LaF- 0:8 In Which Del Reunites with Balloon

After standing in line for what felt like hours, pressed against all types of bodies impatiently waiting for the lone attendant to assign and fetch room keys, Arundel finally received her turn at the front desk. She hesitantly rang the little golden bell sitting beside the employee's name plate which read a real name on it, but it had faded and been scratched over with the loving title of 'Mr. Inconsistent'. No doubt a reflection of his work ethic. The gruff wolf man, single eye narrowed in focus, didn't speak a word besides the occasional grunt as he shifted through countless keys of various size, shape, and style. Some were recent models, stubby with multiple sharp ridges. Others appeared to be ancient, discolored and caked with grime. And still others were those you would expect from hotels, rectangular plastic cards.

Finally he handed the fox girl a long, heavily weighted, skeleton key with a small laminated tag looped on the top. Del stared at it as she felt the metal rock from one side to another in her hand, but snapped back to reality by the hoarse call of the wolf man for the next person in line.

"So where we staying?" Sahmir tried to check the number on the tag, but it was snatched away from his view.

"Says room 415. We're on the fourth floor." Continuing her trend of acknowledging the genie as little as possible, the fox girl swiftly headed for the elevators on the east side of the lobby.

"Um, don't you want to eat?"

"Later." Arundel weaved her way smoothly through the crowd, now refreshed by the outside patrons, and pressed the button for her floor. She could hear the ancient gears grinding and popping down the shaft, each sound sending shocks down her spine. The genie, however disturbed he was by the noises of the machinery, didn't voice his concern until the box came to a screeching stop at the lobby.

"I don't think we'll be able to take the elevator." He said, several more new residents gathering around the single door. Arundel only cocked her head, careful not to appear as if she was talking to thin air. "It's not part of the foundations, like the doors. Look." As the entrance opened and occupants flooded in, the jinn reached inside and made his hand phase through the interior wall of the elevator.

Del snarled at the revelation and stormed off in search of the only other means of going up. She threw open the door, which creaked on its hinges after giving a sharp glare to Sahmir. The genie followed with a sigh, rubbing his temple to sooth an emerging headache.

The stairs were just as unpleasant as the two of them expected them to be. Dusty, cramped, and lengthy. After the second flight of speed climbing, The genie planted himself on the landing, feeling Del yank to a halt.

"Get off your ass, come on." She hissed, tugging on the cuff limit. The tahr groaned before retorting.

"Hadrat, I know you're upset, but for the love of god, would you at least try to calm down?"

Del crossed her arms and tapped her foot incessantly on the concrete steps, kicking up dirt with every hit. Exhaling loudly, Sahmir stood up and resumed the near vertical trek.

At last they made it to the fourth floor and entered the hallway which was, to their shared surprise, relatively tidy. It reeked of cleaning chemicals, but it was evidence that it was at the very least sanitary now.

After a few wrong turns, the pair found the hallway which housed their room. On the same corridor, they heard a familiar voice accompanied by the sound of metal scraping against metal.

"Please allow me entrance to this room which I have been assigned to, rectangular portal." The speaker could be no one else but the chatty dog they had run into in the woods the night before. Del made her way quietly towards the canine, who was too focused on trying to fit her key into the lock with only her teeth to notice her. The numbers drew closer to 415 until her room appeared right next to the door which Balloon was fiddling with. Being so close, the dog was forced to look at her neighbor.

"Fox-lady! It is such an enormous pleasure to be seeing you again! Are you occupying the room adjacent to mine and Kitty-face's?"

Arundel closed her eyes and sighed, just about to turn the key and escape into the hopeful comfort of her room, but turned to the dog with a forced grin. "Seems so." She could hear Sahmir chuckle from behind.

"How wonderful and joyous a coincidence! I am sure that when Kitty-face is feeling better she will share my same feelings! But, as you may or may not have taken notice of, I am having slight troubles with disarming the lock which bars me from my given abode. If you would please be kind enough to offer the use of your dexterous hands, it would be most-" But before she could finish, the key was pulled from her mouth and placed in the door, turned with an audible thud and swung open. Balloon's tail wagged so quickly, her backside slightly swayed. "Thank you so very much, fox-lady! I will forever remember your kindness and-"

"You're welcome." Arundel unlocked her own door and slunk inside before the canine could ramble longer.

