When evil stirs....

[Tinker]

Mattie felt the coldness of having a pair of eyes constantly kept on her as she entered the common entrance of the pub. She was far from happy with the scrutiny behind the accusing onyx and made sure the thumbs on her long hands were tucked into the sides of her waistcoat, keeping them well within sight at all times. Her heavy brow knitted slightly as she could sense the almost prejudiced nature of their host, but took her seat with an almost huffy silence, her long tail draping over her shoulder to also stay within plain view.

The offer of tea perked the small monkey's head up and she nodded, "Tea would be lovely, ta and here", she dug into one of the many leather pouches that sat held at her waist by the thick belt and produced a pair shiny, silver shillings, upping the coinage that Butcher had already given by eight times, "And for your troubles and the tea."

Her soft voice had taken something of a harder edge and her hands returned to her waistcoat as the coins spun on the rough table like a pair of gilt tops, "Like Mister Stoneback said, what exactly did you see after these voices lead you Thames side?"

[Salamanth]

   Minnie looked at the simian and how she kept her hands in view which made her smile for her mother had a way of looking at you as if she knew what you were thinking even if you were not aware of those covetous thoughts yourself. '
   "Nuttin better then a nice cuppa " she said as she brought the big teapot to the table and put out the hipped china cups her mother prized so dearly. She poured and thought how best to word what she saw.
   "Well as i said it was the hackney cab wots got me attention at first. Not many to be found in this area after the sun sets and to get a cabbie to come down to the docks well you pay wit gold. The cab stopped and this person got out, a man be me guess y size alone big fellow bundled so you couldn't get a good look at his face. He dragged this badger out of the cab and dragged him to the edge of the dock. The badger was pale white like and well he were as dead as a doornail." She gave her head a shake.
   "Once that bloke was in the drink that person gets back in the cab and they heads out at a right quick trot the cabbie cracking the whip over the poor horse's head. I was thinking Not any of your business when I hears this voice tell me to helps the poor old codger fish him out. I wasn't strong enough to do that by meself but I did what I could. I hooked him and stopped him from drifting out with the tide. I dragged him to where the Bobbies be sure to finds him  and that should of bin that but its like I see him when I close me eyes to rest and he wants me to do something else...just can't figure out what that be..."
   She looked at the coins and wished she dare refuse but well there was more then her to think of Ma, Pa her siblings and every coin helped make life easier for her family. "Thank ye" she nodded to the simian and smiled then looked at Butcher.
  "If that badger be a friend of yours maybe you know what he expects of one little magpie?" she said softly "Because i keeps telling him i did what i could and he does not seem to believe me"

[Maxx]

"Caleb had a gift,"  Butcher said.  "He could speak with the dead or so he claimed.  Small wonder he could talk from the other side not just to the other side.  I wouldn't say he wanted revenge.  He wasn't the type.  Soft as pudding.  Likely he just wants to have somebody remember him."

Butcher's hands were beneath the table because he doubted the sight of his clenched fist would do much to keep the two magpies calm.  "Did you notice anything about the horse or the cab?  Was it the cabbie who got out to dump Caleb in the river or was there a passenger in the cab who did the deed himself?"

[Tinker]

Quite simply, Matilda had had enough. First the accusatory glances, then the smug little smile as if she had been caught doing something she had no notion for doing, but it was the lack of any real information that had pushed her over into the realms of being quite thoroughly cheesed off. It was if the shadow of her former life had followed her, a life she had left well behind her with no desire or inkling to ever return to now that she was set for life with great thanks to the professor and his world of mechanized marvels.

A long fingered hand dipped into the hip pocket and produced a brass pocket watch that shone as brightly as the sun. Mattie thumbed the partially concealed button and the watch unfolded to reveal a face of a delicious cream, patterned with gilt stars and a mother of pearl moon behind the ebony dark hands. A soft "Tcht", sounded from her dark lips and she shook her crested head, "Well this ain't much cop. No offence, its not that I don't appreciate your warm and welcoming hospitality and all, but sitting around here and talking about what you haven't seen and don't know isn't helping much."

She dropped from the seat and the pocket watch vanished back into the waistcoat, "Asides, the professor will be wanting his accounts done before morning and I wouldn't want to make him cross seeing as I only did half of them before sauntering off to the pub."

