Finders Keepers

[Caspian]

35 Spring 519

Caspian had let slip, sometime earlier that week, that the 35th day of Spring is his birthday.

“Let slip” being the misnomer in this instance, because he’s not one to turn down a cause for celebration, especially when said celebration might have him at its focal point.

26 isn’t much, to Ravokian standards, in contrast to the typical Sunberthian lifespan, by which it’s practically a miracle. Especially divine if you’ve wrangled your way to adulthood with all of your limbs, and psyche relatively unscathed.

But despite Caspian’s best efforts - and despite his having to put out efforts in the first place an unnecessary burden to have had to take on, given the circumstances - none of the three people who ought to be paying attention to him on his 26th birthday have made themselves amenable to the task.

Saticath had knocked back one too many the previous night. Caspian knows, because he was there, and that’s hardly an excuse for skipping out on knocking back several more in his honor. But when he’d bounded up to her door, she’d blearily stuck her head out to inform him that on this day of all days, her parents are paying her a visit, and she’s got her hands full tidying up the place to make it not come off as an iniquitous hovel frequented by all manner of entertainers, courtesans, roustabouts, and at the bottom of the barrel, people like Caspian.

Thancerell’s reasons for absence are along similar lines. Today’s the one-year anniversary of the passing of a great aunt, of no particular emotional consequence to anyone in the family, but a ceremonious occasion to be attended all the same.

“Later, alright?” Thancerell promises him as he’s hastily buttoning on one of his nicer shirts, nicer as determined by mild embroidery around the cuffs, and an absence of a Lakeshore hunter’s grime and gore. “I’ll come by later. Swear it.”

Unsurprisingly - really, he should have seen this coming - Caspian’s last resort hasn’t much of an excuse, and doesn’t bother the courtesy of fabricating one when prompted.

“Today?” Taalviel asks absentmindedly as she peers at herself in his mirror.

“...yes?” he flusters to fill the air when she resolutely doesn’t. “I mean - have you got something going on today, or -?”

“No.” She considers a lock of her glossy hair, decides to fuss with a bit of his - yes, his, because she’s got no sense for ownership or insult when convenient to her - gold eyeliner. “But, I mean...” She affords him one glance. “Something might come up.”

Aghast, Caspian pulls on his boots and slams the door behind him.

A walk and a smoke and a loiter - that’s all he’s left with now, and on his birthday of all days. The usual fare, the quotidian death of it bringing down even the qualities of his magically transformative suit. Instead of the rainbow mast of spangles he’d half-wished for, it’s come about as a checkerboard suit of charcoal and ivory, a subdued harlequin left to sputter.

The apathy of it - the sheer nerve of all them - has him kicking stones into the nearest canal.

x

[Itt]

"Juju! No! Come back!" A young girl, a child really, with a round face and blotchy freckles all over her skin cried out, thumped her clunky feet along the path in pursuit of a small Sykanis. The young rat- er— rat-killer bounded and wove between the pedestrians for a race of a lifetime. At least its lifetime. Itt had had similar cases back in Syliras, yet it still was just as horrifying as the last time.

The usually slothful teen sprinted for the first time in years. Well, aside from him running away from that Priest at the beginning of Spring. And from that other dog a few days ago. Actually, now that he thought about it, he's been running a lot lately, and he didn't like it. Not one bit.

Already panting from fleeing exactly one block, Itt's eyes rolled about in their sockets to find a way to escape the maws of this miniature dog. It's always the little ones that get you! They look cute but they are vicious! The big ones kill you quickly with a bite to the neck, the little ones, they have to drag you down by your ankles first!

It wasn't long before the Kelvic was upon a small gathering of people. The road he had been on wasn't very wide, being directly alongside one of the main canals, so the group of six appears more like a wall of doom rather than a friendly gathering. Slowing down could mean the end of him, after all, this bugger was quick!

Itt charged headfirst into the crowd. Forcing his arms between the mass of limbs and clothes, he wedged and pushing the crowd aside, lunging through without hesitation. His careless, one-sided shoving match ended up knocking a couple of people over into others, resulting in a domino effect until one unfortunate woman fell into the cold water. Not that Itt noticed, he didn't even have time to think of a better solution than plunging into a gathering of people. He just continued to look forward, weeding through the group like they were tall grass or a thick tree canopy.

