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rainbowfic2025-05-08 08:55 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2025-05-08 08:55 pm
Entry tags:
Warm Heart #7 [Starfall]
Name: On the Trail
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #7 (Calm)
Supplies and Styles: Thread
Word Count: 2692
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Nin Valerno.
Summary: Leion has vanished.
"Imai Eseray!
Viyony turned aside from her conversation with Imai Cauhaney's agent and Imai Ilfill, her family's lawyer, and frowned out over the scattered people walking past in the street, trying to see who had called her name. She heard the shout again and then Iyanin Valerno flung herself half across the road to catch at Viyony's arm. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were red and her face blotchy and smudged.
"Nin!" said Viyony, pulling the girl away gently from the traffic and passing people. "What's wrong?"
Nin swallowed and looked up at Viyony, tightening her hold on the sleeve of her jacket. "It's Uncle Leion," she said. "He's vanished and I didn't know what to do—and then I saw you."
Cauhaney's agent coughed. "Imai Eseray, do you still want to continue to my office? You haven't yet signed the rental agreement for the warehouse."
Viyony straightened, glancing from Imai Ilfill to the agent. "I'm sorry, but this seems to be urgent." She turned to her lawyer. "Please, go ahead and discuss it on our behalf. I shall check it over and sign as soon as I can—later today, or tomorrow, if not. Please arrange it for us." She gave the agent a nod. "You will have to forgive me."
"Of course," the agent muttered. "Imai Ilfill, if you'll come with me—this way."
Viyony gave Nin a smile as the other two moved away, over to Cauhaney's office on the other side of the street. They were not far from the dockland area, having taken a short cut down an alley opposite from the warehouse to the office. "Nin, lovebird, what happened? Your uncle can't just have vanished."
"He did. He went in a house—in Lock Street. It's by the Sea Gate—not very far."
"Did your uncle take you there?"
Nin shifted from one foot to the other. "No-o. I followed him by accident and I can't explain all that now, but he went into a house and then he never came out again, and he wasn't in there when I looked, either."
"All right," said Viyony. "Wait here one moment." She hurried after the other two, catching them just in time before they entered the building where Cauhaney had his offices, and asked them to send word to Imai Veldiner at High Chamber Square. Nin wasn't a child to be alarmed by nothing, and Leion would never have left her wandering about the streets by herself. Better to risk a false alarm than the reverse. Viyony had not forgotten Leion's fears over Chiulder even if she hadn't seen him since that evening outside the eatery.
Nin watched her walk back over, dark eyes large. "Do you believe me?"
Viyony nodded. "Of course. First, you had better take me to this house and we'll see if I can find your uncle. You can tell me exactly what happened as we go."
Nin led Viyony along Sea Way, heading from the docks towards the Callamouth and Sea Gate. "It was my turn to look after the kittens. Imai Roddin was taking me, but Uncle Leion wasn't in when we got there, so she went into the shop for the key -"
"The shop?"
"Opposite," said Nin, impatiently; this evidently being a well-known fact in her world. "Uncle Leion leaves the key there for us. I waited outside because Imai Roddin said she didn't want me touching things, which I don't, I'm not two, but then I saw Uncle Leion right at the end of the road. So I ran after him, but he didn't stop, even when I shouted. I didn't exactly mean to follow him so far—I thought he would turn around and see me, and then when he didn't I wasn't sure how to get back any more. I thought I should go on because I was with Uncle Leion, sort of, and he'd sort everything out when he finally saw me."
Viyony halted on the path. "Nin, do you mean to say that poor Imai Roddin still doesn't know where you've gone?"
"Oh," said Nin. "Well. Probably. But, please, Uncle Leion really has vanished. We have to find him first."
Viyony bit her lip. The most likely thing was that Leion had gone out of a back exit that Nin hadn't known about, while goodness knew what sort of state Imai Roddin must be in by now. She glanced along the road, and stopped at the nearest eatery. "In here."
"We can't stop and eat food!" Nin protested. "Imai Eseray -"
Viyony tried not to laugh. "We're not. I'm going to ask them to send a message to Imai Roddin at your uncle's office, or your home if she's not there."
