Gwyndion snapped his eyes open.

Harsh, blue light instantly assaulted him, and he clenched his eyes shut again. He took a moment to wait for the burning to cease before he tried again.

This time, he was able to make out the long blue rod that ran along the ceiling, glowing bright. He let his gaze fall down, to the puffy white wall that looked like it was made out of thousands of marshmallows sown together, and even the floor was the same. Tentatively he flexed his talons, feeling the same material beneath them, and he appeared to be on an elevated table or bed of sorts. He tried to flex his wings, yet to his dismay, they felt weighted down, rendering them immobile. A similar experiment with his legs and tail yielded the same result.

He sighed, and rested his head on the strange marshmallow bed again. "Came to tell the captain that aliens exist and an entire outpost spontaneously combusted. Guess I should have expected to be thrown in an insane asylum," he muttered, as if speaking his thoughts aloud would help. "Maybe I am insane."

"With a most peculiar sort of inanity."

Gwyndion jumped at the voice, though was mostly retrained by whatever binds held him down. He scanned around, and he instantly saw a sapphire merwyss tied down with energy beams to a bed similar to his to his right. How had he not noticed her there before? "I'm sorry—" he began, until he cut himself off. "Wait, you're that detective! From the ballroom— how did you end up in here?"

She shrugged, as much as she could beneath her bindings. "I heard you tell the captain about some interesting things that might be connected to my case. I knew they would throw you in the hospital for insanity, so I figured it would just be faster if I got myself thrown in here as well so that I could ask you about the things I heard."

He blinked, and his jaw opened and closed a couple of times before words started coming out. "—You got yourself thrown in an insane asylum just to ask me questions for your case?"

She nodded thoughtfully. "It's surprisingly easy to get yourself arrested around here."

Gwyndion shook his head in confusion. "And how did you hear what I said to the captain? We were in a secure office—"

"Camera tech is fairly easy to hack." She cut him off again, then leaned towards him as much as she possibly could. "So tell me again about this explosion at outpost forty-two?"

Gwyndion let his head flop on the bed again. "Well, I was on the night shift to record a passing comet. Nothing out of the ordinary. I went outside to install a holorecorder when the comet came and it just... Exploded."

Nova raised an eye ridge. "Exploded?"

He nodded. "Yes, as if it just spontaneously combusted or collided with something... I don't know. All I do know is that after it erupted, it just kept growing and growing... And these things, these massive Dragonlike monsters started coming out of it. They had extra wings and eyes and... They invaded the station just before the explosion reached it. I don't know what happened to them, but they could still be out there and..." He wasn't sure how to finish.

"... And all of the known universe is at risk. Got it," Nova said decidedly. "Well, the universe isn't likely to be saved by a pair of tied up dragons. Let's deal with that problem first, shall we?"

Gwyndion furrowed his eye ridges. "And how exactly do you plan to escape?"

"Well," she began, raising a claw. "I figure that if I built up enough magical energy, equal to those of these bonds, I could phase through them and—"

The detectives plan was disrupted by the opening of the door. He hadn't even known until that moment that there had been a door, as till the moment it opened it just seemed to blend in with the wall. Yet indeed, to his left, there was an open pathway that wasn't there before. And, standing in the doorway was a small, white ryss.

"Gwyneira!" He exclaimed, recognizing the shy dragonet from Emlyn's elphiren. "What are you doing here? —How are you even here?"

Gwyneira stepped delicately into the room, her pale form almost blending in with the whiteness of the room. "I practically live here, at the hospital. I've found my way into places I shouldn't be. And I've had the pass codes to these rooms memorized for years. The nurse's computers aren't that hard to figure out."

Nova seemed fascinated. "Ooh, I like you. Want to go for tea sometime when I'm not tied up?"

"Speaking of tied up," Gwyndion redirected. "You wouldn't happen to know how to get us out of these, would you?" For a moment, he considered not asking to be let out. Perhaps it would be safer to stay where he was. Better for others to live in their bubble of safety.

But... If those things from the outpost come here... That bubble will pop and no one will be ready for it. No. They need to know.