Emerging from the group with a stumble, Itt caught himself from falling all the way with his hands. But he had to take a tick to push himself up and gain he balance before continuing, allowing the energetic dog to gain several feet on him. Itt continued to run, his heart pumping in his throat and his throat burning like sunbaked skin. He needed to find high ground, he needed a tree! A tree! Where's a tree?!

Glancing side to side, Itt couldn't see one in view. He knew there were trees around! All he needed was a small one! Come on, come on, there had to be trees nearby. He remembered seeing one on the way, where was that tree? Uuuuuuuh, what direction was he looking right now? Itt spared a glance down at his feet, not seeing a shadow. Okay, so if he can't see a shadow in front of him that must mean it's behind him and that means he's going the wrong way and he needs to turn around. But how is he going to turn around with that dog?

Itt looked to his right, away from the dock, seeing an alley coming up. He adjusted his straight path to head towards its opening, quickly turning on his heels to head down it. While he was passing the corner, he glanced over his shoulder, finding the dog exiting the group he had just split swiftly and with ease. "Aaaaah!!!" Itt screamed, attempting to run faster with wider motions of his arms.

Coming out of the alley, he gripped the building's corner to turn to the right more sharply, following his shadow. Okay, he was on the right path now, now where was that tree?!

The dog continued to snarl, quickly gaining ground.

Two blocks of running and searching later, Itt started to slow down, his limbs burning in agony and his chest unable to puff quite enough air. The dog's growls were getting louder.

Tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree!! Wait- that person looked familiar. Aaah! It's Caspian! Yes!

"CASPIAN!!" He cried, sprinting towards him with new hope for continued life. "CaspianCaspianCaspian!!!" He ran up to him, his arms outstretched. He slowed down some before colliding with his trusted friend, his reoccurring savior, his one and only, but he ran slightly past him. Then, with a turn and a jump, he was attempting to clamber onto Caspian's back. "Caspian!!" He yelled again in panic, the small dog running up to them, teeth bare. It had a leather collar and a black leash trailing behind it.

[Caspian]

The next rock Caspian happens to kick in his methodical warpath down the lane makes its landing directly beside a passing ravosala bearing a woman in a bloomingly pink multi-tiered dress, who immediately shrieks and cringes behind her paper parasol. The vehicle’s driver - Rhysol bless the entire institution - affords little more than a cursory inclination of his gaze in Caspian’s direction, and having deemed him threatless, continues his same steady stroke, no beats foregone.

As might have been predicted, what follows from her is a string of decorative expletives incongruent with the spotlessness of her kid gloves and the incorrigible glint of the tight golden curls cascading down her back.

Divorced from the feelings that usually come with being treated to a personal barrage is that he rather adores her, this woman he knows nothing about save for the artful fanning of the rim of her grand straw hat, the pearl-blue gleam of her buckled heels and the scarlet rosette of a rouged pout widening in consternation - but he needn’t know anything more about her than those very things, and the mutual compliments they pay.

So perfect is she in her own concision that it’s enough for him to stop and take stock, in the way she grips the mahogany handle of her parasol, the tremulous toss of her meticulously heat-cured locks, the straining of her rib cage against her bodice as she rails at him and twists towards her driver, as if he might feel compelled to do anything more than steer them through one passage and on to the next. In watching, in itemizing, he might recall her gestures later and use them for his own - he’s not sure when there might be some occasion for him, for hair of her length or skirts so full and frilled but one never quite knows how things may shake, and if he can retain her as she is in his mind’s eye - in his line of work, more information in his lexicon of roles worth replicating is always better than none.

So there’s all that, and then the part of him that’s more him and is readying a trusty retort, the tried-and-true kind, about petching doing as he petching well pleases, when and for whatever reasons he in that moment deems fit - and as far as snarls go this one’s a longer one but he’s already had some practice delivering it and if he might be so bold as to say so, it was and is quite sharp and vitriolic as the occasion deserves and only gets better with -

“Itt -?”

The enraged woman in the ravosala now past and forgotten, Caspian stares down at the length of the lane, mouth hanging ajar. In the throes of laborious slow motion, a person who is unmistakably Itt is barreling towards him - barrel being the term relative to the subject, who seems to be running at relative full clip, and not appearing to enjoy a moment of it.

And then Itt decides to hitch a ride.

