September 16th, 1891 — Tycho's Home, Wellingtonshire

The chances that someone like Tycho Dodonus would be awake at this hour (particularly when Ford knew first hand that he had been drinking the night before) were slim to none, but here Ford was anyway, pounding away on his front door. When they'd been spending time together last night and Dodonus had said something vague about a vision, Ford had shrugged it off. He didn't put nearly as much stock in divination as some people did (like Verity), and while he wouldn't have wanted to be rude by coming right out and saying he didn't believe Dodonus' vision had any bearing on reality... he hadn't believed that Dodonus' vision had any bearing on reality. His first indication that anything was actually wrong had come with Noble's letter, and it wasn't until much later, when he was laying in his bed trying and failing to fall asleep, that he'd realized the similarity in the situation with what Dodonus had said last night.

Once he'd started to put two and two together, he'd gotten restless all over again. Really, Tycho was lucky that Ford hadn't walked over right when the idea had struck him around three in the morning — this was a much more respectable six in the morning, which was as long as Ford had been able to wait. He was dressed for work (which he didn't want to go to but supposed he should, since there was nothing he could do at home), but otherwise he looked a mess; it was obvious he hadn't slept since he'd left Dodonus' house the night before.

The door opened and Ford walked in without waiting for an invitation. "Tell me again what you saw last night."

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Tycho Dodonus Roberto Devine

  

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Set by Lady!

Tycho was blissfully passed out asleep when he heard pounding on his door. He looked at his timepiece. Six in the morning? Who was awake, let alone pounding on his door at this ungodly hour of the day? He groaned as it seemed the person wasn't going to just go away. He pulled a robe on and had some thought for the other persons senses by pulling on a pair of drawers.

He opened the door and blearily found himself staring at Ford Greengrass. He closed the door behind Ford as the other man walked in and asked what he saw last night? "Last night?" He repeated, clearly still half-asleep, his head more a mess of curls than usual.

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"Last night," Ford repeated, not sure why he'd have to clarify. Of course in his mind the offending statement was front and center, since he'd been fixating on it for hours already, so it hadn't occurred to him that Tycho might not have realized at once what he meant. "When I was over here. You said you saw something. Er — Saw something," he clarified, adding extra emphasis this time. Ford didn't really put much stock in this sort of thing usually, which was why he hadn't paid Dodonus any heed the night before, but knowing what he knew now he had to reconsider his stance.

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Set by Lady!

He sometimes had multiple visions a night but he'd only had one while in the presence of Ford. He went in search of the notebook that he notated all his visions in and found the one ascribed to that time in particular.

Fair maiden sister,
one with beautiful chocolate hair,
as one brother watches helpless,
malice spirits her away without a care.."

He closed the book and looked back at Ford. "In my vision, a man who seemed to know her and want of her took the young lady away."

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Last night when Dodonus had scribbled it down Ford had just nodded appreciatively, the way one did when someone showed off a piece of artwork that one didn't want to comment on. The poetry wasn't bad, but in such a short stanza there also wasn't much that Ford could have said in its praise, so he hadn't said anything at all. Why pick bones about whether the comparison to chocolate was novel or interesting, particularly when Ford was hardly writing anything better himself? As a prophecy, however, it was spot on. As a prophecy it did have one problem in common with the poem, though: it was too short to contain any of the story.

"Took her where?" he asked urgently, though he already suspected Tycho wouldn't have an answer. He had to at least ask.

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Set by Lady!

"I do not know. I can only See what the vision gives me. No more, no less," Tycho said apologetically, coming over to his friend to try and usher him into sitting. "Why? What's going on?" He was working on trying to be able to See more that what he was provided but it had yet to be successful.

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Ford felt all the energy go out of him, and he might have deflated if he wasn't so tense. The idea that Dodonus might have any clues that would lead to his sister's whereabouts had been a slim one, but he'd been holding onto that hope for the past three hours, so it still hurt to have it wrenched away. He was left feeling, just as he had since he got the news, powerless. He hated it.