Once Viyony had arranged that, they resumed their walk, and Nin her tale. "After that, I was stuck following Uncle Leion, but it was really hard work just keeping up with him and I kept nearly losing him. Anyway, he went down that way." She pointed towards a narrow lane. Then she screwed up her face. "Umm. I think it's that one." She scurried ahead and peered round the corner to check. "Yes, this way!"
"When you say he vanished," said Viyony, "what exactly do you mean?"
Nin halted sharply. Then she said, "I'll show you!" She raced to the end of the lane and stopped there, hiding against the wall, where it opened into Lock Street. She pointed at a row of tall houses and shops opposite, several of which were boarded up. The back of the buildings must face what had once been the old harbour.
"He went in there." Nin gestured to the second house from the left. "It's all shut up, so he couldn't be visiting someone. I stood here for ages, waiting for him to come back, and then a different man came out instead. I didn't want to speak to him, because he—he sneaked out, like he didn't want anyone to see him. Do you think he was a criminal? Uncle Leion says he doesn't catch criminals, but I think he might do, really."
Viyony stepped forward. The house Nin had indicated was of a muchness with the rest—tall, narrow, built of a dingy yellowish brick that was unusual in Portcallan, and smoke stained from former industries. It was in worse repair than its immediate neighbours—the windows were boarded over, the roof had a visible hole in it and had partly collapsed. It didn't look safe. What had possessed Leion?
"Anyway," said Nin, "when Uncle Leion never appeared, I had to go and look. The door wasn't locked, so I opened it and shouted. I did go inside a bit, but it was horrible and dusty with cobwebs all over the place. Uncle Leion wasn't there." Her voice caught on the last statement. She raised her face. "I'm not making it up. I wish I was!"
Viyony laid a hand on Nin's shoulder. "I know. This man you saw. What did he look like?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Nin. "Pale, I think, and he was wearing a scruffy brown jacket and a stupid hat."
It could be Chiulder. Viyony then reminded herself not to jump to conclusions based on the word of an eleven year old who might have misunderstood what she saw. She glanced down at Nin, and patted her lightly, seeing the way her whole face was quivering in an effort not to cry.
"I'll take a look," she said, giving her a reassuring smile. "Your uncle wasn't expecting you, and he might have been following someone, or even hiding somewhere to keep an eye on them. You stay out here and wait for Imai Veldiner. Do you know her?"
"I think so."
"Well, if you're not sure, keep well out of sight until I come back. Don't speak to anyone who isn't me or Imai Veldiner."
Nin hugged her arms against herself. "What if you vanish too?"
"Trust me. I won't," said Viyony. "All right?"
Nin gave a reluctant nod.
Viyony hurried across the road and up to the door of the deserted house. She glanced along the street. The houses at this end seemed to be abandoned, although halfway down the row she spied shutters open and the odd object in the windows that suggested at least one or two of them were occupied and, at the far end, the houses were in better repair. The last building in the row was a fish shop that must be still open—the smell was unmistakable, even from here.
She approached the front door of the house in question with trepidation. It was ajar—Nin had not closed it behind her in her distress. Viyony pushed it open further and peered inside. "Hello?" she called. "Leion?"
She hadn't expected an answer, but the silence in response was heavier than she had bargained for. The place was thick with dust and draped in cobwebs. Viyony took a cautious step inside, testing the floorboards as she went before she risked putting her full weight on them.
She called out again, and coughed as the dust got into her mouth and nose. There were scuffled and indistinct tracks in the dust along the hallway – presumably Leion, the other man, and Nin had all walked this way. Viyony followed them, stopping by a door on her left. It swung drunkenly open at her touch to reveal a room utterly coated in dust that certainly had not been disturbed as recently as today.
She walked on until she reached to a staircase to the floor above. Beyond it the hallway narrowed, leading past a cupboard under the stairs to a door at the far end. More marks in the dust showed that someone had gone up the first few stairs and back down again but no further, while there were more smudged tracks further down the hallway. Viyony followed them, since there seemed no value in going partway up the stairs.
She stopped and listened once more, but the only sound she could hear was the floorboards creaking underfoot and the increasingly distant murmur of the real world outside coming in through the open door behind her. The house was visibly disused, but over that, it felt empty. It was hard to believe anyone could be in here.
The door at the end of the corridor was bolted and there was a light cobweb over part of it. Viyony tried it anyway, with no success. It seemed to have rusted in place. She turned away from it to frown back down the way she had come.
