"These the ones you spotted?" Pelape murmurs to Eefa.

Nod.

"I'd love to find out this is all a misunderstanding, but I want to go to Laithan about it without being stalked there so I'm going to need you lot to wait a few minutes while I get the rest of the way to his office."

"Fine, if you insist," replies the redhead.

So Pelape carries Eefa over to Laithan's office. Knock knock.

"Oh, hi Pelape, hi Eefa."

"Hi, ran into something I need Laithan for."

"He's in a meeting with the artisan's guild right now - should I tell him to come anyway?"

"Depends, how does he feel about holding people on suspicion?"

"I'm guessing it would depend on the details?"

"There's five of them? The last time something like this happened the guy tried to shoot me in the head after taking the entire Elysium kitchen staff hostage?"

"-I'll go get him."

"Thanks."

Soon enough, there's a worried-looking Laithan.

"What happened?'

"Group of five followed us through the market for a while. Eefa's got a bad feeling about them, which of course I wouldn't blame you for thinking was probably nothing, except the last time she had a bad feeling about somebody, we avoided him at all hours of the day, I had to fend off a break-in attempt at our door in the middle of the night, and ultimately the guy tied up the entire Elysium kitchen staff to hold me at gunpoint and wound up dead when Security heard the commotion. I think her bad feelings have something to them and I don't know the limits of my authority yet in dealing with five people who haven't done anything worse than stalking and are locally known as friendly faces. Last guy was too."

"Jeeze, okay... do you know why the last guy did that?"

"No, because he ended up dead, but Eefa thinks he was after her. I got her in the first place from people who were keeping her in a cage planning to sell her, I wouldn't be surprised at this point if she's - drawing in predators unwittingly, somehow -"

"Do you have a specific thing you mean by drawing in predators?"

"I don't have anything like a mechanism of action in mind, if that's what you mean."

Nod.

"I think the thing I'm wondering is whether the people in question are being mind-controlled into being predators or if they act that way on their own."

"I don't know. They were denying everything, which rules out that they were mind-controlled in a way that left them with insight."

"Hrm...Normally, if I had solid information that someone was trouble, I'd get them to leave town. Do you think that would be a good idea in this case?"

"Maybe. I'd settle for a restraining order but I'm not sure you have the state capacity or the concept and it'd interact poorly with the thing where Eefa accompanies me on rounds."

"What's a restraining order?"

"Sort of like a one-person or in this case it'd be five-person law specifying that they have to stay well clear of somebody in particular and how they're obliged to go about it."