Tycho was trying to usher him further inside, and Ford's first reaction was to jerk his arm back before the other man could touch him. He regretted it immediately, and pressed his hands to the sides of his forehead with a miserable frown. It wasn't Dodonus' fault that he didn't have more information, just like it wasn't the aurors fault that they couldn't make Verity appear out of thin air, and expressing his frustration here wouldn't help bring her back. There was, once again, nothing he could do to help his sister.

But if he'd been paying attention last night, he could have. There wasn't anything in that stanza to clue Ford in to the fact that it was his sister Dodonus had seen, but if Ford had been a little more engaged he might have been able to figure it out. He could have asked what she looked like, or where they were, and maybe he would have put the pieces together and been able to do something before it happened.

"It's my sister," he admitted, stomach knotting. "The girl you saw. It's my sister."

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Set by Lady!

Tycho's eyes widened a bit in surprise when Ford jerked his arm back. His friend was obviously on edge and Tycho felt powerless to do anything to help. It hurt to see Ford like this and it made the Seer wish more than ever that he was more progressed in his Sight than he already was. He had been working towards trying to will specific visions on demand but it had yet to work out that way.

Sometimes he could get flashes if he had something very personal to the person but he didn't think it would be much help here.

"Oh, Ford. I'm so sorry," Tycho said as the other man said the girl in the vision had been his sister. He wasn't sure if the other man wanted anyone touching him but he tried to wrap the man in a hopefully comforting hug anyway. "I can try and send Williams out to see if any of his ghostly cohorts have seen anything out of the ordinary."

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Maybe it was Dodonus calling him Ford, which was almost invasively personally — not even Cash regularly called him Ford — or maybe it was the physical contact, since he'd always been particularly comforted by touch. Whichever it was, Ford crumbled in the other man's arms. The only thing keeping Ford together for the past eight to ten hours or so was the fact that he couldn't fall apart when people needed him. He had to put on a mask of calm and optimism in front of Grace and Mama — or he had to try, anyway, as best as he could. He couldn't let his guard down around Noble, either, because Noble had been there when it happened and now blamed himself, and if Ford wasn't there for him he might fall apart, too. Here in Dodonus' foyer, however, there was no one he had to hold himself together for.

He nodded into Dodonus' shoulder at the suggestion about Williams. Ford wasn't sure that a ghost would have any better luck trying to find her than than the aurors would, but they weren't in a position to be turning down help from any quarter that offered it. Ford didn't know what he was going to do if she didn't come back — but then, he also didn't know what he was going to do if she did come back. This had so hopelessly derailed the plan he and Noble had made to get the girls married and financially secure before their debt balancing act ran its course that Ford had no idea how they could ever get things back on track. He could figure that out later, though — right now he just wanted to know that his sister was safe and sound.

"I didn't put it together," he said, and his voice was thick, as though he might cry. Maybe he would; he really couldn't say, though if tears hadn't made their way to his eyes yet he wasn't sure they would. "When you said it last night I never thought... If I'd figured it out..." He didn't finish the thought, but surely his friend knew where he was going with it: I could have stopped it.

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Set by Lady!

Tycho allowed Ford his moment to fall apart in silence, simply being there for him. Not that there was much else that he could think to do.  Williams had clearly been eavesdropping as he went floating out of the house with a simple nod of acknowledgement towards Tycho. He had no idea if being told that he didn't get the sense that the vision was one to foretell a Death would be comforting or not at this point.

"There is no way you could have known," Tycho reminded gently, his hand rubbing gentle circles into the other mans back. "If it helps any, I do have a sense she will be returned." Whether or not her state would be quite healthy, was another matter entirely. But he did get the Feeling that she was not destined to die just yet. "Would you like a spot of tea with a splash of a Draught of Peace to sooth your nerves?"