Gwyneira studied him for a moment. "Our governess seemed to trust you. Our government not so much." She squeezed an arm with a talon. "I... Don't know if it's a good idea to let you out. This part of the hospital is used like a jail, they just don't like calling it that. They must have put you in here for some good reason." She shifted her wings in thought. "Think of it. A mysterious stranger comes to the ballroom the very moment a dragon is murdered. You might be the murderer. In which case it would be a very bad idea to let you out."

Gwyndion furrowed his brows in confusion. "Gwyneira, I was with you and Emlyn when the body was found. How could I have killed him?"

She raised her snout, ice blue eyes almost frightened. "There are a myriad of ways to kill a dragon in such a way that he doesn't actually die for some time. Poison, for one."

He glanced between Nova and the ryss in disbelief. The detective remained neutral. "Okay, why would I even want to kill someone? No, never mind that. That doesn't matter. I am no murderer! 

I wouldn't harm a puffer! So would you please just let me out, because if you don't a lot of creatures are going to be in danger!"

Gwyneira tilted her head down in consideration, her gaze shadowed. "I don't want any more creatures to get hurt..." She finally said, slowly starting towards him. "Which is why you need to stay here." Just as she spoke, she slipped past him and over to Nova's table. "We need someone to find the murderer and keep people safe." With that, she flipped open a control panel on the side of Nova's bed and began tapping away at buttons. A moment later, the energy bonds around the detective fizzled out.

Nova instantly jumped to her talons and down from the table. "Well, thank you Gwyneira. That was a lot easier than my previous plan," she said, strolling over to the exit.

"Hey!" Gwyndion called. "What about me?"

The detective glanced at him thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Nah, I think you're good where you are."

He tried as much as he possibly could to twist his talons in a beseeching manner. "Please, don't leave me here! I can help! And I really didn't murder anyone!" He thought he felt a rumbling, but assumed it was just the tension between him and his bindings.

Nova paused just before the exit, Gwyneira at her heels. "No, you're better here. Easier to find when I need to come back for questions. Not to mention safer. It would be incredibly inconvenient if the dragon most informed on the happenings involving my case were to suddenly disappear or die or something like that." With that, she stepped through the threshold.

And instantly, sirens blared and the room flooded with red light.

He flattened his ears against his head, and would have added his talons an top if he could move them.

Nova's ears, on the other talon, swiveled in curiosity. "Strange. How could it possibly have—"

There was a sound of talons scraping down a glass hall, and then, in the doorway, a Naturae nurse skidded to a halt. "The hospital is in lockdown— something penetrated the hull. All of the patients are— wait." The nurse narrowed his eyes. "You're a patient. You got carried in a few hours ago. How did you get out?" The station rumbled again, a lot less subtle than it had earlier. "Never mind that. Either get back in your room or come with me," the nurse bid before racing off down the hall.

Maybe it would be safer to stay here after all. At least until the danger has passed.

Nova suddenly swept over to his table, flipping open the panel and smashing buttons faster than he could register. "Alright, I said I need you alive, and at the moment the likelihood of you being that if you stay here is low. So you're coming with us." Just as she finished her words, the bindings over his body all disappeared.

Gwyndion flexed his wings in relief, but hesitated in moving otherwise. "I don't know... Here with the door closed sounds pretty safe..."

And I can't exactly warn people of the dangers if I'm dead... Right?

Nova started back towards the door. "Nice try. You're still coming with us."

Tentatively he raised to his talons. "Are you sure—"

She gestured with a wing for him to follow before stepping into the corridor. "You're coming."

He waited until all he could see of her was a sapphire tail, before his rebellious talons made him chase after her. This is a terrible idea this is a terrible idea this is a terrible idea, he thought all the while he followed the detective into the red-lit hall. Gwyneira kept close by the elder merwyss, and several other creatures raced past in the halls.

Nova snagged one of them with a wing— a dark wolpertinger. "Excuse me, where is the hull breach?" she questioned.

The terrified rabbit-like creature pointed a paw down the corridor straight ahead of them before bolting off in the other direction, racing past Gwyndion.

I should turn back. Why am I following her? This is a bad idea. If those monsters are here, we're all doomed. Why am I trusting this detective? She's going to get us all killed.

And yet, despite all of these thoughts, he had the strange feeling that he should trust her. More like he just wanted to. He just needed to trust someone not to stab him in the back or side against him. Currently, Nova was the only one who fit those qualifications.