"Leion!" she called again. There was still no response. All the way here, she had concentrated on keeping Nin calm; on possible reasons that Nin might have made a mistake, but now she was groping around a vacant, decaying old house that offered up no sign of Leion anywhere. She shivered.
Leion sometimes went on observation missions, she reminded herself. Perhaps he was hiding in here somewhere, and that was why he hadn't emerged on hearing someone inside. (But he would have come running the instant he heard Nin call, she tried not to tell herself. He wouldn't have ignored her, either. And it surely wasn't possible that he could be somewhere out of earshot. It wasn't a large house.)
Viyony drew in an unsteady, dust-laden breath. It was no use panicking over Leion's absence. It wasn't even her loss, if something really had happened to him. It was Nin and all the rest of the family who would suffer. She was only here in passing. She barely knew him. She blinked away illogical tears and shook the feelings away. She had not yet tried everywhere, and there was no use in giving up until she had.
Viyony turned to the cupboard door beside her, and it opened with surprising ease. Inside was a large shelved closet that went back deeper than she had expected. She ducked under the low doorway and stepped inside. It was largely empty beyond some broken pieces of wood on the floor and several curled and yellowing papers left on the shelves, probably as lining. She turned round slowly, wondering if there was anything she could possibly have missed, and caught her foot on something between the floorboards.
She crouched down to get a better look in the dim light, and raised her eyebrows as she ran her fingers over a large bolt that turned out to be fastening a trap door in place.
"Surely," she said, half under breath, "Leion couldn't have gone down there?"
But there really was nowhere else to look. She dragged back the bolt, and unlike the other, it was clear of dust and must have been oiled recently. She grimaced. She needed a light, but she couldn't afford to waste time going off to hunt for one, not if Leion was trapped down in some sort of cellar. Chiulder, or whoever it had been, might come back in the meantime. (It was hard not to imagine that he might have been pushed down there, unconscious or dead, a body to be disposed of—she pushed any such ideas firmly to the back of her mind.)
Viyony climbed down through the trapdoor as carefully as she could and was startled when, instead of a drop, she found herself standing on flagstones with her head still poking out into the closet. She lowered herself down into a kneeling position on the stone floor below. She left the trapdoor open and used the paltry light from above to make her way forward, crawling on her hands and knees until she knocked into something metal hanging from the ceiling that swung back and hit her in the face.
"Ow!" She caught hold of it—a large hook on a chain, fixed to the a solid beam above. She tugged at it, and followed the line of the chain, squinting in the gloom until she realised that, of course, it was part of a block and tackle. This must have been a storage space, even if it was empty now. Perhaps that was why Leion had come here. He had told her before that he sometimes helped Tana Veldiner to investigate certain kinds of smuggling. Hadn't it been only about a week or two ago that he had been assuring her that his work in that line was all absolutely safe? Viyony snorted at the memory and then choked on the dust.
The chain, like the bolt above was relatively clean and unrusted. It must be still in use. "Leion?" she said, and listened intently for a response, but there was nothing.
Viyony grimaced and carried on feeling her way around the space. It wasn't quite the full length and width of the house, but it must be at least half of it. It was not a wise activity, and at one point she touched something soft that scurried away. She shrieked and flung herself back, catching the side of the chain again. She rested her hand on it, and sitting on the stone floor, she felt what she had missed before.
There was a metal catch on one of the flagstones. It was stiff but with some fiddling with it, she turned it over, revealing a steel loop for the hook. This was only an in between space—there must be a proper cellar underneath or access to tunnels below. Viyony had to twist the hoop slightly to get it at the right angle, which seemed also to turn some hidden lock. She fastened the hook in place and then pulled it until slowly, with a painful scraping sound, the stone lifted upwards.
She heard, from out of the inky darkness below, a soft intake of breath and a slight rustling movement. Viyony froze. It must be Leion—she should call his name—but all she could think was that she was an intruder in a strange house that might hide a smuggling ring—and to wander in here and then blithely pull open hidden trapdoors was asking for trouble.
Viyony was trembling, but she made herself lean forward. "Leion?" she whispered, and then braced herself for an answer she might not want...
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #7 (Calm)
Supplies and Styles: Thread
Word Count: 2692
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Nin Valerno.