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"You do?" he asked hopefully. Ford would have perked up at that idea, except that it was so comforting being held that he didn't want to do anything just yet that might break the contact, even if it was just shifting his posture slightly. Dodonus' hand on his back was something he never would have thought to ask for but something he now realized he'd needed. He'd been up all night anxiously pacing his room and thinking of all the things that could and couldn't be done to help Verity, and trying not to think of all the things that might or might not have already happened to her, but now he felt his anxiety ebb for the first time since he'd first gotten the news from Noble. Of course he was still worried, but for the first time he felt like he could go to sleep, maybe — particularly with a little help. He didn't usually use draughts of any kind, preferring not to artificially dull any sensation he might be experiencing, but this was a dire situation. A draught of peace to help keep him functioning until Verity returned might not be the worst thing in the world.

"That sounds... really nice, actually," he admitted. "But I have to work soon. And I didn't sleep last night." He didn't really know if he had to go to work, because these were extreme circumstances, but he didn't have any real reason not to. There was nothing he could do by sitting around at home waiting for Verity to reappear, and the aurors were already working on the case. Having his pay docked for missing time certainly wouldn't do them any favors in any case — whether Verity returned, or whether they ended up eventually having to pay for her funeral.

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Set by Lady!

"I do," Tycho confirmed. "One thing I can glean for certain from my vision - she is not dead." He did not know why she had been snatched but he doubted the man who had taken her had innocent intentions in mind. His heart went out to the Greengrass family and he hoped Miss Greengrass would not suffer too greatly, wherever she was.

"A tiny drop then? Just enough to take a little of the edge off of your nerves?" Tycho suggested, not much enjoying the idea of Ford going off to work in the state he was in. "Are you sure you can't at least have half the day off? Catch up on some sleep? It won't do your family any good to have you falling into a faint from lack of slumber."

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Ford felt his entire body relax when his friend said she's not dead. It wasn't as though this was a guarantee, because there was no way Tycho could really know that one way or another — even if he'd had a vision yesterday and it had been Verity in the vision, he couldn't know that she was alright now — but it seemed to hold more weight than the empty platitudes he'd been offering Grace and Mama for the last twelve hours. It wasn't necessarily that he thought Dodonus knew, Ford realized. It was that he wanted so desperately for someone to know, and in the absence of that he was willing to let himself be comforted (a tiny bit, anyway) by someone stepping in and speaking with authority, whether or not that authority was warranted.

"No, I know," he agreed in response to the comment about not falling faint. He pulled back from Dodonus (less because he wanted to end the contact and more because he wanted to seem slightly more put together than he had a moment ago) and ran one hand through his hair. "I'll have breakfast and coffee before I go in. I'll be fine."

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Set by Lady!

Ford had never seemed to put much stock in his visions before but he wasn't about to question it. Besides, he had seen things like this before where a skeptic took comfort in a Seers words because they needed it emotionally. Even if they still did not quite fully believe in anything a Seer said or did.

Tycho kept his eyes on his friends face as Ford pulled back. "If you say so. At least rest a bit and gossip with me before you go back. I can tell you all about Williams latest efforts to woo that young ghostly woman I mentioned last time."

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Ford sniffled. He may not have actually cried yet but this was a sure sign that he'd been on the verge, if nothing else was. He wasn't sure how to feel about the prospect of Dodonus seeing him cry. He hadn't cried in front of other people since he was twelve years old. He'd come close with Noble once or twice, but even with Noble he always felt the need to put on a facade of having everything together. Someone had to be strong for everyone in the family, when everything else was falling apart, and that responsibility — like every other responsibility — fell to Ford. Dodonus didn't have that same dynamic; Ford didn't feel like he had to pretend to be anything around him, including strong. But that didn't necessarily mean he was comfortable with the idea of breaking down and crying on his shoulder.

"Thanks," he said with a nod. "I have a few minutes, I guess. For tea."

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Set by Lady!