8/17/3052 14:37 Location – First Prince’s Office, Castle Davion

Katherine Steiner-Davion was walking to her father’s office after spending the morning on the practice field for the NAIS Equestrian team. While she was still in the process of getting her education at NAIS Victor was on New Avalon sharing his experiences from the Clan Front at NAMA, Tukayyid still being very fresh in the minds of the Inner Sphere.

Katherine had enjoyed this rare time with her brother whom she almost never saw, both of them having been kept far apart for most of their formative years. She was also enjoying the time spent with her brother’s friend Hauptmann Galen Cox with whom she had struck up a romantic correspondence (the steamier parts of which were privately couried on bonded transports, COMSTAR didn’t need to know about her love life). Her professors had actually noticed a change in her performance and made a comment of it, which was shrugged off, some distraction wouldn’t hurt her.

Victor would take a break from whatever he was doing at around 15:00 every day, then both of them would have afternoon tea/coffee together with their father discussing current affairs. Hanse liked to play both of his older children’s minds against each other and point out pros and cons to a course of action. They would eventually run the largest interstellar empire in the Inner Sphere, he wanted to make sure both of them were prepared for the great responsibility they would bear one day, hopefully a day long in the future.

That day was unfortunately short in coming, Katherine walked into her father’s office and saw him slumped in his chair. Initially believing he was taking a nap, something that was a frequent occurrence, she quietly crept up to him. He normally could sense she was near and would wake up to her great surprise but that didn’t happen.

“Dad, Dad. Wake up Victor is going to be here soon.” No response

Concerned, maybe he put in to many hours last night, he was normally a light sleeper. Katherine pushed his shoulder, “Come on Dad, wake up”, she pushed harder “This isn’t funny Dad, wake up!” Nothing

Panicked she grabbed the phone on his desk, “Emergency, Code Blue, Prince’s Office”, Castle Davion’s internal alarm system triggered and called for a medical response to the Prince’s Office. Katherine checked Hanse, he was still warm but had no pulse. Victor rushed in on her trying to perform CPR on her father quickly followed by the Castle’s EMTs who took it from there.

It was too late though, First Prince Hanse Davion had passed less than an hour ago.

18:48 Castle Davion Infirmary

Katherine was still in shock, “If only I had been there sooner, maybe…”

Victor while also grieving had seen death before, just never this close, “Don’t do that to yourself sister. He was gone when you got there…sometimes it just has to happen that way.”

“But…” Victor put his finger to his sister’s lips, “No, look Katherine I’ll take it from here. Go find Yvonne, she is missing and the castle staff is concerned.”

Their youngest sister Yvonne was only 13 and had spent nearly her entire life in Castle Davion with her father. Hanse having a wider stable of advisers and more experience being First Prince than his wife Melissa had being Archon insisted his youngest daughter have a more stable arrangement than the middle children. Hanse and Melissa also wanted to protect at least two of their heirs should the Clans keep attacking so Arthur and Yvonne were predominately raised in the Federated Suns far away from danger. This unfortunately left Yvonne without a mother raised by maids and she gravitated strongly to her older sister as a result.

Katherine was still grief-stricken but Victor had given her something to focus on instead of their father’s death. She asked her little brother Arthur if he had seen Yvonne but he was still upset and hadn’t seen her that day. Peter was on Tharkad at Nagelring, Victor was dealing with other matters, her little sister had to be in the Castle somewhere but it was a big place. Yvonne was a big fan of hide and seek, regularly finding hidden passageways that had been lost to generations of Davions, she was also small.

She started in the girl’s room, which was painted rose with pictures, some self-made, of horses and sunrises (her room faced East because the staff didn’t want to wake her up in the morning) on the walls. The dresser was open and partially emptied and she had taken snacks from the Kitchen according to the staff. Several pictures were clearly missing from Yvonne’s desk and Kat opened one of the drawers to find a recently written note. It was a raw and sad poem from a mourning daughter to her deceased father and it hit Katherine hard.

21:29 Sub-level 3D

Katherine had spent hours looking for signs of her sister, she had gone into every secret passage that she knew. There were others but her adult body couldn’t fit into them like when she was Yvonne’s age. She had to get a Class U Passcard in order to continue her search having walked through most of the public portion of the locked down Castle. It gave her time to come to grip with her emotions but she was afraid Yvonne might have hurt herself.

In one of the many utility tunnels under Castle Davion Katherine heard a girl crying, following the noise she came to a large pipe long since abandoned in place. Katherine couldn’t see around the bend or fit but spoke into it,_ “Yvonne, please come out”_

“I don’t want to! Just leave me alone Kat”, Katherine sat down, her back against the white concrete wall in which the pipe was anchored, gray sweatpants settling on the cold floor, “I’m not going anywhere Yvonne.”

After about twenty minutes of crying and talking, Yvonne crawled out of the pipe, her clothes were dirty and she was cold and wet. Katherine gave her sister the sweatshirt she was wearing and they shared a long hug.

“It will be alright Yvonne, we can get through this together, and I’ll always be here for you”