She casually strolled to the door, her metallic gaze shifting to the maternal bird, "I'm going out back for some air, its gotten stuffy in here with all the silent accusations. So I'll take my leave so you don't have to worry about your precious items going missing by leave of a monkey's light fingers. . . .tis a shame that some folk are stuck with their prejudices for a certain kind of folk, seeing as that's what happened to Mister Butcher and his folk  with all these horrid killings in the first place."

She tipped her head as if doffing an unseen cap, "Good night to you, mam", and with that she had left the building and climbed to the top of the lamppost around the corner to perch and mutter, with a great deal of being mightily unimpressed under her breath.

[CrowsEye]

The fox blinked at the miniscule simian's departure, noting the tenseness in her voice, and looked over to Butcher, his eyebrows raised, then looked to the door , then back to Butcher. "I'll...keep an eye out on her for now. You find out what ye can, and fill us in later, yeh?" He excused himself from the table, nodding his thanks to the young bird sitting across from his friend the boar, and calmly walked out the door, stopping on the stoop to look around for Mattie's slight frame. Upon discovering her, he walked over and leaned on the lamppost she'd perched herself on, cleaning the dirt out from under his nails for a bit, not saying anything.

His right hand cleaned, he began on his left, breaking the silence. "That was a bit of a scene ye made leavin' th'pub there, luv. Somethin' th'matter?"

[Tinker]

The silence that loomed above the fennec sat thickly for several long seconds that crept towards minutes. The young primate sat atop the lamppost with her long arms folded across her chest, her lithe toes grasped firmly to the wrought iron and her tail hanging as a perfect counter weight. She didn't look down at him, instead she peered through the gloom and smog, focusing on the way it swirled about them like spectral lovers desperate for their living caress. Eventually she relinquished her vow of silence with a long and soft sigh, after all it wasn't the fault of the fox that she had been made to feel the way she had within the walls of The Spotted Dog.

Mattie watched Nolan's hands as they gouged unseen dirt from beneath his fingernails, his ears would occasionally twitch in the direction of the source of sound and she marveled at how mobile the large pinna appeared to be. Eventually he soft voice sounded as she continued to watch him from her escalated vantage point, "She was watching me like I was going to nick something. The old woman, she kept peering at me like I was some sort of common thief, then that other. . bird, the one you grabbed, when she saw how her Mum was making me feel, she was all smug smiles. All smiles like I had been caught red handed with their silver in my pockets. I've not thieved anything for m'self ever. . never. The professor looks after me, Mister Stoneback, right good and I never want for anything and having the, birds gawping at me like they knew I was going to off with their shiny things just. . ."

She let out a long sigh and began nibbling on one pitch fingernail, "People are always thinking things like that about monkeys, we're not all like that. Like I said that's just prejudice and I'm a good kid, Mister Stoneback, I ain't never thieved since I have been with the professor, I don't need to. . that's been almost ten years and now. . sorry, Sir, I'm going on like a right baby. S'none of your business."

[CrowsEye]

Nolan stood plaintively under the little capuchin, letting her speak her mind, nodding at bits, never connecting eyes with her until she finished. His nails now clean, he linked his hands behind his head, using them as padding for the back of his skull as he finally looked up at Mattie. "Ye felt looked down upon. Ye've got all the right to be annoyed. Now I'm sorry t'say this, but th'likes of your kind are rather well-known for having that reputation. Not that I think that o'you, just sayin' from what I know." One hand slid out from behind his head and an index finger bobbed, emphasizing his point. "I also know that folks of the avian sort aren't exactly the most trusting of folks either, especially when it comes to their shiny bits. I mean, I'm sure ye saw the way the little bird's eyes lit up when Butcher was fiddlin' with that coin."

Having made that point, the fox went quiet, for a shorter time than before. He donned a storyteller's voice as he began to reminisce. "I remember one time, durin' me youth, where my brother and I were rough-housin'. Now, me Ma didn't mind if we roughed each other up a little from time t'time, long as it was in good fun, and as long as we didn't break anythin'. Well, that one day, we did. And we thought we were goners, aye? But nothin' ever came of it. Weeks passed where me Ma never said a thing, never acted like anythin' was wrong." Nolan laughed, a quick snort coming out of his nose, a small smile of an exhalation. "There wasn't a day that went by where we just knew we were gonna have our father put th'belt to us...but it never came. So finally, not bein' able to take it anymore, we went t'our mother and told her what we'd done. And ye know what she did, li'l Mattie?" He looked up at her at this point, a soft but serious look on his face.

