"Two days before we met you but if I'm right about the girls being the same ones, Cam'll trace them to their inexplicable consumption by a giant snake and then they will just as inexplicably land in Valinor."

"...Okay.

So do you just not want to tell me for certain, yet, because you know how our naming rules work and I told you the botanist's name and I have noticed that you have a thing about names, I'm not sure I believe you don't know the names of your human twins."

"I just don't know what to make of the giant snake thing and haven't actually had Cam trace out their story yet."

She looks like she's considering saying something and deciding against it. "Alright. So. Freeze-framing."

"I can't make magic things, snake might be magic." But with that caveat, forensics ahoy.

So what happened with the university is that Erichen Eizar Lessnerai was in fact fucking around with explosives, but not in a context of trying to blow up anything that shouldn't be blown up; a neighbor had asked for help dealing with a particularly recalcitrant tree stump and he had figured a small shaped charge would be effective. Someone walked in on him and explosives and freaked out and went and got someone else who also freaked out. Eventually a whole bunch of people were there, freaking out, and Sarlassa was there trying to calm people down and Erichen was not being especially conciliatory because he wasn't doing anything wrong and they were being ridiculous, and then one of the freaking out people knocked something over and Erichen was the only person who realized exactly how bad that was in time. He tackled his wife to the floor, trying to act as a human shield for her. It didn't do enough good.

"....ah."

She sighs. "Very plausibly not a conspiracy, at least."

"Doesn't look especially like one. And the kids - you might want to go forward by days, I don't know precisely when the snake intervened -"

The kids were devastated when they found out. There was a lot of crying. They leave town.

They stop being in Kilaiuossa.

Narrowing down -

Yep, that's Valinor.

"The snake is as much a mystery to us as to you."

"If you thought you could get anywhere on figuring it out from the bones I could probably find out where they buried it."

"Cam, are the bones magic -"

Yep.

"Then that sounds potentially helpful."

She will get someone on that, then.

"Were there any other snake-attributed disappearances, or disappearances that in light of this could be snake-attributed -"

"I don't think so, but I don't keep track of every missing persons case in the country. I'll get someone on that, too."

"We likely don't yet have the means to retrieve them from wherever they've landed - no one else landed on us - but we're working on something that'll give us that capability."

"That would, of course, be best."

"Best would be figuring out the snakes, but that would be nice. Most places one could land are - less good places to land than Valinor."

She nods somberly. "By best I meant--better than not."

"Cam can check where they are, that just won't necessarily be sufficient to go there. Is there anything I should convey to your lost subjects -"