Summary: Leion has vanished.
"Imai Eseray!
Viyony turned aside from her conversation with Imai Cauhaney's agent and Imai Ilfill, her family's lawyer, and frowned out over the scattered people walking past in the street, trying to see who had called her name. She heard the shout again and then Iyanin Valerno flung herself half across the road to catch at Viyony's arm. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were red and her face blotchy and smudged.
"Nin!" said Viyony, pulling the girl away gently from the traffic and passing people. "What's wrong?"
Nin swallowed and looked up at Viyony, tightening her hold on the sleeve of her jacket. "It's Uncle Leion," she said. "He's vanished and I didn't know what to do—and then I saw you."
Cauhaney's agent coughed. "Imai Eseray, do you still want to continue to my office? You haven't yet signed the rental agreement for the warehouse."
Viyony straightened, glancing from Imai Ilfill to the agent. "I'm sorry, but this seems to be urgent." She turned to her lawyer. "Please, go ahead and discuss it on our behalf. I shall check it over and sign as soon as I can—later today, or tomorrow, if not. Please arrange it for us." She gave the agent a nod. "You will have to forgive me."
"Of course," the agent muttered. "Imai Ilfill, if you'll come with me—this way."
Viyony gave Nin a smile as the other two moved away, over to Cauhaney's office on the other side of the street. They were not far from the dockland area, having taken a short cut down an alley opposite from the warehouse to the office. "Nin, lovebird, what happened? Your uncle can't just have vanished."
"He did. He went in a house—in Lock Street. It's by the Sea Gate—not very far."
"Did your uncle take you there?"
Nin shifted from one foot to the other. "No-o. I followed him by accident and I can't explain all that now, but he went into a house and then he never came out again, and he wasn't in there when I looked, either."
"All right," said Viyony. "Wait here one moment." She hurried after the other two, catching them just in time before they entered the building where Cauhaney had his offices, and asked them to send word to Imai Veldiner at High Chamber Square. Nin wasn't a child to be alarmed by nothing, and Leion would never have left her wandering about the streets by herself. Better to risk a false alarm than the reverse. Viyony had not forgotten Leion's fears over Chiulder even if she hadn't seen him since that evening outside the eatery.
Nin watched her walk back over, dark eyes large. "Do you believe me?"
Viyony nodded. "Of course. First, you had better take me to this house and we'll see if I can find your uncle. You can tell me exactly what happened as we go."
Nin led Viyony along Sea Way, heading from the docks towards the Callamouth and Sea Gate. "It was my turn to look after the kittens. Imai Roddin was taking me, but Uncle Leion wasn't in when we got there, so she went into the shop for the key -"
"The shop?"
"Opposite," said Nin, impatiently; this evidently being a well-known fact in her world. "Uncle Leion leaves the key there for us. I waited outside because Imai Roddin said she didn't want me touching things, which I don't, I'm not two, but then I saw Uncle Leion right at the end of the road. So I ran after him, but he didn't stop, even when I shouted. I didn't exactly mean to follow him so far—I thought he would turn around and see me, and then when he didn't I wasn't sure how to get back any more. I thought I should go on because I was with Uncle Leion, sort of, and he'd sort everything out when he finally saw me."
Viyony halted on the path. "Nin, do you mean to say that poor Imai Roddin still doesn't know where you've gone?"
"Oh," said Nin. "Well. Probably. But, please, Uncle Leion really has vanished. We have to find him first."
Viyony bit her lip. The most likely thing was that Leion had gone out of a back exit that Nin hadn't known about, while goodness knew what sort of state Imai Roddin must be in by now. She glanced along the road, and stopped at the nearest eatery. "In here."
"We can't stop and eat food!" Nin protested. "Imai Eseray -"
Viyony tried not to laugh. "We're not. I'm going to ask them to send a message to Imai Roddin at your uncle's office, or your home if she's not there."
Once Viyony had arranged that, they resumed their walk, and Nin her tale. "After that, I was stuck following Uncle Leion, but it was really hard work just keeping up with him and I kept nearly losing him. Anyway, he went down that way." She pointed towards a narrow lane. Then she screwed up her face. "Umm. I think it's that one." She scurried ahead and peered round the corner to check. "Yes, this way!"
"When you say he vanished," said Viyony, "what exactly do you mean?"