"She smiled, ruffled our hair and said, 'It's a lot worse bein' persecuted for somethin' ye know ye did and bein' suspected for it than it is knowin' that you're not at fault at all.'"

He looked back down to the street, his whiskers lightly fluttering around in the night breeze, his soliloquy finished, his thoughts on the table.

[Tinker]

"That's exactly the point, Mister Stoneback. I did used to thieve when I was a nipper, not because I was greedy or because I wanted the pretty things all to m'self. I had to, it was how I survived. I didn't have a nice house in the country with brothers and sisters nor did I have a cosy pub with a meddlesome Mum. I had to thieve for m'keep. If I weren't bringing in pocketbooks and watches, I would have been out on m'ear, on the streets to fend for m'self and I don't know if you've been on the streets of London for long, Mister Stoneback, but she ain't no nurturing Mother that feeds you sweet cream from her tit."

An other long sigh was sounded as her hands dropped to grasp the cold iron at either side of her feet, "And like I said, since the professor took me in, I've never looked back. I'm not one of those that wants it, Mister Stoneback. If it ain't mine or I can;t pay for it m'self, I have no business with it. It just. . it made me mad and sad all in one go, I'm not that kind of folk. I likes shiny things, Sir, I really do, but only the shiny things what are rightfully mine. Nevermind, right?"

[CrowsEye]

The fox's face shone brighter than the lamppost he was standing under. "That's exactly what I wanted ye t'get dear. Ye haven't broken any of your mum's things, nor her mum's so there's nothing to feel guilty about, Mattie." He stepped away from the post and stretched his arms high above his head, coming close to grazing the digits of the miss sitting above him. "Ye're right about the city, though. Ain't a very forgivin' land, so at the very least ye could understand where her thoughts might be comin' from, aye?" He looked up at the monkey, his hands falling to his side and still slightly moving with the momentum, still beaming.

"Aye, Mattie, nevermind."

[Tinker]

"That's the thing, Mister Stoneback I didn't and I don't feel guilty, just right bloody pissed off, is all", her long tail dropped from the lamppost and swung with a certain indignant grace, swiping through Nolan's hair and ruffling as it went.

This seemed to amuse the small simian and on the back stroke she did it again, messing his hair up further. The twitch of a smile curled at the very corner of her lips as the starting of a blush sat on her cheeks, "Oh, 'scuse me , Mister Stoneback, ever so sorry, I totally didn't mean. . "

Her tail swung out a second time and clipped him in the unperforated ear , Mattie's half-hearted apology cut short by the escape of a soft chuckle, "Oh 'eck, there I go again, with m'clumsy old tail, so sorry, Mister Stoneback," the back swing caught his forehead in a playful smack before quickly recoiling back up towards her feet, her laughter soft but musical like a thousand tinkling bells, "Oh dear, really.  .I am most sorry, sometimes it seems like it just has a life all of its own. Honest, guv. . ."

[CrowsEye]

His hair batted into his eyes by the first of buffets from Mattie's long tail, he chuckled. "It's all right, lass, ye didn't mean to-" Nolan was cut off by his ear being prodded then, the ear responding by twitching animatedly and fluttering around like a dog trying to shake it's fur dry. His laughter was robust as she finally tapped him across the forehead, and he waved his arms sightlessly, then one hand finally snapping up and catching the tip of Mattie's tail between his thumb, index, and middle fingers. Still smiling, he brushed the hair out of his eyes, and looked up at his captive, a silly look on his face.

"Ye might want to lay off the drink, lass, if this is how your tail gets when ye've had a few, aye?" He tugged on her tail twice, like a train conductor blaring the whistle. "Let's go then, miss. I'm sure we're probably missed. 'Sides, ye did manage to run off a good distance. At least let's get t'somewhere where it's warm?"

[Maxx]

Butcher watched the pair depart.  Odd,he thought.  "As you were saying Miss.  Was it the passenger that rolled poor Caleb into the Thames or was it the coachman?"

[Maxx]

Okay, I'm calling for a vote.  Who wants to continue this thread  and who wants to just let it fade away?

[Maxx]

CLOSED