Don't worry, I'll wait.
...........
You done? Okay then, let's get this show on the road!
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I folded up the drawing and put it in my coat pocket, determination settling in me. If this girl was like me, and the reason she was taken was somehow connected to my situation as well, it was very likely for whoever had taken her to come for me next. And I had no intention of just sitting here waiting for it to happen. I was going to get to the bottom of this.
And even if it turned out the disappearance of the girl had nothing to do with me, well then, at least I'd solved a mystery and saved a kidnapped person, and that had to count for something, right? And it's not like I actually had anything else to do, now that I thought about it. With no past I had no future, except for the one I decided on here and now.
I turned to Rosa, who tensed slightly and blinked, surprised by the intensity in my eyes.
"We need to thoroughly examine the house for any kind of clues regarding what happened here," I told her. "There must be something here that will help us find her."
"R-right," she said, and nodded. "You take this room, and I'll go look downstairs. We'll cover more ground if we separate."
I nodded back and she left the room, leaving the door open in her wake. I watched after her for a moment, before turning to the task at hand.
The room appeared to be some kind of sitting room, with bookshelves lining the walls, a fireplace in the corner, and several soft looking armchairs and sofas. The room was in a total chaos though; most of the books were teared down from the shelves, the chairs flipped over and pillows thrown around the room, and even some of the ashes had been dragged out of the fireplace and onto the stone floor in front of it. I stared at the ashes for a while, trying to figure out why exactly they felt out of place.
When the realisation hit I scrambled over to the fireplace to get a better look.
As I had suspected, someone had deliberately pulled it out, as if hey had been looking for something in the fire. The ashes weren't warm, but when I pressed my hand against the stone wall above it was warm, which mean the fire had been burning recently since it most certainly would retain heat for at least a day. There was probably a fire there just last night, in fact. I picked up the ash scraper that lay on the floor and started to poke around, in case there was something still there.
Something clinked against the floor and I looked down at the pile of ash I'd pulled out. With trembling fingers I started to sift through it, until they hit something hard and curled around it.
I stared at the small silver key in my hands, studied it against the light pouring in through the window. It looked fairly simple, without much decoration. The end of it looked to me like an eye, and it had a small metal circle looped through it, presumably to make attaching it to a belt or something easier. I wondered what it would open, and looked around the room for something with a lock on it, but when nothing suitable turned up I decided to figure it out later, and slipped it into my pocket after cleaning the soot off of it.
There wasn't much else of interest in the room. All the books on the floor seemed irrelevant - though I was pleased when I found I could read the language - and a thorough inspection of the sofas and chair wielded nothing but sneezing as the feathers inside the pillows erupted to the air. I left the room and headed downstairs.
Rosa was inspecting a cupboard in what I assumed was the kitchen when I walked in.
"Find anything?" I asked. Her whole body jerked and she cracked her head on the shelf.
"Shit!" she said, rubbing the no doubt sore spot on her head. I lifted my hand to my mouth to hide the amused smile that tried to curl on my lips. "Don't just sneak up on a gal like that, jeez! Manners, Nemo, ever heard of them?"
"Can't say that I remember," I said, though of course I knew what manners were. I had never intended to scare Rosa, but the line was too good to pass up.
She blinked up at me, stared at me in silence for a moment, and then snorted out a laugh.
"Smartass," she muttered and turned back to the cupboard.
"So, have you found anything?" I asked again and she shrugged and closed the cupboard door.
"Not much out of the ordinary, unfortunately," she admitted, crossing her arms across her chest as she frowned at the ground. "Most signs of struggle were out in the front hall, so I'd wager she was upstairs when they came, and dragged her down. I don't think anyone's been here since last night."
"That means she was taken after her supper," I said, rubbing a hand over my jaw. I could feel the light scratch of short stubble, but that was to be expected. I had no idea when I'd last shaven, but it had to have been more than two days ago. "The hearth was still warm though, so there was a fire there recently... I'm guessing they came for her late last night, and probably weren't expecting to find her awake anymore."
"Sounds plausible," Rosa concurred. She was still frowning as she looked at me again. "I do wonder what she was doing up so late though..."
"She was probably burning something the kidnappers thought was important. Look, here," I said, digging out the key from my pocket. "I found this in the fireplace, as well as signs that someone had pulled something big out of it. There was ash all over the place."
"A key?" said Rosa, taking it from me and inspecting it. Her frown turned into an excited grin. "How mysterious... I wonder what it opens..."
"Don't know, I didn't find anything upstairs."
"And I haven't found any locked doors or drawers down here either. Damn." She handed the key back to me and frowned again, deep in thought. Then she pulled something out of the small satchel that was hanging on her hip. "I did find this though." She handed me a...
