[color=ec008c]Optional Reading Continued.

"Bile gabhar drenched muc cac ó ifreann!" Lillian screamed as she almost lost her footing for the umpteenth time. Her current footwear were bespoke leather boots, a gift and trick from her mother, that while comfortable sported an obscene fifty millimeter heel that Lily had very much not agreed to. On the plus side, the shaft of the boot went right up to her knee which was protecting her legs rather well from scratches and nicks; she had girded her dress up out of the way to make walking on such difficult terrain a bit easier, a plan somewhat foiled by the ridiculous heel, but it was better than the alternative. 

It had not taken long for Lillian to read all of Tereza Kucera's journal, and it had proven rather helpful as the woman had been keeping detailed descriptions of her visions since they first appeared when she was ten. The visions changed slightly when her family had moved to Prague after she had turned twelve, but for the most part the visions had remained strangely consistent for the woman well into her late twenties. The visions were intense, detailed, and intermitted; though Lillian couldn't help but notice the frequency of that intermittentness seemed to increase a little after moving to Prague. As the last entry of the woman's book had indicated, recently she had been experiencing a greater frequency of the infrequent visions than usual, and they were far more vivid and intense. So much so that before unnoticed or undocumented details where showing up in Tereza's descriptions. Between the extremely detailed recollections and the new details Lily was able to determine where in the city she needed to go. Which is how she eventually found herself in the woods outside Prague.

The whole experience had become rather fantastical, almost feeling like a treasure hunt as she wandered from land-mark to land-mark. However the treasure at the end was a Jewish maid that liked to wander into the woods based on hallucinations, rather than enough pieces of 8 to buy all of Prague.

"I do sometimes wonder if that isn't Pa's long term goal." she mused aloud, followed quickly by "A Thiarna Íosa agus na naoimh agus na diabhail go léir cén fáth a bhfuil an oiread sin clocha ann!" as she once again nearly rolled her ankle. She continued to mutter and swear under her breath as she contemplated fashioning a new set of shoes out of bark and foliage, until she was interrupted by an unexpected porcelain white arm jutting out from a bush. Lillian immediately went quite, and calm, and walked over to the arm. She carefully parted the branches of the shrub and looked within. Nestled between the branches, in a tangled mess of limbs and hair, was the body of Tereza Kucera.

Lillian carefully extricated the other woman from the bushes and checked her vitals, foolishly hoping for some miracle despite it being obvious she had passed some time ago. She was practically ice cold, which probably did a lot to slow the decomposition of the body. Even with the help of the cool however there was nothing stopping death once it's fingers latched onto a person. 

A large head wound that had broken the skull and deformed the head was the obvious cause of Tereza's death. As far as she could tell, the woman had been struck only once, but with enough force to misshapen the head. A not insignificant task, even if one had some kind of weapon or tool to assist. To determine more Lillian pulled out various detective based equipment from her numerous pouches. In short time, with the help of bug samples, liver temperature, and a close examination of the wound, Lillian had determined Tereza had most likely been killed the same day she had been last scene. Kateřina had been several days too late to call for help, not that it would have mattered as the wound on her sisters head was so sever anyone short of god would have been too late to do anything as her death would have been instant. 

Lillian put away her tools and did a pat down of the woman to see if she had been carrying anything on her when she was killed. There was nothing on her except for a small medicine bottle with no label. It smelled pungent but not particularly harsh or distinct, however Lily had her suspicions about what the medicine was. To be sure she retrieved some bottles from one of her pouches and began to mix up some kind of concoction. After her mixing she poured in a single drop of the unknown medicinal; there was a small his, and the entire mixture bubbled and fixed and turned from green to orange. It was as she had feared,

"thalidimide"

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Lillian carried the other woman's body on her back all the way to the mortician's, enduring an endless parade of screaming idiots, perverts, and idiots more concerned with the fact that people could see Lily's thighs with her dress tied up than with the fact she was hefting a corpse. 

