerfuffle. Damn fuckin' tragic..." she took another drink and shook her head. "Just like you, I didn't realize it was going to blow up into a fight, and neither my dog nor I are very good at holding our tongue or holding any particular reverence in the face of all powerful things that hold both the power and the inclination to decimate this town if we do not show the proper respect..."

"Had I known it was going anywhere other than to kiss the feet of some being that I don't particularly have any desire to meddle with..." she sighed, kicking at the ground as the frustration caused her brow to furrow.

"My friends were there, and I wasn't there to help them..." the word friend dropped awkwardly from her lips and she shook her head and scowled into the lake. And then a beat pause, and a glance over.

"Although making Dusk Fae bleed might be my second favorite hobby."

Billy's brow furrows at the look of pain on Alice's face, and he lifts one eyebrow in concern.

"You going to be alright?" he asks. "I have some Excedrin back at Shadegrove. Not sure if it will help your headaches, but it helps mine."

He glances back out at the lake, and shrugs.

"You probably had the better time of it," he admits. "Getting involved with the fae courts was a bad idea, and I'm glad that everyone now understands this. Hopefully, we'll be able to avoid this in the future. Honestly, the Dusk fae are just as bad as the Dawn fae. They're all as human as your dog, and just as mean as he would be off the chain. I can make sense of them, but that's kind of my job. Making sense of the inhuman and keeping the tribe safe is what shaman do."

Billy picks up another rock and launches it out over the lake with another chuckle.

"I wonder what would happen if we put one of them in the chains," he offers with a grin, maybe a bit more of a vicious grin than Alice has seen before on Billy. "Might be an interesting experiment."

"Not this kind of headache," Alice said through her teeth, glancing at him sideways before shaking her head. She wiggled her fingers as if to get feeling back into them, ignoring the slight distortion between her fingers, the feeling of wrong that pooled there. She shook her wrist and it dissipated.

"It's funny. I've never seen a Demon be needlessly cruel. Cruelty, certainly... But at their heart they seem to be driven by some purpose or need. Excluding the imps, which are only half steps up from animals, every demon I've ever fought has done everything with an unwavering sense of resolve and purpose. This doesn't mean I don't hate them. Outside of Mason Fel, I doubt there are many in this town who hate them more than I do..." her good arm traced absently over her tattoos as she spoke, and the air around her grew tight and uncomfortable. "But... it is so rarely a game to them."

"These things? They walk up to us with gleeful grins and twist our minds and our intentions. Force us to play their games and punish us for not understanding the rules. I have so rarely dealt with the Dawn Court, but I've seen the Dusk Court drive our own mad with rage just to watch us fall on one another like a pack of dogs, giggling all the while."

"I'm not... sad that I missed meddling in the affairs of the Fae. I have spent pretty more time than I'd like to consider counseling against exactly that. I'm just..." her hands curled into fists. "... Disappointed to leave people out there in the dark without me. Especially against the sort of thing I excel at making bleed..."

She exhaled and raised a hand to rub over her temple, wincing at the seeming sudden splitting pain.

"Demons and fae, and any of the Third Children, are made of the same stuff our concepts," offers Billy after a moment. "Same stuff magic comes from. The fae are cruel because they are made of cruelty. They are capricious because they are made of capriciousness. Demons are driven by purpose because they are made of purpose, albeit a twisted purpose. Quite frankly, I was raised a little too Catholic to really buy into the whole benevolent, loving God. With all the demons in this town? Kinda make me feel like I have the right take on it."

Billy's express grows more concerned as Alice seems to continue being in pain, and he cants his head slightly to the left.

"What's bothering you, Alice?" he asks, concern evident in his voice. "Anything I can do to help?"

Yes. she wanted to say but the word stuck in her throat and she looked at him. Six months ago she might have said it. Might have said a whole lot of things. But here and now? Maybe some people deserved their Wonderland.

She looked down at her hands and they shook faintly. Inhale. Exhale. Terrible liar. Change the subject.

"Anything else I should know about the Big Bad Wolf?" she murmured, looking over. "I admit to feeling a bit underprepared for what I've gotten myself into, but from what I've heard someone has to do it and..."

Good hunting, little huntress, a low approving growl. The girl's eyes got distant for a moment as she stood back in those woods, staring into the maw of the beast and seeing it turn into a smile. And then again, to announcing her presence as a Hunting Hound. She shook her head.

"And maybe I'm not so far off the mark anyways..."