Serpents and Fools

Paloma watched as Pipkin stomped out the door. A part of her wanted to stop him, to give chase and explain or apologize or something, but the other part knew that her brother needed to blow off the steam. She didn’t like him running off in the rains, but he was an aqualox. Pipkin would be fine.

Paloma withdrew her attention from the rickety reed door, and instead, cast it onto the item that shattered the house’s peace in the first place. Like a rock through a window, the serpent trinket sat there, dejected but somewhat purposeful. Its green glow emanated from the crystalline orb resting in the stone paws? Mittens? (Paloma wasn’t entirely sure what the carved creatures… hands were, but they didn’t match those of any Safiran she knew.) 

Something about the way the glow tinted the air made Paloma’s stomach churn, and yet she found her mind at ease, like visiting a childhood park after dark. It was something familiar but foreign all at once. She knew the lay of the land, but not what might be hiding in the reeds.

“Mama?” Canter's voice chirped.

Paloma jolted a little, startled by the pup’s presence. Of course, neither Canter nor Spring had left the room. The two were still there, huddled against one-another, looking to Paloma for some kind of comfort? Answers? Once-again, Paloma did not know. She had to admit, her brain was frazzled, torn between her desire to keep her family happy and the need to teach them the world won’t always be the way you want it to be.

Paloma shook her head. “Sorry, what was that, sweetheart?”

“Will Uncle Pipkin be okay?” Canter asked. “You told us to never go out in the storms.”

Paloma didn’t know how to respond to that. Between letting Pipkin stomp off just now, allowing him to stay out past dark, agreeing to go to the Sweetheart Summit, and a hundred little other things, Paloma realized she had developed a double-standard for the pups and Pipkin. Although Pipkin was older than she was, he certainly didn’t act like it, and she wondered if she ought to be more stern about that. Then again, they were siblings.

Plus, Pipkin needed the fresh air.

“Of course,” Paloma laughed like she had a boulder lodged in her chest. ”Uncle Pipkin will be just fine. He knows his way around town.“

Canter looked to his sister for some confirmation of whatever thoughts were blazing through his head. Her shoulders shifted into a subtle shrug. Without any words, it felt as though an entire conversation were taking place.

Mama has a point.

But the rains are heavy.

But it’s Uncle Pipkin. He’s been in and gotten out of far worse.

Paloma observed the silence between the two, thinking about all the times she and Pipkin would do the same thing. A subtle shift in the eyebrow here, a twitch in the ear there. A lot could be communicated if you knew one another well enough. Their mother, Typhoon, had hated it when they did, and now raising pups herself, Paloma began to see why. Too much mischief can brew, and Paloma did not want them scheming some sort of rainy escapade after their uncle.

Paloma caught herself staring at the garish bruise on Canter’s arm from a boating incident a month prior, his fur still bedraggled where brushing caused him to wince. She fluffed her fur with a shiver, forcing her gaze to the boy’s melancholy face instead. Paloma sighed. What they needed was a distraction.

“Come here, come here,” Paloma drifted over to the alcove, rain pattering against the yellowed glass.

Although their paws remained in place, Canter and Spring’s attention shifted to Paloma as she sunk into the pillow nest lining the alcove. She left enough space for two squabbling siblings, patting the spot. The twins glanced at each other once more before Spring trotted up, clambering onto a terracotta grey pillow to claim as her own, while Canter followed tentatively behind.

“Tell is the story of the crocodile and the salamander!”

“Again?” Canter slowly pulled himself next to his sibling. “Why not the one of the whale and the tides?”

The two began bickering between tales, arguing that you couldn’t marry the tides, but crocodiles would 100% eat a salamander, and rabbits wouldn’t even run in a race! but Paloma smiled. While Pipkin used the alcove for his brooding, Paloma loved to use it as a cozy spot to share stories and watch the world go by outside. It was a near Pavlovian response for her and the pups; she needn’t even mention that she was about to tell a story, before the two would squabble like starlings over the dozens of tales Paloma shared.

They would have loved school, if the family had only been able to afford it.

Paloma shuffled her fur again. A distraction. Right.

“Have I ever told you the one of the Forgotten Library?”

“No!” The two shouted in unison. Between the twin’s squabbling requests, Paloma rarely shared new stories.

“Well,” Paloma tucked her paws underneath her, “it all begins with a builder. A pair of builders, actually—“

“Magicians?” A sparkle danced in Canter’s eyes.

“Shh! Let Mama tell it!”

Paloma’s face brightened. “No, not magicians, at least, not one of them. One of the builders was a Terradin, the other a Pokey Smoke.”

Oh, that drew the twins' attention. Terradins were scarcely seen because of their hibernation, and Pokey Smokes were practically myth at this point. No one had seen one in decades.

But just as Paloma was about to quilt a fantastical tale, a sound came from the storeroom, flicking the aqualoxes’ attention to the rickety door. The smell of magic billowed into the room like a skunk’s musk, oozing on the trio’s whiskers like a viscous slime. Paloma’s fur bristled and her lip curled.