"That wasn't very nice." Sahmir commented with his head halfway through the door, making sure Balloon entered her room.

"You and me both know she would've gone on for hours if I hadn't gotten out of there." The fox replied, sitting down on the mattress which cried from rusted springs.

"We're all here for the same business. Be nice."

"You can't tell me what to do. Besides, you didn't even get stolen from. Why do you care?" Arundel yawned and curled up with her back towards the jinn.

"Because-!" The rest of his sentence demanded to be spoken, to verbally slap the girl he held near to his heart, but he bit his tongue so hard it left a mark. Belittling her unknown loss wasn't going to make the situation better. He could tell whatever she felt missing was deeply effecting their relationship and he needed to support her through this. The fox's eyes blazed with determination and focus, but he'd learned to see past her outward expressions. He'd lived alongside her for too long to not pick up on how she really felt, no matter how much distance she put between her face and her feelings.

She was afraid.  

The genie slid to the floor with his back to the wall beside the bed. With nothing else to do, he sorted through a million things he had conjured in the past, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember how he had done it. All he could remember was the basic elements, the kind of summoning he knew by instinct. A feeling of despair hung heavily on his shoulders and made it hard to concentrate. The claustrophobic size of the room didn't help with the air of suspicion that was already haunting the jinn. With another deep sigh, he held his head low and felt a delicate flower appear in his palm. The small white blossom of an almond tree.


-----


The walk home from elementary school was taken alone by the little fox girl once again. None of her friends lived on this side of town and the schoolmates that did, she didn't like. Her apartment building finally appeared on the horizon along with the sewage smell that accompanied it. The girl jogged the rest of the way to the door, past the scruffy man with torn ears at the front desk and up the stairs. Every time she took the elevator, she'd get pushed to the back due to her size and miss her floor.

Entering her apartment, she was greeted by an empty living room and a kitchen cluttered with boxes. A woman threw open cabinets, pulling everything within them out into cardboard containers. Her ears flicked as the door clicked shut, but she made no other indication that someone had entered the apartment. The young fox girl watched her mom clean out the utensils from the drawers now and frowned.

"Are we moving, mum?"

"Yea, so grab some boxes and pack up your room, Del. We need to be out of here by Tuesday." Without even turning around, the tall woman addressed Arundel. The child took a moment to read the labels of a few packages as she grabbed as many folded boxes her little arms could hold.

"Is Aaron going to help us?" She asked, stopping at the threshold of her room.

"No, honey. I left Aaron while you were at school."

"Oh..." Del shuffled into her room and dropped all the folded boxes into the floor. She gazed forlornly at all the little action figures she'd so diligently set up atop her bed posts, desks, and chests of drawers. The hunchbacked monsters with pupil-less eyes on one end and the upright knights with noble stares on the other. She'd prepared for this battle between good and evil for days, but now she'd have to destroy her kingdoms herself, never knowing who would have prevailed in a fair fight.

A particular large werewolf beast she picked up first and hugged tightly. Aaron had given it to her to match her dragon-mounted warrior in combat. As she held it to her chest, a revelation struck her. She immediately dropped the toy and rushed to her mother's side, tugging on her long skirt.

"What is it?" The fox woman looked away from her work with a sigh.

"Can I pick where we live next?"

"Del, there's much more to moving than-"

"But I know a place! I know there's a house on Pirro Street we can live!" Del bounced on her heels eagerly and a genuine smile sparkled in her eyes.

"We can't afford a house yet, baby."

"But when we can, can we live there? Pleeeeeease?"

Her mother reluctantly put down the stack of plates in her hands and knelt down to the young fox. "What's so special about it, hm?"

"It's by the park, and there's a huge tree in the front that has white flowers in the spring! They smell so good and, and when they fall off, it looks like it's snowed! Can we live there, please, mum?" Del's face lit up with excitement as her mother gave a small grin.

"Maybe one day. When we don't have to move around so much, alright? Now go pack up your room, we don't have time to waste."

With a pat on the back, the young girl scampered off to her room again. This time she picked up a tiny glass jar on her nightstand; a smooth, rounded container sealed with a cork. Her face glowed with happiness as she stared at the shimmering jar and cupped it lovingly in her hands. Del brought it to her nose and could faintly smell the almond blossoms she'd stored inside.

One day...