Though Itt wins every contest for slightness, at a nimbly 5’9” Caspian isn’t much to sneeze at either, and having been entirely unprepared for the sudden burden, stumbles across the cobbles with arms windmilling wildly, and very nearly tips the both of them backwards into the canal.

With one hand grabbing hold of a fortuitously planted post just in the nick of time, Caspian manages to safely right the both of them, rocking forward on heels that had teetered dangerously over the edge of the canal.

The reason for the scrambled scamper makes itself known then, in the form of a yapping little brawler, the attached and trailing accoutrements designating it as being someone else’s responsibility - that is to say, not Caspian’s.

Putting the two and terror together, Caspian tucks his arms under Itt’s legs to support him where he clings and bursts out laughing. The mirth and preposterousness of it almost has him pitching backwards again, and the sudden frenzied fear of a plunge, madly and counterintuitively to all, sends him cackling. For several heart-stopping ticks it seems the pair might actually succeed in falling straight in, until sensibility strikes him and he anchors them once more to the post. When he catches his breath, he glances over his shoulder at his unexpected companion.

“Day off to a rough start, is it?” he asks.

The little dog’s not quit yet, and he’s not afraid but he’s not exactly fond of them either. Zhassel, the woman his stepfather had decided to preemptively replace his mother with, was a Kelvic Hound - and consequently was at all times either overly exuberant or liable to snap, or exuberantly snapping and held liable for none of it. As was her nature - that, and simply due to her being a miserably fitting addition to Taaldros’ band of brutes - she’d been overt and apparent in her antagonism towards Kharis, and had extended that leery aggression towards Caspian, as if he by birth also carried something inherently vulpine.

“Shall I drown it for you?” Caspian asks Itt as cordially and cursorily as if offering to pull out his chair, rearing back like he might kick the furry offender into the proximal canal with the gleaming silver tips of his correspondingly gleaming leather shoes.

x

[Itt]

For someone who spent most of their life living in the trees, it would be reasonable to expect that said person was competent in prediction— at least in the kind of predicting the consequences of one's actions. Stepping on that branch will cause it to break and fall, step on that one and the tree-impersonating snake will get angry, things of those sorts. But being the green, lumpy, and frankly, slow creature that Itt was lived in such a manner that predicting the future wasn't necessary. The future just came to him, in a fairly timely manner too. It was almost a waste of the present time to think about what was going to be the present any chime now.

This mentality was perfectly reflected in Itt's current predicament in which presently he thought springing onto Caspian's back was a good idea. He wasn't much of a jumper, and the only things he's ever jumped onto were things like trees and smaller trees, and... more trees. With all of his leaping onto trees (or the lack thereof to be more accurate), Itt's mind had assumed that Caspian would provide the same unwavering support. After all, he always looks so stable standing on his own so that of course meant without a doubt that he was stable all of the time.

As impeccable as Itt's logic was, physics wasn't willing to entertain his theories, and thus the pair teetered and swayed over the lip of the canal's cold maw. While he wasn't entirely opposed to using the water as an escape— because surely dogs weren't able to swim— the primal urge to avoid plunging into a body of water without fulling intending to in the first place took over and he gripped, or rather, squeezed his human stand tighter, repeating what now must be Itt's anthem. "Caspian! No, no, no, no- Caspian!!"

The Kelvic's eyes watched the canal during their balancing act with gravity, expecting that hair raising feeling to crawl through his spine indicating they were falling into the depths of the lake. But Caspian had much faster reflexes than Itt who hadn't even thought to let go of the tumbling man nor reach out for assistance. He was thus able to save them both from soggy clothes, much to Itt's pleasure. The water was nice, and a better alternative to the teeth of the miniature monster still on his trail, but wet clothes weren't comfortable and sometimes made his skin hurt if he walked around for too long.

He'll have to thank Caspian later. Or maybe he spoke to soon? Itt squeaked another short,"Caspian-," when his laughing companion began to sway once more, but due to his own humorous cackle rather than any fault of Itt's. At least to Itt's awareness since he didn't understand a word of what he was saying. He thought he said his name in there somewhere but there was too much blood pumping through his head for Itt to not only properly hear what Caspain had said, but also to even begin to do his routine puzzle-solving to decipher the meaningless words into something that he could actually understand.

Also, the dog was back, so there was that as well.