"A collar?" I asked, surprised. It was a small collar, long enough for a big cat, maybe, or a really small dog. There were no markings on it, beside the capital "N" that had been burned into the brown leather. The clasp was simple, like a belt buckle, made from some gray metal or another. "Did she have a pet?"
"I don't know," said Rosa with a shrug. "I didn't exactly spent time with her, you know. But she's been living here for a few moths, so I guess it's possible." I handed her back the collar and stuffed it back into the pouch. "We can go ask around town, if you like? There's bound to be someone who knew her a bit better."
What she said made me pause. "Wait, there's a town nearby?" I asked. She looked surprised, before sliding into a sheepish smile.
"I guess we forgot to mention that, huh? There was a fork in the road about half way between this house and ours, and if you turn the other way there you get into town in twenty-five, thirty minutes. Twenty if you walk fast."
I thought back to our walk here, and I did recall a point where the road split into two. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, because roads often had forks in it, but I hadn't considered the fact there might be a town so close by.
"Yeah, we should go there," I said. Rosa nodded.
"Sounds good to me, I've been meaning to drop by the market sometime soon. We're starting to run out of, uh... a lot of things, actually." Her cheeks were tinted pink when I looked over. It was obvious she was hiding something, but I decided not to push it. She looked really embarrassed, so I figured it probably wasn't anything malicious.
We left the kitchen and made our way back outside the house. There was a shuffling sound. I stopped, my hand shooting to grab a hold of Rosa's coat sleeve. She turned back, frowning again.
"What?" she asked but I hushed her. There was a soft crack as a twig snapped in two. She heard it too this time. I pointed towards the trees next to the house, where the sound had come from. We waited quietly.
A small figure appeared from behind the tree, eyeing us suspiciously. It was a fox, or something similar to it, but to my surprise it had wings on its back. It snarled, baring its teeth at us.
"Oh wow," said Rosa quietly. "A pennafox! They're pretty rare to see this east." She squatted down, extended her hand to it and made kissy noises. The pennafox didn't seem particularly impressed by this, but neither did it seem scared. A thought occurred to me.
"Let me try something," I said, slipping my hand into Rosa's satchel even though she made a protesting sound. It felt a lot bigger on the inside than it had looked on the outside, but I ignored it as I pulled out the collar. The pennafox's ears perked up and it looked from me to the collar and back to me again. "This yours?" I said to it. "Do you want it? I can put it back on you..."
The pennafox still hesitated, seeming conflicted, although now it didn't look quite as much like it wanted to tear our guts open.
"You want to help us find your master?" I asked. "I know she was taken, and we're trying to get her back."
Apparently that did the job and the pennafox pounced, spreading its wings and gliding over to me. It was still vary of my movements, but I moved slowly as I attached the collar back around its neck. It sniffed my hands, and then Rosa's hands, and finally it allowed Rosa to pick it up.
"She's so pretty!" she squeed as she rubbed the fox behind the ear. "I can't believe the girl managed to tame a pennafox in such a short amount of time. And make it this loyal to boot."
"Well, we can ask that from her once we find her," I said. The fox climbed up Rosa's arm and settled across her shoulders. "For now let's go to town and see if we can find out more about the girl and what she'd been doing here for the past few months."
"Sir, yessir," said Rosa, giving me a salute. Then she scratched the fox again. "You're gonna come too, right N?" It let out a... sound. It wasn't a bark or a meow or anything I'd heard before.
"N?" I asked and Rosa nodded.
"That's what it says on the collar, right?" she reasoned. "And since we don't know what her full name is, we'll just call her N for now."
"Okay then. You sure like naming things," I said, shaking my head. She just grinned. Then we were off towards the town.
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Excuse you, if I wanna write about drugs, I'll write about drugs! I didn't tho, but still.
I'm sorry this is kinda late as well, butttttttt I had to go fill in at Gigantti and then we went to the movies with Iita. I did start this yesterday and wrote a bit at Gigantti, and it is only ten atm, so it's not super late, but I have no idea where I was going with this sentence. Huh. Anyway.
I remembered yesterday that I wanted to give Rosa a winged fox in the first part, but then I'd forgotten about that and given them a regular cat by accident so... I put it here! Yay.
Pictures!
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| Nemo! haha he looks like a hobo |
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| pouty!Rosa! why is she so pouty? who knows! |
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| babies<3 i wanted to make Nemo like... all ragged and stuff, but it turns out i can't draw anything but cute hahaa...... |
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| granny Ulula b/c she's awesome (also screw cats but not like literally you know) |
That's all from me for now! Your topic is "Closed".
Pie out.
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