“Stay here,” she hissed.

She slipped down from the alcove like a coral snake into the water, treading quieter than the air shifting around her and the blood pounding in her ears. Paloma’s senses fought against the plume of magic in search for any clues to who or what was in the storeroom, but it was like a dense fog. The only hint as to what waited for her around the corner was the very magic suffocating her lungs.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone broke into the family’s food stores (some Safirans are desperate around this bend of the river) but never was there ever this potent of magic. An inkling wormed in Paloma’s gut that whoever was here was not here for food. Suddenly, a serpent trinket with a glowing green orb slithered into Paloma’s memory. It was no longer in the doorway.

Palom’s heart raced, and her pace quickened. Stalking up to the storeroom, she reached for the door. It was ajar. She placed her paw on the reeds, ready to fling the door open, when something tapped Paloma’s shoulder from behind. Paloma nearly screamed, whipping around with her claws extended, when her eyes settled into Pipkin’s silver eyes.

Her brother’s eyes flitted over to Paloma’s striking paw, suspended in the air from the shock of Pipkin’s sudden return, and she settled it slowly back down to the ground.

“What—“

“Shh,” Pipkin hushed.

He crept around Paloma to the door, extending his paw just as Paloma had moments before. Pipkin was going in first. In a way, Paloma was offended: she was just as capable of handling intruders as Pipkin! But the other part was relieved that her sibling was here. It would be much easier to address whoever it was as a pair.

Unless there are multiple intruders.

But Paloma hadn’t a moment to whisper her concerns when Pipkin abruptly slammed the door open, a crack rattling the air, as he pounced into the darkness. 

Paloma scurried in after him, quietly spelling a light cantrip while Pipkin charged ahead. She heard the silence of Pipkin’s lunge, then a flash of light, a crash, a rattle, and then the shattering of dishes. Paloma hastily finished casting her spell — thousands of firefly lights dazzling into the air, refracting the ambient magic within them — but when her eyes adjusted, it was just her and Pipkin standing alone in the storeroom, the floor shimmering with a strange, bubbling dust.

“Pipkin?”

“Translocation,” he breathed. “T-they used teleportation magic, Paloma.”

He turned to his sister, eyes wide and flooded with terror.

“Pipkin, who? No one in town has that kind of skill.”

“No, no. They’re not from town—a red eyed devil— it’s just like Ollie said.”

A crunch sounded beneath Pipkin’s paw. He lifted it, looking down at the husk of a lobster mite. Paloma saw just as well as he did.

“Where’s the trinket?” Pipkin asked.

Paloma looked around, then spotted it, sitting dejected in the dust. She drifted over, about to grab it, when she noticed something off. The trinket’s carvings were wrong (a chevron here when a leaf should be there) and the orb didn’t glow. Without the illumination , it felt… lifeless.

“Paloma?”

“It’s gone, Pipkin.” 

Paloma picked up the forgery, twisting it around her paws. She looked to Pipkin who was staring at the glimmering bits of bubbling dust rising into the air. Why did her brother suddenly return? He was previously disgusted with her possession of the trinket. Shouldn’t he be happy it was gone?

“Why the sudden interest, anyway?” She asked.

“I—“ Pipkin glanced to the doorway, where a pair of twins watched with curiosity bubbling like the sands at his paws. He turned his eyes to the dust flirting through the room. 

“Something feels strange,” he whispered. “Very, very strange.”

Paloma revered the forgery, a sigh escaping her lungs.

“So, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going after them.”

“Wha—how?”

Pipkin didn’t respond, briskly walking to the exit. Paloma stood in his way. He tried to step around her, but her tail blocked him. Pipkin’s eyes were sparking like a flint-and-steel, threatening impulsive endeavors.

“Paloma—“

“Think at the very least, Pipkin!” Paloma hissed. “Do you know who the thief was? What they look like? Do you have any kind of lead as to where they come from or where they’ve gone?”

Pipkin opened his mouth, then shut it. His cheeks flushed red under his fur. Paloma retracted her tail from his path.

“If you must go, at least find some answers first.” Paloma eyes traced Pipkin’s mangled form. “Preferably from someone who hasn’t clobbered you at Islet Tavern.”

“How did you—“

“We're simple people, Pipkin.”

Pipkin paused, looking towards the twins in the doorway. Suddenly, a shimmer of mischief glimmered in his eye. 

“Well, if it’s knowledge we need, I know just the place.”

Paloma raised an eyebrow, a quiet inquiry offering a penny for her sibling’s thoughts.

Pipkin surely can’t be thinking of the Forgotten Library from a myth, can he? The story she was about to tell still fresh in her mind.

Pipkin met Paloma’s eyes, and his grin spread even wider. Pipkin flicked his whiskers and bolted out the door once-more.

Oh, dear…

Paloma slowly began to follow her brother out, telling the pups to behave themselves while she and Pipkin were away.

Whatever troubles have I gotten ourselves into?