maybethings replied to your post: My Mind Rebels at Stagnation…
SUDDENLY, STEN APPEARS IN CHEZ QUNRAPAH.
The weather shouldn’t be this hot. Not for the first of March. Not for…but who was she kidding? This was madness. This was Florida, and no amount of wishful thinking for late-season snow was going to change that. At least the house was quiet. She had it to herself, fanfic at her fingertips, a book not far off (if Three Kindgoms could be considered a book and not an entire library in its own right), and there was naught but time to kill.
She waited as the sky darkened. It was all she did these days, waiting for the man of the house to get home after another long day of enforced overtime. She waited to hear the sound of his car pulling into the driveway, the brief honk of the horn as he locked and set the alarm, that signal for her to race to the front door and tackle him with hugs.
For hours, there was only silence.
Suddenly, when she’d finally lost herself in the pages of a fanfic (Raziel, my darling, what were they thinking when they wrote you like…nevermind…), there was a harsh pounding on the door. Like thunder, it echoed through the still mostly-empty house, no carpets or curtains to muffle the vibrations. She sat, frozen in her seat, with a horrid amount of adrenaline suddenly coursing through her. Her heart was beating so hard, it felt like it had lodged in the back of her throat. Her neighbors didn’t knock like that. Her boyfriend had a key.
When the pounding came again, more fervently this time, she slid down from the red blood-drop of a barstool and made her tentative way to the door, her hands tugging at her pajamas, her slippers shuffling on the tile. She was too short to see through the peephole, so she did that same stupid thing that her boyfriend always hoped she wouldn’t. She unlocked the door and opened it a crack, just enough to see who was standing in the dim pool of light.
“Have you lost this?”
The voice was low but more smooth than gruff, short but not unkind. It was a tall man, skin like burnished bronze and white hair braided in tight cornrows. His eyes were a silver-violet, and they were glaring down at her most curiously.
“Wha…?” Such was not a time for eloquence.
He huffed an agitated sigh. “This.” He hefted a strange bundle with one hand. It was the furry, flailing form of the neighbor’s marmalade cat. “I found it mewling down there by the road. It must be yours. It was in front of this building.”
She stared at the struggling creature, its legs kicking as it tried to free the scruff of its neck from the giant’s firm grip.
“No…” she replied slowly, dazed. “It just…likes our garden.” She pointed awkwardly over her shoulder like that explained everything. “It’s a little overgrown.”
“I should say so,” the man replied, lifting the cat even further so that its eyes met his. “Someone clearly feeds this…this thing too much.”
“Cat.”
“What?”
“It’s a cat. That thing is a cat.”
He blinked at her, quietly, his face blank and unreadable. For a moment, even the neighbor’s cat was still as it realized that struggle was useless against his captor. Indeed, his captor had quite the opinion on the futility of struggle.
“Take it, then,” he responded dismissively, dropping the animal into her arms. “You know what it is, you must know what to do with it. I…merely felt I should return what was lost.”
“Even if it was not your duty to do so?” It was strange, but something in his words, some odd familiarity that let her come to grips with his curious appearance, gave her courage.
He had already turned to leave but paused at the sound of her voice. Turning his head over his shoulder, he replied, “It wears a collar. Clearly someone shirked their own duty in guarding it. I did what I had to. Now, it is up to you.”
And he walked down the path and to the road just beyond. He had no car to get into, no motorcycle, no bike. But it was not the darkness that made him vanish. He was simply gone.
