Girl's Not Grey [Finished!]

[Bee]

She had a mission. It was not one of great import, but she dramatized it in her brain to amuse herself, and suddenly her small quest to retrieve a chemical for Mama had turned into a heroic struggle against the forces of evil. Danger was everywhere. Danger was the little granny hobbling down the street. Danger was the group of little boys gathering in a circle while one of their number tormented a few captured bugs. Danger was some Selkie Lakes bat strolling down the street with a crossword puzzle.

He looked fishy, that bat. Thalia eyed him suspiciously. A little too into that crossword puzzle, if you asked her. What normal person took that long to solve a crossword? She only spent a few minutes on them. Very predictable patterns. Every other one contained the word "sphere." The people who made them weren't very imaginative.

She inched toward him as cautiously and covertly as a bright wiggly mass of color can be cautious and covert, and apparently she wanted to help him with the crossword, for her tentacles slid it right out of his grip.

[Dark]

Rin liked doing the daily crossword; it was relaxing and it was something to keep him occupied and relatively awake when he’d otherwise have nothing better to do than sleep with his eyes open--the lull in-between clients could be mind numbing, and there were only so many times that he could go over the same case files. Life was rather dull and routine, actually--do the crossword, stare at dust motes, have a client with some horrible tragedy, do his thing, solve case, happy ending for all, rinse, lather, repeat; occasionally, when he felt like mixing things up a bit, he went out for drinks.

And then someone stole his crossword. They weren’t even sneaky about it--just snatched it right out of his hand--and it took him a moment to get over the audacity of the theft before he could react properly.

He whirled, the epitome of indignation, “What the hell? Give that back, pint-sized.”

[Bee]

Thalia stared at him a moment, wide-eyed. He was a very surly fellow, this bat. Highly suspicious behavior. Exactly the kind of person who would impede her quest to fetch chemicals for Mama. Then she collected herself a little bit and set the game aside. It really wasn't very likely that someone was trying to sink the world into darkness by preventing her from running an errand.

And some people did get a little upset when they noticed her borrowing things. She didn't know why. She'd give them back if she noticed she had them.

"I just wanted to help," she said, cheerfully. She looked at the crossword speculatively for a moment. "Five down is 'Iago.' Twenty-nine across is 'Formaldehyde.' The word you want in the corner there is 'Hg'--for mercury!" She handed the crossword back to him. "You could almost turn it into a game. Iago gave mercury poisoning to all his friends at a tea party and when they were dead he preserved their bodies in formaldehyde."

[Dark]

Rin glanced at his crossword--she was right, damn her--and through sheer force of will resisted her innate cheerfulness; he wouldn’t be charmed into forgiveness.

“You might be right--might, and by the way that was a very disturbing example--but that doesn’t excuse you of taking my things without permission.” It was very difficult not to gawk now that he was looking at her more closely--she was definitely a bright little creature--and he settled for raising one eyebrow incredulously and blurting out the first thing that came to mind, “You’re a walking disaster, aren’t you.”

It was a rather obvious conclusion to arrive at--with all that hair and the tentacles and everything--and not particularly polite, but Rin was feeling slightly off-kilter after having his newspaper stolen and then promptly returned--and solved; he was feeling rather bitter about that--and thought his behavior could be excused considering the circumstances. Still--

“Eh. Whatever.” He tossed the newspaper in a nearby trash receptacle, “No harm, no foul.”

[Bee]

"That's what Iskra says." And she was right, probably. Thalia thrived on chaos. Disorder made her happy. There were worse ways to function, right? Mom thrived on alcohol and evil. Mama thrived on poking people full of holes and mutating bander-kind into an almost entirely different species. General discord really wasn't so bad in the grand scheme of things.

She was glad the bat was taking everything so well. A right decent chap after all. Very chill, as they said. Thalia wasn't quite certain who they were, but their opinion and parlance seemed to be esteemed highly, so she might as well appropriate it. This man was exceedingly chill and not evil at all.

"I'm sorry I thought you were a demonic agent bent on my destruction," she said, by way of apology. "Oh! And always remember that 'sphere' is usually in there somewhere."

[Dark]

Rin didn’t follow even half of what she was saying--Iskra; demonic agents; destruction; spheres; crazy--but he nodded anyway, “Thanks?” She seemed well-meaning enough, if a little--more than a little--out of her mind crazy, and prone to stealing people’s crosswords for no apparent reason, and it was probably best if he left this encounter where it belonged--behind him. Which meant it was time to take his leave, because prolonged exposure to crazy couldn’t be good for him.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, but I’ve got an appointment.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but he might have an appointment--he wouldn’t know until he got to the office and could see if there were any people hovering nervously outside his door--and that was all that really mattered. “And don’t go around stealing anymore crosswords, yeah?” Or, at least, not his crossword.

Rin waved a vague goodbye as he was backing up, and beat a strategic retreat.