She managed to make it to the establishment of one Henrik Obadia, a personal friend and skilled mortician who didn't mind instructing Lillian on his craft or assist her with an autopsy. He also was a man with enough sense to know there was a time to help and a time to ask questions. Despite being exhausted from her trek back, Lillian assisted Henrik with his examination of the body. They did not find much of anything beyond evidence one would expect to find; signs of carrion doing their work, indications the woman spent a lot of time on her feet, obvious evidence of elemental damage. They did however confirm Lily's suspicions that Tereza was with child were correct, and Henrik helped make a plaster mold of the head wound. 

The pair of them sat on a bench, leaving the body behind in the operating room.

"The McClellen family will pay for everything, Henrik. If at all possible try to get her done asap, her family should have had been near done with their Shiva by now. To delay any longer than necessary would be unacceptable." Lillian's grip on the bench tightened. Henrik placed his hand on the back of hers and patted, a normally comforting gesture rather ruined by the fact the Obadia was still wearing his surgery gloves. Lillian looked at his gloved hand and waited a short time before the man noticed his error, jumped in shock while muttering an apology, and then ripped the glove off and whipped it at a wall where it hit with a smack. A brief moment of quite before the pair broke out into laugher. In a moment of such pain, it is always nice to be torn away for a moment and reminded there is more than just the bad in the world. They shared their moment of bemusment and desended back into quite. 

"You know..." Henrik began after a minute. "You should be the one to tell her."

"I will!" Lillian insisted. "As soon as I bring the culprit i-"

"No, Lillian." Henrik cut off "You go talk to her sister, first. You just said we should let her family start the grieving process as soon as we can, why delay?"

"To elongate the hope. Right now Tereza's family is in a kind of....ultimate position where thanks to ignorance, they can find happieness."

"Is that true? Or do you simply not want to face the sister?" Lillian did not have to answer as at that moment there was banging on the front door inquiring about a red head with a dead body, allowing her to instead respond with

 "Only took them an hour to get here. They're getting better."

"Frankly I am surprised they came at all" quipped Henrik. "Well go deal with that, and go tell the sister right after. Hope is only nice when you have it, and when you loose it you wish you'd never had it." The grim older man got up from the bench, fetched his glove, and headed back to start preparing the body. Lillian on the hand stood, and walked towards the angry authorities. An increasingly common occurance in her life since moving to the city. 

Lillian wondered if her family name would be enough to get her out of the kind of trouble people who found with corpses usually get in. 

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Her name was in fact not enough, however her name and a pocketful of croissants seemed to do the trick. She also worked in a joke she had heard her father say to the police once about how he thought all police only ate Koblihy. Lillian never understood the joke but all four of the officers and several of the bystanders laughed, so clearly she was simply missing something. 

With that mess sorted Lily made her way to the work place of Kateřina Kucera, a large factory that produced textiles. After she arrived and spoke to someone at the door she patiently waited outside for the sister to see her. Lily was examining a section of brick in the wall around the factory when she heard the front door open. She turned to see Kateřina walking towards her, a tired expression on her face but eyes full of hope. Lillian started to try and say something but faltered and closed her mouth. Kateřina must have seen it happen as the hope drained from her eyes. She ran to close the distance quickly and grabbed onto Lillians arms; she squeezed tight and begged Lily to tell her her sister was okay, but she said nothing. The longer she said nothing the more obvious it became, but obvious is never enough in such situations. Kateřina became angry and slapped Lillian across the face, hard.

"Say it! Say it damn you!"

"Tereza Kucera was murdered." 

A brief moment of shock, unable to say or do anything, before Kateřina dropped to her knees and wailed. A few of Kateřina's co-workers took notice of what was going on and rushed outside; some of them went to comfort the woman, a few brave and brash ones began to push Lillian. Assuming incorrectly that she had done something to their friend to make her so upset. It was a wrong assumption however Lillian couldnt fault them for coming to the conclusion. She certainty wasn't helping matters by not saying anything still, but was unsure what to do so just stood silently taking the abuse. A particularly hard slap from a gaunt old woman whose hand was more bone than tissue knocked some sense into Lillian. She knew what to do, "Kateřina!" The bereaved woman looked up at Lily "I can not undue what's been ripped away from you, but I swear on my name, Lilian Catherine McClellen, before this day's sun sets, your sisters killer will be in chains." She then turned on an obnxious-heel and charged off towards her first and most likely suspect. 


Captain Radovan Vladislav Liechtenstein. Third cousin of Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein. [/color]