One might have been concerned for Itt with the way his eyes bulged at the sight of the rat hunter. He was in a rather awkward position to try and climb higher, due to Caspian holding him by his legs and all. But awkwardness had never stopped Itt before, so with only Itt's own reflexes to hinder him, he tried to climb higher onto Caspian, squirming his legs and pulling with his arms to heave himself up more onto Caspian's upper back. Itt managed to place his feet on Caspian's hips to prevent them from dangling anywhere near the dog. Granted, he was primarily still hanging on Caspian's shoulders, so the only real difference Itt had achieved was not in height at all, but rather condensing himself into a smaller form. Or, as someone more proficient in Common would likely say, he tucked his legs in more.

The dog snarled in their general direction, but it didn't step any closer than it had when it arrived. With Itt no longer running and with the interference of a non-prey human, it proved enough to halt the advances of the pet. But it's territory still needed to be protected, and the odd-smelling creature could not stay, so stand guard that little dog did, making sure to show it meant business with its muzzle full of teeth.

Itt didn't speak dog, and nor did he speak much of Common, so Itt didn't really understand the intentions of the dog nor Caspian's. Caspian seemed in good spirits as always, but the sloth couldn't figure out for the life of him why. The dog was right there! Growling at him! It could eat him! It could eat them both! How was Caspian so calm?! What was he even saying?

He didn't know and he didn't care to try and figure it out in this exact moment, so he just nodded emphatically in hopes that Caspian was asking if he wanted to get away from the dog. Because if Caspian were saying such, the answer definitely would be, without a shadow of a doubt, yes.

"Juju! Where are you?!" A little girl could be heard whistling down the canal in search of her runaway dog, who's ear's twitched every time their name was called. But this... thing could not be left unattended and thus the dog watched the two with vigilant eyes, and in particular, the quivering Kelvic who was starting to lose their strength in their hold on Caspian while he panted to try and catch his breath.

[Caspian]

“Stern judgment if I do say so m’self, milord,” Caspian solemnly declares at Itt’s frantic approval, though he’s barely suppressing a grin. But he’s heard the call of the girl just as well as the dog has - well, perhaps not quite so well, but all the same - and it’s got him observing the dog with a new and keener sort of interest.

Dogs don’t do very well by him, and he doesn’t do very well by them, though the matter of the instigation is something he’d boil down to being of the opinion that one shouldn’t do very well by dogs at all, no matter the circumstance. That aside, this one isn’t quite so offensive as others of its species, perhaps due to its lack of size, and barring all sense of self-preservation, as well as finding great amusement in Itt’s clear horror at the sight, he drops to his knees in front of the little monster, beckoning it near.

Whether the dog approaches - and whether or not the girl finds the lot of them with her pet’s life hanging in the judicial balance - an interruption in the form of a merry crash of a shipping craft against a nearby bend of the canal draws their immediate interest.

A gangly youth had been steering the modestly-sized vessel, but the fault of the scene seems to have derived from a yet snoring elderly gentleman who surely ought to have been offering guidance and mediation.

At first it seems to have amounted to nothing more than an amusing disturbance, as just one of the many crates piled on the vessel was lost, with the young driver already in the process of recovery. But a moment later the end of the vessel begins to tip, water sloshing onboard and the whole of it visibly succumbing to a sink. The novice driver’s managed to fish out the crate using one of the oars, but just as he’s hauled it back overboard he realizes the disaster that’s ensued.

“JORLEY-“ he exclaims to the slumbering man who’s yet to have registered his impending demise. “JOR. LEY,” he screams again, and this time the elderly man wakes with a start,

“JARREL,” the elderly man shouts back, jolting again with a round of curses as the water’s now come upon him ankle-high.

“Jorley-!””

“Wait till Jessandra hears about this-”

“...that’s a lot of J’s,” Caspian muses, still crouched, watching the pair scramble to simultaneously latch the vessel to the shore, salvage the containers spilling overboard, and redirect all blame.

In their haste to recover all they’re in the process of losing, some of containers have wrenched open, some with their facets damaged upon the impact with the dock, their contents now floating placidly downstream to where Caspian, Itt, and evidently-Juju lie in wait. It’s a wide assortment of trinkets - what and to whom were they shipping? Old dowagers and pawnshops? - and the glints and glimmers in the canals catch his eye, any mischief to do with the dog not very much in mind.

x