Canon

There was an impossibly small boy writing in a notebook. The pencil seemed to be moving too fast for a child of his apparent age. Officer Snocoun Ton boggled at the boy. He was smaller than some dolls she had seen for sale in the fancier parts of Rockport.

He looked up from his work, noticed her, and waved. “Hello, ma’am. Are you the officer sent by the Rockport Militia?”

Sarcasm bubbled out of her. “No, I’m a serial child molester and now you’ve told me everything I need to know to abduct you.”

His smile was relentless. “That’s a pretty good goof, ma’am, but that uniform is too old to be a rented costume, and too well-kept for that as well…” he spent the next twenty minutes detailing every last tell that showed how she really was a Rockport officer and not -for example- someone attempting to impersonate one.

“Okay. I get it. You’re a genius. Why can a literal child help the Rockport Militia?”

“I have a fascination with crime, puzzles, and mysteries, ma’am. I’ve run out of the normal ones, so I’ve taken to reading the Watch Blotters and… well… I think I have something that might help find and apprehend the serial murderer known as Cheerful Charlie.”

Sno was tempted enough to peer at the notebook over this child’s shoulder, and found weird little sigils within. “That’s… scribble,” she said.

“It looks like that to the untrained eye, ma’am, but this is a form of code. I’m only three, so writing is a little complicated, so I used this code to write things faster. It’s a variant of Elscrypt, and each of these symbols is a whole word. I cut my time down even further by cutting out unnecessary bulk words.”

“Uhuh,” she said, doubting this in its entirety. It wouldn’t be above the Chief to send her out after a crank witness. “And what does this Elscrypt tell you about Cheerful Charle?”

“Well, ma’am, he only seems to have a random attack pattern because he strikes in the streets. I’ve plotted all the confirmed murders on a map and they all happen between two districts. The Crumbledowns, and the Meat-packing factories.” He turned the pages towards a map with a number of red ink dots.

Sno felt a chill. Seeing it like that… It looked really obvious.

“I posit, ma’am, that Cheerful Charlie strikes on their way to and from their place of employ. I’ve outlined the likely travel routes in green.”

Holy shit.

“And you want how much for this?”

“Oh, I don’t want money,” he said. “I just want to help the constabulary apprehend this offender.”

Glass Canon

It didn’t take a genius to see that Snocoun Ton, misplaced Elf from a different dimension, was not a happy camper on the moon. The Sno he was used to ordinarily had her pointed ears drooping downwards, but this Sno had hers almost all the way down and more often back than not.

She was separated from her family, from her home, from people she loved and from people who loved her. She was worried about everyone she knew, and surrounded by bizarre doppelgangers that just threw everything into sharper and deeper contrast.

There was little he could do to be concrete help. What she needed was something a little boy could not provide - a way home. What he could provide was company - however strange it was to her. Or some form of… bonding activity.

Sno - his Sno - took more than a little time to warm up to anyone. She seemed to treat time here on the moon as an unnecessary distraction. What he needed to do was help her find it necessary.

Sno was always devoted to her work.

So. He had some plans. Bonding over Steamwork Fiction - or as she called it, Steampunk - or bonding over solving a mystery. He could help with either, so he prepared both.

He found a couple of volumes of Fantasy Jules Verne, and a file of arcane activity in recent months. Clutching both of these prizes, he took them to where Sno was sunning herself in the quad. She looked close to tears.

“May I intrude, ma’am?”

She opened her eyes, stared at him, and shrugged. “I know you know me as… a different kind of Angus, but… I know a different kind of you. I thought… maybe these could help… if not help you feel better, then at least help distract you from the stuff that’s making you sad.”

She upgraded from depressed to melancholic. It was a slim sort of progress, but at least it was progress.

Three Gremlins

Angus was pretty darn good at hiding. It came from being small. He was almost due to turn seven, which meant that Nono was seven and a half. She shot up like any Beach Elf in an environment of love and care. Therefore, she looked to be in her early teens at a stretch, and late tweens for sure.

It was bad enough that she couldn’t act her age, what made it worse was that she had decided to use Taako’s show to search for her birth mother. It had been months, and there wasn’t any sign of her.

This was definitely a case he could take on. Therefore, between shows, he got Nono to tell him everything she knew about her mother. Most of it was hearsay from her grandparents, who disapproved of her, but there had to be some truths in the vile rumours they were wont to believe.

He had a few pieces of information he could attempt to confirm. One: Minmin Ton was seventy-eight years of age. If she were living and working with Humanmen, then she could easily be pretending to be one hundred and one. Taako had said, more than once, that he had pulled a similar ruse when he was underage. Some were even fooled.

Minmin Ton had a sketchy reputation ever since Nono’s conception was confirmed. The rumours were so varied and so disgusting that Angus discounted them all.

Interestingly, it was Taako’s drunken horror stories that were most informative. Whilst he couldn’t give the exact address where Minmin might live, as most of them were gentrified by now, he could give the shape of the area where she might be. In Rockport, they were called the Crumbledowns, in Goldcliff, they were called the Shanties. In one distant city, its name forgotten by Taako, they were called the Shades. Here in Neverwinter, they were called the Shambles.

Every town had them. They were the areas where the flotsam of the city tended to wash up. Because the rents were cheap. Because the landlords didn’t ask questions. Because the entire place was full of folk who were scraping to get by. Because bigger criminals called the lesser criminals who lived there ‘scum’ and ‘villains’. Because birds of a feather flocked together. Because the miserable loved company.

Places like that didn’t have citizens. They had denizens. They grew gangs like reefs grew moray eels, sharks, and octopi. It was a dangerous place. Even the little fish had sharp, sharp teeth.

Angus didn’t dress fancy to go in there. Neither did Nono. They knew damn well that, in a place like that, nobody would pay any attention at all to two more grubby kids in their braies and tunics, so that was what they wore.

Roaming through the Shambles, they found her. Walking the streets in a skirt made out of something gauzy and starfish pasties on her breasts. She had a distinctive chain around her waist and an equally distinctive amulet around her neck. Earning money with the only thing she could sell. Working a job that she clearly hated.

She recognised Nono in an instant. Looked to Angus in brief horror, and then to his ears in relief.

She said, “What happened to Gamgam and Peepums?”

Nono said, “They were assholes,  so I ran off. I’m in a better home, now.”

“Here?”

“No… With a travelling show. The dude’s nice.” Considering Taako’s stories, Nono knew what was up with Minmin’s work. “Come on and at least meet him. He might be able to help.”

Minmin shrugged. “Eh. I can’t make rent today anyhow.” She threw on a cloak she had hidden in a junk pile. “I’ll tell my story and you can tell yours.”

“Deal,” said Nono.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 2]

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