Nin halted sharply. Then she said, "I'll show you!" She raced to the end of the lane and stopped there, hiding against the wall, where it opened into Lock Street. She pointed at a row of tall houses and shops opposite, several of which were boarded up. The back of the buildings must face what had once been the old harbour.
"He went in there." Nin gestured to the second house from the left. "It's all shut up, so he couldn't be visiting someone. I stood here for ages, waiting for him to come back, and then a different man came out instead. I didn't want to speak to him, because he—he sneaked out, like he didn't want anyone to see him. Do you think he was a criminal? Uncle Leion says he doesn't catch criminals, but I think he might do, really."
Viyony stepped forward. The house Nin had indicated was of a muchness with the rest—tall, narrow, built of a dingy yellowish brick that was unusual in Portcallan, and smoke stained from former industries. It was in worse repair than its immediate neighbours—the windows were boarded over, the roof had a visible hole in it and had partly collapsed. It didn't look safe. What had possessed Leion?
"Anyway," said Nin, "when Uncle Leion never appeared, I had to go and look. The door wasn't locked, so I opened it and shouted. I did go inside a bit, but it was horrible and dusty with cobwebs all over the place. Uncle Leion wasn't there." Her voice caught on the last statement. She raised her face. "I'm not making it up. I wish I was!"
Viyony laid a hand on Nin's shoulder. "I know. This man you saw. What did he look like?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Nin. "Pale, I think, and he was wearing a scruffy brown jacket and a stupid hat."
It could be Chiulder. Viyony then reminded herself not to jump to conclusions based on the word of an eleven year old who might have misunderstood what she saw. She glanced down at Nin, and patted her lightly, seeing the way her whole face was quivering in an effort not to cry.
"I'll take a look," she said, giving her a reassuring smile. "Your uncle wasn't expecting you, and he might have been following someone, or even hiding somewhere to keep an eye on them. You stay out here and wait for Imai Veldiner. Do you know her?"
"I think so."
"Well, if you're not sure, keep well out of sight until I come back. Don't speak to anyone who isn't me or Imai Veldiner."
Nin hugged her arms against herself. "What if you vanish too?"
"Trust me. I won't," said Viyony. "All right?"
Nin gave a reluctant nod.
Viyony hurried across the road and up to the door of the deserted house. She glanced along the street. The houses at this end seemed to be abandoned, although halfway down the row she spied shutters open and the odd object in the windows that suggested at least one or two of them were occupied and, at the far end, the houses were in better repair. The last building in the row was a fish shop that must be still open—the smell was unmistakable, even from here.
She approached the front door of the house in question with trepidation. It was ajar—Nin had not closed it behind her in her distress. Viyony pushed it open further and peered inside. "Hello?" she called. "Leion?"
She hadn't expected an answer, but the silence in response was heavier than she had bargained for. The place was thick with dust and draped in cobwebs. Viyony took a cautious step inside, testing the floorboards as she went before she risked putting her full weight on them.
She called out again, and coughed as the dust got into her mouth and nose. There were scuffled and indistinct tracks in the dust along the hallway – presumably Leion, the other man, and Nin had all walked this way. Viyony followed them, stopping by a door on her left. It swung drunkenly open at her touch to reveal a room utterly coated in dust that certainly had not been disturbed as recently as today.
She walked on until she reached to a staircase to the floor above. Beyond it the hallway narrowed, leading past a cupboard under the stairs to a door at the far end. More marks in the dust showed that someone had gone up the first few stairs and back down again but no further, while there were more smudged tracks further down the hallway. Viyony followed them, since there seemed no value in going partway up the stairs.
She stopped and listened once more, but the only sound she could hear was the floorboards creaking underfoot and the increasingly distant murmur of the real world outside coming in through the open door behind her. The house was visibly disused, but over that, it felt empty. It was hard to believe anyone could be in here.
The door at the end of the corridor was bolted and there was a light cobweb over part of it. Viyony tried it anyway, with no success. It seemed to have rusted in place. She turned away from it to frown back down the way she had come.
"Leion!" she called again. There was still no response. All the way here, she had concentrated on keeping Nin calm; on possible reasons that Nin might have made a mistake, but now she was groping around a vacant, decaying old house that offered up no sign of Leion anywhere. She shivered.