He just had to deal with the fact that Nova was currently racing in the exact direction the wolpertinger had said the hull breach was.

Gwyndion took a deep breath, and charged after her. The glass was cold beneath his talons, and the farther he ran the more he was certain that a chunk of it had formed in his stomachs. His muscles began to ache, and soon he found himself wondering if the corridor would go on forever. 

Every once in a while the station would rumble or shake, with varying levels of intensity-- the most recent one being the most violent, and then finally... They stopped. 

He was thankful when Nova finally slowed down as they turned a corner into a new corridor, and he instantly hung his head as he tried to catch his breath.

Which brought him nose to nose with a puddle of shimmery, violet liquid.

A strange calm settled over him as he inhaled the metallic, magicky scent. He could almost feel a switch turn in his head, and he knew that his spine membrane must be flushing. Yet he ignored all of this, and instead followed a series of smaller droplets and puddles all the way to...

A mountain Prinuae, lying dead on the floor.

He didn't know why it shocked him. He had seen the corpse in the ballroom. Yet that one at least vaguely remembered what had once been a dragon. It had been decayed over, somehow, several centuries. Yet this...

This one hardly had anything left to it.

And worse than that, it very clearly looked like it had died today. Blood still seeped from what remained of the corpse and the torn-apart limbs, wet and fresh.

It looked like it had been mangled by some sort of... Beast.

He glanced away from the horrific body to Nova, who had ignored the corpse and wandered further down the hall. She had paused at a corner, and was staring down wherever it led. 

"Gwyndion," she called.

He lifted his head and started towards her, carefully avoiding stepping in any of the gore. "Yes?"

"Exactly how big were the monsters that you saw?"

He furrowed his brow. "Well, they were definitely on the larger side—" he joined her at the corner, and turned to see what she was looking at. "Oh."

For there was no corridor there. There was nothing at all. Nothing but a massive gap in the hull, three times his height, open to the stars.

"Somehow," Nova murmured, "whatever it was managed to get through the force field that is keeping us from asphyxiation right now and take a rather large bite from the hull..."

Gwyndion couldn't help but glance back at the mutilated corpse. He could easily see how the monsters from outpost 42 could have done that. And it easily could have been me in pieces scattered across the floor right now... Or anyone else...

If the captain had listened to me, this wouldn't have happened.

Yet would it? What could the captain have done to prepare Cepheus Prime for alien attacks in just a few hours? What could be done ever to prevent attacks from a creature that could punch right through the hull of the largest, strongest space station in inhabited space?

His attention was drawn to Gwyneira, who was still staring at the corpse, and he turned away from the gap in the wall to head over towards her. He expected the little ryss to be terrified, or horrified, or both. Yet instead, the lean Prinuae seemed... Confused.

He felt a wetness around his talons, and he realized that he had stepped in a puddle of shimmery violet blood. "The blood may be on my talons," he sighed wryly. "But I didn't kill this dragon."

Gwyneira's attention didn't falter from what remained of the body. "I know. That's exactly it," she peeped. "Who killed this dragon?"

A soft, sweet breeze swept past him, swiftly followed by the presence of Nova at his side, her analyzing gaze glancing over the body. Calculating.

"This death is... Different the one in the ballroom. Messier, and definitely recent," Gwyndion murmured.

The detective didn't even glance away at his words. "Clearly," she said plainly, then whispered, "you know, you're starting to sound a little less insane with your story about the four-winged dragons."

He kept his head tilted down. "You think they did this?"

She chewed on her lip. "There's no way to know for certain... But it's the best description for a murder of this sort."

Gwyneira's attention suddenly snapped to Nova. "Do you think that whoever killed this dragon could have killed the one in the ballroom?"

The sapphire detective made no response, turquoise eyes swirling with thought.

The sirens finally turned off.

Just then, a nurse skidded down the hall, the same one from earlier. "We've identified the location of the hull breech, just down this way. We are still searching for the cause of..." The nurses' gaze fell towards the mutilated corpse... And the blood welling around Gwyndion's talons... And reached towards a communicator clipped to his white vest.

Gwyndion sighed. "You have got to be kidding me."

~~~~~

Well, poor Gwyndion can just never be in the right place at the right time it seems! What do you think of his predicament, and the second murder? Please comment your thoughts and vote if you liked!