“Gareth? Gareth, stop babbling. I was just phoning to let you know I caught him.”

Night had fallen on the first night of the Emergence. The worldwide event. Party night, most would call it. [i]Nuit étoilée[/i], in her native tongue...roughly. Or was it? Truth be told, Maximilienne had been away from her homeland for several years. While she would never forget the language of her home, trying to piece things together came a little slower as the days wore by. After all, she'd studied English for quite some time, perhaps to the point where she thought more in her adoptive country's language than her own. [i]A mark of true competency,[/i] they told her. [i]One cannot speak a language fluently without being able to think in it as well.[/i]

At the moment, it all hardly mattered. After all, there was a very upset teenager bellowing at the French woman from the back seat of her car, the long, black sedan that it was. Kidnapping being the sort of offense that it is, it might be for the best that the interior of her chosen ride seems moderately well reinforced. Some sort of drop-down bars to separate the front from the back seat, not unlike a police cruiser, not that it'd help her in the case of an actual witch. Perhaps she's simply stolen a nice, new law enforcement vehicle. That sort of thing may not be the Order's bread and butter, but stranger things have happened, surely. Witches are dangerous and law enforcement can be horrifically skeptical about reports of pyromancers torching orphanages, be it urban legend or not. Not that the fire marshal ever ruled that kind of thing as anything but simple arson.

“No, I already-...yes, I called it in already. He-...” 

The brunette perched on the front left quarterpanel of her car, one leg half-folded into her lap, the other resting firmly on the ground. Tall, this one, in a strange sort of slacks-and-jacket affair, currently unbuttoned and somewhat casual. Dark suit, bright red tie, resting beneath a vest but over a button-down blouse. Her head remained on a nigh-constant swivel with one hand busy holding a smartphone to her ear, with exact make and model up to the imagination. A thin trickle of blood meandered down the bridge of her noise, ill-stymied by a butterfly bandage, leading back to a fairly nasty little gash on the upper bridge of her forehead, as if simply to spite her dress and demeanor. Not that she seemed particularly well-behaved, despite her age.

“Of course it's not a warlock, the [i]salaud[/i] is just-...stop your whining, already? YOU are not the one who was bashed upside the 'ead with a fire poker! Alright? Christ, you are so incoherent when you get upset. Look, it was just another stupid college kid who thought 'e could get [i]spooky magic powers[/i] if 'e killed a kid. Except he couldn't find a kid, apparently, so 'e just started to skin a cat, which...well. Don' get me started. Unnecessarily gory business-...What? No, he only used the one method. Hah, yes, very funny. Hilarious.”

Overhead, the stars twinkled and shone excitedly, view neatly unobscured atop the hill they rested on, circled by a winding dirt road that led to its plateau of a pinnacle. Below, the city sparkled and lights danced as hundreds of Emergence-week parties kicked off the string of celebrations to follow. An entire week of being tanked had barely begun and Lienne already looked world-weary and miserable in the dim light glowing from her phone. All of the happiness surging from the enthused throngs of college kids about to forget an entire night seemed to blunt and dull against the insurmountable frown that had overtaken her face, to say the least.

“Anyway, I can already feel myself bruising. Got a little blood in my eye an' I think I may 'ave knocked one of his teeth loose.” Lienne cleared her throat, as if trying to will away her clinging remnants of an accent. “No, I'm fine. It's-...I'm sure. Yes, very sure. I'll drop 'im off and you can do whatever it is you do with the non-guilty. Hopefully something less archaic than the others. No needles, right? The pithing-...right. Mhm. Alright. He's just an idiot, not a man-witch. Warlock, warlock, sorry. [i]Bonne nuit.[/i]”

The line went dead with a lack of tone, phone nearly dropped into her lap as she let her hands rest atop her thighs, staring up at the sky. The backdrop to her apparent misery remained a combination of noisy parties and frothing collegiate, which wrapped the entire evening's worth of experiences up into one nice, tidy bow. It was the kind of thing that coaxed a sigh out of the woman, even after retrieving a nearly forgotten and half-eaten hamburger from a fast food bag resting off to one side. [i]That[/i] is the sort of thing that only sent her unwilling guest into a whole new set of fits, the knight waving her hand about as she stuffed another oversized bite down her gullet while she watched the sky. Ignoring the subtle flickers of thought in the back of her mind became harder and harder every time she ended up in this kind of situation. 

[i]Just a slug through one of their heads and I'd be like them,[/i] she reminded herself with a barely thoughtful bite. [i]Like the rest of the Barrandes. Almost my nephew's birthday, wasn't it? He was born quite close to the anniversary of the stars. Too damn close. Did he even get to see his second starry night?[/i]

“Happy birthday, Adrien.” She announced to no one in particular, toasting the sky with her offering of bread and meat, polishing off the rest with a few unladylike mouthfuls and a blank stare as the minutes melted by. 

Lienne have to take a drive soon, winding along roads, to one of the Order's safehouses. After the package was deposited she would be free and clear to spend the rest of her evening eating and drinking, likely something strong. A few nips later and she'd be able to catch a few hours of sleep, perhaps? Spend time in blissful unconsciousness. Let the world flow by while she could do nothing to stop it. If only she could stop time, perhaps things would be much simpler. 
Stop the stars, stop the murders, stop the witches, stop the madness. 
Stop hundreds of years of hatred.
Stop a millennia of misguided, warmongering ways.

Her thoughts were amusing but hardly feasible. Until the time came for her to take that drive, she simply sat and watched the skies, offering the occasional mumbled well-wished thought to someone's birthday or missed anniversary. She knew that she would not rest but instead spend the rest of the evening wrestling children out of their blood-crazed rituals, trying her hardest not to jam a knife into a trachea. It was a dangerous week. 

Perhaps she would finally slip.