Leion sometimes went on observation missions, she reminded herself. Perhaps he was hiding in here somewhere, and that was why he hadn't emerged on hearing someone inside. (But he would have come running the instant he heard Nin call, she tried not to tell herself. He wouldn't have ignored her, either. And it surely wasn't possible that he could be somewhere out of earshot. It wasn't a large house.)
Viyony drew in an unsteady, dust-laden breath. It was no use panicking over Leion's absence. It wasn't even her loss, if something really had happened to him. It was Nin and all the rest of the family who would suffer. She was only here in passing. She barely knew him. She blinked away illogical tears and shook the feelings away. She had not yet tried everywhere, and there was no use in giving up until she had.
Viyony turned to the cupboard door beside her, and it opened with surprising ease. Inside was a large shelved closet that went back deeper than she had expected. She ducked under the low doorway and stepped inside. It was largely empty beyond some broken pieces of wood on the floor and several curled and yellowing papers left on the shelves, probably as lining. She turned round slowly, wondering if there was anything she could possibly have missed, and caught her foot on something between the floorboards.
She crouched down to get a better look in the dim light, and raised her eyebrows as she ran her fingers over a large bolt that turned out to be fastening a trap door in place.
"Surely," she said, half under breath, "Leion couldn't have gone down there?"
But there really was nowhere else to look. She dragged back the bolt, and unlike the other, it was clear of dust and must have been oiled recently. She grimaced. She needed a light, but she couldn't afford to waste time going off to hunt for one, not if Leion was trapped down in some sort of cellar. Chiulder, or whoever it had been, might come back in the meantime. (It was hard not to imagine that he might have been pushed down there, unconscious or dead, a body to be disposed of—she pushed any such ideas firmly to the back of her mind.)
Viyony climbed down through the trapdoor as carefully as she could and was startled when, instead of a drop, she found herself standing on flagstones with her head still poking out into the closet. She lowered herself down into a kneeling position on the stone floor below. She left the trapdoor open and used the paltry light from above to make her way forward, crawling on her hands and knees until she knocked into something metal hanging from the ceiling that swung back and hit her in the face.
"Ow!" She caught hold of it—a large hook on a chain, fixed to the a solid beam above. She tugged at it, and followed the line of the chain, squinting in the gloom until she realised that, of course, it was part of a block and tackle. This must have been a storage space, even if it was empty now. Perhaps that was why Leion had come here. He had told her before that he sometimes helped Tana Veldiner to investigate certain kinds of smuggling. Hadn't it been only about a week or two ago that he had been assuring her that his work in that line was all absolutely safe? Viyony snorted at the memory and then choked on the dust.
The chain, like the bolt above was relatively clean and unrusted. It must be still in use. "Leion?" she said, and listened intently for a response, but there was nothing.
Viyony grimaced and carried on feeling her way around the space. It wasn't quite the full length and width of the house, but it must be at least half of it. It was not a wise activity, and at one point she touched something soft that scurried away. She shrieked and flung herself back, catching the side of the chain again. She rested her hand on it, and sitting on the stone floor, she felt what she had missed before.
There was a metal catch on one of the flagstones. It was stiff but with some fiddling with it, she turned it over, revealing a steel loop for the hook. This was only an in between space—there must be a proper cellar underneath or access to tunnels below. Viyony had to twist the hoop slightly to get it at the right angle, which seemed also to turn some hidden lock. She fastened the hook in place and then pulled it until slowly, with a painful scraping sound, the stone lifted upwards.
She heard, from out of the inky darkness below, a soft intake of breath and a slight rustling movement. Viyony froze. It must be Leion—she should call his name—but all she could think was that she was an intruder in a strange house that might hide a smuggling ring—and to wander in here and then blithely pull open hidden trapdoors was asking for trouble.
Viyony was trembling, but she made herself lean forward. "Leion?" she whispered, and then braced herself for an answer she might not want...
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Psst! Beta note: Hasn't it been only about a week or two ago that he had been assuring her that his work in that line was all absolutely safe?
That should be hadn’t, not hasn't, surely?
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Ooh, intriguing, I am very curious to see where this goes.
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"An absolute rando, for whom I will turn this creepy old house upside down . . ."
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Exactly! Wouldn't anyone do the same? XD XD XD
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